The fact that she stays after you've helped her speaks in her favor. A traitor or someone who knew they'd done wrong would be more paranoid and would most probably leave once Kematu was out of the way.

If they did what identification or authorisation did they show or did they forget to bring it with them?
The more we look at this the more convinced I am that Kematu and his band aren't part of any official mission. That doesn't prove Saadia innocent but it makes me even less inclined to help them or stand idly by whilst they kidnap her.

Reads more of Cecilff2 and Amazon Queen's posts. Makes popcorn.


I think at some point either of you to would finally say "I respect your opinion, but it is not mine" and end this. Bottom line there isn't any proof of either's innocence or guilt. So, we do what we want to yes? Personally I think Saadia is a trader, but I'm still about 50/50 on who my many characters chose to help. The only annoying factor is having those dang Redguards hanging out at the Whiterun gate. I know I could kill them, but I haven't played a character that would just do that. Course I could just open the console and 'disable' them...

This for sure.

This is definitely curious because we've found so many pieces of Imperial correspondence in the process of doing quests, but Kematu doesn't have anything. This doesn't necessarily disprove his authenticity because I could see the Empire not wanting to cooperate too much because of the issues pertaining to the Aldmeri Dominion with Hammerfell being a particular enemy of the Dominion having recently expelled them. If Kematu was fabricating the charges he could've chosen something even more detestable and less politically sensitive (like burning a house down with a child in it like the one in Morthal) to gain our trust. All in all I suspect Kematu is slightly more on the level, but I do take offense at how rude the Redguards are in general when asking us to help.

The strangest thing is that Kematu is still in Smuggler's Den after I turned Saadia/Iman in and that his bandit-merc guards still attack, but I try not to read too much into that and chalk it up more to simplifying the coding and less .

Edit:
They fell victim to an unfortunate Werewolf attack in the game in which I sided with Saadia.

I read that he does finally leave there after the dungeon resets.

I didn't claim to be neutral. I'm the PC and often the one to make the moral judgements and be an instrument of either justice or malevolence in a single player game. If there was an option to hand it over to the guards I'd probably take it. Or more truthfully, no matter how many options there were I'd play through each of them to get as much information as possible - cos I'm the PC, I like to satisfy my curiosity, and I can.
The more discussions I see on this quest the more I've come to love the quest, and that none of us know what's really going on.
For me, Kematu is actively pushing his agenda, and when you push against the world, the world pushes back. Saadia isn't attempting to enforce any agenda, so leaving her be results in the status quo being maintained.


They don't really behave like they have an kind of official authority in Skyrim or Whiterun, but I did say I assumed. Saying that it cannot be substantiated or disproved is redundant, since it goes both ways, and there's no more information to change things in either direction. This is a quest where we have to make our best judgement call, so what did you do on the save that you kept?

Ah. Then I guess it's good that I got his stuff before he 'reset'.


Edit:
I'd like to see Bethesda sprinkle a side quest or two that elaborates on this, but then they wouldn't be able to laugh and poke fun at us from behind the curtain as we speculate incorrectly because both sides are actually from Mothership Zeta who have cast Illusion spells on us to trick us for a bit of fun.

When advocating neutrality, don't act like lack of information on either side automatically makes one of them right.


The only problem I have with the argument is saying since we have no idea which one is right, the neutral option is to kill kematu and the alik'r. That's ridiculous.

Huh? I'm not advocating neutrality... why do I get the impression people on this forum skim...?
And you didn't answer the question I directed to you...

Well I have done nothing before, and oddly enough Saadia remained alive. In fact my first character never figured out who they were looking for.

If the quest is started, obviously it doesn't make sense to have Saadia hide in her room the rest of the game. I'm still leaning toward her being a trader, but will do it either way. My new character, a Redguard, may just want to see Saadia hang around some, but at the same time, since this involves his homeland, more thought needs to be put into it. Like I said earlier I will put a lot more research into it before deciding.

Yeah sorry that one wasn't directed at you.


