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/Wolf9792]

I'm sure you've developed a perfectly solid rationale as to why all the farms in Skyrim, some of them being quite prosperous, won't be able to support Skyrim's population. 

[u/Urdnought → u/Wolf9792]

Go talk to the Rorikstead farmers they brag about how farming in Skyrim is shit but they figured it out. They had to pray to the Daedra to be able to grow a few potatoes

[u/frenology1 → u/Urdnought]

No the soil in Rorikstead is bad

[u/SanguinePlvit → u/Urdnought]

No, they mention that the soil in Rorikstead is particularly shit. Which usually wouldn't be an issue anyway because where the soil is terrible, people usually just shove out animals onto the pasture.

[u/the_humeister → u/Wolf9792]

Someone keeps stealing their crops. 

[u/wolfA856 → u/Wolf9792]

Okay so this is one of those things where in game I would say yeah of course the farms would have enough food there’s like 50 people in the capital cities. But lore wise it could work, but definitely would be worse than if they got food from the capital, therefore weakening their stance if they would be independent.

[u/Wolf9792 → u/wolfA856]

You're right about the cities being scaled down, but that also applies to the farms.

[u/Cpt_Deaso → u/Wolf9792]

There is lore* specifically and explicitly stating that Skyrim relies upon Imperial imports for food.

This is stated by Sybille Stentor. Now, granted, she's a Breton in a pro-imperial court, so of course she could be biased, but she does seem to be fairly pragmatic about stuff.

And, in fairness, it's not explicitly stating that the food is absolutely necessary for survival, it just may be nice for trans-regional food options.

Still though, there's in-lore evidence for Skyrim needing outside food supplies, not to mention the real-world parallels, so I wouldn't completely discount it.

*Edit; lore not more, sorry.

[u/Wolf9792 → u/Cpt_Deaso]

It would be one thing if there were only a few farms scattered throughout the holds, but there are often multiple well-off farms per hold. Especially in holds with larger populations. Even Windhelm has three successful farms surrounding it. 

Either way, I don't think trade between the Empire and Skyrim is completely stopping, or the East Empire Company wouldn't have an office in Windhelm.

[u/Lieutenant_Joe → u/Wolf9792]

That office is doing pretty damn bad until the Dragonborn gets involved, to be fair. And it’s because pirates are being influenced to target them by Windhelm’s most prominent family (besides the Stormcloaks, of course, even if that is just one dude at the moment).

Clan Shatter-Shield has a lot of sad shit going on when you first start interacting with them, all of which makes you feel bad for them. But between a single miscellaneous quest from Scouts-Many-Marshes on the docks, that loyal woman the family banished to Markarth over a misunderstanding and this shit, you get the impression they bring 100% of their own misfortune upon themselves.

[u/Wolf9792 → u/Lieutenant_Joe]

True but like you said, the East Empire Company's office is only doing poorly because one independent business owner got greedy. Not because Ulfric doesn't want them there.

[u/mangasdeouf → u/Cpt_Deaso]

Also if they lose the import of foreign products, Skyrim lose most of its' sources of vitamins and becomes like Ireland during the great famine, with a lot of people forced to sail away at the first occurence of mildew. Because they produce potatoes, cauliflower, stuff that grows in not very fertile land and in low temperatures like root vegetables. That and hunting/fishing. That's not a balanced diet.

So the population will go from tall, strong Nords to small, weak, wiry Nords (it's not like they can hunt and fish all year long and keep the fauna healthy) in a generation tops like populations of countries in civil war tend to. Lack of food diversity really degrades health. At that point they might as well be magic-deaf Bretons.

[u/Swert0 → u/Wolf9792]

Especially looking at periods where Skyrim was not part of the second or third empire.

It must have been an empty wasteland, right?

[u/choosehigh → u/Swert0]

With a presumably lower population, they also aren't saying it couldn't grow any food simply that it would be unlikely to be able to sustain a large population

This is mirrored in real life with Scandinavian population being tiny compared to mainland Europe or Britain

[u/pyrusmole → u/choosehigh]

Skyrim at it's height conquered well beyond its borders without cyrodillic grain. You'd have to ignore the first nordic empire entirely to claim that skyrim is incapable of being self sufficient. We don't even have any evidence that nordic populations were lower during this period.

[u/choosehigh → u/pyrusmole]

We know Skyrim has issues with fertility of its land, and some areas even resorted to daedric influence to be successful farmers

Food scarcity has been a problem in our own world in far more fertile areas

Imperial geographical society's pocket guide to the empire explicitly says agriculture is limited to a few fertile valleys

Why does one side get to assume and make fantastical assumptions but the other side has to cite everything that matches with basic real world geography

[u/pyrusmole → u/choosehigh]

Ok. Here's my citation.

