The Stormcloak Bible DEBUNKED PART 1

Stormcloaks are often biased and most tryhard ones show little knowledge about the lore (or they actually know about it and just refuse to accept the facts). The Stormcloak bible is a great example of this (if not THE BEST example) and in these posts I plan to debunk some (if not most) of the statements shown there (I do not plan to refute all points because I am not a know everything cunt. Of course somethings there may be true). The following is an update of my previous post, as I have gathered far more information since then.

In the first part of this “bible” (colonel-killa-bee.tumblr.com/p…), the author makes very a superficial analysis of arguments often used by supporters of the empire, so lets take a look at this:

Well, I originally did not want to talk about the past, as many mistakes that the empire may have commited could have been overcomed by the 4th Era (and since the Stormcloaks have little to do with the Third Era, since the rebellion started in the 4th Era), but whatever, I decided to talk about it just to show how the author's statements are foolish: he citates the comments of a dunmer imperial soldier... and what? Now because a single soldier thinks that a united empire would not be a great idea this is suddently the truth? Alright, back to the 4th Era: the author says “The Empire is dying. They have Cyrodiil, High Rock and half of Skyrim. If they won, how would security in their Empire be any better, when they can’t even prevent a bandit uprising within the very heart of their establishment when there wasn’t a civil war?” well, then the author may proceed in explaining why he does not care about the fact that on Windhelm there is a murderer rampaging and the guards do not know what to do ("but they are at war you idiot, they can not do much" you are right, just like how Cyrodiil is trying to rebuild itself after a large scale war, after tons of resourecs were eighter used or sacked), and that without mentioning crime in Riften. While I do not intend to use the tu quoque fallacy here (wich, in case you don’t know, is trying to refute someone’s critique by saying “But you do it as well”) as some cities are thrown in chaos, the fact that our Stormcloak Guy used this argument shows a great chunck of bias from him. This argument can either be used to criticize both sides or not be used at all, you decide.

Also what he says about the security in the empire is simply not true, as it is evidenced by one of the possble dialogues of none other than General Tullius himself (more specifically when you try to convince him to go to High Hrothgar during Season Unending):

Dragonborn: The best time to negotiate is from a position of strength.

General Tullius: Fair enough. We're driving the Stormcloaks back well enough at the moment, but we're already overstretched. That's what comes of trying to win a war with a bare handful of legions. If the Emperor would just give me the reinforcements I've requested!

Dragonborn: Why won't the Emperor send more reinforcements?

General Tullius: Most of the Legion is tied down on the border with the Aldmeri Dominion. The Emperor can't afford to risk weakening Cyrodiil's defenses. From the Imperial City, our war here is just a sideshow. An interlude before the main event against the Thalmor resumes.

Also if he actually gave us a more in deep look at Cyrodiilic cities that are in chaos (but he didn't) we would actually see that it is probably one of those situations that could not be easily fixed even by a powerful Empire, well this without mentioning that assuming that a specific governemnt is inneficient thanks to chaos in some cities is to jump to conclusions as a series of factors may make administration and/or interference difficult (geographical relief, climate, how many criminal factions are using hidden locations to grow in power and influence, etc). Heck, it would be like saying that both imperial and stormcloak governments are trash because there are bandits all over Skyrim. Anyway, the journals that describe such events are Cicero's and we can see them all here www.imperial-library.info/cont…, but lets have a closer look: in volume 2 it is written "The situation in Bravil grows more dire. The city has erupted in violence, due to a war of control being waged by Cyrodiil's two largest skooma traffickers. The Listener, Alisanne Dupre, has been forced to employ sellswords to protect her own residence." Bravil is very close to Elsweyr (www.google.com.br/search?q=cyr…: ) and this makes the activities of kooma smugglers far easier, specially now that Elsweyr is not part of the Empire (and even if it was it's harsh conditions would prevent the imperial governemnt from being omnipresent there). In fact even in during the Oblivion Crisis, the very end of what was basically the Golden Age of the Empire, Bravil was considered a poor and violent city. If You did not play Oblivion just like me, a bit of research about Bravil in the Wiki and the UESP will show it clearly therefore in Bravil's case it is not something that is fault of the Empire itself, . In Volume 4, however, Cicero says that Cheydinhal has erupted in violence and chaos, but it is never specified how. Was it a war between rival criminal factions like in Bravil? Just unhappy inhabitants of the city? Was it really a result of bad administration from the Empire? Also a book and a dialogue in Skyrim, that The Stormcloak Guy obviously did not show on his holy book, reveal that the city is not an actual anarchy as many would think. The book is "An adventurer's Guide to Skyrim" (en.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:An_Exp…), wich mentions Cheydinhal and was clearly written after Ulfric’s militia took back Markarth because it mentions the Forsworn (who did not exist before Ulfric and his men drove the Rechmen rebels from Markarth), and the Dialogue betwen Ingun and Elgrim (pt.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Elgrim):

