Skyrim Post TESV and Why the Dovahkiin and Stormcloaks will Beat the AD

With the release of the new remastered Skyrim coming in the near future, it sparked me to want to take a moment to talk about the probable fate of Skyrim after the game's story-line ends. The game clearly encourages you to join the Stormcloaks, starting with your near execution by the Imperials and continuing through the game as people explain to you that the Empire is a group of Thalmor puppets who simply want to use Skyrim for their purposes. This is why I believe the game pushes you to want to join the Stormcloaks. Now, while at a distant glance it may seem that Skyrim alone cannot take on the entire Thalmor Dominion, there are some very important factors that we need to look at.

1. The obvious presence of the Dragonborn: Not only does the Dovhakiin have the power to mind control beings, call down lighting storms on entire armies, and blast through ranks of soldiers with their Thuum, but they also have the world's most powerful ally in Parthurnaax. Parthurnaax in a way took leadership of a good amount of the dragons in Skyrim, and although he doesn't necessarily believe in fighting, dragons must bow to the Thuum of superior users, giving he and his followers an obligation to following the will of the Dragonborn, the destroyer of Alduin. Even if he refused to aid Skyrim in their fight, the Dovahkiin can with a single shout make the most powerful dragons in history (with the exception of Alduin himself) obey their commands with Bend Will. This gives Skyrim an army of unkillable city-busters that could quite frankly just descend upon Summerset and destroy all the home cities of the AD before moving on to smoke the rest of the world until they surrendered.

2. Hermaeus Mora: In the Dragonborn DLC, you become the champion of Hermaeus Mora and gain access to his entire library and teaching so long as you choose to display his glory to Tamriel. Although in the story itself he only teaches you a handful of powers, it becomes very clear the Mora can teach you SIGNIFICANTLY more. With the vast number of powers that Hermaeus Mora can teach the Dragonborn, he will be able to arm both himself and a good number of Skyrim's mages with powers and abilities from Apochrypha and the black books, allowing them to face the Thalmor with powers they never even conceived.

3. Skyrim Doesn't Completely Have to "Win": It is shown in-game that Ulfric simply wants Skyrim to return to it's old ways and basically wants to be left alone by the rest of the world's forces. He shows no desire to want to take over the Aldmeri Dominion, simply push them out of Skyrim. This makes the battle significantly easier than a world conquest, seeing as the Stormcloaks just have to give the Thalmor a difficult enough time to prove to them that Skyrim is not worth fighting for. With the multiple reasons I gave above, I don't think this will be a very difficult task, and may not even require a single drop of blood once the Thalmor see the power that Skyrim has gained through one of the most legendary Dovahkiin of all time.

What do the rest of you think? Do you think Skyrim and the Stormcloaks can hold their own? If not, give reasons for why the Thalmor and or Empire would be able to defeat them.

Bump

The real reason: Wuuthrad

RIP Elves

Dovahkiin is a shezarrine, a hero whose destiny is to overthrow the elves and establish an empire of man, pretty much like Tiber Septim before him. Even if he strolled into battle with the elven armies solo and buck naked, the gods would still guide him toward his destiny. This is pretty much the reason you were also able to defeat Alduin, despite the fact that he munches on Daedric princes for breakfast; because you were guided towards your destiny.

@kundelar: The empire a thalmor puppet?Ulfrics rebeĺlion is literally Engineered by the Thalmor to split the empire and divide and weaken the forces of man by having them fight each other to wipe them out more easily. There is a Dossier in the Thalmor embassy about Ulfric being captured during the war and how they regard him their sleeper agent.

Going this route, Ulfric has done exactly what the thalmor wanted him to do, considering he was already beaten by a small portion of the empire, he isn't much of a threat to the dominion. So it's basically dragonborn vs aldmeri dominion, a fight I don't see him winning.

Granted, the dragons could make a significant fighting force.

@princearagorn1: The dragonborn is technically immortal like all other dragons, only another dragon should be able to kill him by absorbing his soul. This is all ignoring the whole shezzarine thing.

