Khorak

Clearly the Empire was commanded by you, because apparently you share with them the complete failure to grasp very, very basic strategy. You know, that nonsense where you can quite reasonably determine enemy plans and movements; the Empire had absolutely no excuse whatsoever to be caught blindsided by an attack through Elsweyr. This was not Germans piling through Belgium, this was Thalmor piling through Thalmor territory. The Empire was maintaining fortifications with the laughably glaring hole of having nothing to prevent an attack via Elsweyr. This is not megligence, it is incompetence of the highest order. The Infernal City/Lord of Souls indicate that the Dominion has been absurdly on the ball in terms of misdirection and counter espionage since day one. The manner in which the Thalmor eventually conducted the war was idiotically obvious, and had nothing whatsoever to do with covert operations. The Empire sat next to an openly antagonistic rival which had already annexed its territory, and yet sat there like a lemon with gigantic, obvious holes in its defences for the better part of a century. Not knowing the Dominion's strength is absolutely no excuse at all for the colossal failures that actually mattered during the Great War. Your argument here is completely bankrupt of relevance. Just because I don't know how strong a man is doesn't mean I have an excuse for not having my guard up on my left when he finally punches me on the left side of my face. I don't need an intelligence report in order to realise that I have a vast border that is completely undefended and allows direct access TO MY CAPITAL. Also of note is that the forces placed in Hammerfell were also 'disunited', another negligent failure during a cold war scenario. Absolutely none of which actually excuses the failings that actually mattered during the Great War. The direct attack on Hammerfell was stopped, while the attack on Cyrodiil succeeded only because the Empire was mind bogglingly negligent in allowing easy access across their southern border, and it was far weaker than the Thalmor themselves had estimated. You're very, very happy to try banging the drum of Thalmor espionage superiority even though it simply isn't the slightest bit relevant to the argument; as it turns out, the Thalmor, who had all the information, were surprised the Empire was so weak. So yes, the Empire HAS been pathetically negligent. They have a hostile enemy on their borders, and when the time came that enemy was somewhat surprised and confused by the fact that their own estimations of how powerful the Empire SHOULD be are false....it was weaker. No it ain't. It's had twenty years. I have an exceptionally low estimation of your mental capacity if you can't grasp just how long that is. Again, the ROman Empire had mainland Italy burnt to the ground non-stop by Hannibal for fifteen years, defeated a peer opponent while this was happening, and in half the time Cyrodiil had to recover, it was off invading someone else. Twenty years is a VERY LONG TIME. First, no it wasn't. There is still half of Cyrodiil behind the Imperial City which remains untouched. Also, Skyrim remains untouched, along with High Rock. Half of Cyrodiil was occupied, while the deserty south of Hammerfell was occupied. Romans, Hannibal, fifteen years burning everything, yada yada.... LRN 2 LOGISTICS. Yeah? And? Even if that's true, because at this point I don't trust you as far as I can throw you. Which is likely pretty far, but not that far. So before anything, where is that? It's not impressive in the slightest. Seriously, I've got the entire history of the Roman Empire backing me up. I've got the Thirty Years War. The Hundred Years War. History is replete with examples, it's ridiculous. You truly have just no concept at all of how long thirty years is when you're as 'simple' as a classical to medieval society. All of Tamriel is twelve million square kilometers by two given sources. Cyrodiil being 162300 by another. The Roman Empire reached 4.4 million square kilometers. Basically, you're a liar on all counts. Also, you're still a strategic idiot. The shape of Cyrodill makes it hilariously defensible against Valenwood and Elsweyr, due to having a vastly smaller land border than would be expected, with a huge amount of space to retreat through whilst pivoting back around the Imperial City, forcing an enemy to chase you across a large frontier while their supply line gets shafted, or attack the Imperial City with an unsecured flank. Or split themselves trying to do both. You're laughing, basically. No, it isn't. In comparison to actual historical states, it's pathetic. Plus you've also ludicrously misrepresented the area, are under the frankly idiotic impression that having access to large, productive areas is somehow a disadvantage to recovery (seriously, this is the most stupid assertion I've heard in a long time), don't actually have any numbers of the losses sustained, but which have been historically sustained by states that then came back in far better fashion than the Cyrodiilic Empire, one example of which is the freaking Thirty Years War, which makes the Great War in Tamriel, and the terms of peace, look like a ****ing tea party. Half the male population of the entirety of Germany was dead by the end, and the Empire was still able to help put the boot into the Turks about 20 years later. This is going to be absurd, isn't it. Like, physical pain absurd. So in the moronic world of Lachdonin, the guys whose military was completely wiped out in a single battle are the winners. No, half of Cyrodill was burnt down. Meanwhile, Skyrim, High Rock, and the northern half of Hammerfell are wondering what the **** the problem is. We're back to the Strategic Genius of Lachdonin again, where the guys who have an army left and an Empire to both supply and reinforce it can't hope to continue the fight against the guys who just had Cannae happen all over their face while they're still pinned in place on the Hammerfell front. Seriously. You suck at Europa Universalis, don't you. Are you SERIOUSLY using the 'logic' that Hammerfell singlehandedly holding off the entire Aldmeri Dominion for five years and actually defeating it somehow supports you? Hammerfell alone defeated the Aldmeri Dominion after the catastrophic defeat the latter suffered at the Red Ring. Alone. Had the Empire struck back, there would have been absolutely nothing the Dominion could do about it. The Empire outright won because the Aldmeri Dominion made an immense strategic blunder of its own and got Cannae for it, and the Redguard proved it for five years. Well it's nice to know that you're going to end this on more lies. He conquered everything except Valenwood, with his final conquest being Morrowind. Vivec apparently knew he ultimately couldn't stop a figure of destiny and so negotiated now for better terms than being conquered, and handed over the Numidium. The Septim Empire was already having successful skirmishes with the Bosmer, but he was leery of invading Valenwood because it'd be ugly having to go into the depths of the place, and the Summerset Isles continued to have a superior navy. So he unleashed Numidium. In the end, the Aldmeri Dominion could do absolutely nothing whatsoever to defeat him, though with the entirety of Tamriel under his command, only Lochdanin Strategy would result in an inability to take a long term position of building up to steamroll it. He suddenly had Numidium though, so splat. Despite your utterly unsupported and utterly dishonest attempt to portray otherwise, the Thalmor are quantifiably not as powerful as their forebears. They continue to be unable to do squat to the Psijic Order, and continue to be perfectly killable in combat. The only thing that saved the previous Dominion was maintaining naval control....unsurprising that an island province would take a British stance. Had the Empire not been so utterly pathetic, they could quite happily have completely and utterly crushed the plans of the Aldmeri Dominion even in their previously unprepared, weak state thanks to the miracle of the Red Ring, but they didn't. They annihilated the Dominion forces, and could have effortlessly then moved to encircle the forces in Hammerfell and squashed them too, leaving the Empire with total supremacy and a position of strength. They rolled over.

