Ralof and a few Stormcloak supporters are okay, but the Stormcloaks overall are not. Sure, the Empire is corrupt and weak, but the men of Tamriel stand a better chance united than they do divided.

fight religious intolerance with racist intolarance

Well if you're character isn't a racist or is a "non Nord", that might be a good reason not to back the Nord Supremacists.

And the Empire isn't? It's practically a vassal of the Thalmor.

They did what they thought was best to survive. The imperials are no where near as bad ass as Redguards and can't hold off the Thalmor, so I can hardly be bitter against them doing what is best for themselves. The Stormcloaks on the other hand actively want me and everyone else that isn't a Nord out of Skyrim, which just isn't in my best interest.

You see everyone plays the Stormcloaks are racists card all the time. Now lets journey back to TES III and see how much hate the Dunmer had for others and even had legal slavery in their province. Most of the races have different degrees of disdain for each other through the games and lore, so none of them are much better then the other IMO.

Okay YOU would but what about your character? Do all your characters have the same morality? Just curious.

If you like the imperial theme over the stormcloak theme, obviously. I myself prefer the true nord style, the stormcloaks just have more attitude.

If the Empire had fought on after the Concordat rather than surrendered, they would have had the Redguards with them.

The Empire really is the only thing keeping the Thalmor from Skyrim

And I don't see them pressuring Talos worship to stop, that real life spammer in Whiterun remains even after , so I think the Empire only really surrendered was so they could defend the provinces against the Thalmors real goal.


I have a Stormcloak Breton, hoping to collapse the Empire in Skyrim so he can use it to his own advantage.

To me, it was common sense.

The stormcloaks, (A man who names his faction after himself tells a lot about him) a faction of ignorant, racist, arrogant nords, compared to the combined force of cyrodiil, hammerfell, orsinium, blackmarsh, high rock, morrowind (what's left of it) and elswhyre would have a far greater chance of winning the war against the thalmor than just one splinter faction.
At the moment, yes, I know that only cyrodill, skyrim and possibly high rock (not sure) are still part of the empire, but it wouldn't take much to regain their allies. The dark elves to my knowledge don't have many options, and as far as I know, the Thalmor don't like them much. Same goes for the orcs. Once the war starts, I can see the redguards jumping on the empire bandwagon, just for the reinforcements, if nothing else. The argonians I'm not sure about, It really depends on whether the hist feels threatened or not, and i'm not sure about the Thalmor's policy on sentient trees. The khajiit are being used, though i'm not sure about them either, though I can't see them helping the Thalmor much either.

The rest of the human races have no choice in the matter.

What i'm saying is, the empire has a chance. The stormcloaks don't, because they arn't even ready to think of the concept of having allies, and their cause isn't one that the rest of the races can get behind. It's simple logic really.
(I apologise for my spelling of the provinces in advance.)

True, so the question is, do you want a unified Tamriel or not. The races have always been in conflict, but the Empire makes strides to quell that. They may not be perfect but its a damn sight better than segregation.

Join if you are a minority race. Minority races get treated better by the imperials than the locals.

You couldn't actually side with the Dunmer in Morrowind (for the MQ).

You were stopping Dagoth for the good of the world, not the good of the Dunmer.

Unified Tamriel equals compromises

Un-unified Tamriel equals Thalmor killing everyone

Ever thought that the stormcloaks and empire could be allies if the stormcloaks won the war? Maybe they just wanted the empire to gtfo of skyrim, then fight together against the thalmor. )Yes, before you ask, i love ponies and flowers. Love and peace man.).

If I'm not mistaken, the Thalmor only attacked Hammerfell after the White Gold Concordat, so if the empire hadn't struck a deal then the Thalmor would have continued to attack them, and the Redguards would not have offered any help because they would need to protect themselves in case the Thalmor attacked them.

Yeah right, only thing keeping the Thalmor out of Skyrim when they let justiciars run rampant through the land kidnapping Talos worshippers and carting them off to Shor knows what. That preacher might get away with it, but what about the countless Nords you see getting led through the countryside in chains by elves? And all the poor Stormcloak soldiers who joined up cause their cousin got snatched in the night.

I call them "racists" based on the racist comments that come out of their mouths when my character is in Windhelm.

My new character is a Nord female and has some of the biases against elvenkind and bristles at the empire bowing to the Elves and banning the religion of Talos. So I suspect she will be going with the Stormcloaks.

How do you figure? The Thalmor couldn't take Hammerfell. I think of it as, the Thalmor would have to fight multiple fronts if the Empire were dissolved.

And you sided with a faction in Morrowind. We are not talking MQ, we are talking factions. The MQ has never had factions, you are always saving the world.

The Thalmor could just invade and execute every Talos worshipper and defile it's shrines, the Empire chooses to make compromises.

And they are on the defensive, so they can't order the Thalmor around, the empire isn't capturing any Talos worshippers.

I thought the exact same way but at the same time. Look at the situation. They are in a civil war and have prisoners and executing them will end the war. Or so they think. Thats like every criminal is innocent. So they say just because your not on the list means your innocent... In this case could be true could not be, we dont know, what happened before all this is up to the player. So what I am saying is, play both sides before judging but your question makes your specific gameplay unique.

um...no there not?

We can't expect every supporter of a political movement or armed rebellion to be very nuanced in the expression of their opinion. There is a war going on. But even in Ulfric's city of Windhelm the life or liberty of other races isn't threatened. The Dunmer are discriminated against, that's true. But one has to have some understanding for the Nord's distrust of all elves, especially in wartime.

The racism comes from Ulfric himself. If you ask around, you will be told of a band of bandits that terrorize elves and nothing is being done about it. The Dark Elves live in squalor, that is partially their fault (which you can find out from the High Elf merchant) and partially the racism again.

Let them come, they might wipe us out but there'll be a mountain of Thalmor corpses the size of the Throat before they are finished. Nords don't surrender. I'd rather die with a sword in my hand protecting our shrines rather than bow to some elf from the south.