Yes this is true. The king would have lost either way. But still he should not have done it.

Also, Where can I Learn the shout that Ulfric used to explode the King? (Not a real question by the way, I just wish My character shout shout people into a bloody mist)

He didn't actualy shout the High King apart. That's just what rumor inflated it to be. Have a chat with Ulfric to ask him what he actually used.

(Hint: The shout has evolved into a meme.)

The Stormcloak campaign is WAY more fun in my opinion. I saw the ending battle on the Imperial's side and it was SO HORRIBLE. Tullius can't make a final battle speech to save his life, and his reaction to Ulfric's death [before and after] was just so stupid. Join the fight for freedom, have fun, and send those Imperial dogs running!

I respect your decision, my comrade.

Meh, ya see. I just blew through the civil war quests skipping the speech and stuff. So...TTFN

I don't call saving the lives of thousands of innocent villagers and other civilians cowardism. Throughout the Great War, the Dominion had been pillaging and looting throughout the countryside, destroying the townships of many if the southern counties. People fleeing for their lives, families torn apart by war, all of it. The Legions fought hard against a superior force on multiple fronts, but they can't protect all places at once. Refugees from fallen counties roaming the countryside, and if found by the Dominion first they would all die.

Mede won Red Ring and accepted the terms to end the bloodshed, so innocent civilians fleeing their homes would be spared by the elves. The provisions weren't good, they were terrible, but it was necessary for a truce.

Talos worship was not restricted by the Empire after the war, Alvor says as much. Most human families kept personal shrines to him in their homes. The persecution only started after Ulfric put Markarth the the sword, then declared his own reward to be overt worship of Talos (this is hinted at in the documents to have been a suggestion of the Thalmor). That's when the Justicars started coming.

Edit: Here's the quote from the dossier, notice the part about how it was only after this event that Ulfric becomes uncooperative. This indicates that he feels guilty for his deeds in furthering the Thalmor's intrigue:

"The so-called Markarth Incident was particularly valuable form the point of view of our strategic goals in Skyrim, although it resulted in Ulfric becoming generally uncooperative to direct contact."

Then, the Stormcloak Rebellion begins. Ulfric uses the religious persecution he exacerbated to gather others to his cause. He says Skyrim should split with the Empire for this and the fact that Nord soldiers like him fought and died for the Empire in the Great War but the Concordat was still accepted.

For all their talk of honor, the Stormcloaks abandon the Empire, their allies and comrades since it's founding, when they need them most. They fault them for not sacrificing each person to the Dominion, for not having every man, women and child in Cyrodiil die so that they could keep their hubris. If Skyrim were situated below Cyrodiil and had it been the main target of the Dominion, do you think it would be right for Cyrodiil to complain of their losses and split the Empire?

Yes, some of the provinces lost fighting men and women in the Legion during the Great War. But it was Cyrodiil and it's people (not just military but innocent civilians!) that were nearly destroyed.

She might not be the most un-biased source of information.

Fixed, and QFT.

Nope. It's in the dossier I believe.

Edit: Here it is. "The incident at Helgen is an example where an exception had to be made - obviously Ulfric's death would have dramatically increased the change of an Imperial victory and thus harmed our overall position in Skyrim. (NOTE: The coincidental intervention of the dragon at Helgen is still under scrutiny. The obvious conclusion is that whoever is behind the dragons also has an interest in the continuation of the war, but we should not assume therefore that their goals align with our own.)"

They said they couldn't allow Ulfric to die yet, he was too important to their cause. Remember, at all costs, they don't want a quick end to the war. They came to Helgen to have Ulfric released, Tullias said no and tried to speed up the execution before the Thalmor go over his head with the matter. Unfortunately, Alduin wanted the war to be continued as well, so he saved Ulfric's life.

If you talk to anyone in Elisif's court, they will make her look like a poor widow whose husband was brutally murdered at the hands of the cruel and vile and bloodthirsty Ulfric Stormcloak, and it is only by the benevolent graces of the Empire that Skyrim still exists.

If you talk to anyone in Ulfric's court, it was a completely, 100% fair duel, and Ulfric did the absolute right and moral thing by standing up for Skyrim and refusing to bow to an empire that sends Nord soldiers to die, and in return making their way of life criminal.

The truth, of course, is somewhere in the middle.

Having played both times, I prefer the Stormcloak questline. You learn so much more about Ulfric, both good and bad, and it's more fun and satisfying as a questline. The Empire questline left me bored. Woohoo, everyone's reunited, now what? There is nothing interesting to go from there. A Stormcloak victory opens so many interesting possibilities for the future of Skyrim, the Empire, and the Thalmor. In my opinion, for a good storyline to continue, Ulfric Stormcloak must live - regardless of whether he is a demon or a saint. No matter what questline you choose, at some point you will feel bad about your choice. But stick it out, and in my opinion the Stormcloak line is far more rewarding from a story standpoint (though the actual rewards for both sides are lacking).

Just remember that every NPC you talk to in the game is biased. Each character is written based on his or her own personal experiences with either side, and some NPCs have motives to convince you to lean towards one side or the other. It's what makes the game so interesting. You have to look at all the evidence to come to your own conclusion. And in my opinion, trying to figure out the character of Ulfric Stormcloak is the most interesting aspect of the game for me, one that is almost entirely absent if you side with the Empire.

Then dropped Hammerfell ike a active grenade when it didn't surrender half of Hammerfell. To protect Cyrodiil of the Cyrodiil Empire.



Cyrodiil! In Cyrodiil! [censored] Hammerfell.