Elgrim: "Ingun, you clumsy fool! You've tainted our entire supply of Painted Troll Fat. You have no idea how hard that was to get."
Ingun: "I'm sure my mother can compensate you for it."
Elgrim: "I'll draft a letter to Rythe. If you could have it sent to Cheydinhal for me, that would make up for your blunder."
Ingun: "I'll make sure it's sent right away."

As you can see an Alchemist in Skyrim uses Cheydinhal as means of getting profit, what would not be possible if the city was an absolute chaos by the year 201 of the 4th Era, wich either means that Cicero’s claims were exageratted or that the Empire managed to control the situation (at least to some degree, over the years). A stronger evidence for that is how Elgrim reveals he sends letters to Rythe, that is actually a famous dunmer painter encountered in The Elder Scrolls IV (en.uesp.net/wiki/Oblivion:Ryth…). If the city was an absolute chaos at the time, we would expect a citizen like Rythe to have eighter escaped of died.

All of that without mentioning everything that is going on on Stormcloak holds. In Riften, Maven Black Briar has the entire city in her pocket (even the jarl) and freely associates with the Thieves Guild (Laila Law-Giver does not know about that). In Dawnstar, Jarl Skald barely cares about his city and sends most of his guards to fight the imperials (and is pretty authoritarian, threatening a former legionnaire for walking around in his old armor for the sake of nostalgia) and Winterhold is ruled by a fool that barely lifts a finger to help the city and instead keeps blaming the College of Winterhold (despite having no proof of what he claims). Again: no tu quoque intended, but if you condemn the imperial governemnt thanks to what happened in a few cities in Cyrodiil but does not give a crap about the flaws of the Stormcloak holds, you are a hypocrite and a biased fool.

After that he citates Valga Vinicia, who says that she moved from Cyrodiil to escape the fighting. This is weak evidence since she never clarifies what she's referring to. She may even be referring to the Great War.

Changing the subject now: the author says that it is understandable for the Empire to not send many reinforcements, thanks to the issue about the southern border (well he basically answered his own question there) and later says "But hello they have ships”. I don’t know if he was intentionally biased or just stupid, but he cmpletely ignored how General Tullius reveals that the Emperor is not sending reinforcements thanks to how it would make Cyrodiil more vulnerable to a Dominion attack. And The Stormcloak Guy may consider taking a look at the map of an interesting continent called Tamriel: vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/el… in order for the Empire to send reinforcements to Cyrodiil it would need to navigate trough Dominion territory, risking being taken down or at least being forced to go back to Cyrodiil, and even if they managed to get trough Dominion controlled seas they would still have to go trough Hammerfell's and High Rock's seas. It would take too long and it would be too exausting to send a considerable ammount of soldiers to Skyrim.

