Heh refer to the post directly above yours

The Stormcloaks are a lot like America's Tea Party. Simple, not too bright, and barking up the wrong tree. Looking for easy, brute force, symptom suppressing quick fixes that worked in ages past, with absolutely no concept or critical thought on the situation at hand.

Hitler called them useful idiots. Tell them wealth redistribution and improving how well we do things like essential social services and national security proportional to our technological means to afford more efficient methods is "unamerican" or "un-nordly" as the case may be, and they'll rally in war cries against their own better nature. If they ever had one.

To me, the Stormcloaks are a lot of bigoted, violent biker thugs, without purpose, without any grasp of what is right for PEOPLE, like stone age anarchists, they grunt and strike at anything that doesn't wear their overcompensating war stripes with their thunder sticks.

I can understand it in Skyrim. This takes place what, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_Empire?

Tougher to forgive modern post-space age technological utopian humans arguing against a standard for a minimal quality of living and security infrastructure going into 2012. But maybe they really are dumb enough to believe trading beaver pelts will save them from biotechnology.

I just challenge you to show me, you Stormcloak Tea Party racist pack mules, when in history "every man for himself" EVER turned out well. DIVIDED WE FALL!

So what, the fight between the Thalmor and the Empire just got too confusing for you’re your little nord brains, so your brilliant solution is to do away with ALL necessary government? It’s a wonder they made it this far at all. Only reason I can figure, they've never been actually tested by much more than grizzly bears.

http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Lore:The_Bear_of_Markarth

on crimes of ulfric


http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Lore:History

on total history.

Yes, I've read those books. Again, Hammerfell is in no way the same situation that Skyrim is in. There's no guarantee they'd be allies after a civil war. And I'm talking about long run here, too. The Emporer would be dead before the Empire, or the Stormcloaks could ever get rid of the Thalmor, weakened or not. But the Thalmor are gaining more strength while the Stormcloaks and the Empire aren't. I'm not talking about tomorrow they destroy the Empire and then with their victory take it immediately to the Thalmor, that would be stupid, it can't happen. It's going to take years either way, and the Thalmor aren't having any setbacks, they will be ahead in resource and positioning before The Empire and the Stormcloaks are done fighting over who owns the snow. They could very well have defeated the Thalmor, but they didn't, and instead of joining back together to do it, they're deciding to fragment into warring states.

Well, if you join the stormcloak side and wipe out the empire, doesnt that get rid of the thalmor randomly wandering the wilderness? If so then you miss out on the fun of wiping them out when you occassionaly run into them, however if you join the empire then you can do the civil war storyline and after get to keep running into them, so in the end you will kill more thalmor on the empire side. Unless I am mistaken.

I can understand the views of the Stormcloaks and the Imperials. I usually go with the Empire though, because I just don't think Skyrim could defeat the Aldmeri Dominion on her own. I have no doubt that Talos would be re-instated as a Divine if the next war against the Elves could be won.

I have very little faith in the Empire's abilities...they suffered a humiliating defeat to the Thalmor in The Great War, Titus Mede II allowed the unity of the proivinces to crumble, allowed themselves to be completely outsmarted and forced to sign the WGC and they also betrayed Hammerfell. The Empire is incompetent in my book.

Not to mention had Mede made better decision and held the alliance together, attacking the Thalmor in full...The Empire would have had a better chance at defeating the Thalmor. Hell, the Redguards in Hammerfell were able to fend them off....All that needed to be done was a joint attack from Hammer and Cyrodiil.

I honestly think most of it is Titus Mede being incompetent. From what I gather doing their quests, it seems like the Legion is having to take up all the slack for him. I still support the empire, but I have no illusions about it. Both sides have negatives and positives. One of the best things about this debate is there's no black and white decision here.

That would be why we need the Dragonborn. The Stormcloaks are incompetent and dumb, and the empire is just incompetent. Tamriel needs real leaders, not warmongers and barbarians with their heads in the dirt chanting some archaic battle cry. When brains and brawn come together, real progress can be made.

At present, the Empire is like a dragon without a head. Still beats a bear without eyes!

To be Honest, the only races that should be in power in Tamriel are the Imperials, Bretons, and possibly elves. All of the other races are just plain ignorant. Argonians and Khajiit are just wild animals that should be enslaved, or become victims of a mass extermination. Nords and Orcs are blood thirsty barbarians. Redgaurds are all just thieves or bandits that should suffer the same fate as the Argonians and Khajiit.

I really like the way you worded that. I'm going to keep that in mind.

Exactly. If Tiber Septim were to come down from the heavens and become emperor again, /thread

Indeed...Neither side has clean hands...It's more about choosing the lesser of two evils. But not only was Mede imcompetent, but so was a number of his generals...And I still can't get over the cowardice Of Titus Mede II fleeing The Imperial City in it's time of need, allowing so many of his faithful soldiers and his people to be slaughtered by the Thalmor armies. Finally, returning a full year later after the damage had already been done.

If only, haha. We may all be content then.

So some critiques on the people defending the empire, you make a lot of assumptions in two directions.

1) That Skyrim couldn't defend itself, with speculation that the Thalmor are stronger than they were when they were fighting with Hammerfell. - Pure speculation.
2) That the Aldmeri Dominion would outright attack Skyrim if it became an independent nation. - Pure speculation, WGC applies to the empire and no one else.
3) That an alliance between Hammerfell, Skyrim, and Cyrodiil would not happen. - Pure speculation.
4) That an alliance between Hammerfell and the Empire would be stronger than an alliance between Hammerfell, Skyrim, and Cyrodiil. Baseless.

