This is just plain wrong. Saying that the Empire is working with the Thalmor is like saying Prison Guards work with the prisoners. The Empire has a lot more reason to hate the Thalmor than the Stormcloaks do as well (ravaged Cyrodil, lost a number of provinces to their meddling, Talos worship outlawed).

Tullius? Well you'll see his opinion about the Thalmor quite clearly during the quest "Season Unending". What is happen to Empire with the Thalmor is similar to what happened to Baltic states with Soviet Union 1939.

Notice who is around during the Season unending quest, the first emissary of the Thalmor. So of course he can't just come out and say anything anti-thalmor without her hearing even if she is forced to leave whose saying she isn't ease dropping? Try playing the Imperial side of the civil war instead of jumping to conclusions then see how wrong you are.

Don't you understand? It was Tullius who brought the emissary to the negotiations at the first place. She wasn't invited and the Thalmor had no business with those negotiations.

You never actually spoke to tullius or rikke did you. First Rikke is a devote worshipper of talos, second when questioned on the empires relation with the thalmor before being friendly both her and tullius dodge the question(never says they are actually friendly even though they are suppose to be), when on friendly terms Rikke and Tullius they amit they hate the thalmor and Tullius even mentions the fact he knows that the second great war is coming and the empire is preparing. If they were actual puppets than you would hear them pretty much repeating what the thalmor say. Remeber the imperials are indeed human and the thalmor dispise all non mer races and ussually threat non altermer mer as second class.

He didn't have a choice, she heard about the negotiations and forced Tulius to take her with him or he would be charged with obstructing Thalmor operations since the stormcloaks are considered criminals to the Dominion.

Actually the thalmor are suppose to be at the meeting since they need to know no terms of their treaty are broken. Last time negotiations with the stormcloaks were made the empire agreed to allow the free worship of talos again and the thalmor had a tantrum.

I haven't missed it but I see how it will turn out. The Empire thinks they are avoiding a war and staying out of the Aldmeri Dominion but they aren't. We had quite similar situation in real world history and what happened here in political situation may have also in Tamrielic political situation. Just before the Second World War Soviet Union asked Baltic states and Finland to give them military basemants and some other things (quite similar to piece treaty). Baltic states accepted it because they thought they could avoid war and occupation with that (just like the Empire did). That strengthened Soviet Unions situation on Baltic states and 1939 it occupied them easily. Finland decided not to accept the demands of the Soviet Union (just like Hammerfell did and like Stormcloaks are doing). As a result of that Soviet Union attacked to them and they had a long and bloody war but in the end Finland was never conquered or occupied by the Soviet Union.
What I mean by this is that I believe Stormcloaks to have a chance to keep Skyrim out of the Aldmeri Dominion but I don't believe I'll ever see the Empire to do the same.

Only ones who knew about the negotiations were Greybeards, Vignar Gray-Mane/Balgruuf the Greater, Ulfric and Tullius. So she must heard about it from Tullius because it's not likely that any other of them would work with the Thalmor.

The difference is finland had people who believed that Finland should be free, the Stormcloaks don't have that support and many nords in skyrim don't agree with the stormcloaks or agree that Ulfric is the right person to lead, the only people who actually show signs of wanting Ulfric to lead are in windhelm, two jarls, the gray-manes, a old couple who lost their daughter, the stormcloak soldiers and the silver-bloods, everyone else pretty much thinks its hot air being blown out and that the civil war is pointless and a waste of time and lives, they just want to live in peace for once after a huge war which Ulfric is denying because he wants to be on the throne and control everything, even the jarls hell the Jarls don't even have a voice of their own if Ulfric wins, he just forces them to do what he says because he can have them killed he even states this by saying "They'll do what I say because my armies populate their cities" Ulfric is a tyrant and power hungry, not a savior or liberator.

If you kick Elenwen out, Tullius accuses you of favoring the Stormcloaks even if he gets everything else he wants. His insistence that she stay at the table because she's part of the imperial delegation doesn't sound very reluctant to me. Personally I think he insists she be there because he's playing a psy ops game, trying to rile Ulfric since Elenwen was his interrogator.

Give me a break. The country is evenly divided. Rikke says "more join his cause every day" which echoes the same things Ulfric and his court say at the beginning of the Stormcloak quest line (e.g. Ulfric "our patience is winning more and more allies to our cause," when he is arguing against attacking Whiterun too soon). There were people who were getting fed up with imperial interference even before the rebellion- see http://elderscrolls.wikia.com/wiki/Skyrim.

Most likely, a useful tactic too but that still doesn't prove he is a puppet of the Thalmor.


Though you say its evenly divided we never actually see many stormcloak supporters in Winterhold or Dawnstar, hell Ulfric doesn't even care about winterhold as for Riften the whole Rift is controlled by Maven Black-briar and has more imperial influence then stormcloak. Now you can make the same arguement with the silver-blood but the silver-blood don't care who actually controls the reach, only that they can do their little scam by using the forsworn as angry and sometimes disobedient puppets to drive away competitors and to take over land and mines.

