In my opinion, the Dragonborn - a supernaturally powerful reincarnation of a god who has been given a task to avert Ragnarok - should be above the civil war conflict. What does it matter which group of nobility Skyrim's peasants pay taxes to for the next couple of decades? We're tryinng to stop the end of the world - I always told both Tulius and Ulfric to their faces that they're idiots.
Seriously, where was the option to stab the faction you helped in the back and take power for yourself? After you win the war for them you just go back to looting zombie burial sites like a loser.
What does it matter which group of nobility Skyrim's peasants pay taxes to for the next couple of decades?
The taxes don't matter, what does matter is putting forth a unified front next time the turbo-fascist Thalmor-controlled Aldmeri Dominion tries to invade. As the Thalmor themselves put it, it really doesn't much matter who wins the war, all that matters is that the war ends. Either side winning is bad for them.
They also should be above pickpocketing the literal clothes off of every back in Skyrim because it makes them giggle, but they aren't the Dragonborn Skyrim needs, they're the Dragonborn Skyrim deserves.
Hmm, I dunno about this one, I think I'd take the mostly multi-ethnic Empire over the Nordic ethno-nationalist fascists who are set up to weaken the Empire by the other ethno-nationalist fascists, the Thalmor.
The Empire is an extractive regime funnelling wealth into the imperial core of Cyrodil at the expense of the provinces. Not only that, but the provinces are extorted for the majority of the manpower of the imperial legions, with the officer core being made up of the Cyrodilian nobility.
The Empire knowingly permits slavery amongst it's subjects, and it's history is one of a succession of revolts.
The proto-fascist Stormcloaks are preferable to the extant fascism of the Thalmor and the mature imperial project of the Empire because it still has the potential to move in a less harmful direction, as the feudal regimes of the west and south of Skyrim do not share most of the exclusionary value of the northern holds.
Tamriel is not a capitalist country, the Empire is not characterized by a peculiar imperial extraction regime, just a continental system of legal suzerainty and tributaries ala the Ming or Tang. bethesda is very confused which vibes they wanted to evoke, so they're aesthetically romanesque, but the content of client kings and psuedo-feudalism is not Roman whatsoever. they're even on-paper against slavery, the most roman thing ever.
Tamriel is not a capitalist country, but imo it seems pretty clear the province of Cyrodiil is a province wherein the capitalist mode of circulation prevails and enjoys the patronage of a continent-spanning empire to extract various luxury/exotic goods from periphery areas for profit.
In Morrowind, this was ofc very, very clear (East Empire Company, monopoly on Ebony, paper contracts, co-opting local rulers, etcetc its all very British empire).
In Oblivion we see the imperial core which is suitably saccharine on its surface but horrifying just below (e.g. the murderous countess of Leyawiin, the feeding of prisoners to vampires in Skingrad, Bravil's general horribleness, beggars everywhere, etc.)
In Skyrim we see a part of the Imperial core (but not the core-core) 200 years after the Empire suffered its greatest crisis, defacto collapsed and 'returned' with a tiny portion of its territory (notably missing: the sugar plantations of Elweyr, the Ebony mines of Morrowind and Hammerfel; the tropical trees of Black Marsh i.e. the areas from which the majority of wealth would have likely been extracted).
Also I'd note that client-kings was very much characteristic of early Roman expansion (although definitely not so much the periods of higher imperial power). Pseudo-feudalism isn't really descriptive of what we see in any of the TES games imo; Oblivion uses titles such as 'count', but so did/does capitalist Britain.
You can extract resources without being capitalist. Unlike the historical Chinese dynasties, the imperial core territory is not self sufficient, they are entirely reliant on resources and manpower from the provinces to maintain control over their holdings.
You can extract resources without being capitalist
yeah like the Romans. but Oblivion, Skyrim, and Daggerfall offer basically no evidence for that besides an aesthetic affinity between the Empire and Romans. Morrowind has more of that character and a nativist resistance streak, but the Empire can't even implement the ban on slavery there, so it's clearly tenuous.