Just pointing this out. People are using these non-lore backed assumptions as a means to justify the hunting of talos worshipers and thalmor boot licking.

Discuss.

I beg to differ...The Empire is in no position to lead and in no position to overthrow the Thalmor. It's been 26 years since the WGC was signed and I still see no real progress from the Empire in terms of taking the Thalmor out.

1) I never said they couldn't defend themselves, but you'd be absurd not to see how weak Skyrim would be after a civil war. The Thalmor are not having a constant battle in their own backyard, they are gaining resources from the Empire the longer they sit on it. That's not exactly speculation. If they weren't gaining resources they wouldn't be there, they'd have no sustenance. That they actually write in their own documents that Ulfric is an asset because of the civil war, speaks volumes about the situation.
2) It would outright attack it just as much as it outright attacked in the first place. The war was brought to Tamriel, with the intent to occupy it. They were fought to a standstill, yet remain their presence and keep documents on progress. They are biding their time, and they say so themselves. A fragmented and weakened Skyrim is an open door.
3) I didn't say it couldn't happen, I just said there's no way to know. It would be speculation to say they would or they wouldn't. And having Hammerfell or not having Hammerfell is a fairly large risk because of the amount of help they would offer. You wouldn't want to base your entire campaign on the hopes that Hammerfell will join you, and then find out for some reason they won't. They very well could, and have no reason not to, as it stands, but that guess is not something a general would base his troops lives on. Assume you'll be doing it alone, if you get allies, great, if not, then you've already planned for that anyway.
4) What I'm saying is that an Alliance between Hammerfell, Skyrim and the Empire would be stronger, than Skyrim, or Skyrim and Hammerfell, and it would be. More troops, more resources, and more battle experience from the start. There's no way you can argue that if Ulfric used his energy and steered the Stormcloaks in an alliance with Hammerfell and the Empire, they wouldn't be much stronger than a solo Skyrim, or a Hammerfell with Stormcloaks. Stormcloaks do not equal the entirety of Skyrim, there are a lot of entire holds there that are Empire loyal. So you wouldn't have Skyrim and Hammerfell, you'd have Hammerfell and some of Skyrim. What you actually need is all of them.

And for some of this there is no lore base as it hasn't happened yet. None of us know what will actually happen with the Thalmor in the end, so it will all be guesswork anyway.

Well, public execution I agree isn't exactly the most effective means to unify an empire. Problem is that in it's weakened state, the Empire cannot suffer infighting. In an ideal scenario the Stormcloaks would be bright enough to recognize the real enemy, and join forces with a strengthened Empire to rebuild Tamriel.

No one really cared about the ban on Talos worship until Ulfric came along. Once the real threat has been dealt with, that being the Dominion, there is plenty of room for debate and likely a return to the laissez faire attitude regarding the divines.

Religion is a non-issue in all this. The Thalmor said it themselves. Just an emotionally charged political hot potato they can leverage to manipulate these polarized “useful idiots” to achieve exactly what we see. An empire divided, fighting among themselves. And over what? Pride? Or principles?

What would be the more likely course to succeed at safeguarding the later? Together we stand? Or divided…

...wow. I'm always so confused about who I'd go for. The Empire seems like the logical choice, but the empire has crumbled. Mede didn't step in to save any of the provinces that seceded yet, so why now? Is it just because without the nords, the Great war would have gone a lot differently. How long could Skyrim last if they gave into the empire, and hoped that 'one day, it'll be back to normal...' How long could a free Skyrim last in the hands of a fanatic? This is a good point here... so tough to decide.

And in re: to the speech posted a while back...


So the way I see it, if the Stormcloaks win, the Empire will be taken over by the Thalmor, who then may be able to move into Skyrim. If the Empire wins, they still need to fight off their Thalmor overlords, since the Thalmor are in control whether they like it or not, and the same war will restart.

And how do you suggest the Empire form an alliance with Hammerfell?? The Empire has already burned that bridge when Mede II signed the WGC, betrayed Hammerfell and handed them over to the Thalmor in 4E 175. Mede's poor leadership and tactical decisions will continue to haunt the Empire for years to come.

The Thalmor wouldn't want an indefinite war, they just want it to go on long enough for Skyrim and the Empire to be so weak as to not put up as big of a fight as they did the first time around.

True enough, but Hammerfell isn't turned to fighting the Empire, they're still in business giving the Thalmor hell, so if Skyrim could reunite with the empire, it'd be much stronger of an alliance. If Hammerfell and Stormcloaks united, it'd mostly be Hammerfell, because then you'd lose all resources from Cyrodiil, and half of those of Skyrim.

You opened my eyes... I was blinded by this propaganda of a Bad Empire..
And indeed, everything you said is right.


Althought, even if Ulfric is a jerk, a racist and only wants power, he really does love Skyrim thought...

EDIT: But the only thing i can't stand is that the Empire let the Thalmor stop the worshiping of Talos..

Maybe not black and white, but black and gray. I love to hate Ulfric because he's such a brilliantly written evil mastermind who channeled many historic figures in his dialogue/speeches. To see the full extent of his manipulation is fascinating. I'm not even sure if he himself is a bigot, or just using racist policy as a political tool on his rise to High King of Skyrim. In any case, the man is an absolute monster, albeit one who makes for an interesting character. I greatly prefer the depth provided by bad guys like him to the clownish evil of the Dark Brotherhood.

As I stated in my most recent comment. The Empire already chose division 26 years ago when they stabbed Hammerfell in the back...Their loyalty is just s fickle as the Stormcloak's. I have yet to see anything that would suggest the Empire has any means of reforging an alliance with Hammerfell or many of the other provinces.