Ironically, Hadvar's dialogue suggests that the Imperial Legion ia actually managing to defeat the Stormcloaks after the Tullius came to Skyrim. If you follow him in Helgen and you ask who are the Stormcloaks he will say "You haven't heard of the civil war in Skyrim? I guess down in Cyrodiil people have other things to worry about.It's pretty simple. Ulfric founded the Stormcloaks years ago, as a sort of private army to advance his ambitions. He's always used the ban on the worship of Talos to stir people up against the Empire. He never succeeded in getting much support, so a few months ago he murdered the High King! That got the Empire's attention." thus revealing that the Empire only started to really pay attention to his rebellion after Torygg's death, wich occured a few months before Ulfric was captured while the war itself had been going on for years (the fact that the war has been going on for years is also revealed by Vulwulf Snow-Shod and Vignar Gray-Mane, tough Vignar does not say it directly). Now if you ask him how did they capture Ulfric he will answer with "A masterstroke by General Tullius! He's only been in charge here for a few months, but he's turned things around for the Empire. We've been trying to catch Ulfric since the war started, but he always seemed to slip through our fingers... like he knew we were coming. This time, the General turned the tables on him. Ulfric rode right into our ambush with only a few bodyguards. He surrendered pretty meekly, too. So much for his death-or-glory reputation. I thought we were taking Ulfric back to Cyrodiil, but I guess the General changed his mind. You know the rest." wich shows that the Skyrim's nord legionnaires were not able to capture Ulfric before the Empired started to really care about this war, and that General Tullius just needed a few months to capture the leader of the rebels. His dialogue actually shows how strong the Empire is, as Skyrim's legionnaires were only able to capture Ulfric after Tullius was sent to fix the whole thing (source: en.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Hadvar)

Now we get to his points about the best chance for a victory over the Thalmor on a future war. In the first paragraph he talks about the redguards… and acts like if they would signifficantly increase the chance of an imperial victory over the Thalmor, but that is not the case as numbers do not win wars by themselves (some may say that numbers do help. That is right: they HELP, but they do not guarantee victory). His arguments regarding the possibilities of an imperial-redguard alliance versus a stormcloak-redguard alliance are also full of flaws, because as Zorkonov from the Imperial Knowledge youtube channel once explained the diplomatic relations between Hammerfell and the Empire are pretty stable, if not friendly, during the events of The Elder Scrolls V as it is evidenced by the content of the book “Flight from the Thalmor”, wich can be read here: www.imperial-library.info/cont…. Pay attention to the very first paragraph:

Dearest reader: The work you are about to experience has been copied and duplicated, so that the story it relates can be spread throughout the Empire. But make no mistake - this is not a work of fiction. The events chronicled in this account are all true, were originally documented in a private journal (which now remains safely guarded in the House of Quills in Hammerfell) and occurred not more than a year before this book was printed.

- Ashad Ibn Khaled, High Scribe, House of Quills, Hammerfell

The Empire has basically allowed Hammerfell to publish a book in imperial land, wich would not happen if Hammerfell was hostile towards the Empire.

Talking about the Hammerfell: before anyone says how the redguards “defeated” the Thalmor after the emperor left Hammerfell lets read the damn book about the Great War, shall we? www.imperial-library.info/cont… and see what it actually says about Hammerfell "In Hammerfell, Imperial fortunes took a turn for the better. In early 4E 173, a Forebear army from Sentinel broke the siege of Hegathe (a Crown city), leading to the reconciliation of the two factions. Despite this, Lady Arannelya's main army succeeded in crossing the Alik'r Desert. The Imperial Legions under General Decianus met them outside Skaven in a bloody and indecisive clash. Decianus withdrew and left Arannelya in possession of Skaven, but the Aldmeri were too weakened to continue their advance [...] In Hammerfell, General Decianus was preparing to drive the Aldmeri back from Skaven when he was ordered to march for Cyrodiil. Unwilling to abandon Hammerfell completely, he allowed a great number of "invalids" to be discharged from the Legions before they marched east. These veterans formed the core of the army that eventually drove Lady Arannelya's forces back across the Alik'r late in 174, taking heavy losses on their retreat from harassing attacks by the Alik'r warriors. [...] In the end, the heroic Redguards fought the Aldmeri Dominion to a standstill, although the war lasted for five more years and left southern Hammerfell devastated. The Redguards say that this proves that the White-Gold Concordat was unnecessary, and that if Titus II had kept his nerve, the Aldmeri could have been truly defeated by the combined forces of Hammerfell and the rest of the Empire.") as we can see Arannelya's Army was weakned after they took Skaven (that is located in central Hammerfell) and was pushed trough the desert by the army of imperial "invalids" Decianus left (thus showing that the Imperials were more than capable of dealing with Arannelya's army back there) to the point of being forced to the southern region of Hammerfell (as this was the devastated region after the aldmeri army withdrew from the province). In other words: Lady Arannelya's army was extremely weakned thanks to imperial veterans who managed to push her army across Hammerfell's sands... and even tough a united Hammerfell did not have progress in fighting her weakned army (remember that it said the redguards fought to a standstill) for FIVE YEARS, and did not even manage to destroy such army. Also the Dominion-Hammerfell war ended with a peace treaty, the Second Treaty of Stros M’kai, after souther Hammerfell, wich happened to be the chunk of land that was ceased top the Dominion when the White Gold Concordact was signed, got devastated by the war. The conclusions we have is that not only the redguards did not actually defeat the Dominion as technically they did not even drive the Dominion out of Hammerfell by force, but also that the Dominion did not sign the treaty because it could no longer fight, but because it had no reason to fight as southern Hammerfell was basically destroyed.

