If Bethesda could do it with the ghouls in Tenpenny Tower in Fallout 3 I don't see the excuse here.

Yet none of them have any dialogue related to it as far as I know. Besides, the whole thing is just game mechanics.

One of the main reasons I prefer the Empire is because I like the Jarls way more than those if the Stormcloaks are in charge.

I support both and neither at the same time. There is no one side, there is many. In the force only you must trust, young padawan.

Maven Black-Briar. She basically ruins the entire scenario, even if the Pale and Winterhold get better jarls.

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

The worst Stormcloak Jarl doesn't have anything on the worst Imperial Jarl. To be honest I think Skald is acutally worse than Thongvar. It isn't even Thongvar who is in charge of the Mines and the corruption in Markarth , it's his younger brother and there's nothing to prove that Thonar shares the same fanatical, religious and Stormcloak loving sentiments that his older brother does. Maven on the other hand.....

Sadly both sides of the Civil war choose to elect an airheaded bimbo as the Jarl of Solitude
Then again I guess her being a good puppet is suitable for both Ulfric or the Empire's agenda.

Odd how most player regard Elisif as incompetent, even though her response to "the man who cried wolf" ("send in the legion") turned out to be correct, while the counsel of her experienced steward ("do nothing") would have proved disastrous.

And Maven rules Rifton de facto even under the stormcloaks.

The legion was suppose to scour out the caves and take care of anything in there, not to "fortify dragon-bridge completely" like some people think.

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

Varnius: "I swear to you, unnatural magics are coming from that cave! There are strange noises and lights! We need someone to investigate!"
Elisif: "Then we will immediately send out a legion to scour the cave and secure the town. Haafingar's people will always be safe under my rule."
Varnius: "Th...thank you, my Jarl thank you."
Sybille: "Your eminence, my scrying has suggested nothing in the area. Dragon Bridge is under imperial control. This is likely superstitious nonsense."
Falk: "Perhaps a more... tempered reaction... might be called for?"
Elisif: "Oh. Yes, of course you are right. Falk, tell Captain Aldis I said to assign a few extra soldiers to Dragon Bridge."
Varnius: "Thank you, Jarl Elisif. But about the cave..."
Falk: "I will have someone take care of the cave as well Varnius, you can rest easy. You're dismissed."

Falk wasn't going to send anyone in that cave. When you inquire him about the cave, he says that he was planning to let it go and said that thing about taking care of the cave just to calm Varnius.

For now. But if the Dark Brotherhood is destroyed, the Thieves' Guild ignored, and the Stormcloaks bolstered, it could all add up to weakening her power base. And, of course, if the Stormcloaks win, there's no reason for Maven to be essential anymore, and there are always console commands.

Regarding your point about "the Elves", I think that might be more a result of linguistic phrases common in Skyrim. Looking at the context of the conversations the leadership in the Stormcloaks have, it is pretty obvious that "the Elves" means the Aldmeri Dominion and the Thalmor. Something to consider is that the Alchemist and the stableworkers in Windhelm are Altmer and I've yet to hear anything to suggest that the Nords give them a hard time. The only Altmer who apparently had some trouble with the Nords was the one who most recently arrived, but she proved to be useful and now she is a part of the community, if her dialogue with people like the Priestess of Talos is to be an indicator.

It's the civilians, and the non-Thalmor soldiers, of the Aldmeri Dominion that my character is primarily worried about. Obviously elves in Skyrim don't seem to be at risk of genocial purges, but vengeful Nords wreaking allegedly just havoc on Alinor is something else entirely.

True, but there is no difference on that for either side. You don't think vengeful Imperials who had their homeland invaded and much of it destroyed would do so? Sadly, that is something that comes war.

Which is why my primary concern is trying to stop an outright invasion altogether, unless it can deal exclusively with the Thalmor.

Then you have a problem when it comes to this conflict, because the Thalmor are the leaders of the Aldmeri Dominion and they, fairly openly, say that they will bring war to the Empire again. They won't hold back, even if you will.

I'd rather induce an internal rebellion in the Dominion and let our own people deal with our own problems. Suffering yet another Imperial occupation of Alinor is not something I want to do. At least the Stormcloaks don't seem to have sufficient forces to mount an invasion of such a far-away land.

For now. The Stormcloak leaders explicitly say they will build Skyrim's forces up. Might be a slightly longer interval before they are ready than the Empire, but dismissing them off-hand isn't exactly the best choice. Of course, Alinor have in the past been almost impossible to invade, so I'd be more worried about the people in Valenwood. I would believe that driving the Dominion off the mainland is the first priority, since it would greatly hamper their ability to threaten the rest of Tamriel.

Question: is the Empire if it wins explicitly in a position better off to fight this war than the Stormcloaks if they do? And is the Empire doomed if the Stormcloaks do win?

It's not nice whatever side you join, especially if you're a good guy. But my character chose the Empire, at first because of the Stormcloak's rather thuggish behaviour towards the Dunmer, but ultimately because he reasoned that the only hope of saving Tamriel from the true villains, the Thalmor, would be to keep the Empire strong enough to resist them. To have Tamriel divided would spell certain doom, including for Skyrim. It might at first seem underhanded, but in a sense my character planned to help the Empire defeat Ulfric only because Chadric simply wanted to replace him, only in a much more even-handed way, in a way that will be much more fair and honorable to all decent beings around Tamriel, not just for Nords. He plans to be a secondary unitary power in the north, one that will eventually backup the Empire against the Thalmor, rather than be militant against them. This unitary power will be based in what is now known as Falkreath Hold, and will eventually be called "Dragonia".

It is in an immediate better position to fight this war and they have the benefit of sharing border with the Aldmeri Dominion. The Empire's immediate military might will not be greatly affected by a Stormcloak victory, as most of the Legion is stationed in Cyrodiil, guarding said border. Losing Skyrim will be a longterm damage to the Empire, since the Nords have always been very important to the Imperial Legion. However, the Nords who would have joined the Legion would likely join a Skyrim based army, so it would be a shift of where the army is station and where it takes its orders from.

There is one thing you should keep in mind though:

This silly argument again,*Sigh*

Anyway, the Legion and the empire are not perfect ,[censored]s and imperialistic, the Stormcloaks are not perfect , [censored]s and zenophobic...

Take your pick....

What is so vexing about the civil war is that the solution seems so close: all it takes is a strong personality to bring the war hawk party in the Empire (it does exist and is strong) and the stormcloaks to sit down at the same table and hammer out a compromise. The Dovahkiin is exactly the person who could pull this through. But the game denies us exactly that option.

You mean for the Stormcloaks and the Empire to work together? That's what I would've gone for myself. But as you said, it doesn't allow for it. That's the reason why I'm going to try and mod that scenario for my own character. I even hope to make the remnants of the Stormcloaks to be a part of the Dragonian forces!

Those questions come down to what I see as the core question of the Civil War:

How powerful is the Aldmeri Dominion?

Something that you can never know, even if you play an Altmer yourself, which is highly irritating.

I think the game only hints that they are the TES equivalent of Nazi Germany in strength, which is pretty damned strong!