Plus I know what its like being a Junior officer and having your Like 5 or 6 levels up Commanding General in the immidiate vicinity. She wanted everything to go extremey smoothly, no complications. And most certainly didnt want to seem weak or sympathetic to the enemy.

The Oblivion Intro influenced me against the Mythic Dawn. hmy:

:tongue:

Exactly. Even if she said, "Sorry, but an order's an order..." then that would have given her a bit more character than the simple "Meh, IDGAF, s/he's going to the block!" we have.

Hadvar is likely Bethesda's attempt at showing us that not everyone in the Legion is bad. I mean, here are some of the things that he does:

#1- Sympathizes with you just before execution.
#2- Helps a child get away from Alduin when he's making his attack.
#3- Becomes buddy-buddy with you when he's barely known you for an hour.

When you talk to him about that whole affair, he pretty much says, "You weren't supposed to be on the cart! It was the Stormcloaks we wanted. I hope you give us another chance" and is understanding when you say that you're angry and that you'll have to think about it.

He has such an endearing personality that I'm role-playing that my Breton female is developing a crush on him.

Exactly. Her cartoon 'evil' just seems way out of place.

Also I cught this on my 4th play through of the intro. When discussing with Hadvar about giving the Imperials another chance, you say something to the effect of '..but general Talios ordered my execution!"

No he didn't. The guard captain made that call, not general Talios. He didn't stop the execution, true, but he didn't order it.

I'd really love to see the original script or draft of the intro, seems like something big is missing from it.

I'd like to throw into this again...

You think the Captain was thinking for the betterment of the Empire by making sure no witnesses were left and then they could concoct a story saying the Ulfric and his small band of rebels were killed during a fight, and the people of Helgen would be compelled to follow the tale?

Eh, far-fetched I'm sure, seeing as most everyone knew somehow, across the entire province, that he had been captured, even though he had just been captured within two days or so before the introduction.

If I was the Captain, I would've walked over to General Tullius and asked him point blank: "Background checks on the prisoners or assume they are all together no matter the excuses they present?" To quash a rebellion for a military such as the Imperial Army(/Roman Army) would be to complete through Violence of Action.

couple things,
1) No Captain would ever bother a General with a question like that, let alone as him point blank. From personal experience, every general I know what reply with something to the effect of "WTF do you think captian? Do your @#^@!^ job and report up when its done."

2) I dont think they can really do 'backround checks' in Ancient Rome (read=Tamriel)

Nameless officer ruins it, a simple "I don't believe you, spy." would have been adequate, instead of her "[censored] it, do it." attitude.



Not a chance, if they wanted it to look like they killed him during a fight they would have killed him...during the fight, they certainly wouldn't have dragged him to town and set up a public execution. They wanted witnesses, they wanted people to know the leader of the rebellion is dead.

My character (I'm playing this game a lot slower then most it seems) is leaning towards backing the Imperials, but not out of any love for the Legion or the Empire in general.

I Role Play a Nord Crusader. Initially sworn to Mara, he has since taken an oath to the Daedric Prince Meridia and been granted Dawnbreaker in return. While his primary mission is to purge Skyrim of the forces of darkness and shed the light of Meridia across the land, he's also not forgotten the Old Ways of Honor and Courage. To this end, he joined the Companions and has risen to the rank of their Harbinger. This combination would seem to make him ideal Stormcloak material, but my Nord is also not blind to the world outside of Skyrim.

When Humanity first came to Tamriel, it was eradicated by Elves. It was thanks to the 500 that Humanity gained its foothold that lead to eventual domination of the continent. And now, centuries later, the Elves once again threaten Humanity with extinction.

The Thalmor had already succeeded in luring away the Bosmer and Khaijit. The Argonians and Dunmer are still reeling from their own lands tragedies, and frankly the Peace Treaty was deliberately designed to fracture the ties between the Human realms.

