I'm saying this as someone who doesn't care about the civil war. Not only did they try to execute prisoners without a trial, but due to their incompetence and their blood lust, an innocent man who had nothing to do with the rebellion ended up getting killed, and they almost killed me without getting the facts straight.

While leaving the keep....I've seen their torture room, with dead prisoners....I found that even more messed up.

And the general of the Legion was watching the whole thing. Why should I forgive a bunch of corrupt murderers? I honestly wish their was a way of taking out the legion without joining the stormcloaks, since I'm not interested in the war.

To be fair, only that woman wanted to kill you, the other guard tried to defend you.

The Stormcloaks and the Empire are just as bad as each other in my opinion.

Whoever you find the lesser of the two evils. There's no clear good guy in this fight, which makes the story rather interesting imo.
All you've mentioned happened basically only in the first 30 minutes of the game showing the bad side of the Imperials, and when you'll see the Stormcloaks later on you'll find they're not much better, most likely worse.

At least you can roleplay that you were set up as an innocent guy or whatever and call the whole beginning a big misunderstanding.
Whichever side I pick, I'll roleplay to become higher in power to change things. To change how messed up both factions are.

If you go with the imperial at the start, he tries to talk to the stormcloaks and get away from the town peacefully... but they attack. That's 2 stormcloaks that tried to kill you, and 1 imperial that tried to kill you.

Who was this innocent man? There was a thief that was slain but he was hardly innocent, in fact he probably would have been executed the next time he was caught stealing. The Empire didn't mean to kill you, your papers were lost, you weren't on the list and you were in the same cart as the leader of the rebels. Wrong place at the wrong time, while I don't really agree with the spineless Imperials, they're far better than the bigot Stormcloaks.

I found a book thats so bigoted its ridiculous, calls all dunmer lazy >.<
Just go to windhelm all your doubts will be answered when you get a sense of how bigoted that city is.

A Nord will side with his countrymen. The time for the oppression of Skyrim by the Empire is at an end. Skyrim for the Nords!!!!!!

1) Should Skyrim be part of the Empire or secede?
2) Should Ulfric become High King after he killed Torygg?
3) Are you doing the Dark Brotherhood (not relevant)?
4) Are you a Nord or Imperial (hardly relevant either)?
5) Are you going to side with the Thalmor, whom the game sets you up to hate?

I would also like to know this. No one has given a reason to forgive them other than "it was a mistake" Innocent man = horse thief. The empire in this game is no better than any empire in history. A ruthless ruling system with little to no compassion for the indigenous people of the land. No matter if the Stormcloaks are racist or not it's still the Nords homeland.

Was it http://www.imperial-library.info/content/skyrim-dunmer-skyrim?

"What should we do?" and "sorry" are not a defense.

Or was it the part where he offered to ship my corpse home? It was touching, really, that bit. But it's an offer I would prefer to not need.

In a war, if you are found in the same party as enemy number one when he gets caught, are they gonna be friendly?

"Oh, well, you just happened to be around when we captured the #1 Al Queda operative on the Pakistani border, you arent on our list and we are 100 miles from anywhere a civilian would be ... but you know what, we're just gonna let you go. Because what are the oddd you are an enemy spy or merc? Pretty low, I'm guessing. So off you go now, have a good one."

Yeah right.

The Imperial leaders are doing what anybody would do. The fact that they let it go after things get all weird is actually pretty forward-thinking.

I think people are readding too much into this. It's a civil war. There is seldom ever a black and white good or bad guy when a nation is fighting itself. There is many layers and many issues, and people focus too heavily on just a single issue and miss the big picture. Let's explore just a few....

Legitmacy: The stormcloaks point out they're being run and administered by an outside nation; which is true to an extent, but it has been this way for 2 entire eras (hundreds of years). Imagine if today a rebel uprising formed in America where they demanded that the US government leave and cede the country to Britian (or, hell.. the NATIVE AMERICANS?), because that is how it was hundreds of years ago... times change and things move on.

Religion: The Stormcloak rallying cry is the outlawing of Talos worship, but if you speak to the imperials you realise most of THEM worship Talos too, but they do so in private and the authorities turn a blind eye to it. When you delve deeper, you also find that talos worship isn't Ulfric's real motivation, his motivations are more selfish - power and to soothe his concience.

Thalmor and the Dominion: Neither Skyrim nor the Empire likes the Thalmor. While the Stormcloaks paint the Empire as lackies to an enemy nation, the Empire themselves are clearly no friend of the Thalmor either, and are fighting a cold war, positoning their pieces on the playing field and jockeying for power with each other but keeping the guise of the treaty in place. A united Empire of Skyrim and Cyrodiil has a better chance of winning this war than Skyrim and Cyrodiil alone as enemies; the Thalmor are delibrately extending the war where possible to help keep the empire and skyrim in a position of weakness. The Stormcloaks might win their battle with the Empire, but ultimately lose the war against the bigger existential threat posed by the Dominion.

Trade and Foreign Affairs: The Stormcloaks are highly xenophobic "Skyrim for the Nords!" as they say. This will not help them forge alliances or trade relations with their neighbours in a Stormcloak skyrim - and contrary to what patriotic individuals like to think, trade and relations are important, a nation cannot survive in isolation (See North Korea).

Intelligence Gathering: The Empire uses torture as a means of intelligence gathering... though that said BOTH sides freely execute anyone so much as suspected of working for the other side.



