A Long-Overdue Geopolitical, Theological, Social, and Economic Analysis of Skyrim

Of the now two decades we are about to enter into the 2000s, many fantastic games have been released by many great game studios, but few received such praise, such long-standing discussion, such attention, as one of Bethesda Softworks’ most popular games in recent memory, if not its most popular game ever, the Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. We all know Skyrim, we all loved Skyrim, and we spent literal years arguing the political ramifications of Skyrim’s largest debate: Empire or Stormcloaks?

Proud Imperial and Stormcloak fanboys argued and debated their choice for actual years; who was better, and why? But rather than simply rehash that through my own filter, the question that sticks in my mind is, what is going on, really going on, in the game? Because I think there is more than a civil war, and more than an epic quest to defeat dragons going on here. I find myself desiring to go back answer that question. And that’s what I’m doing here. Just look at how long this piece is.

It needs to immediately be remarked that we can’t understand the political situation in Skyrim without going backward to where these things started. There is far more theology, mythology, war, economics and political science in the land of Nirn than is contained in Skyrim. The theological debate in Skyrim which drives the Stormcloak rebellion isn’t just about whether Nords can worship “Talos” in peace. It isn’t just about whether Talos as a god is worthy of recognition in the Alessian Imperial Cult. But rather, was Talos a real god, can human beings ascend to godhood, was Talos a real person, and was that person essentially “good enough” for apotheosis (becoming a god).

Which begs an even bigger theological and mythological question. You can’t really even answer any of that shit until you can answer “what is a god in the land of Nirn, or what constitutes godhood”, and then immediately followed by “what separates a god from a man/elf/dwarf/orc, etc.?” So, I’m going try to do…that. In realizing the scope of the piece that I actually want to write here, I realize that I must either have zero life, or I must really want to punish myself to spend literal days researching the mythology and theology of a series of video games, just to give context to almost a decade of actually worthless political debates that millions of fanboys had over what basically amounts to Coke vs. Pepsi. So yeah, buckle up.

Part One: The Mythos

What separates a man from a god in the universe of the Elder Scrolls games? Well, divinity, of course. But what defines divinity? That’s less clear, especially depending on the religion we’re using in-universe. The basic beliefs of most of the humanoid characters in the Elder Scrolls canon can be summed up by the Imperial Cult of Saint Alessia, AKA the Alessian pantheon. These deities are referred to as the Eight, or Nine Divines, with the number that someone acknowledges dependant on the character’s political views. This is a nice little world building element.

The only other game I’ve played that does this was Fallout New Vegas, developed by Obsidian; some of those employees had been staff in the former game company Interplay, who developed Fallout 1 and 2, before Interplay became Obsidian, and then was bought out by Bethesda. In New Vegas, the player could interact with NPCs whose political views can be determined by how they pronounce the name of the leader of Caesar’s Legion, whether they say “See-Zer”, or “Kai-Sarr”. The former indicated that they did not support the Legion or were hostile to it, the latter indicating they were a member of the Legion, or a sympathetic entity.

Similarly, in Skyrim if one says “Eight Divines”, they are a Thalmor supporter and refuse to recognize Talos, because that deity has been banned from worship by forced recognition of the White-Gold Concordat, after the Empire was defeated in war by the Second Aldmeri Dominion. Admittedly there is a lot to unpack throughout the entirety of this work, but saying “Eight Divines” means you don’t worship Talos, with “Nine Divines” meaning you are a clandestine, or overt, Talos worshipper.

By default, a Stormcloak rebel who is hostile to the Aldmeri Dominion and the Empire that has become its vassal state, is an overt Talos worshipper. This resulted in the Dominion abducting, imprisoning, torturing, and killing suspected rebels, trying to suppress Talos worship by force. Which lead to outdoor shrines to Talos, hidden in the woods, where worshippers have left gold, food, weapons, and other offerings to Talos in exchange for his blessing.

The sites sometimes have dead worshippers and dead Thalmor agents nearby, such as the outdoor shrine just past the bandit camp, if one turns left at the road just above the three basic standing stones just before Embershard Mine. The impression that one gets in the game is that the Thalmor are struggling to suppress Talos worship; it’s too vast a nation, with too many sites, and they have too few agents spread too thin.