Unlike the historical Chinese dynasties, the imperial core territory is not self sufficient
after however many thousands of years of Lore there is for Tamriel, "core territory" surely expands. the "core" of the Huang He was good agricultural land in very remote times, but lacked mineral resources. once the agricultural produce of the valley state(s) grew enough to enforce influence over more expansive territory and bring those into the fold. after a really long time, huge swathes of land beyond the chief rivers of China are 'core' and we call them self-sufficient.
even if Cyrodiil itself is insufficient (which i kind of doubt on paper, cause they had to give them farms and mines, rivers and hills for gameplay variety) the whole continent is the integrated economic system we're talking about, and this is acknowledged even by the rebels in Skyrim with their "Talos made the empire" type shit. it's also supported with the games calling all the disparate 'countries' of Tamriel "provinces", the common language being spoken between the whole continent, and the long history of unification.
yeah like the Romans. but Oblivion, Skyrim, and Daggerfall offer basically no evidence for that besides an aesthetic affinity between the Empire and Romans.
I'd argue this is intentional; the Septim Empire consciously mimics the Reman empire's aesthetics to bolster its legitimacy.
after however many thousands of years of Lore there is for Tamriel, "core territory" surely expands
I wanna point out that Tamriel the continent has existed for thousands of years, but the Septim Empire of a United Tamriel lasted only around 400 years, and during a large part of that was consumed with internal conflicts, outright civil wars and failed Akaviri adventures.
Before the Septim empire, there was a thousand year interregnum of warlords under a nominal akaviri potentate. Before that, there was a Reman empire for a few hundred years which nominally controlled the entire continent except for morrowind, but the extent of its control on the Summerset Isles was getting tribute.
I also think that the imperial core of the Septim and Reman empires is likely not just cyrodiil, but likely extends to High Rock and Skyrim (empire of (tamrielic) man after all). It should also be noted that not the entirety of Cyrodiil, High Rock or Skyrim benefits from being "imperial core" to equal extents (c.f. beggars) or at all (e.g. goblins, reachfolk, orcs). In historical imperial cores, the benefits of imperialism trickle down, so to speak, to the imperial core's relative poor rather than being spread to the imperialised so i would assume this to be the case here
400 years of Septim, 400 years of Reman-everything-but-morrowind is a really long time, and clearly stuck ideologically in the between period being called "interregnum" with the warring states attempting to recreate that same system. Morrowind being the latest Septim-addition, and being subject to EEC exploitation is a bit more like a core-periphery relationship, but we don't actually know the extent to which Septims or Remans actually exerted control over other provinces "just tribute"--->"slave sugar plantations"
the clumsy thing about doing world-systems analysis to Tamriel is that the exploitative core irl had new frontiers for a capitalistic expansion, but Tamriel doesn't have new anything new for many centuries besides Akavir which they don't successfully exploit. so people itt are postulating some sort of medieval neoliberal turnabout where a core territory of the Empire (Skyrim) is a peripheral subject. much simpler to just think of it as medieval China or Holy Roman Empire
Pretty sure they abolished Slavery following the Red Year in Morrowind, as the Dres that were the biggest reserve of support for slavery were all eaten by the Argonians when they bulked up on Hiist sap so the Hlallu king had enough influence to end the practice without the possibility of a Dres-Redoran-Indoril uprising.
Also, Ulfrick is a huge dork and is not good enough at break-dancing to defeat the Thalmor in the one arena that truly matters. He's also presumably racist towards monkeys, and we're gonna need the Imga if we're going to pull this off. Even with Numidium Tiber Septim could only force a draw with the old Altmer. What chance do we have without a bunch of ballet-doing gorillas?
I really think our best chance is quickly putting down the Stormcloak revolt then using the death of Emperor Mede to steer a charismatic Bosmer leader on to the throne, then use mixed loyalties in Valendwood as a lever to break Elsweyr off from the Dominion. If the Empire can demonstrate that it's a credible challenger to the Dominion we can probably get the Hist on board purely through shared interest in maintaining the status quo of reality, then start constructing Battlespires in the northner parts of the Tamriel in preparation of eventually invading Summerset Isle from the one direction they're not expecting; space Oblivion!
