I'm Dovahkiin. I am the side who'll win. This decision just determines which side I'll graciously allow to win alongside me.

 

Hammerfell isn't a province of the Empire, so they have no reserves there. Besides which, the war against the Thalmor led to the almost complete decimation of all Empire and Thalmor troops.

That said, the Empire is the obvious choice if you just compare Solitude and Whiterun. Solitude is a decently wealthy settlement where people seem genuinely supportive of the Empire and sorrowful about the losses they have suffered. Whiterun is a bunch of racist pricks, with Ulfric the biggest asshole of them all. Which is kind of sad, because I like Ralof.

 

Err I think you mean Windhelm there, Whiterun is run by Balgruff who is actually a fairly nice guy with a Dark Elf housecarl.

 

Whoops, Windhelm. My bad.

Windhelm actually has that whole segregation thing going, IIRC.

 

Amen to that brother. Can any of them kill dragons and eat souls? Didn't think so.

 

Yep, its the one with the drunken Nords bullying the Dark Elven woman around as soon as you walk in the front gate. The whole city is segregated where they force all the elves to live and everywhere else. Seeing Windhelm for the first time was actually one of the biggest things that prompted me to reconsider helping Ulfric. I had something of an idea that the rebels under Ulfric were racist but when I walked in and saw that it was perfectly cool for the drunken Nords to be bullying this woman around for being an elf and threatening to kill her in the middle of the street while everyone non-Nord was forced into the Gray Quarter slum I finally started getting the whole picture. It kinda hurts the plucky rebel image when the rebels are the absurdly racist assholes and the supposedly oppressive Empire just wants them to stop murdering each other while they have bigger problems to be concerned with.

 

Which makes me wonder how you'd be treated and how Ulfric would treat you if you were a dark elf.

 

It doesn't seem to be explained in any detail but the general opinion on Skyrim forums seems to be that this was done deliberately in order to weaken the Empire.

The entire treaty is bullshit, it was said that Empire and the Thalmor actually fought to a stand-still with both exhausted yet the emperor decided to sign such an obviously biased treaty. Forbidding the worship of the most popular divine and giving permission to essentially kidnap any person the Thalmor wish in the Empire? Smooth move... makes me suspect that the dirty elves are pulling the strings of the Empires leaders.

On the topic of Ulfrid, from what I recall(not 100% certain) but wasn't it he that actually let the dark elves into Windhelm and gave them homes? It also seems to me that he doesn't hate them but just doesn't care what happens to them.

And for the point that Empire needs Skyrim to fight the Thalmor; in the end at Solitude Ulfric and his commander specifically speak of fighting the Dominion after they recover from the civil war. I believe it wouldn't be too much of a stretch to assume he'd aid the Empire once the next war breaks out.

All this has made me really curious to see what Bethesda adopts as the canon story line.

I actually rolled a Nord character just for doing the Stormcloak side of the Civil War. I was expecting some extra dialogue or anything yet there wasn't a single extra. :facepalm

 

With the choice between a complete asshole who couldn't even bother to learn where the people of the province he seems to be in charge of go when they die and a racist former Thalmor agent with a bit of honor and an understanding of the kind of threat they're dealing with, I've got to go with Jarl Stormcloak.

This isn't a world like our's where worship of a god being banned is really an issue of pride or pushing a new religion on you - Talos objectively exists. We saw an avatar of him in Morrowind and his Altars give you a 20% bonus to shouting - or they're supposed to, at least. This is a very real god formed by the apotheosis of man...and the Elves want to ban his worship. They're planning something, and we all know what's happened when the Elves conquered humans in the past. Playing it out, consolidating power and rebelling in a century or two just isn't an option when we've seen the kind of shit the Thalmor are playing with - the Eye of Magnus, anyone? Talos became a god within living memory, and he could probably be Unmade too, because that's the kind of shit Altmer do.

Sure, Ulfric is racist. You know who else is racist? Everyone in Cyrrodil, just less so. You know who's even more racist? Every fucking High Elf, and they've always been this way. The Dunmer are discriminated against in Windhelm - no one questions this. But in Morrowind, if they had their way, they'd still have slaves. Until the Nerevarine killed the Dunmer's gods, they shipped in Khajit and Argonian slaves by the hundreds. So yeah, they're discriminated against, but that's only because they don't have the power to subjugate the world at this particular point in time. If the Dunmer got Lorkhan's Heart and another opportunity for Apotheosis like the kind Vivec took, they would take it and Morrowind's slave trade would be re-opened for business. At this point, it's a choice between one type of racism and another, and as such I went with the kind that probably won't involve the reformation of cosmic power-scales - and if we're lucky, no new gods.

The Empire isn't being proactive enough and if nothing is done, humanity as a whole is endangered. Elves are a scary bunch when they're in power and it's never a good thing - they need to be stopped now. High King Ulfric is actually fighting his former masters and is actually getting something done. It's not an issue of racism vs decent human fucking beings. It's an issue of racism vs other racism. If you think Tullius is any less racist than Ulfric, you clearly haven't heard him talk. "I'm going to send you to wherever you people go when you die." He only cares about the Nords in the sense that their land and people are somewhat useful to his empire.

