Board Thread:Lore Discussion/@comment-25343239-20150319182007/@comment-260563-20171206054917

The Stormcloaks will lose the war. No doubt about that. Unless they form a new Ebonheart Pact with the Dunmer and the Argonians, and possibly the Bretons and Redguards, they're screwed.

First off, winning the Skyrim Civil War as the Stormcloaks entails battering one half of Skyrim into pancake batter with the other half. Which means that one side of Skyrim will be exhausted, the other will be in ruins. That's not a country that's ready to go to war. That's a disaster, akin to the Holy Roman Empire after the Thirty Years' War. While the Thalmor have been content to stay in the sidelines and gather strength while watching their human opponents batter each other and passing the popcorn, the Stormcloaks are literally taking half the manpower of Skyrim's armies and killing the other half with it. Which means that while the Thalmor are in top military strength, only losing a few platoons of Justiciars in Skyrim, the Stormcloaks will start off the war with the Thalmor using a country that's been devastated by war.

Second, their leaders are complete morons. Jarl Ulfric Stormcloak showed his lack of political tact when he killed the High King, Torygg. Torygg loved Ulfric and might have seceded Skyrim from the Empire had Ulfric asked-instead, Ulfric strikes down the king who could have been his ally, which rallies only one half of Skyrim to him-the other half tells him to go to hell and not only fortifies their holdings against Stormcloak forces, but also calls in the Imperial Legion to try and clean up the mess Ulfric made.

Ulfric's other Jarls are no better: Skald of Dawnstar harasses veterans of the Legion that fought Elves in the Great War, and he thinks that the dragons are appearing because Talos is mad at the Empire for abandoning him, which doesn't explain why dragons attacked Kynesgrove and other Stormcloak settlements. Korir of Winterhold chooses to hate the Mages' College that keeps his town afloat, and instead of making overtures to the College to get the Mages to his side, he opts to bitch about them while hiding in a shack. And of course, Lalia Law-Giver is naive enough to think that Maven, her right hand, will keep the Thieves' Guild in check, when in reality, the Guild takes orders from Maven and the commoners know it. So aside from a regicidal renegade who can't make use of assets like a KING who loves him, we have a superstitious moron, a whiner, and a gullible idiot. Perhaps the replacement Jarls that they place in charge of Imperial holds are smarter, but these are the Jarls that initially came to support Ulfric, and they aren't fit to lead a parade, let alone an army.

Third, as I said before, the Aldmeri Dominion is in top form. The Civil War is distracting the Empire as the Dominion gathers strength for the next killing blow. And right after the defeat of the Empire in Skyrim, the Thalmor and their Dominion would have the perfect opportunity to strike. General Tullius is dead, which means the Emperor's top henchman is gone. The Imperial Legion cannot and will not reinforce Skyrim, because A) they just lost plenty of men trying to hold their half of Skyrim which means they're in no shape to help, and B) they will not rescue the Stormcloaks since they see the Stormcloaks as filthy traitors. Which leaves us with the Stormcloaks, who not only exhausted themselves in the war, but are now stretched thin as they're forced to occupy former Imperial Holds in Skyrim. So, to sum things up, the enemy is exhausted after a prolonged war, their forces are stretched thin, half their territory is in shambles, and there is no chance of reinforcements coming from anywhere else in human lands. If I were a Thalmor general, this is the time I'd choose to attack, before Ulfric has a chance to replenish Skyrim's manpower/economy, establish diplomatic relations with other nations, or establish trade routes for his territories. Ulfric will be once again jailed in a Thalmor dungeon, while the Dragonborn and Galmar will be overwhelmed in trying to hold back the Thalmor advance, and with fresh Aldmeri legions fighting a smaller Stormcloak army that's stretched thin across Skyrim, and with no Empire intervening, the Thalmor will win the day.

Fourth, and most importantly, the Stormcloaks don't know how to fight the Thalmor well. All we see are barbarians in chain mail coming at the enemy with weapons drawn. They're practically bandits in uniform. No subtle tactics like those of the Imperials, no magic or advanced arts like those of the Elves. The fact that their "High King" fell into a trap set by the "weak and dying Empire" so easily shows that he's not the man for the job of waging war, while his goons have no command of magic. Ulfric barely even uses his own court mage, while in Winterhold, the place where the Mages' College resides, the Stormcloak Jarl Korir doesn't even appreciate the fact that the nation's seat of magic exists right next door to him. Instead, he and his guards despise the College, and the Nords at most despise magic in general that isn't healing or enchanting. Which is insanely stupid when one considers the fact that the Thalmor use magic like water. Almost every Justiciar squad has a mage, and the regular foot soldiers are also capable of using magic. How are Stormcloak soldiers in chain mail supposed to deal with plate-armored Elves with conjured swords and flames, let alone mages chucking lightning bolts and fire as well as conjuring up atronachs for support? Even Ulfric's power of the Voice can be blocked by the weakest Ward spell that most Thalmor mages probably know.

So with these four points, I say that the Stormcloaks cannot and will not triumph over the Elves even if they win Skyrim. Perhaps they can get the Dragonborn to mind-rape dragons with Bend Will and send them against the Thalmor, but as we've seen with the Blades, Dragons can be killed, and if the Blades can do it, so can the Elves, especially since the Blades were nothing against the might of the Thalmor. Plus, with the Thalmor having magic on their side, defeating dragons won't be that difficult. More than one dragon has fallen to the powers of my mage Dragonborn. I imagine that a squad of mages and some foot soldiers supporting them can do well against a dragon if they work hard enough and plan their attack.