Yes it is. Finnish is my primary language. We have word "racism" as "rasismi" in our language but it's loanword so it have no linguistic connection with race. That's probably the reason why it has grown into larger meaning. It's hard for me to see it in smaller scale depending only on your race. Same has happen to word "fundamentalism" which was originally connected to Christianity but can now be used for any kind of fanatic religion.

And they banned it because the Elves had a gun to their head. If they said they'd go on as usual, the Empire would've fallen and leave the rest of Tamriel open for invasion. Like it or not, it's the Empire that kept the Thalmor out of greater Tamriel for so long until the Great War. Skyrim included. Yes, Hammerfell and possibly Skyrim can hold them off, but for how long? The Aldmeri Dominion already has Elsweyr, Valenwood, Summerset Isles, and possibly the Maomer in their pockets, along with many sleeper agents. Skyrim just has Skyrim and Hammerfell only has Hammerfell. If humanity doesn't band together, they're as good as dead because this is a sacred crusade for the Elves and they're not going to give up easily.

Yea right. The imperials are wasting resources to fight the rebellion when they dont need to. They foolishly fight Ulfric in order to placate the Thalmor. How much fight do you think they have for the Thalmor when their main motivation is to placate them?

Grey-Mane all the way, though one of my characters has sided with the Empire he still supports Grey-mane, the Battle-born are Douchers.

That didn't start happening until Ulfric started up his stink.

They aren't fighting Ulfric to placate the Thalmor - They're fighting to protect the people of Skyrim from a power-hungry megalomaniac. Thousands of Nords have given their lives in the defense of the Empire, and Ulfric is using their name in his cause even while fighting against everything they've sacrificed themselves for.

Case and point - The battle of Whiterun.

Gray-Mane. An honourable family who have treated me right and thus I'll treat them right as well.
The Battle-Borns are all a bunch of money svckling, racist jerks who sell their own people out to the thalmor.

Ulfric leads a foolish rebellion without realizing that overthrowing the Empire makes the whole Skyrim much more vulnerable to a possible Thalmor invasion. The Stormcloaks are no match for the elves and much less without the imperials. So they need to crush the rebellion to end one power-hungry seditioning nord's narrow-minded campaign for freedom.

Hammerfell hit the elves so hard they're not comming back for a long time, and Elsweyr sided with them, It was never really invaded. And while the Empire had a gun in Its head, instead of handing It's own wallet, It gave her daughter's, as well as permission to [censored] her every now and then.

I can't see why you assume that mankind has to stand together against the Thalmor but It's not able to hold ground on their own, aside from the craving of an "HEPIXXX" feeling. It's true the Empire is the lesser evil, but I prefer none, and It can be done.

You make it sound like as if they like having pointy eared nazis killing people for who they worship.

Eh, as a real-life Christian, I fully hate the cowardly oppression of religion by the Empire. I don't care if the gun was pointed to their head.

Well, all I"m saying is that the Nords are right in fighting for their freedoms. The Imperials can come off as sympathetic villains, sure they could have some important and tangible points of reference for a debate, but the Nords come out ahead of all the arguments from my standpoint.

What's a long time to a race whose members can live for hundreds, if not thousands of years? They're powerful mages for a reason. Also, they fought in Hammerfell to a stand-still. The Redguards didn't bomb them out of the ocean, they only matched their strength and that was only because the Forebearers and Crowns decided to work together for once in a long, long, long time. The Empire actually had to step in once to prevent outright genocide, which oddly lead to Hammerfell becoming part of the Empire.

I'm saying that humanity needs to band together because the Thalmor want an end to end all of humanity. When and if they manage to undo the Imperials or the Nords, they'll do the same to every mannish race in Tamriel. As it's been shown in Skyrim and the Cyrodiil, if they don't get their (censored) together, the Thalmor will use schemes and swords to get what they want.

If the Imperials took control over Skyrim by force then Stormcloaks have the right of it. Doesn't matter to me how long the Empire has had the control. I support independence for every country and province in Tamriel. Oh, and definetly Gray-Manes. Battle-Borns svck ass, big time. Except for Jorn.

Dawn is breaking.

Battle-Born's are now a bunch of Milk Drinkers, Jorn is a top Man tho ( sorry mate but I am honkin Oliva Grey-Mane ). and his sister who works on the farm.

