When you think of it: considering what they are no faction in this game is worth joining. All of them are evil to some point; or maybe the bards? Bethesda did a very good job here at forcing us to make disturbing choices.

Yup, the Silverhand are clearly bandits with a werewolf fetish. I wouldn't call the Vigilants "good" either, not when they lump followers of Meridia in with the followers of Dagon or Molag Bal.

The bards make you lie. But other than that I guess they're the only decent faction, but they're hardly "good" guys in the "questing to vanquish evil" way, more just a collection of... well, bards.

I do prefer this to Oblivion's "Every faction is at least somewhat good except the really evil one"

Funnily enough, the first time I saw a Vigilant in the game, I was all "cool, there's paladins in the game", until he started trying to cave my head in with a mace. Turns out he was a thrall to a vampire that pounced on me soon after.

and its not justice if the person didnt want to be a vampire. And what would happen if a vigilant was bitten by a vampire while sleeping and didnt know?

The Daedra Princes are gods, just different from the Aedra. The Aedra(Stendarr, Julianos, Kynareth etc.) were partly melded with the world when it was created, so they don't have the power to directly affect anyone's affairs. The Daedra kept their distance from the creation, so they have more of their original powers left, and can poke their noses into mortals' affairs rather freely, though less so after the Oblivion Crisis. That makes some people respect them more than the Aedra, since they can actually affect the world.

The Silver Hand is undoubtably evil, but I can't really view the Vigilants as such. A bit fanatical perhaps, but then again, most Daedra are evil in my book (with the exception of Azura and Meridia)

Heh, yeah they really aren't all that strong though, especially for fighting the powerful supernatural enemies they choose. I dunno who told them robes would be a good idea for close combat

They DO look cool though, they just dont scale as well as other NPCs/creatures.

My good characters have a deep hatred of them since they are projected as obvious hypocrites, hmm, much like real world cults.

True, looks good. And if they were heavily into magic it wouldn't be a bad choice, but they tend to make use of their mace too. Heavier armor would be a better choice for potentially close combat.

Oh the irony. Since I'm a Vampire i'm going to check and see if I can use their hideout as my new fast food drive thru.

The first time my current character passed 2 Vigilants, she was content to ignore them, but one stopped, turned, and made a point of saying, "Stendarr's mercy does not extend to Daedra worshippers."
Well, seeing as how I was carrying the Sanguine Rose and wearing the Saviour Hide at the time, I took it a bit personally and decided to see if Stendarr's protection extended to His worshippers.
It does not.
The ease with which they fell to a little blonde girl in a fur corset earned them my permanent contempt.
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/440/menei.jpg/ now hunt them for sport- our favorite tactic being to slay one of the pair and send its corpse after the other. We have collected 18 Amulets so far and keep them in a special case in my home in Markath.

As for the Silver Hand, they are despicable by any metric, but at least they put up a decent fight.

I've encountered them a few times. Most of them are randomly generated encounters. Mainly they are in 2's or 3's and when you talk to them they state that they hunt all kinds of "evils", werewolves, vampires and daedra worshippers. This was grounds enough for me to butcher them on the spot.

Other occurences that I have seen are worshippers being attacked at shrines such as the Khajiit at Peryite's shrine. We were having a conversation and the damn bastards attacked the khajiit mid sentence.

I've never seen them at any of the Daedric Shrines myself but I'd agree with defending many of the worshippers against them. Peryite is certainly not my cup of tea and could be considered evil, but the Khajiit wasn't doing anything himself, so I'd be fine with defending him.

I've seen them plenty of times along the roads though, usually fighting vampires and other hostiles. Their zealotry is unnerving and their words are hypocritical, but I don't see words as warranting the wholesale slaughter of their members, so I'd leave them be unless I saw them doing wrong.

I believe I've seen a few of them use Vampiric Drain.

I don't know. I guess you could say I am a zealous Daedra Prince worshipper. I guess my fanaticism is on par with the Vigilants.

Take the Thalmor into consideration though, if you run into one of their Justiciar patrols and openly declare that you worship Talos, they WILL attack you on sight.

I guess it is just a war between the zealots.

That's fair enough I suppose.
Yeah, I always make sure to do that when I come across them. I give them the first shot and don't get a bounty for defending myself.