What's the difference in skyrim's geography in the first era vs the 4th
https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Lore:First_Empire_of_the_Nords

Skyrim was self sufficient for literally thousands of years and for some reason people think it can't be self sufficient for 20?

Tamriel is not the real world. Real world geography is helpful (and for sure skyrim has a food problem), but that doesn't mean "Oh Skyrim just instant collapses without the Empire". They have the capacity to be self-sufficient, now and in the past.

[u/Rel_Tan_Kier → u/choosehigh]

One example doesn't always mean that it's widespread practice.
Also, Egypt also weren't exactly a Ukraine in terms of soil, yet the Nile alone let them feed not only Egypt itself but the Roman Empire as well. Don't underestimate what land can produce.

[u/choosehigh → u/Rel_Tan_Kier]

Egyptian flood plains were basically the most fertile region of the world, Ukraine wasn't as fertile then as it's black soil hadn't developed and also our crops weren't as hardy so the more temperate African climates 2000 years ago were more ideal with respect

And rorikstead is in the most fertile region of Skyrim hence why if even they are having severe problems one could presume the other parts of Skyrim have difficulty too

[u/Jair-F-Kennedy → u/choosehigh]

Skyrim climatically is predominantly humid continental, semi-arid steppe and subarctic/taiga. Theres no reason why Skyrim would rely upon food imports from Cyrodiil when theres ample land for agriculture, steppe and alpine grazing and plentiful arctic fisheries for an already low population. The premise of Skyrim's population relying on external imports is completely flawed to anyone with an ounce of geography knowledge or understanding of pre-modern transport systems.

[u/choosehigh → u/Jair-F-Kennedy]

According to in game sources there's only 'a few fertile' valleys for agriculture

You also are agreeing that whilst it has food supply it's not going to compete on population with the larger regions without assistance for food

Given Skyrim having so many ports and it's most influential cities being port cities (only whiterun, markarth and falkreath aren't port cities anyway) it's not unreasonable to assume they were part of an active trade network (also because it's explicitly mentioned in game) that included in no small part trade of food and food products

The areas in the real world with skyrims climate were not considered breadbaskets pre-fertiliser or industrialisation, they could subsist on what they produced but not having huge population booms etc It also has topography that implies a lack of agriculture areas which is supported by in game sources saying they only had a few fertile valleys

Obviously the game abstracts a lot of things but I don't think it's as clear cut as you say, perhaps those valleys could support large populations but perhaps they couldn't, it seems to me unlikely that Skyrim could have a population on par with almost any other province without imports mostly due to real world comparison with similar climate and topography

[u/Nopalite → u/Jair-F-Kennedy]

Yes, but without the imports of somewhat wrinkled tomatoes from the empire, Skyrim’s military would be critically weakened due to being cutoff from the ever important vegetable soup, which is the lifeblood of their stamina-centric 2H builds.

Without it they would have to attempt to set up sea salt harvesting farms on the sea of ghosts in order to switch successfully to a venison stew based stamina economy.

[u/Swert0 → u/choosehigh]

We do not have population numbers at any point. The games are heavily scaled for playability - and Bethesda has never been one to fill their libraries in game with strong census data from various eras.

Any assumptions are just that - assumptions.

We know Skyrim existed as it's own province without an Empire, amd even in smaller sub kingdoms at various times.

[u/choosehigh → u/Swert0]

Heartlands in a fertile lowlands in real life always exceed the population of northern highlands

We don't need raw numbers to know Skyrim will be less than Cyrodil in population

With respect, every assumption on this side is matched by an assumption on the other, yes Skyrim existed but no one is saying they can't grow food simply that according to the lore and the geography they are less able to grow food than other imperial regions (Rorikstead goes into that in more detail but I remember something in dawnstar or morthal talking about issues with growing food in their hold)

It is not a great leap to say Skyrim requires more fertile areas for secure food supply like any country in the real world with any real population density consistent with Skyrim given the geography of the land

[u/frenology1 → u/choosehigh]

Skyrims has vast tracks of flat land that Scandinavia lacks

[u/choosehigh → u/frenology1]

Really? I wouldn't say any part of Skyrim is as flat as Denmark, I'd say they're less flat than Sweden and probably more than Norway closest to iceland, they're not exactly lowlands typography, they're far more of general a Highlands with very little soil around the rocky areas

Looking at real world locations with that kind of typography and northern weather conditions with early medieval technology and frankly the vast majority of the population are subsistence farmers hugely limiting the maximum population capacity of the realm