If we can figure out where Vivec fucked off to and assemble a strategic mythic alliance of Paarthunax, Vivec, the Mane, the Dragon Born, the Nerevarine if they're still around, and whatever other quasi-divine pro-existing legends are wandering around I think we have a good chance of yelling "TAMRIEL EXISTS" loud enough to deafen the Aldmeri high wizards to all other possibilities.
Right? It has been amazing. I have been wanting to jump in with some love for the actual heros who are the anprim trans argonians but I wouldn't really have contributed anything of value.
The proto-fascist Stormcloaks are preferable to the extant fascism of the Thalmor and the mature imperial project of the Empire because it still has the potential to move in a less harmful direction
We're gonna push King Ulfric left, any day now he'll allow the Dunmer out of the ghettos of Windhelm and the Khaijit to trade inside the walls!
'ghettoes' lmao this is blatant imperial propaganda, they have like 1/3rd of the city, stone walls, doors, lights, everything. there are 3 streets in the city and they have an entire one of them, theres like the inn and the graveyard and the blacksmiths house and the castle as the entire rest of the city, there are literally more dark elf homes than nord buildings. all of the homeless are men, not elves. and this is during a civil war in their literal revolutionary military capital. any other political power would have treated the elves worse in the same situation. even other elves would probably not let dark elf refugees shelter in their military capitals during a war in which the dark elves loyalty was in question. Ulfric will personally recruit you no matter what race you are, he literally doesn't care as long as you fight the imperialist invaders. this 'stormcloaks are racist' narrative is the most baby-brained surface level read of the situation. literally 2 guys in the city are racist, one of them homeless and mentally unwell, not any of the leadership, and the person they are harassing literally turns out to be related to an imperial spy if you look into it.
The warcry "Skyrim belongs to the Nords!" Is in itself a racist warcry that erases native Snow Elves (and Falmer) existence, as well as the pagan Reachmen of the south west (who are A: native to the Reach and B: not Nords!)
Oh how generous of the Nords to allow them 1 whole alley in their city where they cannot tread otherwise, whereas in Solitude any Man or Mer may walk the streets unhindered! Indeed, that you hold parts of Skyrim to be more progressive than Windhelm is such that they retain some tradition and loyalty to the Empire! To suggest the Nords are not racist is to lay bare how the Empire, after losing to the Thalmor do not treat the Altmer in such contempt as the Nords do the Dunmer for no good reason at all save Nordic Supremacy!
'1 whole alley' its literally a third of the fucking city, they have more houses than the nords do! they can travel anywhere they want! they have thicker walls and bigger houses than the high street in whiterun! and every city in skyrim bars the khajiit traders, they are literally all fences. not all khajiit, just the ones that are travelling merchants. the fact that the empire just accept the altmer's fascist rule is not an argument in their favor, but the opposite - the altmer literally want to unmake reality. every single one of them believes in the necessity of this, it is their religion and the elder scrolls series is honestly written based on some weird racial/ethnic lines
the fact that the empire just accept the altmer's fascist rule is not an argument in their favor
They had two choices, accept a ceasefire with some concessions so that they can build strength for the next war (this is literally just a waiting game the Imperials will win--humans breed faster than elves) or die. The Stormcloaks are being ridiculous babies and the thing they're maddest about, the enforcement of the ban on Talos worship, is something they themselves brought about. It wasn't being enforced until they started protesting about it and brought undue attention to the matter. They're just fucking idiot fascists, they don't understand the situation they're in at all and everything they do makes everything worse.
but the opposite - the altmer literally want to unmake reality.
This is a fringe conspiracy theory even among lore nerds. No one in-universe believes this to be the case and even from our bird's eye view of the situation there is very little evidence of this. But even assuming you're right, the Stormcloaks are making their success in this endeavor significantly more likely.