So how does the Alessian cult work? The Nine Divines are: Akatosh, Arkay, Dibella, Julianos, Kynareth, Mara, Stendarr, Talos, and Zenithar. These deities are modern iterations of deities taken from a number of mythological sources from different cultures: elves, Imperials, Nords, “the beast races” (Orcs, Argonians and Khajiit), and Redguard. Nearly every “race” has their own gods, their own mythologies, and their own explanations for the formation of the world. Whether or not they acknowledge “racial” equality or the Cyrodilic Empire (sometimes called the Alessian Empire) is also determined by the formation of their cultural beliefs.

So how do we start? Thankfully, Elder Scrolls games contain their own Monomyth, their own religious comparative texts which seek to flesh out the many characters’ religious and spiritual diversity between their cultures.

The largest schism, the largest debate in Skyrim is whether elves are descended from the gods, or if they were created by them, as humankind was. Most beings in the Elder Scrolls world believe that all life was created by the gods. One would think, but it does not necessarily follow from this that a character would believe that all life is created equal, even if they ostensibly should. However, a Thalmor believer says they are descended from the gods, and thus are superior to mankind, and thus should rule over them. The most immediate realization born from this view is that it is inherently racist and supremacist, inspired in no small part by the “Aryan” myths of Nazi Germany, and today’s neo-Nazis. This is deliberate by the game’s writers.

The creation myth is typically this: One, and the Other, one aspect of a creation deity, and the opposite. Male and female, life and death, light and dark. They have names in different pantheons, Anu and Padomay, Auri-El and Sithis, Akatosh as the embodiment of Time, and Alduin as the End. The rest of a character’s beliefs are usually dictated by their cultural, or “racial” pantheon, with deities squabbling and killing each other. The pantheons seem to only agree on the broad strokes.

So what differentiates a god from creation? Literally everyone except for the Altmer believe that the gods (or the Daedra Malacath in the case of the Orcs) created them. What makes a god? Usually they can create reality.

Part Two: Will the Real Talos Stormcrown Please Stand Up?

Talos. The man, the legend, the god. Who was he? How did he ascend to godhood? Why? And why do the Thalmor seek to eradicate him? First, was Talos a real person? That question is difficult to answer. There are at least three competing candidates for who was the real Talos: a Breton nightblade (assassin) called Hjalti Early Beard, an ancient Atmoran warrior called Ysmir Wulfharth “the Ash King", and an Atmoran called Tiber Septim.

All three men possess their own bits and pieces of prophecy, but the stories of Tiber Septim are considered doctrinal orthodoxy, whereas the myth of Hjalti Early Beard is considered heretical, or at least non-canon. I ran into a lot of difficulty trying to parse reality from myth, and the accepted myth varies from Elder Scrolls lore website to lore website. Tiber Septim supposedly started as a warlord to the Colovian leader Cuhlecain (a reference to the pseudo-historical myth of Cuchulainn, a legendary warrior and king of Ireland’s “Ulster Cycle").

Already a powerful Atmoran warrior with the Thu’um, he fought in many wars to unify the nation of Cyrodiil as General Talos. He either succeeded Cuhlecain rightfully, or couped him. Talos ended the Interregnum, the separation period of Imperial history between the Second Era of Reman Cyrodiil, and his self-established Septim dynasty of the Third Era.

Cuhlecain was assassinated by a Breton nightblade, who also slashed Talos’ throat, removing his Thu’um. Interestingly enough, the heretical doctrine claims that the true Emperor was a Breton nightblade, possibly this same figure, but claims it was he who was the warlord under Cuhlecain and conquered the continent of Tamriel. The heretical account says he did coup Cuhlecain by assassination, but cut his own throat to avoid suspicion for the crime. He united Nords and Bretons by invading the Colovian Highlands (probably leading to the cultural splintering of the Reachmen)

Part Three: The War, the Players, Their Problems

OK, so we know that the Thalmor are entirely genocidal unrepentant fascists and religious bigots seeking literal apotheosis on a racial basis; not even all elves, just the Altmer, and they want everyone else to get fucked in a genocidal world war. But here’s the thing. The world war has already happened. The Empire also isn’t only Cyrodiil. Let me set the stage.

