What have the Empire ever done for Skyrim 

Ulfric didn’t put them in the slums, they just were dirt poor being refugees and all. He’s systemic racist but not active persecution racist.

@@Ledecral argonians are banned from entering the city. It doesn’t affect the player for gameplay reasons but if u talk to the argonians on the docks they have dialogue about it. I think there’s also dialogue somewhere about Ulfric separating the dunmer from the nords to try and lower racial tensions. I don’t think that he would turn Skyrim into Nazi germany but definitely turns a blind eye to the struggles of non human races.

@@redphone25 They separated the argonians from the Dunmer due to racial tensions, not nords from Dunmer. It was a poorly thought out decision but like you said, Ulfric doesn’t pay much mind to non-Nords. That’s what systemic racism is: Ignoring or downplaying the struggles of minority races.

@@Ledecral separating dunmer from argonians is not exactly what I would call a poorly thought out decision, Poorly executed, maybe, maybe argonians do deserve a quarter of their own or access to non-dunmer areas. Of course kinda hard to just on demand create an entire section of town that is behind the millenia old walls. But the only kind of person that calls this poorly thought out is the kind who wants argonians and dunmer to racially purge one another. And while there is a chance some of these are proper Redoran Dunmer that is not an acceptable outcome. Not that I don't trust Redorans to handle themselves but then again I imagine the better warriors stayed behind or died in the catastrophes that plagued morrowind in the last few decades

@@cathulionetharn5139 honestly, I’m a straight up elf hater(I’ve always mained Dwarves in TTRPG’s) so I wouldn’t mind the Argonians taking over the gray quarter, though I imagine they’d change the name.

When you rebel against the ultimate institution and crowning achievement of your races greatest hero on the basis of racism. 🤣 Whilst in the effort of doing so, decrying tyranny and proclaiming yourself a liberator you.... slaughter hundreds of your own people and sack their homes...... Hmm Given that a number of characters note the literal backstabbing and blatant self defeating hypocrisy of the Stormcloaks I can only surmise it was the writers intent, and the Stormcloaks are indeed -idiots.

The Medes are not the Septims

@@Watchmanskey the 3rd empire never fell at the end of the 3rd era, it was only continued under Ocato and the Medes (with mixed results) black marsh still seceded, and the "aldmeri" dominion hacksawed the rest of the provinces away. (minus high rock, and skyrim) but otherwise, there wasn't a total collapse into the heartlands. only 29 years of fragmentation before the medes took control.

@@bodywithoutorgans7352 Didn't Ocato die shortly after the start of the 4th era? The Medes only came to power because they fought for the crown like everyone else, with what you're suggesting the Alessian empire is still going too. As far as I'm concerned it's a different empire an thus my character does not need to keep any promises.

@@TheTrueSpottedStripe Answering your first question, yes, but Ocato was the reason cyrodill didn't lose vassalage over hammerfell, highrock, skyrim, (even elsweyr, and morrowind for a while if you'd believe it) despite his murder, the entire structure remained intact despite the factionalism, the 3rd empire merely has a different dynasty ruling it now, comparatively, the first Alessian empire and reman's second empire collapsed into the heartlands, where all political power for the empire always began and ended. the 3rd empire was started by tiber septim, and is still maintained even after all the difficulties faced by the medes. (and caused) there's arguments to be made one way or another about whether the empire in skyrim is worth allying, i'll shed my bias and say that i mostly agree with the empire, if only because they seem in the lore to leave everyone alone as long as they pay taxes and not attempt to destroy tamriel, which sounds like a good deal (mostly) and there's a few i could throw out for the stormcloaks, like that avatar of talos in morrowind saying "it's time for something new" can be taken many ways, and ulfric is RIGHT about the thalmor, which would mean more were he not himself, a thalmor risk factor (even a sleeper agent, if you want to dawn tin foil hats of course) lore for a old ass game series about humans fighting each other, because elves convinced them they were enemies is interesting, but open to interpretation. regardless, both sides can agree that the thalmor are genuinely, repulsive (telling you who you can't worship directly, killing off the non altmer in summerset, renaming summerset to alinor to LARP harder, lying to the khajiit, genociding the bosmer* trying to collapse the towers of mundas in the hopes of destroying what they view as a "prison", and of course killing ocato for even suggesting listening to Lathenil of Sunhold) sure it's nerd shit, but it's compelling

I guess that would be Legate Rikke in this scenario?