Also I'd like to point out that saying "the altmer" want to do this is really cringe and racist. Altmer are a race, made up of individuals. They aren't a hivemind and don't have a shared set of beliefs lol It would be like saying "The asians" want to do xyz when you're talking about Vietnam or India or something.
literally, more dark elf housing with better construction than the nords have, in their own fucking city in the middle of a fucking civil war! What other nordic cities can say the same? which other nordic city accepted a third of their population to be foreign refugees? which other nords offered a third of their city to elf refugees? None of them!
The Empire left Hammerfell out to dry, and the Stormcloaks want to ally with them to keep fighting the nazi elves. Like all the factions are vile monarchist shits, but a national liberation movement that's explicitly fighting for solidarity with other nations in their struggle against omnicidal elven fascist imperialism seems like the lesser evil compared to an imperial machine that is itself ruled by compradors collaborating with the omnicidal elves.
It should very much be noted that the imperials, despite the facade of cosmopolitan diversity, do engage in a lotta the same colonialist policies both in of assimilation (they push the cult of the nine on basically everyone and demand they join the imperial economy), Cyrod-centrism and the like.
We should of course all be supporting the goblins and rieklings in their struggle against the genocidal elves, lizards, cats and hairless monkeys
Imperials are more bourgeois-ified than aristocrats afaik.
Late Septim empire was more 1500s/1600s but with magic than ancient roman (The ancient romans are the Remans).
This is most evident in Morrowind, but even in Oblivion there's stuff like printing presses, near daily papers, etc. This is also clear in Skyrim when one approaches locations associated with trade (e.g. Windhelm or Solitude) and meets bourgeois-aristocrats such as Vittoria Vicci owner of the East Empire Company.
Did you just describe Skyrim? (Seriously, I can't get behind the major conflict being between Nord ethnostatists and the get of fucking Septim.)
In my opinion, the Dragonborn - a supernaturally powerful reincarnation of a god who has been given a task to avert Ragnarok - should be above the civil war conflict. What does it matter which group of nobility Skyrim's peasants pay taxes to for the next couple of decades? We're tryinng to stop the end of the world - I always told both Tulius and Ulfric to their faces that they're idiots.
I remember being disappointed there was no "strap me to a missile and launch me at the Summerset Isles" option.
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Seriously, where was the option to stab the faction you helped in the back and take power for yourself? After you win the war for them you just go back to looting zombie burial sites like a loser.
The taxes don't matter, what does matter is putting forth a unified front next time the turbo-fascist Thalmor-controlled Aldmeri Dominion tries to invade. As the Thalmor themselves put it, it really doesn't much matter who wins the war, all that matters is that the war ends. Either side winning is bad for them.
They also should be above pickpocketing the literal clothes off of every back in Skyrim because it makes them giggle, but they aren't the Dragonborn Skyrim needs, they're the Dragonborn Skyrim deserves.
The major conflict is about killing Dragon Satan, the civil war is a side quest.
Nah I'm playing The Whispering Hillock in The Witcherino 3. Pls no spoilers
Critical support to the nationalist Nord regime in throwing off the imperialist yoke.
Death to Cyrodil!
Hmm, I dunno about this one, I think I'd take the mostly multi-ethnic Empire over the Nordic ethno-nationalist fascists who are set up to weaken the Empire by the other ethno-nationalist fascists, the Thalmor.
Critical support for the Empire?
Critical support for the Empire in their war to stop the Thalmor from dancing atop the tower and unmaking the Arena of Nirn.
We can do communism after we stop the mythopiec dream-engineers from ripping reality apart and throwing us all screaming in to the eye of Sithis.
The Empire is an extractive regime funnelling wealth into the imperial core of Cyrodil at the expense of the provinces. Not only that, but the provinces are extorted for the majority of the manpower of the imperial legions, with the officer core being made up of the Cyrodilian nobility.
The Empire knowingly permits slavery amongst it's subjects, and it's history is one of a succession of revolts.
