Everything up to this point the game has been great. No real problems.

I chose Imperial after talking to both sides. I did the jagged crown and gave it to the Imperials. So I am solidly Imperial.

Message to Whiterun was given to me from General Tullius from Solitude. Upon completion it asks me to talk to Legate Quentin Cipius. Once I do the quest Message to Whiterun completes. Several seconds (to 30 seconds) later I receive the quest "Battle for Whiterun" which instructs me to meet with "Galmar Stone-Fist". The first couple play through attempts I didn't really notice the inconsistency. I walk out the gates and Immediately the quest updates with "Defend the Barricade" (no speech etc...) But I continue to win as defending the barricade and if I'm doing well the barricade will stay fully intact and I will just lose saying the barricade "failed". Nothing to be done at this point since stormcloaks will now spawn in a few places on the interior of the courtyard. Again after much time I will eventually "fail" this one. Sometimes they reach the gate, sometimes the gate will just open for no reason. When this happens I can't enter the city or do anything else.

I also don't have any city bombardment while running to the gates. It is utterly quiet inside the city after receiving the quest to go to "Galmar"

I fast traveled to "Galmar" once (@ the meadery) and he said like one line and I updated to "defend the barricades" so its truly broke somewhere.

Help

The game realizes I'm Imperial, and update as if I'm imperial but the quest is wholly stormcloak.

I've been replaying Skyrim with a considerable number of mods. I tried removing the Civil war mod and that had no affect on the quest received. I'm happy to just get past this quest but since from all respects there is only one quest for both sides it doesn't seem like I can just start the imperial quest that wants me to meet Legate Rikke. Especially since as I win at the barricade it updates as a failure, and proceeds to the next step. Another note "when given the battle for whiterun (stormcloak)" quest it is utterly quiet in the city - no bombardment etc...

Perhaps I can unfriend stormcloak faction in hopes it will remove this option... or ... hell I'll try anything that won't screw up my hundreds of hours of gameplay... (as long as I can go back to a previous save.)

Would a console command get past that?

Maybe you're a Stormcloak at heart.

Use the command console. Input the Setstage blah blah blah commands.

You may need to simply revert to an earlier save though if that doesn't work.

Maybe he realized the error of his ways

your PC is trying to tell you that you are a Stormcloak.

My guess is that this is your issue. Perhaps post this in the mods section and see if the folks there can identify any conflicts in the mods you're running?

Ugh, at least you can (probably) continue the questline.

I'm at the same spot (no 'splosions or anything) and I can't get orders from Cipius even though the marker's over his head. And Irileth is dead for some reason.

I'm not sure console commands can help you out of this. At least not simple "setstage" commands.

EDIT: No mods on my game, either. Only a few hours in and at lvl. 15.