I have with my imperial characters. But no Rikke or Tullius said anything against the Thalmor. Rikke doesn't say anything about the Talos worshiping - she just said that her personal beliefs aren't my business. Also when asked about Thalmor she weren't willing to talk with me. And after completing the Imperial quest line all Tullius is saying to me is "Stay away from me."

You do realize you speak ussually with others around and about. I would assume the thalmor have spies every where, even in the stormcloaks.

Not sure why, new dialogue opened up to me and I'm sure several others.

Tullius hates the Thalmor with a burning passion...

But still my point still stands that theres no proof that the Empire is actually a puppet of the Thalmor and if you actually paid attention you'd know that they dragging their feet when it comes to the WGC, as someone said before.

Okay lets get this straight most of you are on the extreme in this, its ever "The empire is the dominions [censored]" or "The Empire hates the thalmor and is completely and utterly Independent " Both of these are NOT TRUE

But did the empire not refuse their them and end up on the lossing end. In the real life situation they accepted the treaty under threat, where the empire only accepted a treaty at the end of a long and bloody war. Also Hammerfell had been fighting a weaked aldmeri dominion, they had just made peace with the rest of the empire. From what I had read somewhere the redguards actually had some fresh troops who were busy with political in fighting in the north as well as the support of several legion divisions who opted to join up with the redguards to liberate hammerfell. The thalmor where not at their best during the fight, could have ended differently if it had been fresh aldmeri dominion vs hammerfell. Also one last statement is that how would the stormcloaks position be better than the empires? The thalmor only have amount of force in the province and the stormcloaks would still have the same nordic army as the imperials would of had. The only difference is their will be no support from cyrodil and the thalmor would only have to fight on a skyrim front. The situation seems worse in my opinion. Remeber the first great war was morrowind, skyrim, cyrodil, hammerfell and high rock vs summerset isles, elsweyr and valenwood. If the thalmor were winning against several provinces what about against just one?

You have listened Imperial propaganda for too long. Tullius seems to be far more power hungry than Ulfric is. And the war is started by the Empire anyway. The Empire promised to Ulfric and Nord militia to have free worship of Talos. And Stormcloaks are living in that way. The Empire decided to ate it's words and came to arrest Ulfric and other Talos worshippers. What is this if not Thalmor puppetism? You can't say Ulfric and Stormcloaks are doing wrong if they are resisting those arrests. The Empire started the war by sending the legion to do these arrests - they should do nothing and left it to Thalmor justiciars. In that way there wouldn't be civil war between Imperials and Stromcloaks - In that way there would be a war between the Thalmor justiciars and Stormcloaks.

Now I didn't say they were utterly independent but they certainly aren't puppets.

The war was in a stalemate before Tullius arrived, and as I said, Rikke herself mentions Ulfric's growing support. Of course not everyone is a sold-out partisan. Most people just want to get on with their lives. If you're saying only a couple people here and there support Ulfric, however, that just doesn't make any sense. The whole quest line is built on the premise that only the dragonborn's influence decides the conflict. If Ulfric's support is so weak, then the legion must be really pathetic.

I wouldn't call them a puppet, rather a rump state for the Thalmor. Tullius grumbles about having to bend over for the Thalmor but that's still what he does. It's not his fault, he's a good soldier and just following orders. They aren't really dragging their feet too hard, though. All of them show up at Elenwen's parties and Tullius is not above using the Thalmor to take out undesirables (as in the Missing in Action quest, where he could ask for Thorald's release if he wanted to).

Just so you now the thalmor actually threatened war if they did not obey. Also I for one don't believe the stormcloaks are wrong. I just think the postion is worse if the stormcloaks win. If ulfric was going for emperor I would have supported him, but instead he wants to break up the combined strength of the only thing that has a chance of facing the thalmor.

No I speak from observation, I've played the stormcloak campaign and the imperial campaign and I know exactly what I'm talking about, Tulius isn't power hungry nor does he show any signs of being power hungry where as Ulfric is different and even claims he will force the Jarls to name him High King even if they don't want too. You also make it seem that the imperials aren't angry about having to ban Talos worship either, Cyrodiil was a very staunch supporter of Talos worship, even having an entire chapel to him and several statues in the Imperial city, Talos is one of the most beloved gods among nords and imperials. As for Imperials arresting Talos worshipers we have no evidence that they are giving the prisoners to the Dominion, how do you know they aren't hiding the prisoners and keeping them safe? You don't and I still hold my case that you have no proof and no the empire didn't promise Ulfric that, it was the Jarl of Markarth who promised that, the empire had no say in it and didn't know it had been done until after the incident. Actually check your facts instead of making things up.

Igmund was the one who gave the promise to Ulfric but as a Jarl of Markath there's no mind why he would have right to give such a promise that Ulfric would believe. So as far as I understand Igmund must have quite a high status in the Empire which may give him right to do promises with size of this.