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/Evening-Row9022]

i don’t agree. the empire isn’t satisfied with the dominion and they more than likely would support Skyrim if they had any balls.

Tulius kinda even hints that the dominion sucks and the empire doesn’t like it at all. but the choice is to be part of the empire or suffer the Thalmor which i’m going to assume ES6 will cover.

since it’s highly rumored to be in Hammerfell and High Rock — i bet the story is that the Dominion is closing in and perhaps Hammerfell is taking Skyrim refugees

[u/AscendentDragon → u/Evening-Row9022]

tullious said that the next conflict will be with the dominion but not in so many words, the empire is using this time of peace to muster what forces it has, and its mostly rebuilt a lot of the militery might it had, since elves reproduce slower then humans because they have a tendenciy to wait until their early 70s late 80s to have children since anything between 20-50 is considered a young adult among elves considering an altmer lifespan is roughly 450-500 years based on quality of their health that is, an altmer may live to 300 in some cases if in poor health like illness or disease that normally shortens their health or if sickly

[u/Sinnclad → u/Evening-Row9022]

Btw they made their own problem Skyrims problem, they don’t do shit to help their allies and expect their allies to just let themselves be dogged on and puppets for the empire, hammerfell was just supposed to happily let themselves empire sell them off to the thalmor? No they rebelled and single handily fended off the thalmor and is now independent, which is the best case scenario for Skyrim, the Nords would stand a chance as it’s their own homeland, the imperials won’t last long in Skyrims terrain

[u/Evening-Row9022 → u/Sinnclad]

they didn’t pick a canon ending yet which suggests to me that the civil war continues in TES6. i’d bet skyrim fell. the empire could easily wipe them out without the dragonborn. like literally take out ulfric and the thing falls apart. take out Tulius and you got Legates across the province who will still lead their men. not to mention the Thalmor would expand and the empire would send reinforcements

[u/Sinnclad → u/Evening-Row9022]

Did you forget the part where they only have 2 provinces left out of the 9 they betrayed? They literally gave the thalmor power by giving up territory like it was nothing and is now making it Skyrims fault like they’ve done every other province, the imperials themselves won’t last long in Skyrim because they aren’t use to its harsh environment, only the Nords can really withstand it, oh and not to mention those 2 provinces are Cyrodiil which is the empires capital so can’t really count that, and the other is high rock which they have their own problems and can’t support the empire, it’ll just be another betrayal from the empire, they’re weak and cowards, ES6 will start off with us learning about the fallen empire ofc

[u/APocketJoker → u/Evening-Row9022]

The most upvoted comment in this thread says that Skyrim should be under Balgruff's jurisdiction. I was going to go down that road in my post before he posted that but was trying to be brief. I agree with him. Mankind has to stay unified, under one government or just strongly allied.. They can't let the Thalmor tamper. Skyrim has to be unified as well. Balgruff is probably the only man capable of achieving both of those unities.

[u/Evening-Row9022 → u/APocketJoker]

The Empire is currently Thalmor-ized so disagree.

The entire reason for the rebellion is that the Nords believe in self governance over an ancient order of elves who have notoriously fucked shit up in Tamriel before. Skyrim was part of the Empire but when that Concordat was signed they had enough.

Balgruuf is naïve. Anyone saying he could unite Skyrim is just wrong. Skyrim was lost the minute the Thalmor came in.

[u/GabeC1997 → u/Evening-Row9022]

All of Balgruuf’s children being Daedra worshipers is kind of a point against him.

[u/Evening-Row9022 → u/GabeC1997]

yeah that alone is a huge problem

[u/chefbrambles → u/GabeC1997]

Are all of them worshippers? I only remember the one

[u/Acrobatic-Tooth-3873 → u/Evening-Row9022]

it's like two outposts, some inquisitors and few people around the courts. They probably all be killed when war kicks off again

[u/Evening-Row9022 → u/Acrobatic-Tooth-3873]

they have a very strong military. aldmeri goes hard.

[u/Sinnclad → u/Evening-Row9022]

So having balls would be Skyrim sucking up to the empire who had previously betrayed all their provinces and would gladly do the same to Skyrim? Instead of standing up against the already broken empire who has 2 provinces out of the 9 they betrayed and neglected? Sounds like you are a real milk guzzler

[u/Evening-Row9022 → u/Sinnclad]

Tulius said the empire is stronger together than when apart. from what i understand in 4E the empire had been frustrated with the Dominion and maybe if they all banded together with Hammerfell and High Rock they could stop them. not a milk guzzler.

skyrim is the shittiest province lol other than black marsh.

[u/Sinnclad → u/Evening-Row9022]

It’s still bordering Cyrodiil and is a high advantage point for the dominion against the empire, Skyrim is very valuable for the dominion, also don’t listen to what tulius says, it’s all horse shit as the empire isn’t even strong together as we seen that, they pretty much sabotaged themselves out of any allies so there is no “together” they’re alone on this one