@@russb24 If Rikke has a secret hotdog then sure 😄

@@sweetpeaches6957 Biggae Tatae?

@@russb24 Biggus Clitoris 😅

@@sweetpeaches6957 oh hell no 😂

The Witcher series has also great world and politics.

Damn that's a great idea, wish I'd thought of it while making the video!

But that wouldn’t really make sense since the Reman dynasty is over

Contextually doesn't work

Just think: out there in the wide expanse of the multiverse Remus killed Romulus and that city went on to found the Reman Empire, and almost two thousand years later a comedy troupe made a film featuring it called The Life of Ryan, and a few short decades later The Elder Scrolls was created, featuring the Roman Empire...

Considser this. It was thalmor plan all along (we all know it), but the dragonborn becomes high king and is later crowned new dragonblood emperor in cyrodill, after a fight with imperials or not (since Mede death by Dark Brotherood), allowing dragonborn to just walk into southlands and claim the throne.

People keep saying this, but Hammerfell did secede from the Empire, fought the Dominion alone, and won. Why couldn't Skyrim?

​​@@acem82 Iirc, Hammerfell was allowed to secede so that the Imperial soldiers already there could help defend against the Dominion without going against its agreement with the Empire; a bit different from half a country actively opposing the Empire and killing its general, but hey, could be wrong on that.

​@@grimnir2922Hammerfell also has a better history of fighting off invasions than Skyrim has of invading other places iirc. Since Ysgramor, haven't they been beaten back by Cyrodiil and every other province every time?

@@baird5682 Yeah except you can't become High King in the game so that's not an option.

Well this is BEFORE Ulfric started the Civil War, obviously.

It's safe in the Imperial-controlled territories, nitwit

@@LordVader1094 Not to mention (if you believe the guards) half the reason he hadn't been caught was because the war had been gobbling up all of Windhelm's law-enforcement resources. If they were at peace, then the guards probably would have caught him early on (without the need for the Dragonborn Private Investigator™to get involved).

@@concentratedcringe Ulfric can't even run his own city well (Lonely-gale and Free-winter and others are clearly picking up the slack), and yet people want him to run the whole _province?!?!_ Just talk to anyone not in Windhelm and either nothing's changed or it's changed for the worse: Adrienne was nearly run out of Whiterun, Morthal is run by some social-climbing chick who I've never seen before or since, etc.

@@brandonquist8394 Yup. Windhelm and Dawnstar both have the issue where their leaders are so incompetent and war-hungry that they're willing to let their own cities go underguarded (letting serious issues go unresolved) if it means they can throw a few more bodies into the meatgrinder of war.

I think people dislike the Empire because the incompetence of Titus Mede II. The Mede dynasty overall is just weak and incompetent. It just so happens that at the time he was better than Thules.

If the Empire could be that blatant, then they wouldn't have prevented Markarth from reinstituting Talos worship in the first place, I think. Which, given the Thalmor couldn't even keep hold of Hammerfell after the war, I think the Empire certainly should have.

@@MasteringJohn ah markarth half the town is forsworn the other half damed cannibals

Well banning talos worship didn't help the empire, like it or not people have the freedom to worship wherever and whenever and whoever they please

It's funny to think that, had Ulfric been half as smart as Tullius, the civil war wouldn't even be happening.

The Septim Dynasty has its origins in Skyrim, but that line was broken. The new emperors, the Medes, are from Colovia

The Empire was founded under Alessia in Cyrodiil.

The Empire was not founded in Skyrim. Tiber Septim was crowned emperor in Cyrodiil, and as such it was the first province to accept his claim to the throne of Tamriel. Skyrim was the second province to join the Empire, and did not do so until Septim invaded it and its jarls witnessed his Voice firsthand. Once they realized that he was Dragonborn they bent the knee.

You're so confidently wrong, hahaha

​@@josebenardi1554 they tend to be 😭

He was also possibly a Breton.

Ah yes. Being invaded by elves looking to enslave mankind and literally end reality as we know it. *pointless*

Pointless? They were being invadedz besides, the empire first responders were the emperials of Cyrodil, not the nords 💀

Would that mean the Forsworn are the Judean People's Front?

@@russb24 I thought we were the Popular Front

@@ChristopherMB87 Nah, he's over there.

Ha! You would join those traitors?! I'll have none of that garbage here in the *Popular Liberation Front!*

Yes because the meds never raped sex slaves 🤣

Fucking what? the only thing the empire brought was jedi genocide and xenophobia

Nedes* proto-Imperials

@@skyrimguy217 who themselves were once Nords until they moved to Cyrodil and were enslaved by the Aeylid Elves .