The war has massacred Cyrodiil, especially the pyhrric battle of Red Ring. Elsewyr is already on fire, the remnants of their society have already been subjugated by Thalmor forces.

The eruption of the Red Mountain, Vvardenfel, has decimated Morrowind entirely, and combined with an Argonian slave revolution against Mournhold, Morrowind is lost to the dark elves. Their surviving noble houses have fled to Raven Rock. Morrowind basically isn’t even a country anymore.

The Black Marsh is basically Ethiopia. They never got entirely successfully colonized or subjugated because only the Argonians can survive there. They also hilariously and awesomely solved their local oblivion crisis themselves. They’re doing fine, and have never officially been an Imperial vassal state because they can’t be conquered. Argonians are rad as fuck, good for them.

Valenwood was the first Thalmor target, and the Altmer burned most of it down to force the Bosmer to bend the knee. Skyrim has a civil war. Poor Orsinium in the Daggerfall mountains has been decimated again, and is too busy rebuilding their nation to fight anyone, when they’re not fighting each other. The Orcs have selflessly helped to defend the Empire for millennia.

All the Orcs ever wanted was a defensible homeland that they could call their own, and the Empire is literally constantly invading Orsinium to prevent that from happening, and it’s fucked up. Keep in mind what an empire is. The foundation of the entire empire has been based on invasion of free nations, and subjugation of them to a foreign emperor. This is what every empire, including the US, does. Never forget that empires are inherently fascist and anti-democratic.

The Redguard are fighting a protracted people’s war against the Thalmor and winning as an independent, non-imperial state, per the White Gold Concordat. Hammerfell couldn’t be an Imperial state anymore, even if they want to, and they don’t. They’re legally barred from Imperial jurisdiction and nobody would recognize Hammerfell as a colony anymore, because they can’t. The Thalmor have no tactical foothold in Hammerfell, but they keep trying to infiltrate spies, buy informants, and throw men at the border that they can’t hold. Hammerfell is free, the Redguard are winning, and it’s awesome.

That leaves High Rock, miraculously untouched by the war and still squabbling their petty local disputes between nobles. The Breton have their wealth and magic, and they want to be left alone to jerk themselves off over how pretty, and important, and fancy they are. Ostensibly, even if Skyrim is brought back under the dragon banner, there is no empire to save anymore. It's just High Rock. The empire is dead.

Cyrodiil is legally barred from raising an army by the terms of the Concordat, the Emperor is in hiding unless you kill him, and if you do kill him then there’s no clear line of succession, leading to inevitable power vacuum and likely yet another civil war, because Titus Mede II has no heirs we know of. He was already a warlord who united the empire through invasion, and if he dies, another warlord will have to do that again.

The elder dragon council (capitalist oligarchs of the empire) were mostly assassinated, and it’s highly likely that Amaund Motierre hired you to take out the emperor so that as a surviving (the only stated surviving) elder dragon council member, he could take power.

He’s almost certainly an amenable Thalmor puppet and a madman. He’s also a Breton, and the Motierre name is old school High Rock power and money. With him being the only elder council member left, he’s poised for a coup. Killing the Emperor does nothing but benefit the Thalmor.

But how much? It depends on if the Thalmor know about and support Motierre in his coup. If they don’t, they’ll assassinate him, there will be no surviving Imperial nobles at all, which means the Thalmor get to just officially absorb Cyrodiil into the First Thalmor Empire since the Merethic Era. The White Gold Concordat would be invalidated, and that means war round two, and possibly the extermination or enslavement of every non-Altmer in Cyrodiil.

If they do know about his coup and support him, Amaund Motierre is a Thalmor puppet dictator, and he’ll be possibly willing to allow the Empire to be absorbed anyway. Titus Mede II is far more valuable alive as a symbol of hope to empire loyalists than he is dead, and him living allows a dead empire to basically hold onto a thread, but at least keeping him alive temporarily holds off a literal genocide.

Still, it’s hard to deny in the face of the evidence. The empire is gone, even if Skyrim rejoins, and it’s at least theoretically possible that High Rock helped this happen. I have no evidence to otherwise explain how High Rock is not already razed, and how the Breton have enough capital left even with their petty border disputes among nobles to keep the entire East Empire Trading Company still ferrying goods back and forth from Skyrim to High Rock, which the quest in the Windhelm docks shows. I can’t prove it yet, but I think the Breton helped the Thalmor invade the world. It’s the only explanation I can think of for High Rock being the only Imperial nation still economically viable and not on fire.