So yeah, I'm a Stormcloak. . All Hail to Ulfric, you are the High King! In your great honor we drink and we sing. We're the children of Skyrim and we fight all our lives; and when Sovngarde beckons every one of us dies.

 

I'm playing an Argonian. So I'm used to having casual racism tossed my way - shopkeepers and city watch members often refer to me as 'boots', or 'lizard'.

So I based my first choice on the fact that, as Fiat said, we actually have PROOF that Talos is a god.

Also, when I used to play warhammer, my dad played the Elves. Hated the buggers since then.

 

Which is well kind of silly honestly Fiat, the only positive thing about Ulfric is his stance on Talos worship, beyond that he's a power hungry lunatic who isn't going to be able to hold an empire together for shit. He discriminates against half of the damned land mass for no reason at all and he's dumb enough to have them all right next to his castle when he does it. Even if the other Jarls work with him it would be pathetically easy for the Thalmor to stir up all the non-Nords in Skyrim and quite a few of the Nords against Ulfric who being a lunatic is guaranteed to take stupidly drastic measures further fucking over everyone. He's going to be stuck holding together the tattered remains of his kingdom while half the landmass wants his head on a pike and trying to fight the group that nearly destroyed the single greatest empire in Tamriel history. With Ulfric and his bullshit put down you have a few unhappy rebels left scattered around who don't have Ulfric stirring up shit anymore and are going to give up and go back home fairly soon. That leaves the Imperial Legion to focus the entirety of its efforts towards defending against Round Two that the Thalmor are obviously plotting with a happy populace backing them since they know they aren't going to be treated worse than the hunting dogs under the Empire.

Also with Tullius, that isn't racism. It would be racism if he made fun of it or called it primitive or something like that, all it shows is a single minded military commander who is there to win a damn war.

 

Tullius couldn't give less of a fuck about the Nords if he tried. I'd call a casual total dismissal of their value like not even bothering to learn shit like that when his 2nd in command is a Nord pretty fucking racist.

Also, clearly you didn't read. His policy on Talos worship made up one paragraph there. Ulfric is fighting back, the Empire isn't. The Thalmor are likely to fuck up the entirety of existence and every second not spent fighting them is a second wasted. That's a good enough reason. Preparing for Round Two is meaningless, because when the Elves strike it won't be in another war - they've already done that once. They'll do something like what the Tribunal did and fuck up the whole cosmic order. The Men of Tamriel need to fight back against the Mer asap, because if they don't fighting won't be an option.

Also: It seems like a large part of your argument is based on the presumption that Ulfric wants to take over the Empire. He doesn't. He wants to rule Skyrim and fight the Dominion from there. For the majority of Tamriel's history, Skyrim has been free and it was only united with Cyrrodil under Tiber Septim. The last time humanity needed to take on widescale oppression from the Mer, it was intervention from a free Skyrim supporting a revolting Cyrrodilic population that allowed them to win. It seems pretty likely that this is going to happen again.

Ulfric doesn't want to rule an empire, all he wants to rule is Skyrim - a country that is, by its own traditions, rightfully his. He wants to be High King, not Emperor.

 

I only got to play through the initial tutorial on a friend's computer (I'm getting a new computer this coming pay-day), but the only Imperial that it seems to me "tried to kill me" was that stupid bitch that doesn't comprehend basic crap like "she isn't on the list."

Anyone know if that bitch lived through the attack? If so, I might seek her out, kill her in the Empire's best interests, and then go Imperial.

 

Well, they captured you and were ready to execute you without a trial for the heinous crime of...trying to cross the border.

The fact that the Nord Officer happened to have a bit of basic sense doesn't mean that the Empire didn't try to kill you.

 

I'm fairly sure she's the officer you kill if you choose to follow Ralof the Stormcloak. I could be wrong about that, though.

 

Can't confirm it, but I like to believe that she is the first Imperial officer you get a chance to kill if you follow the Stormcloak into the keep. Because I hate that bitch too.

 

Yeah. I took great pleasure in eviscerating her with my new battleaxe when first playing Nord.

 

Basically - actually, no, just completely this. I can bend matter, time and space by cursing at it, have a pet dragon, can whistle up heroes from Valhalla, have actually traveled the fuck through time, am Thane of at least one hold, and have either an ancient order of zealous Secret Service dragonslayers or Buddhist monks who also swear regularly through the laws of physics on speeddial.

My response to the dragon Anti-Christ was to kick his ass, follow him to hell and then kick his ass again.

And let's not even talk about faction leaderships, or god forbid my Daedric affiliations.

I hope there isn't DLC for fighting the Thalmor. Because the only realistic way that ends is as follows,

Step 1: Thalmor show up in x location. I hear about it from a new rumor subscript that shows up, or a summons to Whiterun, etc. etc.. Hells Bells by ACDC starts playing in the background. I complete bullshit side-objectives in the way of me getting to/discovering x location.

Step 2: I show up in x location. On my dragon.

Step 3: FUS ROH DAH.

Step 4: There is no step 4. Did I mention I'm on a fucking dragon?

 

Just started playing the game. Playing as a Nord character. Haven't joined Imperial or Stormcloak right now, but I think I'm going as a Stormcloak.