If you think the powerful people at that table had no access to a guest list before arriving, which presumably had Delphine on it as the Blades representative of the Dragonborn, and not Esbern, then I have a rainbow bridge to Asgard to sell you.

There is absolutely no evidence that 'most of the Stormcloaks' hate the Dunmer. In fact, the one piece of direct racism you see in the game explicitly has the line, "And you refuse to help the Stormcloaks!" It is unsurprising that there would be resentment of that fact (though widespread outright hate is not evident) when the response to that complaint is "But it's not our fight." The problem here, for Stormcloak supporters like the drunkard at Windhelm, is that Dunmer in Skyrim are calling it their home but refusing to fight for it under the reasoning that it is not their fight....a reasoning that intrinsically means they do not consider themselves a part of Skyrim. Hahaha! That's....stupid at best. First, the Thieves Guild doesn't give a damn so her allegiance on the basis of her membership cannot be known, and Maven's own allegiance is irrelevant to having the Thieves Guild, which is neutral and will steal from you regardless of who you pay your taxes to, in her back pocket. Though as an aside, it is amusing to realise the obvious result in the future of your restoring the Thieves Guild....they'll be far too powerful for Maven to influence anymore. Haha! Screw you, you useless dirtbag. I refuse to talk politics, therefore the position of my entire race can be determined as being against the Stormcloaks. ....what? No idea why he mentioned Valmir, but quite frankly your objections to the Stormcloaks being perfectly fine with ANYONE willing to fight honestly for their cause can be defeated in their absolute entirety by a single word: GALMAR. The most staunch Stormcloak supporter in Skyrim does not, at any point, give a damn about your status as a High Elf when it comes to recruitment. He cares about your desire to truly be a Stormcloak. And why would a High Elf want to be a Stormcloak? Same reason anyone in the Empire might want to be...because they've lost faith in the Empire and want to throw in with the people who basically want to overthrow it and restore what it used to be. Oh, and if the Stormcloaks hated everyone else so much....how exactly would Valmir have gotten all those Stormcloaks to enter Forelhost? They'd have seen a High Elf Stormcloak and cut his face off. The Breton's entire 'hat' is that they are a pile of feudalistic, court intrigue obsessed nobles like a romantic stereotype of a chivalric France. Hadvar even mentions this when you choose to be one. The number of reasons for a Breton to join the Stormcloaks is larger than it would be for every single other race in the game. Combined. You can make up basically anything. High Rock is that sort of a place.