Actually, the Redguards proved otherwise. The Thalmor are still reeling from THAT mistake


Also, to clarify on the Xenophobia/Racism/Discrimination issue - The Stormcloak movement for the most part is racist - They believe that Nords are superior to all others, and that Imperials, Bretons, Redguards, Orcs, Elves, Khajiit, and Argonians do not belong in Skyrim - even if they were born and raised there, with Skyrim's values.

The Imperials are not racist - except against Khajiit, because everyone's jealous of the cat-people. They also don't have a problem with Religious Freedom - If they were against the worship of Talos, then why the heck do their top commanders and leaders worship that particular god?

Fortunately, General Tullius sent a Missive to the Battle-borns containing details of where Thorald Grey-Mane is being held, with implicit instruction to let a capable warrior who has no traceable ties to the Empire find and free the guy.

These sound like names from a crappy cartoon I once watched.

Let's see...

*rummages around in his backpack*

Throws Poke-ball.

"Grey-Mane is choose you!"

Battle-Born

So you'd rather the Thalmor went and killed a whole bunch of people just so that Talos worshipped wasn't banned on paper but allowed in practice? When you talk to some people in the game they say the only reason there's any sort of crackdown on Talos worship in Skyrim is because Ulfric made such a big issue out of it. Before that everyone could worship him pretty much unhindered. The Stormcloak cause in general is pretty foolish. Fighting the Imperials is counterproductive since it is the Thalmor that are the real enemy. Beating the Imperials just means Thalmor armies are going to march in and kill a ton of people and the Stormcloaks couldn't stop that.

Frankly, Ulfric just seems like a self-centered xenophobe. That said, I like the Battle-borns and the Grey-manes. Both families have people who are jerks. I'd note that no innocent person got locked up though, since Thorald WAS joining the rebels and was going to be killing Imperials (if he didn't already). That said, arresting him wasn't the smartest thing given what it did to Whiterun.

The Empire already lost the Second Great War the very moment they signed the White Gold Concordant. They allowed the Thalmor in to infect the Empire. The Thalmor has spies planted absolutely everywhere in the Empire, because the Empire allowed them too. If the Empire decides to attack the Aldmeri Dominion, the Thalmor will know exactly when/where/how they will do it, before the Empire even begins to. The Empire has already lost the war before it's even begun. Skyrim and Hammerfall at least want to fight the Thalmor on their own terms.

This. Empire supporters claim the Empire will build its strength to fight again but how long will it be? A year? 5 years? 10 years? The longer the Thalmor are allowed to move throughout the Empire, the more time they can spend digging their claws into influential positions. Their spies can easily determine strengths and weaknesses as they have permitted to do so. The Thalmor don't even go after Talos worshippers as the Gray-Mane quests show. They can capture whoever they want just to have a bargaining chip as the Thalmor wanted something to blackmail the Gray-Manes even though the son didn't get captured for Talos worship

Getting a bit paranoid there. The Thalmor are all-knowing and all-seeing? Please. There's no lore to back that up as best I know.

None of what you or Warpenergybot said changes the fact that the Stormcloaks would get Skyrim brutally crushed. They've turned Nords against each other, would have the Thalmor come in and kill them if they won, and have ruined chances of allying with other provinces because of their xenophobia. While rebelling might be the way to go to start resistance to the Thalmor, the Stormcloaks are doing it all wrong. Imagine if the U.S. got invaded became a vassal state to another country, and then the people in Texas many years later started rebelling against that STATUS and some of its effects. But instead of rebelling against just the actual enemy, they hated the USA and people from other the other 49 States. Their reason? Because the USA signed a treaty instead of allowing tons of its citizens to be killed. Pretty lame reasoning.

The Stormcloaks are a rebellion doomed to failure because of their reliance on xenophobia and hatred of potential allies against the Thalmor. Rebellion; they're doing it wrong.

What?

So we'll sit around squabbling about the Imperials did this, the Imperials did that, and that we Nords founded the Empire in the first place. We'll squabble about this stuff. But http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ExWfh6sGyso Instead of organizing against the real enemy. Who is the real enemy? The Mages College of Winterhold? The Grey-Manes? The Battle-Borns? No. The Aldmeri Dominion!

Grey-manes for sure, helped them out even before I joined the Stormcloaks and love Fralia Grey-mane, she always asks after me and my health I make a point of visiting her little stall in Whiterun to sell her something below list price and/or buy something from her. My character wanted to marry one of her sons (cant remember his name) but he was just my characters street.