Now lets take a look about what he says about a Stormcloak victory: it is true that Ulfric wants to fight the Thalmor, but this would be suicide. Why? Because the Stormcloaks SUCK on the battlefield. They have been fighting against locally recruited and unexperienced legionnaires (this is revealed by pretty much every in game Legate), legionnaires that also are what General Tullius describes as “a bare handful of legions” and that Legate Rikke describes as “regular militia material”, for years. The Stormcloaks have been fighting these bare handful of militia like, locally recruited and unexperienced legionnaires pretty much to a standstill for years, so how on Nirn would one expect the Stormcloaks to be successful on an offensive against the Dominion? Also even a fast look at some TES: Legends cards can show you that the Stormcloaks really lack organization and discipline among their ranks (en.uesp.net/wiki/Legends:Rally… en.uesp.net/wiki/Legends:Inspi… en.uesp.net/wiki/Legends:Storm…
en.uesp.net/wiki/Legends:Ulfri…), unlike the imperials (en.uesp.net/wiki/Legends:Mento… en.uesp.net/wiki/Legends:Praet… en.uesp.net/wiki/Legends:Septi… en.uesp.net/wiki/Legends:Tulli…)

Now we get to the isue of racism (ah shit, here we go again). He begins it by saying that imperialism is about a dominant culture being seen as supreme, but that has nothng to do with racism. How? One can see a certain culture as supreme and not see any race as supreme. In fact, imperialism is not even about shoving such culture down someone's throat, as countless Empires did not do that: the americans do not do it, the romans did not do it (the Jews were allowed to have their customs you know), the mongols did not do it back when they dominated modern day Ukraine and part of modern day Russia, the tamrielic empire doesn not do it (the empire did not shove Cyrodiil's culture down other provinces throats. The Empire gave autonomy to the dunmer, the Empire has no problems with nords having long hairs and beards and visiting Halls of the Dead, Bruma is a cyrodiilic city and is far more nordic than imperial in culture, etc. All of these actions were not chosen on desperate situations unlike the ban of Talos worship. In fact as long as the other provinces accept the Emperor's authority, pay the taxes and report for duty when Cyrodiil is at war, the Empire lets the local government dictate the vast majority of the rules, which is why Skyrim is still ruled by jarls and a High King or High Queen). What General Tullius says about the nords ( "The Legion's always been here. Without us to keep order, the provinces would fall into barbarism and lawlessness. Especially Skyrim. Take for example, Ulfric Stormcloak and his little "rebellion." But rest assured, his days are numbered." ) is ethnocentrism, not racism (there is a huge difference between these two). Tullius did not say that a nord is a barbarian simply for being a nord (because HELLO: Legate Rikke is a nord herself, and if Hadvar survives Tullius will be happy if you tell him that he survived, while calling Hadvar “a damn good soldier”).

The irnony is that the autjor complains about imperialism, but we can see that he is a supporter of nationalism, which sets up a dominant culture in its own nation, and the dominant culture is seen as supreme, wich is exactly what we see in game after a Stormcloak victory. But hey: who needs coherence, amirite!

