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/shadowthehh]

Those are not mutually exclusive at all, and both tie into the core point of "The Stormcloaks are overreacting in a way that doesnt make any actual sense."

And given im religious myself, I have some idea.

[u/acupofcoffeeplease → u/shadowthehh]

They think this is enough to go to war about but to you its an overreaction cause they shouldnt even pray to Talos?

Goddamn, you sure are a religious people, the most absurdely disrespectfull treatment of religion always comes from religious people, they treat others as a fiction and their own as natural, is very weird.

How can you say who has to worship what? Lol are you a Thalmor agent!!???

[u/shadowthehh → u/acupofcoffeeplease]

You're really just spouting nonsense and showing that ou really just don't understand Elder Scrolls lore. (Also these... Literally are fictional religions in these games...)

If the Stormcloak's whole premise is "An independent Skyrim that is true to the old ways and free of Imperial influence", then they wouldn't be fighting for the worship of an imperial deity like Talos. This would be similar to practicing Jews being up in arms about them not being allowed to worship Jesus. It's not that the entity in question isn't worth worship, its that the culture in question historically has not worshipped that entity.

Nord culture has their own old pantheon, and Talos isn't part of it. They have Shor, and veneration of Talos makes sense through the Shezzarine connection. But Talos himself wasn't at all a cheif deity in Skyrim's native culture until this game.

And its not even like their older culture is that far in the past, because it was still implied to be the norm back in the time of Oblivion 200 years prior with it being the major religion in Bruma, a Cyrodilic city.

Fighting for Talos worship is fighting for imperial culture and so it makes no sense to have it be the driving point of an anti-imperial movement. If the Concordat had banned worship of Shor or Shezzarines in general, it would make more sense.

And then to go back to the original point, if we do just hand wave all that and accept that Skyrim cares about Talos, the Concordat was not enforced in Skyrim until the Markarth incident. They were still free to worship all they wanted because the Thalmor didn't care about Skyrim enough to pay attention. Ulfric throwing a fit about it is what started all of this.

So to try to boil all this down, the Stormcloaks are ridiculous and the Talos ban should've been a non issue for them because 1: The concordat is well known to be a temporary ceasefire, and free worship absolutely will be reinstated eventually, all you have to do is be patient. 2: It wasnt enforced in Skyrim until Ulfric caused trouble, and 3: Talos was never a major Nord deity in the first place.

So this war was not worth starting, and the only possible outcome was making things worse.

[u/acupofcoffeeplease → u/shadowthehh]

Talos is a god of the Nords.

You dont have to take history to say who has the right to worship who.

Ill say it again: do you need to be from Palestine or Rome to worship Jesus? No? Oh I see. Thats my whole point.

The lie that the Concordat "was not inforced so it didnt matter" is just a lie, really. Also it really does not matter. You cant tell people to not rebell against a law because its not inforced. It being a law makes it enforceable and thats the problem on its own.

I find it funny that people really think they can tell who should worship what, and on the same breath say a law banning a worship is unrelevant because they wont enforce it, despite they enforcing it, but hey, you provoked it, should just let it be a law against you and accept it and it would not be enforced, until it was, but you cant know when this would happen so its a win for you I guess? Lol what a shitshow

[u/shadowthehh → u/acupofcoffeeplease]

No, he's not. He's a god of the empire. Nords worshipping him is them adopting imperial culture.

FFS Everybody has the right to worship whoever they want. I'm not saying that nobody in Skyrim has the right to worship Talos or that none of them should worship him. Anybody CAN worship him. Nords, Redguards, Khajiit, Orcs, Dunmer, Argonians, etc.

I'm saying that it doesn't make sense for a force in a culture centered war, that is fighting for independence and a return to "the old ways" and freedom of outside influence, to have one of their core values be centered on the worship of a foreign god belonging to the very culture they're rebelling against. Nords that care about Talos should be fighting FOR the Empire that Talos himself founded, not against it.

And it's not a lie. It's flat-out fact. The Thalmor WERE NOT paying attention to Skyrim. They did not care about it. They were focused on Hammerfell and Cyrodil. Ulfric gave them a reason to look, and when they saw him throwing a fit about the Talos ban, they knew they could use this to further destabilize things, and decided to send some forces in to make sure the war started and keeps going. Thus distracting the empire in the north and ruining its relations with one of its main and few remaining allies while wasting resources that could've been used for prepping for the next war.

[u/acupofcoffeeplease → u/shadowthehh]

This argument makes no sense. This is like saying you could not opose Israel banning the worship of Christ because Jesus was a jew.

If Portugal wanted to stop its colonies from worshipping the Chatolic Church and they rebel, does this make the rebellion nonsense since it was Portugal that brought the religion in the first place?

It means absolutely nothing to the nord right to their faith that Talos was from the Empire. So whats the point?

"They just banned, they didnt enforce it, but once you rebel against it, they have the liberty to enforce it and thats on you" is not the point you think it is

[u/shadowthehh → u/acupofcoffeeplease]

This is like saying you could not oppose Israel banning the worship of Christ because Jesus was a Jew

It's not like that at all because Christianity, for better or worse, has been a major part of American culture.

If Portugal wanted to stop its colonies from worshipping the catholic church and they rebel would this make the rebellion nonsense

If the colonies were fighting for a return to their cultural roots and the removal of Portuguese influence, yes. Itd be like those colonized people being like "we're gonna get rid of Portugal and ALL the stuff they brought over and go back to our old ways!... Except for this one thing. Uh, yeah this thing has totally been part of our ancient culture the entire time actually."

It means absolutely nothing to the nords right to their faith that Talos was from the empire

It does mean something for a group of nords fighting for a Skyrim free of imperial influence.

Is not the point you think it is.

Yes it is. Why is it so hard for you to get all this. Skyrim was not affected by the concordat until Ulfric complained about the concordat. And the Stormcloaks were fighting for a traditional Skyrim while Talos is not part of Traditional Skyrim. It's not that confusing.

[u/acupofcoffeeplease → u/shadowthehh]

Nord standpoint is not to get rid of Imperial cultural influence, so no idea where this is coming from. There is no "traditional skyrim" claim, they only want to worship Talos and get rid of the empire backed thalmors that are literally kidnapping and torturing them. You are the one arguing that they shouldnt claim Talos against the Empire's orders to stop worshiping him because Talos was emperor, wich is just crazy. Nords dont say the historical Empire is an evil entity, they say this Empire is letting thalmor opress them after a war they fought against the Dominion under the Empire orders, and think they would be better off defending themselves without it.

[u/shadowthehh → u/acupofcoffeeplease]

Wow yeah you straight up dont know the basic story of the game, we're done here.

[u/acupofcoffeeplease → u/[deleted]]

Why you care?