User blog comment:Thedoucheinthenorth/A question of morality/@comment-1600847-20121209142434

Empire: Fighting to keep Skyrim in the Empire and uphold the White Gold Concordat. More than half of Skyrim wants to remain in the Empire (if you count the cities, 5 Imperial versus 4 Stormcloak).

Stormcloaks: Fighting to maintain their worship of Talos and their freedom to govern themselves.

I believe if we just compare causes, not leaders or motivations or anything else, the Stormcloaks have the better one. Freedom and all that. But it's more complicated than that, obviously. I'm still highly suspicious of Ulfric real motivations, but this Mede Empire isn't as good as the Septim Empire from the revious TES games.