People 'hate' the Empire because it has turned rubbish. We got dumped into Skyrim 200 years after Oblivion, and the story is basically one of the Empire collapsing into decay and ruin. It's finally finished off by the Thalmor, whose strategic planning was so insultingly obvious that only an utterly blind and stupid Empire could ever have failed to notice what was going on, and have failed so pathetically to prepare for it. The Thalmor were openly hostile from their very inception, militarily taking Valenwood, and the Empire just let them have it instead of walking over there and kicking their face in. Lets start adding some comparison here: The Roman Empire that the Cyrodiilic Empire is so often aesthetically modelled on. The Roman Empire had Hannibal walking around the Italian mainland for FIFTEEN YEARS beating the crap out of everything he could find and sustaining himself by burning and pillaging...they just shrugged and took it while they kicked a new butthole in the rest of the Carthaginians. Now, the actual statistics of the second Punic War are not pretty reading, since Rome literally sustained the same sort of horrific demographic catastrophe as the main combatants of World War I (no-one was allowed to cry about their loss either, because everyone had lost so much). They did this just eleven years after the Pyrrhic War. Oh and once they were done with the second Punic War, they barrelled into Illyria about 12 years later. The Empire had thirty years to recover from the Oblivion Crisis, and they appear to have utterly failed to do so in any way, which cannot be explained away by waving your hand at some internal political problems. Rome had vastly more epic 'problems', usually civil wars, and just kept going. If you'd have given Rome thirty years to work with after the Oblivion Crisis, they'd have been stamping angrily on the faces of Elsweyr and Black Marsh by 4E 15, cutting down most of Valenwood as a spiteful punitive measure for attempted succession in 4E 29, and using the wood in the preparations to invade Alinor. Which they would likely have ploughed into the ground for being a perpetual problem after they were done. Instead, the Cyrodiilic 'Empire' lets everything go, sits around with its thumb up its butt for almost two hundred years, and somehow gets 'outflanked' by an openly hostile rival via territory the Empire knows has been in the hands of the Thalmor for over half a century. Then, when they finally manage to look vaguely like the Empire we've all been shepherding through so many games and completely flatten almost the entire Thalmor army.....they give up, agree to losing terms despite having just won, then watch the Thalmor completely fail to conquer Hammerfell for five years. It's hardly difficult to see why people would be siding with the Stormcloaks. We're not exactly living in Skyrim and making the choice here, narratively it's easy to go with the guys who display actual passion and intent when it comes to taking down the Designated Bad Guys, because that tends to be what gamesplayers want to do, as opposed to the Empire which pretty much every shred of in-game lore you can get displays to be rubbish and on the way out. In reality, the storytelling is just....garbage. Horrible, horrible garbage. On one hand, extraordinarily poor worldbuilding turns Skyrim into some sort of frozen wasteland, so you can't ever manage to properly invest yourself in the idea that siding with the Stormcloaks, and accepting all their faults, will result in a horde of seriously angry, Anglo-Saxon inspired, heavily armoured death machines pouring out of what is supposedly an incredibly prosperous province that has, multiple times, single-handedly forged entire empires, and piling into the Thalmor like the mighty fist of Talos himself. And for the Empire, the extraordinarily poor worldbuilding results in the aforementioned, hilariously unbelievable backstory of the past two hundred years, with no indication they'll get better because that's exactly what they've failed to do for centuries....oh, and they tried to cut your ****ing head off for being in the general vicinity of Ulfric Stormcloak. Do we get Hadvar strongly objecting on our behalf so we can feel more justified in going back to these tools? Nope. Do we get anything but a mumbled line out of Tullius about it? Nope. Do we get the Stormcloaks giving us hilarious titles like 'Bonebreaker'? Hahaha! Yeah we do! The initial choice of who players go with is likely going to be made in whoever they choose to escape with in Helgen. And why would you choose Crapvar over Brolof?