The proto-fascist Stormcloaks are preferable to the extant fascism of the Thalmor and the mature imperial project of the Empire because it still has the potential to move in a less harmful direction, as the feudal regimes of the west and south of Skyrim do not share most of the exclusionary value of the northern holds.
Tamriel is not a capitalist country, the Empire is not characterized by a peculiar imperial extraction regime, just a continental system of legal suzerainty and tributaries ala the Ming or Tang. bethesda is very confused which vibes they wanted to evoke, so they're aesthetically romanesque, but the content of client kings and psuedo-feudalism is not Roman whatsoever. they're even on-paper against slavery, the most roman thing ever.
Tamriel is not a capitalist country, but imo it seems pretty clear the province of Cyrodiil is a province wherein the capitalist mode of circulation prevails and enjoys the patronage of a continent-spanning empire to extract various luxury/exotic goods from periphery areas for profit.
In Morrowind, this was ofc very, very clear (East Empire Company, monopoly on Ebony, paper contracts, co-opting local rulers, etcetc its all very British empire).
In Oblivion we see the imperial core which is suitably saccharine on its surface but horrifying just below (e.g. the murderous countess of Leyawiin, the feeding of prisoners to vampires in Skingrad, Bravil's general horribleness, beggars everywhere, etc.)
In Skyrim we see a part of the Imperial core (but not the core-core) 200 years after the Empire suffered its greatest crisis, defacto collapsed and 'returned' with a tiny portion of its territory (notably missing: the sugar plantations of Elweyr, the Ebony mines of Morrowind and Hammerfel; the tropical trees of Black Marsh i.e. the areas from which the majority of wealth would have likely been extracted).
Also I'd note that client-kings was very much characteristic of early Roman expansion (although definitely not so much the periods of higher imperial power). Pseudo-feudalism isn't really descriptive of what we see in any of the TES games imo; Oblivion uses titles such as 'count', but so did/does capitalist Britain.
You can extract resources without being capitalist. Unlike the historical Chinese dynasties, the imperial core territory is not self sufficient, they are entirely reliant on resources and manpower from the provinces to maintain control over their holdings.
yeah like the Romans. but Oblivion, Skyrim, and Daggerfall offer basically no evidence for that besides an aesthetic affinity between the Empire and Romans. Morrowind has more of that character and a nativist resistance streak, but the Empire can't even implement the ban on slavery there, so it's clearly tenuous.
after however many thousands of years of Lore there is for Tamriel, "core territory" surely expands. the "core" of the Huang He was good agricultural land in very remote times, but lacked mineral resources. once the agricultural produce of the valley state(s) grew enough to enforce influence over more expansive territory and bring those into the fold. after a really long time, huge swathes of land beyond the chief rivers of China are 'core' and we call them self-sufficient.
even if Cyrodiil itself is insufficient (which i kind of doubt on paper, cause they had to give them farms and mines, rivers and hills for gameplay variety) the whole continent is the integrated economic system we're talking about, and this is acknowledged even by the rebels in Skyrim with their "Talos made the empire" type shit. it's also supported with the games calling all the disparate 'countries' of Tamriel "provinces", the common language being spoken between the whole continent, and the long history of unification.
I'd argue this is intentional; the Septim Empire consciously mimics the Reman empire's aesthetics to bolster its legitimacy.
I wanna point out that Tamriel the continent has existed for thousands of years, but the Septim Empire of a United Tamriel lasted only around 400 years, and during a large part of that was consumed with internal conflicts, outright civil wars and failed Akaviri adventures.
Before the Septim empire, there was a thousand year interregnum of warlords under a nominal akaviri potentate. Before that, there was a Reman empire for a few hundred years which nominally controlled the entire continent except for morrowind, but the extent of its control on the Summerset Isles was getting tribute.
