Board Thread:Lore Discussion/@comment-27007772-20140611204941/@comment-77.170.146.227-20141127210252

Since 2011, I have played several times as a Stormcloak and once as an Imperial, and I still maintain that the Stormcloaks are the right choice to make. I'll go through this chronologically.

First, the White-Gold Concordat. The entire Empire was sold to the Thalmor so that the Emperor - who isn't even a Septim by blood - could keep his throne. Imperial soldiers on the roads of Skyrim often remark that "the Empire is keeping the Dominion out of Skyrim", but I would beg to differ considering that Thalmor justiciars and soldiers are wandering around Skyrim in force, butchering and enslaving people left and right for worshipping Talos. The Empire is not what's keeping the Dominion out of Skyrim - it's what keeps letting the Dominion in.

Then there is the matter of Torygg being killed by Ulfric despite sympathising with the Stormcloaks. Ulfric and Galmar actually have a very sensible thing to say about that. By ancient Nord tradition, the Moot is supposed to pick the best candidate to be High King. The best candidate is one who is a strong-willed, experienced leader who can prove his personal and strategic strength and his influence before being elected. But in recent decades, the Moot has grown corrupt and is simply bought by the Empire to ensure that the Empire's favored candidate - no matter how unfit he is to rule - gets elected. If you wander around Solitude, the general opinion seems to be that despite the tragedy of his killing, they don't really miss Torygg much. Apart from Elisif, only the headsman seems to miss Torygg - and that's only because Torygg would let him behead people if he just asked. Torygg was a weak-willed, feeble-bodied young man who, like his widow, would hand Skyrim over to the elves (or anyone else) on a silver plate. He was entirely unfit to rule. He was only High King, and not a simple farmer or a shopkeeper, because his father had been High King before him and the Empire figured he'd be loyal enough and just take orders from the Imperial City (including orders at the expense of his own people). It was necessary, at least from the perspective of the Stormcloaks, to kill Torygg and let a strong and independent candidate (Ulfric) take the throne.

Then there's the attitude of both sides to the player character and Skyrim in general, although perhaps that's because I always play as a Nord. In any case, within five minutes of starting the game the Empire has decided to put you to death on the arbitrary decision of a low-level officer (I was glad to get rid of her in the Helgen Keep). And even if you've saved the world from Alduin, Harkon and Miraak, the moment you talk to General Tullius he'll look down on you, sneer at you and ask you if he can "direct you to the nearest prison". In all of my playthroughs, Ulfric has been the courteous one and Tullius has been the villainous one. Then there's the reason they fight - Tullius fights because he's a career soldier, and his dialogue and decisions reflect that. Despite having been in Skyrim for a long time, Tullius doesn't know what Sovngarde is and constantly complains about the stubborn nature of the Nords.

Ulfric, on the other hand, explains perfectly well in one of his epic rants why he fights. "I fight for the men I've held in my arms, dying on foreign soil! I fight for their wives and children, whose names I heard whispered in their last breath. I fight for we few who did come home, only to find our country full of strangers wearing familiar faces. I fight for my people impoverished to pay the debts of an Empire too weak to rule them, yet brands them criminals for wanting to rule themselves! I fight so that all the fighting I've already done hasn't been for nothing! I fight because I must."

As for the future, that's another part of lore where people on both sides tend to take the Empire's word for truth. "We're better together" is true for two men, or ten men, or a hundred men, but it isn't necessarily true for millions of men who don't know each other. The Empire's line tends to be that it needs to regain strength, but in the twenty-six years following the White-Gold Concordat the Empire has only grown weaker and the Thalmor have only grown stronger. I think Cyrodiil, High Rock, Hammerfell, Morrowind and Skyrim would be better off governing themselves rather than propping up the façade of an Empire that's been dead for a quarter of a century. That way, they can do what they know is best for their own people, and when the Dominion attacks again they'll be able to stand together on equal terms as individual Imperials, Bretons and Nords did in solidarity with the Redguards when Hammerfell decided to reject the terms of the White-Gold Concordat and fight on.

Finally, a Stormcloak victory might actually be a blessing in disguise. You see, the trend is that the Empire is getting weaker and more fearful and the Dominion is slowly getting stronger. It's now or never - fight now, or get run over later. If there is going to be a second Great War, the non-Altmer stand a better chance at winning now than they would ten years from now. A flagrant violation of the terms of the White-Gold Concordat by the Nords, who form a significant part of the Empire by 4E201, might actually trigger a new Great War (because the Thalmor would lose their purpose and therefore their power at home if they'd just let the Nords start worshipping Talos again) at a time when the Dominion hasn't had the time to prepare its forces yet. And such a war would be a war of peoples and not of governments, even populations in Thalmor-controlled regions like Valenwood might feel inclined to join and kick the Thalmor right back to 'Alinor'.

Finally, consider that the Empire is almost a carbon copy of the Roman Empire in Late Antiquity. It's falling apart because it's trying to force things on populations that are hardly loyal to it anymore. Its army is a shadow of its former self and relies more and more on auxiliaries. It's been defeated abroad time and time again, and has to pay tribute to the nation that defeated it (which was a constant cycle for the Roman Empire in the fourth and fifth centuries until Rome itself was finally kept by invaders in 476 AD).