By the way, the little nugget Tullius gives you at the end of the Imperial questline about "maybe we’ll have war again soon" is insane. There is no army to kick off Great War part 2. It’s been decimated, their Imperial remnants are in Skyrim fighting a civil war, and what pockets of localized Imperial resistance to Thalmor occupation of Cyrodiil are possibly fighting a guerilla war, definitely without logistical support from anyone.

Skyrim would likely need to field 95% of that proposed army, with whatever Imperial remnants are still alive, in fighting condition, are willing to fight next to former Stormcloak rebels, who aren’t Thalmor spies or informants (and can’t be bought or flipped through torture) and those who aren’t currently being tortured and killed by Thalmor secret police, which is actively happening in both Cyrodiil and Skyrim no matter which side you’re on.

And after fighting a war for 50 years and surrendering in the end, how many non-Nord Imperial citizens who haven’t fled Cyrodiil and haven’t yet been killed would be willing to get into a second great war? Likely not very many. The amount of realistically viable Imperial remnants ready to fight is stupid low.

And by the way, Skyrim sending millions of men and women to die "on foreign soil for an Empire that doesn’t care" is half the reason the Stormcloak rebellion happened. If you join the Empire and reabsorb Skyrim, you’re just proving Ulfric right. He may be dead, but you martyred him and completely legitimized his cause by the sheer logistics of what an Imperial victory in the civil war looks like. A lot of players think that the Stormcloaks are Thalmor spies or puppets anyway. They aren’t, it’s just Elenwen who views Ulfric as an asset, and you should think of this in CIA terms.

She wants to manipulate and destroy him, and use him to get away clean. Ulfric isn’t a spy or a thalmor agent, he’s a loose end that Elenwen is trying to manipulate, and when Tullius tries to kill or arrest Ulfric outside of Helgen (you need PC camera cheats to watch this), Elenwen orders Tullius to stand down, and he complies. She wants to keep the revolution going to keep both armies busy and weakened, and she’s successful in that.

So let’s rip the bandaid off. How racist and terrible is everyone really? Pretty bad all around, but let’s examine everyone in detail. The Thalmor are so cartoonishly racist and evil, they might as well be the baddies in an 80s He-Man spin-off cartoon. The fraction of the Empire that’s left doesn’t seem to have any still standing laws against anyone being legally recognized as people. I’m actually not sure if it ever did, although the argument can be made that the foundation of the original Empire, the first Empire, through the execution, martyrdom, and eventual apotheosis of Saint Alessia into a Joan of Arc/Mary Magdalene-esque pseudo-Christ figure was specifically centered around hatred of elves in the Merethic Era.

Alessia’s execution for her foundation of the Imperial dragon cult, which became the eventual Imperial religion, served as the "crimes" of apostasy, blasphemy, and heresy against the altmer theological party line that came to literally define the Merethic Era. Also, keep in mind that the Empire…is an Empire.

So you can confidently say that the Empire was theologically founded on a human slave revolt against Altmer slavers, which also serves as the mythic foundation of Skyrim’s nationhood. Ysgramor and the 500 Companions came from the green land of Atmora after snow elves committed genocide against humans in the Merethic Era, at Sarthaal.

Hatred of elves, Altmer and Dunmer specifically because they’re the only ones with a whole "let’s enslave the beings we don’t think are people" thing, is something that all the races of men, plus Argonians, can get behind (the dark elves don’t seem to have subjugated men at all, just Argonians, and I’m all about that Argonian liberation, baby). Which is why Talos is so important to not just Skyrim, but to the entire empire.

Talos is a symbol of human medieval heroism, the warrior christ, the king chosen by the gods to rise to godhood alongside them. Talos is a standing theological refutation of the Altmer belief that they alone are gods, and that only they can return to godhood as a race. The worship of Talos as a God is something that the Thalmor need to eradicate, because it threatens the entire mythology of their fascist superiority narrative. They want to "make Nirn great again by returning to the Merethic Era.

