Do not blame Titus! He supported and helped valenwood rebels and Helped them take eastern valenwood from the thalmnor! On top of that he sacrificed one of his legions to save orc civilians from Hammerfall and High ROCK!
HIm and his son are good people in there own right!

Sure, but there's a new Emperor on the throne now. He might not be so good.

Because the Empire is essentially their puppet state at this point. They have it by the short hairs.

I dont mind really. My first character was supposed to be an Imperial agent hell bent on infiltrating Skyrim to kill all the rebels and their sympathizers by any means necessary. Now he's going to be an Altmer, and doing so on orders of the Thalmor instead of those of the Emperor.

I think i have a guess here. So the Empire entered war with the thalmor. When they realized that this war and any war after with the thalmor would be quite difficult they made a political move. About to lose the war, they signed the treaty and banned talos. The empire is now being friendly with the thalmor by keeping things peaceful with them and letting them travel on their land, but I doubt there is a puppet government because bethesda wants this to be a hard decision, a puppet government makes that decision too easy. I think the Empire may be waiting for the thalmor to fall by themselves and if anyone knows history, all governments as radical as the thalmor will fall. So the Empire is keeping their provinces together and being friendly with the thalmor while patiently waiting for them to crumble. Now the reason the thalmor want the stormcloaks dead is because they have made deals with the Empire that they like, the stormcloaks aren't a part of those deals and that hurts the stormcloaks.


So who does make me want to join, well the empire because although the stormcloaks seem best for the short term, the empire supports long term results. The Empire is waiting for the thalmor to either completely crumble or weaken enough to where they can be conquered. And the thalmor will do one of those two things because, first they are a radical and controlling government, and second they spend too much time focusing on what the nations of man are doing and their big plan for becoming divines that they don't focus on their own territory. The Empire can deal with the thalmor and keep them from blowing up the world until the thalmor fall, and when that happens the Empire will take charge and restore the continent to order. If the stormcloaks win the Empire will be weakened militarily and politically which will allow the thalmor to have great influence on them and possibly create a puppet government, then they will attack Skyrim and the new and small nation will inevitably lose. Then the thalmor will take over everything else and be unstoppable.

The best parrallel I can make is that the Empire is now Vichy France.

They may not like they lost the war, but they're cooperating with their old enemy despite how cartoonishly evil they are because its the path of least resistance at that point, and at first glance perhaps even the only option. They can certainly believe that through limited cooperation they can gain enough influence to have a seat at the table and some measure of independence. There was a strong collaborationist faction in the Vichy government precisely for this motive, and they were willing to make some very painful choices to see that realized.

Of course history proved that military resistance and intransigence was ultimately possible and that therefore collaboration was a terrible mistake, but hindsight is 20/20.

all this is making me think it would be fun to play an elf who is starts game as agent of thalmor.

I thought about that first part too. I suppose that for both Reman and Septim Empires; Cyrodiil may be the soul of the Empire but Skyrim was its beating heart. When Tiber Septim donned the garland, many sons of Skyrim joined the Imperial Legions and of course the Empire at the time was an unstoppable force. The Mede Empire is the first to forego the historical alliance with Nords.

So from the Thalmor perspective, it would be to their advantage to cull the Nord race under the auspices of the White-Gold Concordant. You take out Nord race then the Imperials are easy pickings. If the Thalmor try and conquer Cyrodiil first, they risk uniting all Skyrim against them.

Enough that it puts the Legion below the Stormcloaks.

Ok, so we know that the Empire gave the Thalmor concessions in order to end the war. That means the Empire was CONQUERED by the Thalmor, even if they haven't completely taken them over. The terms of the peace treaty are significant. The Empire had to outlaw the cult of Talos and allow Thalmori agents to infiltrate the Empire.

So now there's a weak state authority, but an independent, but also powerful religious authority. This suggests a good anology with medieval Europe, particularly in the Holy Roman Empire in the high middle ages. There, you had the "Holy Roman Emperor" (which was really in Germany by the way), who more or less governed, but you also had church authorities, who also had quite a lot of power.

The point is, the Emperor is not the sole authority in the Empire anymore. You also have squads of Inquisition-type Thalmor running around. It makes for a more complicated situation.

So don't think of it as the Thalmor having INFLUENCE over the Empire, so much as there being competing powers in the Empire, KIND of like that of the Church and State in Medieval Europe. I think this is the best way to understand the evidence that we have so far.

Of course, those were parts of the empire, he did nothing but his obligation if he claims to be emperor, and he utterly failed at both. Orcs lost their home and Bosmers arebjected to Thalmor.