I also think that the imperial core of the Septim and Reman empires is likely not just cyrodiil, but likely extends to High Rock and Skyrim (empire of (tamrielic) man after all). It should also be noted that not the entirety of Cyrodiil, High Rock or Skyrim benefits from being "imperial core" to equal extents (c.f. beggars) or at all (e.g. goblins, reachfolk, orcs). In historical imperial cores, the benefits of imperialism trickle down, so to speak, to the imperial core's relative poor rather than being spread to the imperialised so i would assume this to be the case here
400 years of Septim, 400 years of Reman-everything-but-morrowind is a really long time, and clearly stuck ideologically in the between period being called "interregnum" with the warring states attempting to recreate that same system. Morrowind being the latest Septim-addition, and being subject to EEC exploitation is a bit more like a core-periphery relationship, but we don't actually know the extent to which Septims or Remans actually exerted control over other provinces "just tribute"--->"slave sugar plantations"
the clumsy thing about doing world-systems analysis to Tamriel is that the exploitative core irl had new frontiers for a capitalistic expansion, but Tamriel doesn't have new anything new for many centuries besides Akavir which they don't successfully exploit. so people itt are postulating some sort of medieval neoliberal turnabout where a core territory of the Empire (Skyrim) is a peripheral subject. much simpler to just think of it as medieval China or Holy Roman Empire
Pretty sure they abolished Slavery following the Red Year in Morrowind, as the Dres that were the biggest reserve of support for slavery were all eaten by the Argonians when they bulked up on Hiist sap so the Hlallu king had enough influence to end the practice without the possibility of a Dres-Redoran-Indoril uprising.
Also, Ulfrick is a huge dork and is not good enough at break-dancing to defeat the Thalmor in the one arena that truly matters. He's also presumably racist towards monkeys, and we're gonna need the Imga if we're going to pull this off. Even with Numidium Tiber Septim could only force a draw with the old Altmer. What chance do we have without a bunch of ballet-doing gorillas?
I really think our best chance is quickly putting down the Stormcloak revolt then using the death of Emperor Mede to steer a charismatic Bosmer leader on to the throne, then use mixed loyalties in Valendwood as a lever to break Elsweyr off from the Dominion. If the Empire can demonstrate that it's a credible challenger to the Dominion we can probably get the Hist on board purely through shared interest in maintaining the status quo of reality, then start constructing Battlespires in the northner parts of the Tamriel in preparation of eventually invading Summerset Isle from the one direction they're not expecting;
spaceOblivion!If we can figure out where Vivec fucked off to and assemble a strategic mythic alliance of Paarthunax, Vivec, the Mane, the Dragon Born, the Nerevarine if they're still around, and whatever other quasi-divine pro-existing legends are wandering around I think we have a good chance of yelling "TAMRIEL EXISTS" loud enough to deafen the Aldmeri high wizards to all other possibilities.
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Right? It has been amazing. I have been wanting to jump in with some love for the actual heros who are the anprim trans argonians but I wouldn't really have contributed anything of value.
I got lost on the way to picking up my adventurer's gear. I know that's all of an entire room. Lotta lore went over my head.
We're gonna push King Ulfric left, any day now he'll allow the Dunmer out of the ghettos of Windhelm and the Khaijit to trade inside the walls!
'ghettoes' lmao this is blatant imperial propaganda, they have like 1/3rd of the city, stone walls, doors, lights, everything. there are 3 streets in the city and they have an entire one of them, theres like the inn and the graveyard and the blacksmiths house and the castle as the entire rest of the city, there are literally more dark elf homes than nord buildings. all of the homeless are men, not elves. and this is during a civil war in their literal revolutionary military capital. any other political power would have treated the elves worse in the same situation. even other elves would probably not let dark elf refugees shelter in their military capitals during a war in which the dark elves loyalty was in question. Ulfric will personally recruit you no matter what race you are, he literally doesn't care as long as you fight the imperialist invaders. this 'stormcloaks are racist' narrative is the most baby-brained surface level read of the situation. literally 2 guys in the city are racist, one of them homeless and mentally unwell, not any of the leadership, and the person they are harassing literally turns out to be related to an imperial spy if you look into it.