My Crusader has no love for the Empire and its venal, corrupt ways. Nor is he fond of the Legion, which in accordance with his own experience seems to be staffed with Officers who would rather behead first and ask questions never. But if he could do without the Empire, Skyrim cannot. Too many of the great heroes of old shed their blood so that humanity could call this land home, and my Crusader will be damned if he sees Humanity once again pushed into the sea by elvish aggression.

All of my elves went with the empire, despite the messed up intro.

I'd rather work with an organisation that, at it's core,is for all the people of the land.

An elf working for the Stormcloaks, would have to expect a knife in the back, after your 'usefulness' had expired.

When I have my characters join the Legion, these are what I come up with for them:

#1- It was all a misunderstanding. I was at the wrong place at the wrong time and for all they knew, I could've been a spy or a Stormcloak Sympathizer. They were just doing their job. I probably would've done the same thing they did if I were in their shoes.

#2- Hadvar was nice to me. Maybe if I join the Legion, I'll be able to spend more time with him?

#3- General Tullius is right: Ulfric plunged Skyrim into chaos and is indirectly responsible for my near decapitation. He needs to pay.

#4- As much as I dislike the Empire, a fractured Tamriel is what the Thalmor wants. Only united can we beat them!

#5- My glorious ancestor once fought for these people. It would be a great dishonor to him/her if I turned my back on him/her.

If you haven't found and read the Thalmor's dossier on Ulfric then you know less than half the story with that man. His followers may (mostly) have their hearts in the right places, but Ulfric is only in it for Ulfric, whatever his PR engine might have you believe. The entire civil war was set in motion by the Thalmor because it weakens the Empire more than any military action by them ever could. They were able to set those wheels in motion because Ulfric has a blind lust for power driven by a warped sense of morality and they were able to take advantage of that.

I play multiple characters (5 currently) to get the most out of the game, heavily roleplaying them (as in Svafnir Einherjar, my nord warrior would act like this...) - haven't gone too far into the main quest or the empire/stormcloak quests despite having 100 hours so far.

I'd agree that despite my limited experince in both the questlines, joining with the stormcloaks only is an option for nord characters unless you roleplay someone who hates himself. But yeah - roleplaying a xenophobic nord brute version of William Wallace is fun.
With any other character, I either stayed out of the conflict or joined sides the empire, despite its obvious flaws.

Being able to work for the Thalmor as an agent provocateur of sorts would be fun - but I doubt it's possible to get quests like that from e.g. the Thalmor embassy.

All in all, I think it's rather nice - both sides aren't perfect and have their reasons for doing what they do and both are heavily flawed, but I can't really imagine a non-nord character build that would join with the stormcloaks or sticking with them after listening to their racist slurs for a while.

I haven't done the civil war quests for either side yet. I thought I would definitely go with the Stormcloaks (in part because the Empire tried to chop of my head, and in part because the Stormcloaks are superficially righteous), but I went to Whiterun and met some woman (not a Nord) who talked about how she didn't wanted to be able to live in Skyrim too etc. and I realized that the issue was more complicated.

My current character is a Nord. I think if I were really playing him the way I'd like to I would go with the Empire, but I think I will go with the Stormcloaks just because if I don't do it on a Nord playthough, I don't think I'll ever do it. I'll do the Empire later.

Unfortunately I ran into a glitch that forced me to join the stormcloaks in order to proceed with the main quest. Still a little pissed about it...

okay all lets not forget that the great war happened after the empire was weakened by Dagon and his daedra army. my opinion the empire had a choice: 1) sign the white-gold concordant or whatever its called, giving up some freedoms and traditions for the certainty that more humans will live. or 2) keep fighting and risk humanity being wiped out and forcing T.E.S V with no imperials, nords, redguards or (probably) bretons.

face it, high elves are best at being mages.

I hated the imperials and high elves the most out of all the races even before Skyrim was released... now there is no hope of redemption for either of them. Go Stormcloaks!