Humans, and possibly other races have worshipped Talos for thousands of years without incident, until a recent changing of the Summerset Isles' government resulted in the nation’s embrace of unjustifiable fascism. The Great War was 50 years ago, this is relatively new, although it is the Second Aldmeri Dominion, so they’ve tried this before and presumably failed. This is Nazi Germany with magic.

There is no situation where a Thalmor existence results in anything but insanely genocidal, Nirn-wide Holocaust. It sounds horrific and hypocritical, but if the Thalmor and all traces of its ideology aren’t eradicated in kind, the entirety of Nirn is done. That’s also why the Empire are the worst kind of Neville Chamberlain centrists for surrendering to them. The Thalmor are cartoon character evil. You don’t reason with evil, compromise with it, or try to heal it. Evil needs to be destroyed.

So, how racist are the people of Windhelm? That’s a difficult question. The gut reaction is to say "a lot" and leave it at that, but that’s not sociologically responsible. We have to dive in. We know that assholes such as Angrenor Once-Honored and Rolff Stone-Fist are unapologetically racist. And you can fight Rolff regardless of your gender or race for being a racist. He is specifically antagonistic to you for not being a racist if you’re a Nord, and for being a non-Nord if you are that.

Thankfully, the New Gnisis Cornerclub is a haven for Dunmer, and there are at least some Nords who frequent there because apparently the mead is better. There’s opportunity for the repair of relations there. It’s unclear how many racists are actually in Windhelm. Some Dunmer believe the entire city is, but it’s not true.

Brunwulf Free-Winter isn’t, but weirdly he married a racist. His criticisms of Windhelm as a city are spot on. It’s wrong and unjust that Argonians and Khajiit are segregated to the docks, and the Dunmer to the Gray Quarter. Ulfric confined them to these areas to prevent violence. This isn’t inherently racist if the motive is to prevent Nords from killing them, which it appears to be.

Sadly, if Brunwulf is appointed jarl, he’ll be unwilling or unable to lift the segregation out of fear of racist violence. It’s totally understandable, but sad. He has plans to renovate and rebuild the Gray Quarter, but he doesn’t have the money and materials to do it because of the war’s toll, leaving only his promise. It’s a good promise, but one unfulfilled for a while. There’s also the question of where he’s getting the labor for this much-needed infrastructural overhaul.

Hopefully, the Dunmer themselves are numerous enough to get the job done, but that presents a new problem. To prevent racist violence, Brunwulf would likely have to garrison the entire city guard around the quarter. This not only leaves the city vulnerable to crime and Calixto’s murders, but it theoretically means that somebody is likely to start some shit, and the guards will likely be forced to kill Angrenor and Rolff.

Windhelm will be better off with them gone, but it will make Brunwulf very unpopular as a jarl. Racists will see him as a race traitor, who protected "parasites" and murdered "good, patriotic Nords". The entire narrative is a joke, but racists would believe that. How many racists are in Windhelm is very important. Brunwulf has contradictory dialogue, with one line claiming they’re a minority, another claiming majority.

It needs to be established, because we need to know how successful as a jarl Brunwulf can be at best and worst. Brunwulf is clearly the best choice for Windhelm’s jarl, but he faces unique and difficult challenges, and his initial rule will be as a do-nothing until he can rebuild the quarter, try to convince the racists not to be, and desegregate the city. Huge order, but Windhelm needs him.

What about the Stormcloak army? Is the Stormcloak movement an ethno-nationalist one? How racist are Ulfric and Galmar? Well, Galmar doesn’t appear to be at all. It’s clear that there are no racial requirements to join the Stormcloaks. Obviously that’s at least partly a requirement of gameplay, but at the same time they’re willing to take anyone who is willing, and they don’t appear to use slurs or espouse hatred in their dialogue.

I’m pretty sure within the context of the Elder Scrolls games, cat and lizard don’t appear to be direct slurs. It seems similar to one saying in our world that someone is black or a Jew, and that can feel racist, but it’s definitely not as racist in the vein of the n-word or the k-slur. Do they get points for not being virulently racist? It feels weird to suggest possibly yes, as we try to hold people to a higher standard. Ulfric definitely dismisses the needs of the Dunmer in the Gray Quarter. That could be countered with "he’s fighting a war", and he is, but it isn’t a good look. He seems to be mildly racist towards them in the same way that Tullius is to Nords.

