User blog comment:Ulfric nord/the stormcloak rebilion/@comment-4113369-20130322143609

Imperial.

The rest of Tamriel needs to stick together if they want to stand up to the Thalmor, so the Stormcloaks could not have chosen a worse time to rebel. The worst part is, the reason they rebelled to begin with was because Talos worship was banned in exchange for ending the war. A war they were losing, I might add (True, Hammerfell managed to force the Thalmor into a stalemate, but they weren't exactly fighting the main force). They'd rather let the Thalmor take over Tamriel/destroy the world than give up open worship of a god that does almost nothing. How dense is that? Note the "open", by the way; there wasn't any crackdown on secret worship until after the Stormcloaks made a fuss about it. Then, of course, there's the latent racism/whatever that's rooted in the Stormcloaks, which is ridiculous on more than just a moral level. The Septim Empire proved that the races can get along more or less fine, so their behaviour is essentially a waste of possible resources.

Besides, what would they do when they achieve victory? If pressed, the Empire would probably have to let Thalmor forces through to Skyrim, and on their own they'd be outmatched. Ulfric wouldn't be able to ask neighbouring provinces (or what's left of one, in Morrowind's case) for help either, as that would no doubt be an unpopular move amongst his supporters, what with "Skyrim for the Nords" and all.

I will admit that I can't see this issue from multiple sides. I've tried, but I just can't manage to sympathise with the Stormcloaks on any level. They don't make sense to me. I keep hearing about how "grey" people find the conflict to be, but as far as I see it, it's "Necessity (Empire) vs Stupidity (Stormcloaks)".