Given we know Saadia's story is fabricated(Source: The Great War), we have to determine a reason to lie in this situation. Why not just outright say, there's a band of redguards trying to kidnap me? She's already revealed she was a Redguard noble, so it's not like she's afraid you're going to attempt the same thing. So why would she lie?

I'll leave that one to you to answer. Make it good.

Secondly. Hammerfell is nearly unanimously 100% anti-thalmor. If she's afraid of assassins, she's got a bunch of body-guards as a noble. Even if she decides to flee the country, she'd still have some sort of protection with her as a noble.

Third. Nothing in Kematu's story is contradicted by in game lore.



Lastly, I asked this before too but it was never answered. What do you propose Kematu is if not what he claims?

She absolutely is a trader/merchant, indeed. You can buy food and drinks from her, as you may have noticed already.

Nice catch.

Well if it was directed at me I didn't claim neutrality either. What I said was Saadia is entitled to a presumption of innocence. Unless the case is proven shes entitled to go about her normal life which Kematu is not going to allow.


Don't have to make it good. Its up to the prosecution (a task you seem to have taken on yourself) to prove her guilt, the defendent doesn't have to prove their innocence.

Doesn't mean its united on how to deal with the Thalmor. We know next to nothing about the current political situation in Hammerfall.

Doesn't prove his story is true. He may just have thought it through better.


I did answer. I don't know. So far as I can remember Kematu doesn't tell you who is is, who he works for, what official position/title if any he has - just that Saadia is wanted for treason in Hammerfall

To me the entire scenario is suspect. There just isn't enough information given to us, so anything I have to say is simply speculation for the sake of enjoying speculation. (And my real in-game choice would be as previously stated).

Mostly I got stuck on the glaring fact that the Great War ended 26 years ago... Obviously Saadia is a liar because there's no reason for her to leave Hammerfell if she spoke out against the Thalmor. The Redguards never accepted the Thalmor either during or after the Great War, and then they went to war with them on their own and won, so that story is ridiculous. On the other side of things, if Saadia was a Thalmor sympathizer why is she in hiding? Skyrim's official government have accepted the Thalmor, and certainly Whiterun is Imperial, so Kematu's version of her being pro-Thalmor doesn't give much of a reason for her to be in hiding - especially at least 26 years after she's supposed to have betrayed the city.

Now more of it being at least 26 years later... The Alik'r contingent in Skyrim is large. You said 20-30 in your posts. Why are there so many armed and determined people hunting her now after 26 years? To me, that many resources indicates that the real reason she's being hunted is either recent or personal. I find it unlikely that even a major war criminal would be hounded by an entire force of professionals for 26 years.

Oddly enough, I find Saadia's inconsistency and obvious lie something in her favor. Personally I think the real reason Kematu's hunting her is something that neither party will reveal. It's something too important to them, or too personal, or too embarrassing, or something with such serious ramifications that neither party will risk revealing the truth. So in this scenario Kematu has the polished lie. He's hunting her and he has carefully thought out his justifications for doing so. On the other hand Saadia is genuinely afraid and unprepared and messes up her lie. Maybe she's not used to lying?

As for Kematu, he could have any number of reasons for hunting her besides the reason he gave. Anything from extremely personal (a jilted lover) to not even knowing her and just hunting her for money. Just because he has the more plausible story, it doesn't mean it's true. I don't know of any evidence from an independent source to back up either of their stories.

And you still didn't say how you did this quest in your game.

Alright, next time you run into a police officer trying to arrest someone, make sure you shoot him if the one being arrested asks for help.

I chose to turn her in because of a few reasons.