Next time you're tempted to name one side or the other as best on a SINGLE issue think how many other issues exist

I'm just saying, but all I want for christmas is a revolutionary uprising in the U.S.

It was this 1 http://www.imperial-library.info/content/skyrim-scourge-gray-quarter

was lying around after i had a tough fight with a mage who loved casting lightning.

Really? Cause when it comes to being bigoted, I noticed the nord in that book admires the dunmer of Riften for actually doing work and assimilating into the nord's city.

Whereas in that other book, the dunmer calls all nords cattle waiting to be slaughtered by their true masters, the elves.

Empire? Stormcloaks? I wish I could side with the Thalmor, kick the humans back to Atmora where they belong!

Personally I think they should have a third option to the civil war where you can put Jarl Balgruuf of Whiterun on the throne with Skyrim independent by treaty instead of conquest but maintaining a strong mutual defense treaty with the Empire. But then I'm a Canadian and know that sort of thing can actually work in the real world .

I would approve of an independant Skyrim with Balgruuf at the throne. Ulfric's going the Talos way, which while it will grant him the ability to defeat the elves, it is also at the same time very dikeish. The empire's lost any pretence of caring about any province than cyrodiil. So an independant skyrim with Balgruuf as High King, and a defensive pact with the Empire would've been a great outcome.

But that would give an easy out to a situation with no unequivacally good outcome.

I respect what the Stormcloaks are trying to do, but it is short sighted. They are not seeing the bigger picture. The Thalmor absolutely wasted the Empire in the war. The Empire is all the kingdoms united. How the hell could just Skyrim stand up to them? Answer is they can't. If the Empire couldn't do it, how the hell is Skyrim going to do it? Ulfric has allowed his emotions and passion to overrule his judgement. The Empire had to surrender to live to fight another day. They hate the Thalmor just as much as Ulfric and his Stormcloaks. The worshiping of Talos was still going on all through out the Empire, until Ulfric started making noise and brought the worshiping of Talos under a Thalmor magnifying glass. Then the Empire had no choice but to enforce the outlawing of such worshiping. Notice however that the statue of Talos still stands in Whiterun. The Yarl there is a Empire supporter and they are still worshiping Talos.

As far as the Empire trying to execute you in the beginning of the game. Your identity was not known. You were on a wagon with the leader of the rebellion. The Empire HAD to assume you were with them. Wrong place wrong time. The Captain that ordered your execution seemed pretty angry right? Wouldn't you be too if someone kicked the Thalmor beehive and just made things much harder for you and your fellow kinsmen? The Thalmor could have wiped out the human population if they wanted to but they didn't. This allowed the Empire to secretly rebuild and plan. Even though they were not supposed to worship Talos, they still did, until Ulfric screwed everything up.

You could go around and attack their encampments.

Read the Bear of Markath. See Ulfric's real face. Then you will understand why then Empire is not so bad.

I Don't pick sides anymore, I just do the Main quest and give Winterhold to the Empire and Falkreath to the Rebels.

Because the Winterhold pro Rebels Jarl is dumb, and the Empire one is really nice.

And because the Falkreath Empire one is a spoiled kid, and the Rebel one is very wise

The Bear of Markarth was written as propaganda by an imperial scribe to try to justify them stabbing Ulfric in the back.


People that think the thalmor force is so amazing need to realize, that the empire was completely unprepared for war. The thalmor caught Mede II with his pants down and doing cartwheels around the imperial throne. The Thalmor had been infiltrating them and reported the location of each of the legions, what their strengths were and what their weaknesses were. They were ready to strike for the maximum amount of damage to the empire. http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Lore:Rising_Threat,_Vol._IV so long as they have intelligence on the enemy. The battle of red ring should have went in the thalmor's favor, but the invalids left in hammerfell led the thalmor to believe they'd be facing 2 legions instead of 3. Then the entire thalmor attack force was annihilated. All of it. The empire still had forces left. The redguards were also successful against the thalmor by themselves. Currently the empire allows thalmor agents to walk freely through their lands. They are giving them just the info they need when the war starts up again.

The empire barely stood up to the thalmor invasion because its leader wasn't concerned about affairs outside Cyrodiil. The Great War was a big wake up call.

Regardless of whether or not the Bear of Markarth is factual, and I doubt it is, it doesn't at all show that the Empire is not so bad. Painting Ulfric in a bad light doesn't make the Empire not bad. The empire has been shown to not really care about Skyrim beyond what it can get from her. They do not have Skyrim's best interests at heart and do things that are just as awful. And if you're making your decision based on Jarls... the Empire's idea of the best Jarl of Riften is Maven Freaking Black-Briar. Come on.

Anyway, props for staying neutral. I personally side with the Stormcloaks, because despite some of the awful things Ulfric has done, in general he is right. Skyrim needs a high king who can put Skyrim's needs first. Torygg couldn't, Elisif won't be able to, because they are basically puppets of the Empire (no matter how nice they are/were). Maybe that king isn't Ulfric, but the Empire clearly has no idea how to govern Skyrim.

It happened to just be a really bad day for the Empire: They wanted to get the [censored] Civil War over with as swiftly as possible. Everyone was in a foul mood, and were like "Kill 'em all, and let Arkay sort it out."

Ulfric Stormcloak and his men are to blame for being cowards who dutifully line up to have their heads lopped off like Sheep to the Butcher instead of continuing to fight for their cause. The only rational person was Lokir of Rorikstead.