The warcry "Skyrim belongs to the Nords!" Is in itself a racist warcry that erases native Snow Elves (and Falmer) existence, as well as the pagan Reachmen of the south west (who are A: native to the Reach and B: not Nords!)
literally no faction in skyrim is on the side of the reachmen so you might as well say every faction is fascist
Oh how generous of the Nords to allow them 1 whole alley in their city where they cannot tread otherwise, whereas in Solitude any Man or Mer may walk the streets unhindered! Indeed, that you hold parts of Skyrim to be more progressive than Windhelm is such that they retain some tradition and loyalty to the Empire! To suggest the Nords are not racist is to lay bare how the Empire, after losing to the Thalmor do not treat the Altmer in such contempt as the Nords do the Dunmer for no good reason at all save Nordic Supremacy!
'1 whole alley' its literally a third of the fucking city, they have more houses than the nords do! they can travel anywhere they want! they have thicker walls and bigger houses than the high street in whiterun! and every city in skyrim bars the khajiit traders, they are literally all fences. not all khajiit, just the ones that are travelling merchants. the fact that the empire just accept the altmer's fascist rule is not an argument in their favor, but the opposite - the altmer literally want to unmake reality. every single one of them believes in the necessity of this, it is their religion and the elder scrolls series is honestly written based on some weird racial/ethnic lines
They had two choices, accept a ceasefire with some concessions so that they can build strength for the next war (this is literally just a waiting game the Imperials will win--humans breed faster than elves) or die. The Stormcloaks are being ridiculous babies and the thing they're maddest about, the enforcement of the ban on Talos worship, is something they themselves brought about. It wasn't being enforced until they started protesting about it and brought undue attention to the matter. They're just fucking idiot fascists, they don't understand the situation they're in at all and everything they do makes everything worse.
This is a fringe conspiracy theory even among lore nerds. No one in-universe believes this to be the case and even from our bird's eye view of the situation there is very little evidence of this. But even assuming you're right, the Stormcloaks are making their success in this endeavor significantly more likely.
Also I'd like to point out that saying "the altmer" want to do this is really cringe and racist. Altmer are a race, made up of individuals. They aren't a hivemind and don't have a shared set of beliefs lol It would be like saying "The asians" want to do xyz when you're talking about Vietnam or India or something.
literally, more dark elf housing with better construction than the nords have, in their own fucking city in the middle of a fucking civil war! What other nordic cities can say the same? which other nordic city accepted a third of their population to be foreign refugees? which other nords offered a third of their city to elf refugees? None of them!
The Empire left Hammerfell out to dry, and the Stormcloaks want to ally with them to keep fighting the nazi elves. Like all the factions are vile monarchist shits, but a national liberation movement that's explicitly fighting for solidarity with other nations in their struggle against omnicidal elven fascist imperialism seems like the lesser evil compared to an imperial machine that is itself ruled by compradors collaborating with the omnicidal elves.
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It should very much be noted that the imperials, despite the facade of cosmopolitan diversity, do engage in a lotta the same colonialist policies both in of assimilation (they push the cult of the nine on basically everyone and demand they join the imperial economy), Cyrod-centrism and the like.
We should of course all be supporting the goblins and rieklings in their struggle against the genocidal elves, lizards, cats and hairless monkeys
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The Imperials are not nearly cool enough to be the Soviets, they're a decadent Monarchy with an all-powerful aristocratic class.
Imperials are more bourgeois-ified than aristocrats afaik.
Late Septim empire was more 1500s/1600s but with magic than ancient roman (The ancient romans are the Remans).
This is most evident in Morrowind, but even in Oblivion there's stuff like printing presses, near daily papers, etc. This is also clear in Skyrim when one approaches locations associated with trade (e.g. Windhelm or Solitude) and meets bourgeois-aristocrats such as Vittoria Vicci owner of the East Empire Company.
Riften has a capitalist more powerful than the Jarl, wealth beginning to supplant hereditary title would fit that time frame comparison.
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