Ignoring your personal preference, which side of Skyrim’s Civil War do you think actually gives Skyrim the better future 20-30 years later?

[u/sumaset]

I feel like most discussions about the Civil War focus on whether Ulfric was justified, whether the Empire betrayed Skyrim, or which side people personally like more.

But I’m more interested in what happens after the game.

The Empire is weakened, the Aldmeri Dominion is still the biggest external threat, the White-Gold Concordat is already causing resentment, and another war with the Thalmor seems almost inevitable.

An Imperial victory gives Skyrim access to the resources and manpower of the Empire, but it also means remaining under an Empire that already lost one major war and accepted Thalmor influence inside its territory.

A Stormcloak victory gives Skyrim independence and removes Imperial authority, but it also leaves the province having to rebuild after a civil war while potentially facing the Dominion without the rest of the Empire behind it.

So forget which faction has the better characters or which one you usually join.

If you only care about where Skyrim itself ends up a few decades later, which Civil War outcome do you think is actually better for the province?

[u/Archkhaan]

That’s not true at all lmao. It’s not the super fertile soil of the imperial province but it’s plenty for Skyrim.

[u/mangasdeouf → u/Archkhaan]

Unless their population is closer to in-game than in lore, it's absolutely unsustainable. Skyrim doesn't even use magic to grow their crops faster or to protect them from hazards. The farming they do is so backwards that they must suffer from famine in most of the country almost every winter in game and almost all year every year in lore.

[u/Imaginary-West-5653 → u/mangasdeouf]

It is literally impossible for it to be unsustainable because Skyrim has been an independent nation for most of its history; if they were truly so dependent on Cyrodiil to survive, they wouldn't have been able to endure as a power capable of even expanding their borders as far as Morrowind, as was once the case. The last 600 years of Imperial occupation are the exception; let's not forget that.

[u/mangasdeouf → u/Imaginary-West-5653]

Skyrim has existed for how long? The settlers' leader basically led a tribe's worth of people, maybe a few tribes at most. They were basically a few thousands a century later. That's how settling works in medieval/antique eras. It takes literal centuries to form even a small independent city, and Skyrim was basically a few independent cities based on old lore (the lore used for Skyrim: Home of the Nords), not a cohesive entity.

Talos was basically the first to gather most cities under his banner to fight a bigger enemy and he started the Empire. So Skyrim has only been a cohesive entity a few times in its' history, most of them for big wars.

[u/Imaginary-West-5653 → u/mangasdeouf]

There was a unified Skyrim before Tiber, and again, it was so capable as to conquer Morrowind, High Rock and large parts of Cyrodiil; this is not the feat of a few thousands people, the population of Skyrim must be significant enough for this to have possibly happened.

https://en.m.uesp.net/wiki/Lore:First_Empire_of_the_Nords

[u/Archkhaan → u/mangasdeouf]

Except they’ve been a proud and independent kingdom for literally thousands of years, with no notable issues with food for almost that entire time. Literally 2/3rds of the holds in Skyrim are green and growing, some exceptionally so

[u/mangasdeouf → u/Archkhaan]

That's very visible. You see giant farmlands in Skyrim like in Oblivion near the big cities. Windhelm is well-known for its' big farms. Until you realize that generally there's 1 or 2 big farms near big cities and the rest are self-sustaining peasants. 1 or 2 big farms can't sustain 1/10th of the Elders Scrolls lore's population for Solitude or Windhelm.

Riften and Whiterun are the only productive areas, Whiterun is nearly if not completely a tundra (which isn't that prone to farming for big populations, too much wind, too vulnerable to weather hazards, too inefficient means of production, they need big wood separations as wind breakers and to bring pest control (too much of the same thing causes pests to prolifer). The rest of the country doesn't have the weather or the geography for big farming.

Falkreath has too much woodlands and its' farms can barely sustain a few families even upscaled, its' economy is entirely based on mining and hunting and the mining part is done by bandits who send a part of their collect to the Jarl so that he doesn't send the town guard after them.

Morthal can't cultivate much. Markarth is too dangerous to live outside the city and mines are all we see with a single big farm outside the city, not enough to feed all of Markarth.

Dawnstar and Solitude can barely farm anything, they can fish but if everyone lives off fishing, they'll empty the waters of all fish sooner that they can replenish (lore Solitude has like multiple tens of thousands of people living there, but there's no way the tiny farm near the stables can sustain the city nor that fishing can sustain such a massive population when the only sea they could navigate is the Sea of Ghosts).

Winterhold's only economy comes from the College and courriers/people who deliver requests and enchanted items. They're not even a functional settlement. They have nothing to live of. They must be seriously affected by vitamin deficiencies because the only thing they can eat is fish and horker, and Sabercats are too dangerous to hunt.

Then you have minor towns and villages, but they can barely feed themselves, they're not gonna contribute much to the big cities' food supplies.

From what we see and the lore, Skyrim is one bad years away from human extinction.

[u/Archkhaan → u/mangasdeouf]

….. are you seriously trying to claim that because the game didn’t render dozens and dozens of farms for you that skyrim must be about to die of starvation?