If I force Discourse to use HTTPS without checking every resource, what happens?

You’re pretty much on.

The behaviour depends on the browser in question, but in general I think you’re safe assuming:

  • images will load (with a warning)
  • other resources such as .js or .css will refuse to load

If you want to be extra careful before forcing SSL, visiting Chrome’s net-internals page: chrome://net-internals/#hsts and adding your domain to the STS set will let your “preview” how your browser will behave with “Force SSL” enabled:

(presumably you can do this in other browsers, I just know off hand how to do it for Chrome)