If it's stormcloaks vs the AD, they stand little chance. If they have a godlike figure leading them into battle (Dovakin) then they sweep.

@burningmartian:

Dragonborn only has the soul of a dragon, his body is that of a mortal. Every dragonborn before has died just fine, and so will tld.

"immortality" of even a legit full dragon hardly comes into play directly in a fight.

@princearagorn1: Every other dragonborn only died when their purpose as shezzarine was fulfilled, i.e, setting up a new age of man (not including the Septim emperors, those are a different kind of dragonborn, just like Allessia an Miraak are different kinds.) Although you could argue that this dragonborn's purpose was over after defeating Alduin, though that would go against the preestabilished trend.

There is absolutely nothing outside of that obscure journal entry that suggests Ulfric is a "sleeper agent" for the Thalmor. The Elves wanted the rebellion to weaken the Empire, but I am pretty confident that was a convenience for the Thalmor rather than Ulfric's intentions. There's no way the Stormcloaks did all of what they did so that the Thalmor could take over. Im also not saying that the Empire is willfully acting as a puppet of the Thalmor, but they are crawling on their hands and knees on a leashing calling AD "daddy". They are completely dominated by the Aldmeri Dominion and there's nothing they can do about it, thus making them a Thalmor puppet.

@kundelar: Nope, he doesn't which only is another indicator for his incompetence. The only reason Ulfric is still capable of doing anything is because the Thalmor work behind the scenes so that he is still going, because they wanted the war to last as long as possible. They were literally at the execution place, because they wanted to prevent it. Skyrim is absolutely no threat to the Thalmor by themselves and Ulfric not moving a finger till they have taken over everything else just means they can take their time gathering their forces to destroy them the very thing Ulfrics rebellion was making easier for them to do in preparation for their next war with the empire.

I love Elder Scrolls but I wont play it all through AGAIN.

@burningmartian:

If you are implying if a random bandit sneak stabbed dragonborn's heart out or something to that effect, he will resurrect till he has fullfilled his purpose, I will have to ask for an instance of this happening.

@princearagorn1: I'll do one better. The original Ysmir Wulfharth (whose title you take up after the greybeards greet you) resurrected his people from death at the cost of his own age when they were cursed by Orkey, and withered away. Yet he still came back to rule as Underking. When the greybeards wanted to greet him (as they do you) he was not strong enough to hear their greeting and was blasted into ashes. Yet he still survived by taking up the name of the ash ghost. When Shor was summoned by the tongues at the battle of Red Mountain, Ysmir was made general of his forces again, and he was killed at that battle for a final time. (He was resurrected again once, but that was probably Almalexia's necromancy more than anything.)

Another example of the shezzarine's...er.. lasting moratlity comes from Pelinal Whitestrake. This was a Shezarr who was unique such that he was bound Akatosh, not Lorkhan. He was the general of the Allesian slave armies and he pretty much soloed an elven army and slaughtered Umaril. Then he was weakened and Umaril's advisor cut Pelinal into eight pieces, leaving only the head to be found by Morihaus. Morihaus proceeded to speak to the head about old memories and whatnot, and then Pelinal warned him that Umaril was probably not dead yet, before finally kicking the bucket. Of course, this is a less potent form of immortality, but that's probably due to him not being Lorkhan's avatar and all that.

The last Dragonborn has a crap ton of daedric and aedric artifacts in his back pocket, with country busting reality warping thu'um and the knowledge of the gods. No Dragonborn before him has come close to his power or ability. Not even Miraak. Thus, it is certainly not beyond his ability to, quite literally, solo the Aldmeri Dominion if he chooses to do so. But that won't be necessary if the Empire gets its act together and contact High Rock, the only province that is 100% under imperial power, and work up a plan to get the other provinces to revolt against the AD. Valenwood has a long history of being bent over and dominated by the AD, so all it takes is the right push and a lot of wit to cause a civil war in the Dominion.