User blog:Cousland of Highever/My standpoints on the Imperial vs Stormcloak debate

I guess this blog can be seen as a response to Zippertrains85 brilliant points about "Why the Stormcloaks are right" Seeing as this is a response to his blog it might be more leaned towards the imperial side but I hope to make it as neutral as possible.

And why I mostly agree with those points I have seen some disturbing statements that people claim "This side is right. Here is why. You are wrong"

The purpose of this is to try and explain why the statement "This is the right side to join." is flawed.

First off... You are NOT a citizen of Tamriel (sadly, hehe) so therfore you do not know which side would benefit you or your family the most. Skyrim civil war is not ment to be a "good vs evil".

Hopefully after reading this you will be more open minded to the other side which you believe is "the wrong" side.

On one side we have the nords who follow Ulfric who believes that the Empire is dying and serves as the Aldmeri dominions puppets and that Skyrim would be better off independent.

On the other side we have nords who believe that Skyrim needs the Empire as much as the Empire needs Skyrim.

Both sides believes that its what THEY fight for that is the best for Skyrim.

The Empire and Skyrim has always been good for eachother and the nords who are on the imperial side believes that the relalationship between Cyrodil and Skyrim can still work and are willing to fight to perserve it. Why do they dislike Ulfric? Well, some believe that Ulfric is the reason why the Thalmor are roaming Skyrim and arresting any Talos worshippers seeing as it was not until after the Markarth incident that the Thalmor started to be active in Skyrim. Hadvars uncle (forget his name) mentions this that nobody really cared about that part of the white gold concordant. Everyone still worshipped Talos, again until after the Markarth incident. Now Ulfric think thats the Empire turned its back on Skyrim (which it have, there is no denying). He was imprisoned by the Thalmor which caused him to harbor great anger towards them and the Empire who he sees as the Thalmors puppet. We all know that Ulfric kills high king Torygg in single combat. NOT murder like some people still seem to claim despite the fact that most NPCs that were there points out that Ulfric did challenge Torygg who accepted it. We have those who also claim that Torygg was a coward. Really? How? Sure, he was weak in combat but he knew he was going to lose the challenge and he accepted it anyway. That doesn't seem very cowardly to me. In the end he was a mediocre High King to say the least.

One of the famous arguments on the imperial side is that Ulfric is power hungry. Zippertrain in his blog seems to disagree as do many other Stormcloaks but I think its entirely possible. He is driven by his hate for the Thalmor and disgust for the weak empire but what better way to fight your enemies than with the political power to do so efficiently?

We have Imperials point out that Ulfric and his followers are racists which is simply not true. There is one racist jerk in Windhelm who all love to beat up but are you going to let him, a commoner, speak for the whole Stormcloak cause?

To summarize this section: We have people who believe that its time for Skyrim to break off the empire and govern themselves and make their own decisions and those who believe that Ulfric divides Skyrim and weakens not only the empire but Skyrim herself. Imperial and Stormcloak alike has the same goal: A unified Skyrim to be used against the Aldmeri Dominion for the second great war which will no doubt come. Both of theese believes seems just and worthy to fight for but only if there is something in it for you which moves on to the second section / point of this blog:

Which side benefits your race's nation the most?

Lets assume that your character acts on the interest of the nation its from. As an orc, you might be leaning more towards joining the Empire seeing as the Empire granted the orcs provincial status which earned them their political favor and orcs have a history of serving the legion. The orcs in Markarth, while neutral, states that the Empire has always been good for the orcs and there is no reason (yet) why this good relation can't continue.

As Redguard the most logical choice would be to join the Stormcloaks, seeing as Hammerfell has declared their independence and are not very happy with the Empire surrendering territory to the Dominon as part of the white gold concordant.

Theese two examples should prove my point. It would be harder to look at the perspective of Khajiit / Elsewyr, Bosmer/Valenwood and Altmer/Summerset Isles seeing as Elsewyr, Valenwood, and Summerset Isles are the Aldmeri Dominion and they/the Thalmor are not a joinable faction. Not all Altmer, Bosmer and khajiits are very fond of the Dominion though and might just decide to join whichever side they personally believe have the best chance to fight the dominion. Or they might just not simply care about Skyrim or its future....

I believe that was all my points I wanted to make without making it to long. Feel free to add comments (its my first blog post, so feedback is appreciated)