When you have a scumbag of a General who not only was willing to wrongfully execute you in spite of you not being on the list, but also threaten you to direct you to the nearby prison.

http://i1096.photobucket.com/albums/g322/Raidensama/Skyrim/TESV2012-03-0218-02-40-42.jpg

I cant wait to kill him yet again on my 100th character (not literately) that I've created so far http://youtu.be/PnD_kLDz0lA

How can anyone with a right mind would want to join the legion when the General is execution happy along with tossing people in prison.

Sure Ulfric maybe power hungry but so far I've never been threaten with prison by the man.

As what Heimskr would say
"Do the elves take your homes? Your businesses? Your children? Your very lives? And what does the Empire do? Nothing! Nay, worse than nothing! the Imperial machine enforces the will of the Thalmor! Against its own people! So rise up! Rise up, children of the Empire! Rise up, Stormcloaks! Embrace the word of mighty Talos, he who is both man and Divine! For we are the children of man! And we shall inherit the heavens and earth! And we, not the Elves or their toadies, will rule Skyrim! Forever!"

"So much"?

I thought imperial supporters were a minority around here.

Yeah, I can't go along with them. I won't go into it again, but basically: no empire was formed or expanded out of benevolence for the subjects/subjugated.

Is this your first TES game?

The Empire was founded by Akatosh and a Dragonborn. By people who rebelled against slavery. The one reason why the empire is in shambles now is that it was taken over by an outsider.

I wish people would stop comparing it to real life empires. Deal with the lore on it's own terms at least.

edit: Anytime the empire was taken over by outsiders, it went to crap.

Not according to several polls that was taken. People still love the legion.

I love neither.

I like the ideal of the empire, as far as TES goes. I don't like the current empire though. When some people say they want to support it, they simply want to fix it from within.

Hmmm, I always thought they had more support than the stormcloaks but I may be wrong.

The Reason I support the empire is Im still Loyal to the Septim Dynasty. even if theyve been gone for generations (just like even though us Canadians have been our own country for generations, many of us our still loyal the the monarchy)

well considering the fact that ulfric is a bigot, and theres nothing wrong with the legion and the empire itself (the current emperor is to blame for the situation through the empire in the moment, so even when i join the legion i still kill him) i still like the imperial side more.. and the only thing that the thalmor are taking away from the nords is that they forbid them to praise their god which they can still do but not openly(have a shrine in ur basemant, carry a freaking amulet around, just dont parade ur religion and the whole problem is solved until the emire gets the strenght to fight back...). So in the end the nords want to wage war on the empire, and pretty much the thalmor, in this way threatening the existence of both the empire and skyrim just so they can scream that they believe in talos... and thats what i call stupidity.

I used to support the Empire over the Stormcloaks for a variety of reasons: belief that it will become a great again, the ideals it was founded on, and to keep the provinces united under a single banner.

Then I changed it to 'they have more money than the Stormcloaks'. It made things alot simpler.

PS: It's best not to use Heimskr as a source of information. Old priests yelling all day on street corners aren't very trustworthy.

He says some things that make sense, but goes off the deep end. He thinks he's the "chosen one" or something. Never a good sign.

Trust in me, Whiterun! Trust in the words of Heimskr! For I am the chosen of Talos! I alone have been annointed by the Ninth to spread his holy word!

Even a broken clock is right twice a day.

Raizen Sama, people like to have choices. You know, like that's why we have different flavors of ice cream.... You may be a hotheaded Stormcloak supporter and have your reasons, but others have their reasons for either supporting the Legion, or supporting neither.

There's not much point in posting lots of inflammatory stuff trying to get everyone to go along with your perceptions and choices.

Cuz there freaking awesome. I don't know what to tell you, sometimes people have different preferences than you do. Crazy, I know.

Okay then: the empire allows agents from a foreign nation to walk freely on its lands, and persecute, arrest and kill some of its citizens because of their religious beliefs. Splendid empire, really.

I've played the Civil War from both sides. What it comes down to is who you'd rather kill at the end: Tullius or Ulfric. Both have bad qualities but it's hard to see any good qualities in Tullius. He's just an unlikable character. He's also a dike when it comes to killing Ulfric. At least Ulfric has some class when Tullius gets his melon lopped off.

You do realize that the Prophet in the "Knights of the Nine" expansion for Oblivion, who sat across from the Chapel of Dibella in Anvil and who spouted [censored] all day, was actually the Avatar of Talos? Who's to say Heimskr isn't actually an Avatar of Talos as well? Especially considering the Thalmor are trying to stamp out the worship of him.

What does that have to do with my post?

The poster Buckoms thinks the empire isn't founded on anything good. When that isn't true, as far as these games are concerned.. What you see of the empire is not the empire at all, as it was intended. The empire was founded by a dragonborn. The first dragonborn, Alessia. She was a rebel who fought against the elves in her day, sided with Nords, and ended up unifying the lands with a religion of the divines. After that, the second empire was run by another dragonborn, Reman. And then the third empire we all know is the Septim Dynasty. These weren't Romans. Nor was it "Star Wars".

This current empire now has no dragonborn guiding it. It is run by the grandson of a warlord who took it over after the Oblivion crisis. He came into the imperial city with a mere 1000 troops and took it over. I'm not telling anyone to support this family. I'm just responding to Buckom's post about him thinking empire's aren't founded with good reasons.

If that is the case, and I sincerely doubt it is, then the divines need to cut that crap out. Listening to them shout all day long is so annoying I'd rather take my chances with the inevitable world-ending threat that they're going on about.

And Heimskr is just stating the obvious. The Prophet was atleast warning about an ancient threat that was returning to seek revenge.

Heh. Until I see him do more shouts than me, I'm not buying that he's the "avatar of Talos".

Someone help me out, here. In Morrowind and Oblivion, are those regions in such decay as I see in Skyrim? The roads look to be 1000 years old. The old ruins, castles are centuries old. Bandits own more real estate than Jarls do. The whole place looks pretty much ignored. I would love to see what it looked like 500 years before when it was being kept up.

The whole region of Skyrim just looks the part of a dead region with people barely hanging on. Why should it be this way, if so many Emperors came from there?

Cyrodiil did not rule over Skyrim until Reman. About 2500 years after Alessia.

It's an Empire. It is built to dominate.

No, Morrowind is kind of full of outlandish architecture and Oblivion is the heart of the empire, very civilized, western European-like fantasy. Not sure what to blame the look on Skyrim. Some of the Nord towns in previous games were primitive as well, so it's probably the Nords.

I forgot to mention how Tiber Septim slaughtered anyone who didn't support him. I guess him being Dragonborn makes that good, or something. I divine right to do whatever you want, and you shall be marked "good."

Tiber Septim.... Reman.... all of them. All of them were power hungry, violent dictators. They were not "good."