@@skyrimguy217 and even the Nords were building an Empire, creating civilization. And they still had contact with Atmora. And they joined the Empire voluntarily without any reason to be conquered.

Torrygg is good But ulfric is just shit coward

The Nedes is a blanket term for the first wave of human migration out of Atmora. The Nedes successfully rebelled and founded a multi-dynastic Empire that lasts to the "modern" day in The Elder Scrolls. You also don't submit yourself to something just out of a common hatred for something else - especially if you're the one being asked for help.

This right here.

I’ll take the ones who don’t use shitty iron weapons and who won’t leave Skyrim wide open to a Dominion invasion.

@@Aredel Stormcloaks use steel aswell, the problem is that in game they mostly use two handed weapons, so they have to use iron in order to not do too much damage for the level you usually face them at. And both leave Skyrim open to the Dominion, just in different ways

@@asteranightshade2981 how does the Empire leave Skyrim completely vulnerable if they win?

@@Aredel the empire is literally a vassal of the dominion, so they kind of leave it pretty open, considering how the thalmor have free passage and authority anywhere the empire goes. Obviously i feel like the empire winning might actually give them an strategic advantage good enough to be capable of strengthening the province to protect it from the thalmor better than what the stormcloaks could do, but then again, the empire still leave skyrim open to the thalmor, just in a different way. The stormcloaks are not powerful enough to beat the thalmor, and the empire are currently their vassals and cannot fight back without being squashed, so if an entire empire cant fight them back in their current weakened state, the stormcloaks will most certainly not even be able to make a scratch.

That empire lasted less than two centuries, and was destroyed by the gods themselves for Jurgen Windcaller's arrogance. The Nords dishonored the gods by using their gift of thu'um for purposes of war instead of worship, and so at the Battle of Red Mountain Windcaller and his armies were denied victory despite his powerful Voice. Not even the spirit of Ysgramor himself could turn the tide after the gods had decided the Nord's fates. Ulfric made the same mistake when he decided to use his Voice to kill the High King of Skyrim. The Greybeards did not teach him the Way of the Voice so that he could use it to grab power. Only the Dragonborn is exempt from those rules. Ulfric thought he was proving himself to be Skyrim's legitimate ruler by revealing his Voice in battle, but all he did was dishonor himself and his followers. They are an affront to Nordic tradition, Akatosh, and Kyne. Any post-Imperial state they would create would be damned by the gods, just as the empire they lost in the First Era was.

@@DovahFett That is just Jurgen's opinion, nothing in TES lore says that the Thu'um isn't supposed to be used in war

​@@karimmezghiche9921 all he's saying is that the divines wouldn't assist, they ceased assisting pelinal when his path became revenge ridden and the Aedra, (in the context of the imperial cult) only abandon when purity of action is lost. to use the powers of the gods (and, the dragons) is to borrow their power, when done so, your actions reflect theirs, if not; you had best have achieved CHIM or all is failure, and even that didn't save whitestrake.

@@bodywithoutorgans7352 By that logic Ulfric is justified since he used the Thu'um to kill Torygg, it means that the gods are on his side.

​@@karimmezghiche9921 of course he was, but the way of the voice merely states that battle is "the least of it's uses" Paarthunax takes pity on man during the revolt, because Kyne asked him to. the tyranny of the voice of the dragons was too much for her to bear, should man emulate the debased tyranny of dragons? even when the gods beg him not to? there is also this theme the writers go for, where men who are masters of the Thu'um eventually undergo horrific, catastrophic defeat after using the voice in war; and then "choose silence" (I.E: Talos himself. he was known to whisper, even after losing only the Thu'um) Ulfric doesn't have to be a greybeard to use the Thu'um, but he learned it from them, he learned this by "contemplation of the sky" (kyne) it would make sense from a narrative perspective if ulfric loses the favor of kyne, and the empire recruits in skyrim being so weak that naturally the war is a standstill. sure, i agree that torygg was a typical empire level noble (an emulation of the latent medes in the empire) saying what he needed just to keep peace, but the empire keeps man together, hence the reason the thalmor wish to dismantle it, to bring about a "merethic era" finally, even if ulfric was justified, it would still be an afront to both akatosh and Talos himself revolting against the empire he tells his followers TO DEFEND. skyrim has been in the empire thousands of years longer than they possessed an empire. and ulfric, whether he keeps or loses favor, still used the thu'um against a man who knew nothing of the thu'um in a equal footing dual for honor, (and he's certainly no dragonborn.) it was dishonorable. TL;DR this game is old and the writers are lazy compared to morrowind, and i feel nerdy as shit even discussing this to this extent lmao, just wanted you to consider the opposite angle, wished people didn't think it was so black and white.

