So we have always seen the empire as the "good guy" faction and the thing we are always fighting to protect, but now that we are in skyrim its a totally different story and the empire is just this failing nation who just kinda wants to be in charge, while we have the thalmor who are dedicated to elven supremecy, the stormcloaks who are dedicated to ancient nord values, and just a few other independent nations who we dont know a lot about (i.e. hammerfell, black marsh). I think the Empire needs to evolve into a nation of men and be the opposite of the thalmor and the series could kind of change from saving the empire to choosing sides between the nation of men or elves, and then have races like orcs and dunmer somewhere in the middle. I just think it would be cool to see the 2nd great war truely be between men and mer.

The thing is that the empire has always been the balancing force for the continent of Tamriel. They conquer everyone and a lot of the time they are NOT the good guys. They are just the ones exerting necessary control over the other provinces so they do not kill each other.

The Khajiit hate the Bosmer and the Argonians. The Argonians hate the Khajiit and the Dunmer. The Dunmer hate the Altmer, Argonians, possibly the Nords and probably everyone else too including other Dunmer. The Altmer hate everyone not Altmer. The Redguards hate the Orsimer, Altmer, Bretons and Nords. The Bretons hate the Redguards, Nords, and Orsimer. The Nords hate elves. The Bosmer hate the Khajiit and probably really dislike the Altmer.

Thrown into this melting pot are the Imperials. They do not truly hate any one race, or at least not in as much of a widespread way as the other races hate each other. They are more neutral. They balance everyone out. They are the axis of the wheel(not the metaphysical one!) and when the axis falls off the spokes will go flying in every which way.

Altmer feel that they are intrinsically superior to everyone else.

Dunmer feel that everyone else is intrinsically inferior to them, especially beasties.

Bosmer aren't fond of Khajiit and find their Merrish cousins quite unpleasant.

Orsimer think everybody, save the Cyrodils, are jerks.

Nords just plain don't like Elves.

Bretons despise Orcs, have issues with Redguards, Cyrodils, Nords, and themselves.

Ragas think the only good Orc is a dead Orc.

Cyrodils don't hate anybody, not on an institutional level. They're cool like that.

Khajiit live to cook up ways to mess with the Bosmer and think Cyrodils are rather silly people.

Argonians aren't too fond of the Dunmer.

I got it -- The People's Republic of Cyrodiil!

When the Ottomans were strong, they were a force for Order. If you caused trouble for your neighbors, they would come in and kill you both just to be safe. When they were weak, there was infighting and outfighting and blood. Now look at Morrowind and Oblivion. Strong Empire means peace, even if it is given grudgingly and at the point of a sword. Look at Skyrim: a weak empire means war. The "good guys" are not on a national but an individual level. And I like it that way.

I dont think the Imperials need to just start hating on Elves, but they do need stronger magic. They haven't been funding magic enough. Humans are very weak in that department, and the Empire hasnt done anything to change that.

They need another Thu'um College in Skyrim, they need to start funding more research into Dwemer Automatons (they used Numidium but never thought a robot army would be useful?), Ayleid star magic, and more Battlespire style Battlemage Colleges. If they could add those Automatons to the Legions, and have many well trained Battlemages augmented with Varla and Welkynd stones the war is as good as over. The elves' main advantage and the humans' main weakness is magic.

Not to mention the stupidity of not contacting the famous dragonborn of Skyrim. He's a powerful legendary dragonslayer and they never bother to seek him out and get him on their side. They wait for you to come to them. You would think they would realize (especially if he's a Nord) that he might join the enemies/ The nords think highly of the dragonborn, esp after he saves the world, and it never comes to them that maybe he can stop the civil war. And after he befriends a dragon, they still don't see fit to contact him at all.

My dragonborn would just go Talos on everyone and everything. Maybe the Medes don't want compete with a god killing, thu'um shouting super solider. I know I wouldn't.

Grey skin and pointy ears, I think so too. A good pair of pointies do wonders for a man's image.

Well, if the Empire could improve all of humanity (not sure how the Redguards would feel about a Mystic Empire), they would get a lot more support. And while the empire seems weird to have automatons, all beth would have to do is give the automatons an imperial design. It actually seems fitting. Especially if you call them golems (or make up a fitting Imperial sounding name) instead.
It's actually stupid that they still know nothing of Alyleid tech. It's right in the back yard. The imperial city is Ayleid ffs. They should have mapped all the Ayleid wells, cities and structures long ago, then spent time trying to find out why the Ayleids built there, then renovated and repurposed the wells, and possibly improved them. I still think the wells are used to charge the stones. If they could build bigger better wells closer to the towns and cities and then build mystic schools on them the humans would probably develop magic much faster. And humans would live longer. Restoration magic for everyone.

One of the strengths of the Elder Scrolls saga has been that it allows for moral ambiguity and complexity. That's generally been the case with the portrayal of the Empire: in most respects, it is a human institution of a familiar pattern, with positive and negative aspects to it. It usually looks like it is, overall, a good thing, but one can easily imagine intelligent, principled people siding for it or against it.