It's at 567 with full armour because wearing all four armour pieces adds a hidden 100 extra armour. If you're not wearing all four armour pieces then the displayed level required will always be 667, no matter the number less than four, be it one, two, or three pieces of armour. All four: 567 Anything else: 667 Also: http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Armor

....with their other senses. Seriously, what the hell? <insults removed>? The Falmer are the usual 'blind but use sound like Daredevil' trope. Excuse me, I need to go and tell bats that they're doing it wrong and should be running into everything. Oh my God! The game system isn't perfect! Look, <**********>, it's an utterly undeniable fact that the Falmer are blind and that they rely heavily upon sound instead. And to underline how utterly bankrupt your argument is, Bethesda even did their best to represent this in-game by literally making the Falmer blind for the purposes of the sneak mechanic. You were wrong about the Falmer being blind in game mechanics, straight up. What you're doing now is pathetic floundering about and nitpicking in the hopes you can still be right. You're not. At this point it's so blatant the Falmer are blind in lore AND gameplay that the question, for those of us who aren't laughably crap at this anyway, is to wonder how the outliers of game mechanics that you're now trying to lean on can be integrated into the reality, instead of going, "Well! Guess they're not blind!" Concession accepted. Your response has....no substance. <insults removed> No, it doesn't qualify as being under attack. Unfortunately, <personal insults removed> The Empire is the status quo. In fact, the Nords explicitly, and actually peacefully even to the point of pulling a turncoat on their previous allies, integrated themselves into the Empire. The Empire is the status quo. Skyrim is Imperial territory. And it has been for almost a millennium. I can't break it down into small enough words for your complete lack of thinking faculties to understand. I really can't. For everyone else, the Stormcloak rebellion is 'defending their home' in the same way a rebellion in southwest England would be 'defending their home' of Wessex against the English parliament. They're not defending their home. They're just straight up rebelling against the well established, legitimate authority because it's making crap decisions and they want to secede. Their home is not under attack. Yeah, some laws have passed that they don't like, they're restrictive in the way of religious freedom and allow the 'winners' of the last war into the country to enforce it, but they're in no way 'under attack'. They're doing the attacking. It's no wonder the media and propaganda in general is so easy <snide remark removed> "I'm defending my home!" "He said it out loud, it must be true! Critical thought and logic are for CHUMPS! Evict the oppressors!"

Fun fact.... its a game.... logic doesn't apply to it or do we need to go through the whole "falnmer are blind yet can totally "see" just because Bethesda made them that way" thing again? We can only take what we see in the game as truth until Bethesda themselves say otherwise, and what we are shown in game is that the vast majority of people don't care. I wouldn't be surprised if the Stormcloak army was much like Hitler's armies during WW2, tons of people in Hitler's armies didn't actually like him, or believe in what he did, or cared if he won, they did it to protect their home, but if they lost, ohhh well. Fun fact....when you start trying to shift goalposts around to serve your own needs, you lose. Your argument doesn't work and there are valid reasons to explain why. You don't get to try and sweep logic off the table because it's kicking your face in. By the way, Falmer can't see. They hear. If you're muffled and soundless you can literally walk up to their faces in plain sight because they can't see. They are by far the most hilarious faction to be dealing with when you're a Sneak oriented character because it's so damn easy. Oh and finally? Hitler picked up massive popularity after he came to power by actively proving he was capable of providing effective government, and later the 'Hitler Myth' was created as his popularity remained until Germany began to truly fail. Claiming Hitlers armies were comprised of people who hated him (at least before the total collapse of German war efforts in the face of the Allies) is utterly ignorant bull**** intended to pander to an apologist stance of Nazi Germany that isn't required because the nation spent the past 60 years coming to terms with it. And in an ongoing theme, it also fails logic. No wonder you want to try and remove logic from the game, considering how little sense you make. No-one's home is under threat. No-one's home is under attack or even duress. The Empire is the status quo in every way and has been for a millenium. The rebellion is constructed upon a platform of actively attacking and changing what has been the state of affairs for more generations than most families in Skyrim are even going to remember. The people defending their homes are in the Legion because the rebellion is the aggressor.

Well, more like leaving everyone who has a regular job to work. Gerdur and Hod clearly support the Stormcloaks....but they have a mill to run and a child to raise. And they live in a town with a smith they probably well know has a relative in the Legion who he supports. Lynch mobbing each other isn't going to serve the best interests of damn near anyone at all, so everyone shuts up, gets on with their job, and waits for the butchers bill to roll in later. It's life. Your views are academic when at the end of the day, you need to sell all these damned apples.

This is logically impossible; you can't raise a field army capable of storming major cities with a 'small minority' of support like that. Entire regions of Skyrim have declared for the Stormcloak cause. If the Jarls in question had such incredibly little support, their military commitments would be subject to paralysing levels of desertion and their own nobles would swiftly conclude that a dull blade on a cold night would be a profitable way for their Jarl to abdicate.