Now to have an idea of how how the Stormcloaks treat non nords in Windhelm (again: in Windhelm) we can take a look at Malborn (the wood elf that helps the Dragonborn ilfiltrate the Thalmor Embassy): if he survives he will relocate to the New Gnisis Cornerclub, to the Gray Quarter in Windhelm (this is clearly documented in both the wiki both the Wiki elderscrolls.fandom.com/wiki/M… and the UESP en.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Malbor…). Now lets solve the puzzle: Malborn is an elf and an outsider in Windhelm. He had nothing left and he could have gone to Windhelm's Candlehearth Hall in order to live better while hiding from the Thalmor, but he actually goes to the Gray Quarrter, that is basically falling apart. One would clearly not choose to be on a place like that and therefore if the Stormcloaks were welcoming when he came into the city as an outsider with no future, he would certainly not be in the Gray Quarter (and if they think he could be a spy, they could keep him on a place were he would be constantly watched while living decently)... but he is there. Therefore the only conclusion is that the Stormcloaks, and with them Ulfric himself, did not accept him into the actual city and the Gray Quarter was the only option for him. All of this without mentioning that the argonians that live in the docks only live in the docks because they are not allowed to live in the actual city (for being… well… argonians). Heck, if Ulfric is killed and Windhelm is taken by the imperials and you ask Scouts-Many-Marshes (an argonian in the docks) if he is glad that the Stormcloaks are gone, he will say “You have no idea. Did you know it was his decree that forbade the Argonians from living inside the city walls? I hope in his next life, he’s reborn as an Argonian forced to live in a slum because of some bigoted Nord dictator. I’m joking, of course, but I’m a lot happier seeing the Empire running things in Windhelm.” This fact is also revealed by Brunwulf Free-Winter when he says “Whenever a group of marauders attack a Nord village, Ulfric is the first to sound the horn and send the men. But a group of Dark Elf refugees gets ambushed? A group of Argonians, or a Khajiit caravan? No troops. No investigation. Nothing. There’s a group of cutthroats out there right now that Ulfric doesn’t lift a finger to bring to justice, as long as they don’t threaten Nord land”.

Now about what he points about the Roman Empire, I will use the same logic with the old norse: if you, reader, joined the Stormcloaks because you like the vikings for X or  Y reasons I have no problem with that (I kinda enjoy their history myself. Heck, I could say I am more of a viking fan than a roman fan), but wanting to apply this to the Lore is nonsense because:

- DNA tests on one of the nordic countries (tough I do not recall wich one) have revealed the vikings were actually very diverse in terms of race. In other words: racism was not that common among vikings, unlike among the nords of Skyrim.

- The vikings made sure to take advantage of their ships when they raided the shores of more southern european countries, as with their vertically thin ships they were able to step on the shore right after jumping from the ship. A similar boat design is seen at Windhelm and the Stormcloaks could have took advantage of that and directly attack Solitude from the sea (as most of Skyrim’s shores are controlled by the stormcloaks at the beginning of the game) in some of the earlier years of the war, but the Stormcloaks chose to get massacred on land instead (on a dialogue with Torsten Cruel-Sea where Torsten directly mentions such navy, Ulfric says he will think about it and that is the closest we get to having an actual Stormcloak navy).

- The vikings had almost the same equipment as the rest of Europe at their time, what can not be said about the Stormcloaks in Tamriel. To give more details: during the viking age (around 800 a. C. to 1066 a. C. if I recall correctly) chainmail and shields were universally used (levaleur.deviantart.com/art/Ar… kids.britannica.com/kids/artic…) and full plate armor only became a thing by the 15th century, and in this period of time not only the design of the armor improved, but the way it was made, the way the metal was shaped in order to make it harder and more effective, combat strategies were improved, etc. In other words: a Stormcloak soldier fighting a Dominion soldier would be like a viking nobleman fighting a 15th century knight... wich would be like a World War 2 german soldier trying to fight a modern US Marine.

Now if you join the Stormcloaks thanks to Talos worship... one can worship him in secret, just like Alvor reveals the nords did before Ulfric’s Uprising (en.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Alvor "It's from that treaty that ended the Great War, remember, when the Emperor was forced by the Thalmor to outlaw Talos worship. We didn't pay much attention to it when I was a boy - everyone still had their little shrine to Talos. But then Ulfric and his "Sons of Skyrim" started agitating about it, and sure enough the Emperor had to crack down. Dragging people off in the middle of the night... one of the main causes of this war, if you ask me."). Ulfric’s agitating is what caught the attention of the Thalmor (since it showed that the terms of the Concordact were not being enforced in Skyrim) and the Emperor (as Alvor reveals not even the imperials were that active in Skyrim before Ulfric started his rebellion), so I am sorry to say that but Ulfric’s means are bringing the opposite of what he promises, and having noble goals means nothing if your means do not work.