I am generally annoyed that you can't choose neither (triple negative???? errrr). I think they are both a bunch of idiots for the respective reasons mentioned in this thread. IMHO, of course.

This.

I agree, they are in power. Directly or not.
They freely walk around empire held land doing as they please, with no one to stop them.



He did not murder the High king, he challenged him in the old ways of the nords.
Supported by the guy who gets his head lopped off in town and what you learn from others.
He killed him by the sword, not with a shout.


They may not directly control them, but they have the power to do as they please.



It was not murder, he challenged him to a duel, in nord tradition.



The dummner where that way in Morrowind, the Nords just want Skyrim to be free of outside influence.
The dark elfs had it coming for the way they acted in the past. The lizards hardly ever do anything worth talking about, and there are only a handful in Skyrim.
The khajiit are too high on moon sugar and skooma to care, all the while in the bed with the elfs.
The Redguards and Nords seem to get along well enough, and they are holding their own against the elves.
The elves are on the other side, and the Orcs apparently don't care.

My 1st char was a Nord, so naturally I went right to Ulfric... however, some of the things he says... wow

At some points during the stormcloak line, Ulfric also appears hesitant to rip apart the country... and then Galmar opens his mouth too and says just the right things to keep him going like a madman

Regardless, having played through both lines.... I'll now settle for not joining either side and provoking all the Thamar I can, to their deaths
I sleep easy now with this MO as my solution of choice to the problems in Skyrim.

What the imperials choose to ignore is the Legion has given the Thalmor free reign to kidnap and murder anyone they choose to think worships Talos. The legion and the empire's great failure of the Mede's is why the Thalmor are in Skyrim in the first place.

The empire is weak. It's losing/lost influence in both Blackmarsh and Elswyer. It's obviously losing influence in Skyrim, the ancestral home of the empire. From what I learned from some of my Akavir friends they're lands aren't terribly big on the empire either.

The empire is dying andcannot be relied upon.

Oh, and Ulfric didn't murder the high king. The challenge of authority in one on one combat is a legal right of the Nord's. The Imperials arrested Ulfric for beating their puppet, not for violation of Any Skyrimium law.

Though ive got an Imperial who may lean towards the Legion, and if not her since she may choose to stay out of it... I'll go with my Khajit for sure.

The intro was good on this. I was mad at BOTH parties in the begining and when I made my choice I went with the lesser of two evils... I chose the Imperials .. yes I was mad at them for trying to chop my head off but I felt the stormcloaks did me a greater injustice of knowing I was innocent and keeping their mouths closed.

Yes, a few books in game state that the infighting is good for the Thalmor.



I don't really think they are as bad as you think.


Pissing the nords off didn't help much did it? Nor did giving the redguards the boot.



The empire did nothing and got demolished by the backup Thalmor army, the army that was only meant as a distraction.
Then after they booted Hammerfell, they continued to fight with no outside help for what 5 years? and did a good job of it too.

They did do it alone, for 3 or 5 years (I forgot), the reason the armo changed targets is because the empire was such a push over, so they swapped from a area they where having a rough go at it, to one where they won.
Then after the empire booted Hammerfell out, the went back and fought them some more, with no luck again. For years.

That is part of the treaty unfortunately. But it was either that or have the bulk of the Dominion's forces pillaging the countryside for the last 30 years.

You should read that book more carefully,

The Hammerfall legions having attained a partial victory and about to go on the offensive were ordered to march to Cyrodiil to protect the imperial heartland. In other words, redguards were being sacrificed to save imperials.

Quoted for truth.
The funny part is, the widow had to be present, along with the court for the challenge, and they STILL LIE about what really went down.
Ulfirc says it, and the gate guard confirmed it. The challenge was issued, and the High king lost. The court of the High king was so confident in his ability that flat out state "that if they had know what Ulfirc wanted they would have barred the gates and prevented him from entering the city", why have a high king who is such a coward?


yeah, because the imperials would take the word of the people they are fighting. :shakehead:

I didn't notice anything like that. I'll have to read it again when I get some time.

But if they were aided by the Imperials to expel the Dominion from Hammerfell, doesn't it make sense that they assist Cyrodiil in their greatest time of need? The bulk of the Dominion were concentrated on Cyrodiil. And I think I remember the book stating that the Imperial invalids remained in Hammerfell. Again, I'll have to read it again to refresh my memory.

