User blog comment:The Usual Thinker/Which side did you choose and why?/@comment-1788799-20120225002802

Personally, I chose the Imperials. Why? Two reasons. One reason is because I felt sympathetic to the Argonians and Dark Elves who were getting hell from the Stormcloaks and second because I decided to look at the situation from a strategic aspect. Even if the Stormcloaks win, there is no guarantee that they will be able to hold off or defeat the Aldmeri. People keep making the mistake of assuming that the Aldmeri is in Skyrim to "win the hearts and minds of the people", except that the Aldmeri don't care about the hearts and minds of the people. The Aldmeri aren't afraid to use genocide as a means of achieving their goals. If there are Stormcloak Guerrillas hiding in Skyrim's forest and ambushing Thalmor soldiers, the Thalmor will burn down the forest, raze every city and town in Skyrim to the ground and exterminate every last Nord they find, regardless of whether they are combatant or non combatant. People forget that the Thalmor are about asserting their dominance as a race, not about uniting the races but rather enslaving or killing them, and with the Nords, they're just looking for an excuse to start massacring everyone. What better an excuse than Stormcloak insurgents attacking their men? However, the Empire on the other hand still has a shot at defeating the Thalmor because the Empire is the only power that is still able to battle the Thalmor on an open battlefield. If the Empire reasserts its rule in Skyrim, it means that now, while a minor victory, it is still a victory from which they can begin rallying people to join the Legions. There are already a fair amount of Nords who are willing to fight and if necessary, die for the Empire, so begin rallying them. If the Empire wins in Skyrim, they will be able to raise more legions and build up forces for round two against the Aldmeri Dominion whereas the Aldmeri Dominion will lose even more supporters and gain many more enemies as people will flock to a revived Empire.