In TES II: Daggerfall, the player character is, initially, an agent personally loyal to the Emperor; you can ultimately choose to side with or against the Empire. In TES: Redguard, the protagonist leads a rebellion against the Empire.

In TES III: Morrowind, we get a long look at the issue of colonialism: the Empire represents a cosmopolitan, universalizing morality, including at least a passive opposition to slavery, but we can also see the Empire as opportunistic, grasping, and insensitive to the internal complexities of the province. The Great House Hlaalu, which appears to be the most supportive of the Empire in Morrowind, proves to be corrupt and conspiratorial. The politics and social mores within Morrowind are quite complex, with a great deal of internal conflict; there's much to be admired or reviled.

TES IV: Oblivion was the exception, in portraying the Empire in an almost unambiguously positive light. There are two excuses for this: first, we're in the heart of the Empire, where you would expect ubiquitous support for the Empire; second, and more importantly, the crux of the Oblivion Crisis is the role of the Emperor and the Empire in reinforcing the integrity of the mortal world. So, one gets the sense that, flawed and imperfect the Empire may be as a human institution, its mythopoetic role is of overwhelming importance. We also get hints about how nasty some aspects of the origins of the Empire were, particularly if one closely reads the stories of Pelinal in the Knights of the Nine DLC.

In TES V: Skyrim, we've got the civil war. As it's set up, one can sympathize with either side. But the key thing about the civil war is that at one level, it appears to be a choice between (open) worship of Talos, and the survival of the Empire. But Talos is the god of the Empire; the two are linked, and choosing one without the other undermines both. And that's precisely why the Thalmor have engineered the whole crisis. Meanwhile, you've got issues of loyalty and tradition to sort out.

There are High Elves in the Penitus Oculatus. The Empire isn't just a human thing, all races are included.

If that's in response to the bit where I said, "flawed and imperfect the Empire may be as a human institution", then I should clarify that I didn't mean "human" in the sense of "Man vs. Mer", but in the sense of something created by flawed mortals, and reflecting those flaws.

I wasnt replying to you I just forgot to hit the reply button on the OP. He said it should be all out Man V Mer, which goes against the current Empire's values.

I agree on that point. Even the Stormcloak faction is hesitant to commit to that idea outright.

The empire seems to be about the domination of Imperial culture. While the Thalmor are about the domination of the Altmer over other races.

The thing I appreciate about the Empire, is, (except in Oblivion, where it's not really allowed too much) how it is portrayed as having both good points and flaws.

In Skyrim, we're presented with two sides- a crumbling Empire who really, truly wants to do good and protect its people, but has sold out those peoples value to save itself- which goes against the Nordic tradition of "you can take my (blank) from my cold, dead, hands." Thus the Nords are rejecting the Empire as a nation that no longer is in it's best interests.

But at the same time, Ulfric and his Stormcloaks represent another side of the extreme- the idea of hardcoe, "if you're not one of us you don't belong here" nationalism. They're racist against people who have been there for years. "Skyrim for the Nords."

They're not actually racists though, well not entirely. Foreigners can prove themselves for the Stormcloacks, it's just a bit harder. It pretty much shows that the stormcloacks like the Empire care most about culture, and that race to them while important isn't as important as some people make it out to be.

Jarl Balgruuf calls it "mutual advantage." The Empire may gain, but so does the province. There is always a price to be paid, but think of that scene from Monty Python's Life of Brian where they are discussing "what have the Romans ever done for us?"

Moving that to the Empire, they promote trade and literacy as well as provide a stabilizing influence over regions that would otherwise have been drowning in blood. In exchange, you bow to a foreign ruler and your culture is assimilated and becomes something else. Also you have to deal with a bloated bureaucracy filled with people who have more concern with lining their pockets than bringing food from the imperial breadbaskets of Whiterun and the Niben to less fertile lands like Elsweyr.

So really, the Empire, like real world empires, has its ups and downs.

Ulfric trades with the Empire. He (and the Empire) allow the East Empire Trading Company, which is funded by the Empire, to trade in Windhelm. They have more issues with the Shatter-Shields sending pirates after their ships than Stormcloaks.

Pretty much all the races in tamriel are racist, and even in real life if you take two very different groups of people and put them close together there will often be tention, the thing about windhelm is that ulfric hates all elves because of the thalmor and isnt trusting of the dunmer. But you are correct in the fact that it is more about culture, i mean there is a high elf merchant there and the nords aren't really mean to her. But all im saying is that it would be an interesting turn of events if the empire became the exact opposite of the thalmor.

Actually, as of Skyrim, the Empire's Companies doesn't seem (IMHO) to be truly commanded by the Emperor himself. Alas why so many people comment on Victoria Vicci being the Emperor's cousin and why it's is good for business.

I disagree completely.

Agreed. Even at that, its not Beth's style to go out and make two powers complete and total opposites of one another, where one can clearly define the 'good guys' from the 'bad guys.' That being said, they sure aren't making the Thalmor a group to be sympathized with thus far.

Black and grey morality is actually both an easy and enjoyable way to write a story without breaking believability. It makes a villain that you really like to see beaten (or, in the case of video games, beat) but still has a flawed and therefore interesting hero or group of heroes.