Read the books. The Empire were forced to sign a treaty with the Aldmeri Dominion. They were too weakened to continue fighting. It seems painfully obvious to me, currently playing as a Dunmer who sided with the Imperials and has just reclaimed the Jagged Crown, that the Thalmor are the real enemy. Nobody expects the White-concordat, or whatever it's called, to hold for long. Once the Empire has regained its strength, I believe they will fight back. And, with Skyrim being such an essential part of taking back Imperial City, it needs to be in the Empire.

I entered the game prepared to sign-on with Ulfric.

This is how I look at it now after playing the game through once. Ulfric likes to make speeches to move his people, and does a pretty good job about it. He wants to have Skyrim to be free and independent and a lot of his cause for war is based off of the religious views and how the Empire banned Talos. They're mad at the Empire for submitting to the Thalmor when the Empire couldn't do much in the first place since the Empire is practically fragmented anyway. Ulfric makes speeches about all of that, but to me he hides his true motive that he just wants to have power and is willing to kill anyone that gets in his way.

The Empire while serving the Thalmor seems to serve them begrudgingly. They know that they need to keep the Empire held together if they are to survive the Thalmor occupations, and that the Thalmor want nothing more than to have the nations of the Empire fight amongst themselves and weaken them for the when the Thalmor decide to attack again. The Thalmor are pretty cunning in their strategy and they knew that the removal of Talos would cause a major rift amongst the people of the Empire and would cause infighting. This is all part of their plan to rid Nirn of Man and reestablish the Elven dominance again.

In game books explain that he learned what was going on and was sorry for it, then he seen how much the empire and the High king are just puppets.
He has no ties to them anymore from my understanding.



Along with the nords, who fought and died only to have the current state of affairs forced on them.

Whats amusing is that if you pick your race as Imperial (hows that a race btw??)...they are trying to kill one of their own!

I find the introduction indeed very biased.

1. Helvar is more honourable and helpful/humanity centred person than Ralof.
2. The loot you get from following Helvar is lesser than if you followed Ralof.
3. Ulfric is the worst NPC I met when it came to morality and such.

no they weren't.

@ zenn3k, imperials (cyro-nords) are a race, what don't you understand?

Could you people eloborate and expand on its sources? I am a Khajiit as well and favouring the Imperials as it is.

Wait really? Wow I never realized you could go with the other guy, I guess I was too busy watching Alduin pick that one guy off the ramparts and fling him like a ragdoll.

Then why not let them bee instead of bleading out money, troops and supplys. Just boot them out like they did Hammerfell?
Problem solved.
You now have three standing army's, who could be allied, fighting on one or up to three separate fronts, each would still be in a better position as ally's.


Booting Skyrim like Hammerfell would have been a better option then infighting.

indeed, the thalmor lied to the khajiit people about the moons and stuff i read so there's no reason for (smart) khajiits to side with the thalmor.

The imperials might start off on a bad footing, but if you keep your eyes and ears open you start to see the stormcloaks have a lot of features one can disagree with too - It's a complex political situation and can't be summed up with "head -> neck", not withstanding twists and turns in the plot.


Stormcloaks:

For: The Nords want to rule themselves, shouldn't a sovereign nation be allowed to manage it's own affairs if that is what it's people want? - freedom and liberty and all that crap?

Bad: The stormcloaks are xenophobic, actively persecuting non-nords and this will reflect badly on stormcloak-skyrim foreign policy and once they get back their own way there's a real danger they may split up into independant states with their own jarl as leader in direct conflict with other jarls, if not at swordpoint.



Imperials:

For: Imperial ruled skyrim will be open to all races. Maybe not equal rights (the imperials have a history of marginalising the non human races), but you won't see khajiit caravans being kept out in the cold or dunmer forced to live in the excrement of their nord overlords. It'll also strengthen the empire, which generally isn't a bad thing... if you're a human

Bad: Skyrim will become another puppet state for the aldmeri dominion in the meantime. That may have unpleasant ramifications for man in the long run...

Everyone in the game says that Ulfric is a power hungry mad man but in his dialog he doesn't come off like that to me. Maybe I'm missing something.

According to the lore, the Khajiit fell in with the elves because they made the "moons appear again" or some such.


You can go with either one.

http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:The_Great_War



I doubt those khajiit traders are really as innocent as they claim.