A few thoughts on the General. Tullius just sees this war as an obstacle. He doesn’t worship Talos, he doesn’t allow Rikke to (she has to hide it), and he doesn’t care about understanding anything about Nord culture, theology, or social customs, mirroring bigots like Rolff. He all but directly says that he views the Nords as silly, pelt-wearing axe draggers, to use Olfrid Battleborn’s description of Clan Gray-Mane. He views the military suppression of the revolution and the administration of Skyrim as annoyances instead of responsibilities. Tullius didn’t want to be in Skyrim at all, but he’s a military man, and he obeys.

That makes things problematic when we consider that Elisif has no leadership training, no experience or education in city administration, and no courage. She’s a pretty wallflower, even the thanes acknowledge that Torygg married her for her looks and youth, not for her prowess. Which ironically makes Ulfric correct about her being an Imperial puppet and incompetent to rule, because unfortunately she is.

She may be the jarl on paper, but not in practice. Tullius is de facto the jarl of Solitude whether he wants to be or not, and he definitely has no interest in being that. He’s like Peter Falk’s "Columbo" in this regard. He does his job because he has to, but he doesn’t want to. He just wants to go home, and it’s understandable but also bad for Solitude.

Imperial corruption is rampant in Solitude, the thanes are all but openly discussing treason against Elisif. If someone were to take a shot at her, Falk Firebeard, the court mage, and Tullius are all that could protect Elisif. Elisif needs the three of them to operate Solitude for her. Solitude needs a strong leader, and the only individual capable is Tullius, and he has no interest in that. Tullius is thus less a general and more the guy in charge because nobody else is or can be.

And in that regard Tullius is exactly akin to how Ulfric views the social and infrastructural needs of the Dunmer community, who are also Ulfric’s responsibility: as a chore. Which makes it all the more weird that Ulfric invited the Dunmer to Windhelm as refugees. Did he not understand that they needed real help? It’s irresponsible to ignore them, and Ulfric is doing that. So, is Ulfric a racist? Yeah, in that weird, 60 year old white guy way. Is Galmar? No, he doesn’t appear to be at all.

Are the army racist? I can’t find any examples of ambient Stormcloak dialogue that is racist. Nobody in the army gives you shit for being any kind of elf, or "beast race" (Jesus H. Christ, I loathe the term. The Elder Scrolls games are and have always been weirdly and uncomfortably obsessed with race and racism). So is the Stormcloak rebellion an ethno-nationalist, white supremacist movement? Not officially.

There are people in Windhelm who have that view, but they’re literally bums, and aren’t soldiers (Angrenor was one, but no longer). Ulfric is a capable military leader and strategist, he’s a good soldier and a fine dramatist and propagandist. But he’s not a capable city administrator. He would be better off leading the rebellion and having Brunwulf run Windhelm. The entire city would be better off that way.

Finally, there are also the Reachmen. These people are as problematic as they are interesting. They lead a rebellion against the Nords who live in Markarth. They are ethnically Breton and Nord, and are ancient denizens of a land formerly known as the Colovian Highlands. The Highlands comprised Markarth and lands south of it, into the western portion of Cyrodiil. It may have been a formerly larger part of High Rock, but this hasn’t been confirmed.

The Reachmen want Markarth and all of the Colovian Highlands back, and they have resorted to guerilla war and daedric worship to pull that off, specifically through covenants and blood sacrifice rituals involving Hagravens. Now, I’m generally sympathetic towards rebellion, revolution, and left-wing nation building. The thing is, good and evil actually exist in the elder scrolls games. They’re real, tangible things. The gods and daedra are all real. That means this revolution, no matter how noble it may have been originally, is provably tainted by actual evil.

That’s a problem, and while they currently only have Nords as an enemy, retaking the Highlands means invading Cyrodiil. The Imperial remnants will be further weakened by this, and the Reachmen could probably give the Thalmor a run for their money in terms of magic, but there are just too few Reachmen it would seem, to be able to take on two and a half armies to get their home back. Plus, they’re objectively evil theologically speaking.

Given that the Reachmen are ethnically distinct from both the Nords and Bretons canonically however, the bad news is that they absolutely are an ethno-nationalist movement in every way. Which means that non-Reachmen not only can’t be a part of the larger revolution, but the Reachmen wouldn’t allow it. Sad.