This isn't freedom. You deserve the right to open freely. I'm sure oppressed people would be happy if you told them they wouldn't be persecuted if they just pretended to be a member of a different religion.




Oh yes, the Great War shows that Cyrodiil only cares about Cyrodiil. Because [censored] Hammerfell, it's not Cyrodiil.

Better informed force is not a larger force. The thalmor used tactics, subterfuge, and gathered intel. Whereas the Empire just went in blindly. It wasn't mede that saved the empire, it was Decianus completely unintentionally. Because of the "invalids" he left at hammerfell, the force at IC thought they'd only be facing 2 legions. Intel and tactics are extremely important in war.

By the time of Red Ring, the men in those counties you said were fleeing were already dead. The thalmor had swept through that area long before the concordat, and the thalmor don't take civilian prisoners.

And saying Ulfric demanded talos worship in markarth is a bit of a stretch. The jarl of Markarth said if he retook the city for him, he'd allow it.(This is probably where the thalmor influence came from) The empire gave the go ahead on it too. Ulfric takes the city back, the thalmor protest, and the empire has Ulfric jailed instead. You think that might have made him a bit bitter?

The nords are the reason the empire exists in the first place. If the empire doesn't want to look out for their best interests, its in their best interest to look after themselves.


And this is the big issue I have with the empire. The empire is not just Cyrodiil. Mede did not have his subjects interests in mind, just cyrodiil's.(And even then I think he just really didn't want to lose IC hence why he surrendered only after he had kicked them out of IC)

Hammerfell was saved in part due to Legion invalids. If the Empire didn't drop Hammerfell, Hammerfell couldn't have continued their war effort. General Decianus' legion was dispatched to Hammerfell when it was the wars focus, and he left behind a large quantity of troops to ensure Hammerfell's victory.

The religious persecution is terrible to be sure, but it could've been handled more tactfully, as it had been before the Markarth Incident. It's not even a matter of converting to a different religion, it's one God out of a pantheon of Nine. Again, the Thalmor hadn't bothered anyone until Ulfric did their dirty work in Markarth and provided them a reason. There wasn't a Stormcloak rebellion before then because a majority could deal with the ban through personal shrines for worship.

The Empire dropped Hammerfell because Hammerfell was required to give up large portions of it's land in the Concordat. You know those civilians you talked about? They'd be under Dominion rule if Hammerfell had accepted the treaty. Hammerfell did not, and the Dominion eventually lost there completely after 5 years. Critics use this victory as proof that the Empire could have eventually beaten the Dominion.

They didn't bother because they didn't know about it. Talos is a *very* important god, being a mythic replacement for Lorkhan. And again, it's not freedom if you have to do it in secret.

The Dominion force in Hammerfell was only a fraction of their Cyrodil force.
Were it not for the efforts of the brave Legions at the battle of the red ring, Hammerfell would be a Dominion territory.

Hammerfell was the initial goal for the Dominion. They only pushed into Cyrodiil when they realized how unprepared the Empire was.

That's probably true, better intel was necessary, and the Penitus Oculatus should've been on it like they had in the past (Didn't e en realize that every Blade in Valenwood was dead til their heads were delivered ). Still, it's a superior force not by numbers but in intelligence and tactics, like you mentioned. They are also elite troops well trained in the arcane as well.

Does it really say somewhere that there were 0 survivors from any of the southern counties? Seems ify to me. And, had the war continued, all other civilians would have suffered the same fate if the Dominion had slaughtered every person in the southern counties.

If that's the case, the Jarl didn't have the authority to override Imperial treaty like that anyways. And the Empire was more or less forced to grant Ulfric's request of reward because the city was in utter chaos. It's like a police force saying, "We won't be enforcing the law until we get all we want.". Since he practically blackmailed them into getting his way, and may have committed war crimes against the people of Markarth, it may have been he deserved that jail time.

It's a two way street I think. The
rest of the Empire doesn't like this treaty either, but they've got to put up with it for now.



Your right, it's not just Cyrodiil. Its Cyrodiil, High Rock, and (tenuously) Skyrim for now. Cyrodiil was the area under attack at the time, therefore it was the priority (I know, Hammerfell as well, but that was handled luckily through the invalids). I can't tell you what Mede would have done had the situations been reversed, only what he should have done.

Take Helgen for example... while the Imperials were trying to tuck the villagers away to safety, Stormcloaks made a run for it to save their butts and kill as many Imperials as they could.

What's this talk about cowardice?

The villagers did nothing to save them. Besides it was an Imperial village.

Um, were you paying attention? All of the Imperial soldiers gathered around General Tullius, yelling "Protect Tullius!" and let everyone else die too. Whichever side you pick to follow out of Helgen, they slaughter the other side.

I'm not going to spoil it for you, but if you want to see REAL cowardice, play through both storylines. See the difference between how Ulfric acts at his moment of defeat as opposed to Tullius. It was at that moment that I knew I had made the right choice to be a Stormcloak. I was ashamed of Tullius, and the soldiers who gave their lives under his command while he cowered in fear and begged to be spared were dishonored. At least Ulfric fought bravely to the death and wished only that I was the one to cut off his head.

A thousand times this.

Then you probably did not see Tullius rounding up the villagers for a rescue and Hadvar trying to save Torolf's kid, but I'm not going to argue the fine points with you.

You really expect the stormcloaks to try to save the villagers - who just 2 minutes ago were crying out for their execution? How does that make sense? No one there is getting a pardon for good deeds, with the sole exception of dragonborn (which is completely out of character for Tullius but they had to do it for gaming sake).

To Hell with Imperials AND Storm cloaks !!!
Lydia is ALL i want ...
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