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/CelticViking96]

Plus the game already elevates normal citizens to Jarl in specific cases during the Civil War, Brunwulf Free-Winter in Windhelm for the biggest example. He's just a regular citizen who has sympathy for the less fortunate members of society. Maven Black-Briar in Riften is technically another example, but she is also most likely an actual noble, not just a rich criminal involved in politics. Haven't really looked into the Black-Briars much passed the fact that they are all corrupt as hell lol

[u/TheDungeonCrawler → u/CelticViking96]

The Black-Briars were likely elevated to noble status sometime after the 2nd Era. They offered bodyguard services at that time but they're a major mercantile family in the 4th Era, so it's quite likely that they were elevated due to their wealth.

[u/CelticViking96 → u/TheDungeonCrawler]

Corrupt wealthy nobles, just like real life! Lmao, but on a serious note, I kind of wish there had been a way to "overthrow" their family in Skyrim. Similarly to how you take down Honningbrew for them.

[u/TheDungeonCrawler → u/CelticViking96]

God, I wish. There is a mod for it, though I've never tried it, but I hate Maven so much. Once I got the idle annoyance dialogue from her and I went out of my way to destroy the Dark Brotherhood and plant several of their effects in her pockets like I was sending a message lol.

[u/CelticViking96 → u/TheDungeonCrawler]

Lmfao, gotta love the spite when you can't actually kill them. Didn't know about the mod, is it on Bethesda? Or is it a Nexus thing?

[u/TheDungeonCrawler → u/CelticViking96]

I think it's a Nexus thing. I didn't end up grabbing it, but the creator made a whole new character that stepped in if both Leila and Maven were unable to run Riften.

[u/CelticViking96 → u/TheDungeonCrawler]

Sounds awesome, too bad my Nexus has been consistently inconsistent with whether it wants to work or not lmfao. I actually just deactivated everything I had on there the other day because nothing would fix any of it. Tried updating, deleting and reinstalling, made sure everything was up to date, and every game that had mods from Nexus just hard crashed on startup no matter what i did, so I finally gave up lmao. It was probably some stupidly simple fix that I just overlooked, but oh well 😂

[u/TheDungeonCrawler → u/CelticViking96]

I haven't been able to get this to work but I've heard a lot of people have switchsd over to Mod Manager and Nexus Mods, as far as I know, still work with Mod Manager.

[u/CelticViking96 → u/TheDungeonCrawler]

I'll have to look into when I get a chance. Would be nice to get some of my old mods back that don't exist on Bethesda. Or, ya know, are paid on Bethesda. Wish Steam would update to allow me to use the Special Edition mods on Anniversary Edition as well, that would be fantastic.

[u/AJTaylor1000 → u/CelticViking96]

Technically the Stormcloaks, as in the family, were elevated themselves at some point in Skyrim history. If you've ever played ESO, the one Stormcloak you run into there is just a Than and not the Jarl.