Let me state what my opionion is on the whole situation. One the lady sold out her country and when the thalmor lost she left without anything or what little she could carry. Prob no bodyguards BC her own house was against her so if she did they have alrdy left hetr. She went into hiding and it took 26 years for them to find her which leads me to bieve tjat the Hunters problemly went to cryodill first or another country that was prothalmor. Also skyrim is in a civil war and since they are redguards they are not entirely wecome as an poofficially police force since its controled by the empire so thwy are tryong to be hush hush about it. As far leavinh in a bandit cave problemly trying to advoid the political struggles. Hell most vountrys would consider war against said country and take it as invading hence why they stay away from local jarls and such. As far as if the guy is a policeman..nah I see him as being hired as an unofficial bounty hunter so the country wouldnt suffer backlash if they wefe caugjt. Also the lady stories had to many holes in her story. Really all she had to do would be fo go to windhelm..ow ya thats right they are in the country now rigjt outsixe the gates...wouldnt get far hence why she stays in the inn.

They are "warriors", not "police officers" and not even "guards". For all we know, they might just be a bunch of hired thugs.

I really don't know what makes you think that they're official law-enforcers of Hammerfell.

Nah more along the lines of bounty Hunters. I feel the situation as a feel good situation whede as either choice makes ya ceel good. U caan save the damsel in distress or be good guy and see a criminal captured. All in all while there are no physical evidence it highly implication that the woman is a criminal and that the man is pdetty much doing what he says he doing. Izee it ass Bethesda giving us an opertunity to see if we can look beyound a pretty woman and do the right thing or that we get caught up in the whole damswl in distreas that we end up getting deceived lol.

If I try to not meta-game the whole quest if follows something like this.

Some Redguards ask me to find a Redguard woman.

I find Saadia and tell her some Redguards are looking for her. She takes me to a secluded place … and pulls a knife on me. Then she says that they are assassins (making me assume they want to kill her outright) and that they are after her because she spoke out against the AD while in Hammerfell.

Well, I don’t like the AD either, so let’s help this lady in distress. How? Find the leader and kill him. How? Find one of his men that were taken prisoner and ask him. Fair enough.

I talk to the prisoner. He starts spouting off about being left behind because he dishonored his comrades, that he is not good enough to be one of them. He also sounds like he actually deserves this fate of being left behind. Odd, doesn’t sound like some assassin. Anyway I pay his fine and get the location of the leader.

I go find the leader. He doesn’t attack me. He wants to talk. I suppose this is because he knows I know where Saadia is at and killing me would lose him that information. But then he goes on to say that Saadia betrayed her people to the AD and that is why they are hunting her, to bring her back. He insists that they are not assassins but want to bring her back to face justice and the hands of those she betrayed, her own people.

I have to start thinking. Saadia never said how long she had been on the run, but it may have been a long time as she mentioned not wanting to start over somewhere else and go into hiding again. I have no idea how long the Redguards have been looking for her. It may have been for years, or it is possible that they just found out it was Saadia that betrayed her city and they are just now starting to look for her.

Thing is I just don’t know. I can shoot holes into either sides stories, which can then be easily explained away to make sense again.

Personally I think this whole thing was pretty well put together by Bethesda. Honestly I just have to go with whatever I think my character would believe. Good job.

They were granted the authority to track down a criminal and return her to face trial. They're bounty hunters which are sanctioned by the judicial system.






Seriously this is like Balgruuf receiving an assassination threat from the Morag Tong, then suddenly leaving Whiterun to go to Morrowind and hide in a bar. Why would you flee a country that hates the dominion to go to a place that allows them free reign?

Aye, after seeing all of the discussion about this quest, I'm enjoying it even more. It's Beth's Kobayashi Maru.

The thing about that is that when the rulers issue a bounty, there's written documentation to show who is wanted and for what. You can look on Kematu and all the other Redguards, and none of them have any written proof that they're on official business from Hammerfell. I don't think for a second that if these people were officially sanctioned by their government to look for this person, especially internationally, that they would neglect to carry that piece of paper with them at all times.

This is a valid point. Given beth's love of notes in this game, you'd think they'd have something. But given they don't even have a note from their employer like every other assassin/thug/etc, seems to be an oversight by Beth.

...or you just watched The Wrath of Khan on Cinemax. ...or a bit of both.