And the Dominion may have been able to move fast enough to capture the city with few enough losses to continue their advance or fortify the city enough to hold it. It seems like Titus's escape was lucky, wouldn't work everytime or every king who's ever had their city taken would've done it.
We don't know how fast they may have been able to move, even still they weren't expecting Titus to abandon the city, it was more than luck. Many rulers do have means to escape, the Septim's had the sewers. Not every King would abandon their city.
I'm pointing out the Stormcloaks are on level with the empire on experience, if not more considering their militaristic culture.
Except they're not on level, they're fighting the weakest the Empire has to offer. Empire has highly trained Legions, Battlemages, Rangers, Spies, Assassins, Naval warships etc.
It doesn't matter if they're a Militaristic culture (Though they're more of a warrior society, since it isn't so much tactics but the strength and honor of the individual) half of Cyrodiil is a Militaristic Culture. The Colovians are the more Nordic Imperials, and majority of their nobility are Military Officers.
And they had to discover the guy worshipped Talos when the Thalmor (living in the same building as him) hadnt.
Did it ever occur they might have likely learned that during the Markarth Incident? When Talos worship was restored and Igmund's uncle was present.
They know the war was what the Thalmor wanted, they also know an independant Skyrim is something they don't want.
They don't know. They believe they're fighting for their own reasons, and being independent is to show the elves they won't be slaves. They have absolutely no idea what the Thalmor want or don't want.
Well, like Fasendil and I have said, if it wasn't Ulfric it'd be someone else.
So you both assume, for all we know that "someone else" might have been diplomatic.
I think YOU said it in one of our discussions a while back, when you were saying about how an independent Skyrim would fall apart from the inside. Forgive me if I'm wrong (I don't really feel like sifting through pages of civil war debate) but I think you said something along the lines of "there's a reason Skyrim's always had a puppet King."
Well if I did say that, I was mistaken. The Empire does not decide who becomes the High King, though Ulfric is against how the Moot is currently established. Which hasn't changed since the First War of Succession, so maybe he seeks to go real "Old Days".
Remove Ulfric from the picture, good chance he won't actually live, neither would Tullius. Without Ulfric, do you believe the Stormcloak Jarls are suited to rule this new independent country?
Clans are pretty much non-existent now, or they're all rich and haven't lifted a sword in generations.
Clans are still there, every city has the major clans. They're rich, which means they can hire others or rally septs of their clans.
Why you believe Skyrim's few divisions indicate they would crash and burn when:
-Forebears and Crowns for centuries in Hammerfell
Which left Hammerfell greatly weakened, and open to invasion several times. That division allowed the Dominion to dispatch their disunited forces without much effort and control huge parts of their province for nearly a decade and during the Imperial Simulacrum allowed the Nords to take many miles of their land, including cities.
-Dozens of bickering City States in High Rock
Lost the major city of Wayrest the so called 'Jewel of the Bay' to corsairs. Politically unreliable to do much outside of their province.
-Elsweyr's dissolution and brief independence of a few city-states
Caused many issues, think the TES novels briefly mentioned them... and allowed the Thalmor to take hold.
-Morrowind's great houses constantly at odds with one another
Which caused a plopsload of issues throughout their history.
-Cyrodiil's counties warring and maintaining independence from one another for years on and off and division of Nibenay and the Colovian Estates
Which is when an Empire has fallen, which leads to dark times for many in Tamriel. Didn't Tamriel nearly get pulled into Coldharbour during one of these periods? That isn't a good defense.
It's not like Skyrim would expect Hammerfell to look after them or anything, it'd be a military alliance, that would force High Rock on board with them. Skyrim is CURRENTLY guarded by militia, you cannot ignore that Ulfric would be building an army of warriors who know a thing or two about war. They are unable to aid the Stormcloaks because 1. They are still rebuilding from their war with the Dominion, and 2. They don't share a border with any of the Stormcloak controlled holds so communication and transportation would be basically impossible.
What does Hammerfell get out of this alliance? The Stormcloaks don't have a trained army, and won't anytime soon. Skyrim has just been ravaged by Civil War and Dragons, the war hasn't completely ended. Another Legion force is getting ready to march into Skyrim/Ulfric could become a martyr for remaining rebels.
For your two points. 1. We don't know what they're doing, even if they're rebuilding it doesn't stop Military action and they wouldn't need huge numbers of soldiers, the Legion is quite weak in Skyrim.
2. a) High Rock doesn't share a border either, yet they're hoping to hear anything from the Bretons. (Though it didn't sound like Ulfric actually reached out, but was more hoping they would hear of his rebellion and help them)
b) It is called ships, Windhelm and Dawnstar are ports. If an Altmer woman can get passage to Ulfric's city from Summerset Isle, a couple of ships from Hammerfell can't drop soldiers? If I remember right there actually is a ship from Hammerfell docked in Windhelm, so it isn't impossible. Hammerfell bordering Imperial controlled Holds would be a benefit, it is called flanking.
That's not a Redguard account, and even so, in my hypothetical stituation they'd be allying with half that Empire anyway.
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
Your hypothetical situation is great, except it overlooks the small detail of... Nearly the entire Imperial Army from that half is in Cyrodiil. So my hypothetical situation, they would give the finger to High Rock and Skyrim and side with the province who has the forces they wanted to join with.
Now my points:
1) We have a trained army in position already.
2) We weren't just ravaged by Dragons and various civil war battles.
3) We can reach the Aldmeri Dominion, and we have a navy that doesn't have to be built last minute. That helps when your foe's capital is an island.
The Dominion seems to have a lot of power over the Empire, what with Elenwen inviting herself to High Hrothgar as an example off the top of my head.
Yet Tullius can tell her to piss off in Helgan, most like. Elenwen was simply there so the Empire doesn't grant them free Talos worship again. Unofficially, she was probably there to try disrupt both sides so they don't agree to peace. She does take jabs at the Stormcloaks and Empire.
I wouldn't say they have a lot of power over the Empire, if they did, Imperial victory wouldn't undermine their entire position.
I don't think the Empire would invade the Dominion over not being allowed to grant independence to a province.
Wars have been fought for less. We conquered Tamriel just about twice for no real reason. Hell, we sailed all the way to Akavir and tried to invade that for absolutely no reason.
But seriously, I wasn't talking about invading. The Thalmor can't tell the Empire not to release Skyrim, because they'd do it just out of spite then.
Eastmarch leaves Narulzabur alone, sure they don't like it being there but they let them be.
Last time I checked, Eastmarch was fighting a rebellion. If they apparently don't have enough men to investigate a murder, they're not about to attack an Orc stronghold at that moment in time. Besides, the Stormcloaks would all die in such an attempt. Though that wouldn't be too bad, go for it son, show those green mean fighting machines Nord steel.
Also I believe we were talking about the Nords unfairness towards orcs, while you just said it was orcs who are "pests" to the Nords.
...What? Are you telling me a book written by a
Nord who calls them
pests for not simply dying and being driven out of Skyrim, because the Nords don't like Orc Strongholds in their realm. Has nothing to do with Nord unfairness to Orcs? Really?
There's a reason Orsinium keeps getting destroyed.
Keeps getting? What twice? Windhelm has been sacked twice, three times if the Imperials win the Civil War.