Ulfric was an unwilling Thalmor agent to weaken the Empire... so there.

So you basically took actual good historical points and mixed it in with your pseudoscientific bullshit? People like you are why we have such a hard time untangling false narratives 😒

Its a classic "imperialism good, savages bad" kinda thing, and holding cultures in higher regard as other cultures

I think you are misunderstanding a great deal of the Monty Python skit, Life of Brian. It is set in Judea or what is modern Israel. That land was by no means north nor did it have anything to do with the Celts. Judea and the Levant were civilized long before the Romans came, the Romans simply improved their infrastructure. The Romans were famed for learning from all of their conquests to improve their own efforts which they even used to aid their colonies. One of the greatest innovations they brought to the whole of their empire was *cranes* which they learned to use after conquering Syracuse. About roads, it is well documented that the Romans were masterful at roadbuilding as they spared no expense. Sure all peoples built roads, the Romans just made sturdier and higher quality ones. An important aspect of their roadbuilding was they used their legions when in peacetime to construct the infrastructure. During the first century AD, there were two legions in Judea, over 10000 soldiers who had little to do other than put down the odd revolt and aid in civil maintenance. About the connection of the world in those eras. You are only talking about the isolated tribes of the poor and undeveloped lands of the Celts and Germanics, the Mediterranean was extremely interconnected via trade and diplomacy well before its unification under Rome. About irrigation, yes it was developed long before, but that doesn't mean it was never improved. The Romans often built dams and reservoirs, which are significant feats of engineering. These constructs allow for reliable access to water even in times of drought. About soap, I don't know the origins of it precisely, but I am certain it was not by the Celts. There are records of pre-Ptolemaic Egypt and Mesopotamia having used soap. Where the Romans got soap from doesn't even matter as they still were able to clean themselves regularly. With their public baths, you could still clean off the dirt of the day and remove excess oils. Soap is not the only way to clean, it just makes it a bit more convenient. I am confused about why you point out seemingly in a negative way that the Romans did not invent much of what they had, what made them so great was their cosmopolitan ways. The Romans had such an advantage over all of their neighbours as they were willing to learn from and welcome (to varying degrees) all people they came into contact with. The topic of peace. How can peace be enforced without force? With the threat of violence, the Romans largely assured the stability of their provinces. I need to ask how else can you keep people in line? Not even today have we been able to do away with the use of force. What would you say is a better world, leaving the people to rot and fight for themselves? Have our societies crumble as we collect back into small localized tribes? There is no way that without a centralized power, we could ever live in such grand states as we do today. I disagree that Monty Python was not faithful to the history. They simply show an appreciation of the benefits of a more unified world as well as for the great things the Romans had done. I do understand to a degree why you may oppose Rome, I assume about the means by which it had unified the Mediterranean, but there was not enough written to see your whole perspective. I apologize for the lengthy text, but I thought it best to address all parts of the comment. I hope something I wrote here will be of use or interest to anyone who may read it. P.S. I understand the video was about Skyrim as well, which may be why they focused on the Celts, but the original comment seemed to focus on Monty Python, not the Elder Scrolls.

@@lysanderfahlman2528 Marvelous read, never apologize for writting such a great essay. I would even love to hear why you say the way romans conquered the mediterranean would make someone dislike rome

The Empire turned a blind eye to people continuing to worship Talos despite the Concordat, until Ulfric ruined it by making a massive fuss that forced the Empire's hand.

@@LordVader1094 Doesn't matter, I am not obligated to keep my religion under wraps and the empire deserves to die for trying to suppress it

Empire didnt enforce it. In reality they were probably starting to re-arm themselves to go and deal with the Thalmor. Who knows, maybe Ulfric was a pawn of the Thalmor to weaken the Empire and cause it internal strife.

@@Justin-ui5ti Yeah tell that to Heimsker.

@@Justin-ui5ti It's not just a maybe, it's directly confirmed by the Thalmor dossier. They don't want the Stormcloaks to win either, but Ulfric absolutely is where they want him to be: escalating things into a civil war and draining resources from the Empire.