What does a successful Stormcloak revolution look like in the future? This does involve some conjecture, based on taking what I can from dialogue, lore, and my own understanding of the geopolitical situation. I will attempt to keep theorycrafting at a minimum. So, a Stormcloak victory means that Tullius and Rikke die (very sad, I really sympathize with Rikke), Elisif is puppeted, and the Moot will eventually convene to put the Jagged Crown on Ulfric’s head.

The first thing will be to stop all the fighting. That will be less difficult then stomping out all Talos worship, as Ulfric will have Galmar, a very capable warrior and general, to coordinate the new jarls and Skyrim’s armies. Many Nords and non-Nords alike will rejoice at the official restoration of Talos worship nationwide. It is stated in the lore and dialogue that the empire is likely to send experienced legionnaires to help secure things, which is obviously not sanctioned by the Thalmor. Officially, Skyrim will no longer be part of the empire, and will be an independent nation. Which is both difficult and beneficial in a few ways.

It does cut Skyrim off from High Rock trade from the East Empire Trading Company, but it also allows Clan Lonely-Gale the opportunity to establish the Stormcloak navy. Nords are capable and experienced sailors, and so are their new friends: the Redguard. As an independent nation, Skyrim absolutely has the ability, and every reason, to treaty with Hammerfell. Meaning not only can these two excellent sailing cultures pirate and dominate High Rock trade goods, they can also establish trade with each other, and dominate the Thalmor at sea.

This is massively important, because with this opportunity, the Stormcloaks and the Redguard can end the war. Guerilla and pirate tactics are not only an option on land, but on sea as well. The Altmer, as far as I know, are not known for their sailing, which means the free nations of Skyrim and Hammerfell could succeed in a naval war where the Empire failed in a land war.

It also gives these two nations every reason to gain three more potential allies: the Akaviri, also a powerful sailing culture with powerful warriors, Black Marsh, and the Orcs. Orsinium is in the mountains, smack between High Rock, Skyrim, and Hammerfell. If the Orcs get support from two recently independent nations who have no reason to invade or colonize Orsinium, there is potential for treaty and alliance here.

If I were Ulfric, I would immediately ally with Orsinium, for a few reasons. One, it helps rehabilitate Ulfric’s (I think deserved) reputation as a racist. Two, they’re insanely powerful warriors and the finest heavy infantry in Nirn. Three, it gives the Imperial remnants opportunity to give restitution to the Orcs for centuries of imperialism, invasion, and massacre, and bolster their numbers with legionnaires. Four, depending on if High Rock is allied with the Thalmor or not, it gives a critical defensive position and seals off the paths through the Daggerfall mountains, to either protect High Rock or serve as an invasion point against it.

If I were Hammerfell or Skyrim I’d offer the orcs a permanent homeland in my country, but they probably want to do their own thing, which an independent Skyrim and Hammerfell have every reason to accept and respect. An independent Skyrim is better for literally everyone but the Breton and Thalmor, if the Breton are allied. It allows far more trade than the East Empire Trading Company can likely do with only High Rock funding it.

It also allows for this Coalition to gain the respect of the Argonians, who solved their own Oblivion crisis, and liberated themselves from slavery under the Dunmer noble houses. They invaded Mournhold and won. The Argonians are badass, and should never be overlooked. They can help liberate and repair Elsewyr, they can help decimate the thalmor navally, and they can also help invade the Summerset Isles and liberate Valenwood.

An independent Skyrim allows for the systematic liberation of every nation from Thalmor fascism, as the more allies they have, the more resources, more opportunities, and more angles of attack they have against the 5halmor, who by all accounts are exhausted and spread too thin. Given that humans procreate faster than elves, only in an independent Skyrim is victory against thalmor possible.

And only the Stormcloaks are willing to completely eradicate the Thalmor from existence. Yes, it’s a horrific war crime, but it’s necessary to save Nirn. Unfortunately, they literally have to commit a smaller genocide to prevent a planetwide one. It’s horrific and unconscionable, I know, but if the planet is going to survive, the entirety of thalmor ideology and all their supporters need to be immediately obliterated. A Third Aldmeri Dominion can never rise.