Like I said, realistically the Rift and Falkreath, after this long, would have had huge amounts of land cleared away if the place made a lick of sense. They certainly should be far less wild than they are shown to be. Bethesda appear to have gotten hung up with this idea of 'wild Skyrim' to the extent that it is no longer at all possible to contemplate that it is supposed to be wealthy, powerful, and populous. Nords are straight up the backbone of the Empire, and have also provincially been more than powerful enough not just to compete with any other province, but continually make attempts at creating their own empire. It's no wonder people scream until they're blue in the face that Skyrim can't hope to hold off the Thalmor, when Bethesda take a huge dump on their own background in order to portray it as bumblef*** nowhere, and the Nords themselves as barely civilised. So does the Krak des Chevaliers, and that's got walls. Walls are essential to control enemy ingress, and become even more important on such a naturally defensible position in order to make yourself even more hilariously impossible to assail. Without walls, enemies can attempt to enter the city from absolutely any point they want during a siege ('plateau' does not mean 'sheer cliffs'); combined with a general assault, this utterly negates the defenders advantages. When the enemy have obtained general access to your position like that, it's GG. It is not necessarily the deplorable state of the external walls themselves at Whiterun, but their defenses at the gate. The gate is the single most important position in the entire city, and the defenses there are more broken down than anywhere else. The Great War was only 26 years ago, there's a civil war brewing, and yet in all that time Balgruuf has quite clearly done absolutely nothing. So utterly pathetic are the fortifications at the gate, that they can in fact be entirely bypassed by scaling the hill on the other side of the road approach, which would also provide you ample cover up until you're on top of anyone stupid enough to still be out there. The inability of people to grasp such an incredibly obvious and simplistic thing as the Thalmor dossier on Ulfric is....simply mind boggling to the point of willful delusion. I just cannot conceive of the mental gymnastics required to come to the conclusions people come to with it. It's absurdly clear. Ulfric captured, Ulfric tortured into dispensing information which was already useless anyway (though, he must be dumber than a rock if he never subsequently found out that the Imperial City had been taken before he was broken), Ulfric feels bad. Thalmor start considering Ulfric to be an asset. Ulfric is approached by Thalmor. Ulfric suddenly becomes 'uncooperative' and embarks on a 'kill every ****ing Thalmor in Tamriel' crusade. Oh well obviously a guy suddenly turning 'uncooperative' to the extent of trying to cut the nipples off every Thalmor he finds, is highly indicative of him being a Thalmor agent. "Oh hey, Ulfric, we've got an idea; kill us as much as you can. No seriously, infiltrating the Empire at some of the highest levels can't possibly be useful. Rouse up the entire province of Skyrim in religious fuelled opposition to every single one of our objectives and, by extension, every human in Tamriel. We're absolutely sure this will....somehow be more useful." As they specifically note, their plans are served only by hostilities continuing. Their plans are nailed no matter which side you resolve the issue in favour of. Either the Empire is strengthened (and if Tullius is any indication, will then be kicking off for round two), or Skyrim becomes a psychopathic military juggernaught fuelled by religious rage, pointed right at the Thalmor.

It's already been stated why Whiterun was attacked; it is the most strategically important location in Skyrim. Bar none. It's positioning is completely dominating. Frankly, the setup of the province itself doesn't make a damn bit of sense, since Whiterun would be so ludicrously wealthy as to be the clear capital of the province. It's got all the arable land and dominates the trade routes. Hell, if the province made any sense whatsoever Skyrim would practically be a city state crammed into the arable flatlands right there in the middle. The Reach isn't 'hilly', it is simply a mountain range. Haafingar gets to choose between a mountain and a marsh. Hjaalmarch doesn't, it's just all marsh. The Pale is siberia with fewer trees, Winterhold has icebergs, Eastmarch is half tundra and half volcanic national park or something (and mountain, of course), while the Rift and Falkreath are starting to look more and more like some sort of Beastman infested gloomy forest of death from Warhammer Fantasy (though realistically huge tracts would have been majorly logged out and turned into agricultural land by now). If you think it doesn't make sense to control the centre of Skyrim, then you can't even play tic-tac-toe properly. Regarding how Ulfric goes about it, he's leading a popular revolution. When you deliver the axe to Balgruuf, they explain the reasoning right in front of your damn face. Ulfric has already shown his personal might, he now has to show the might of his army. This revolution won't work if it is merely Ulfric wandering around the Holds, challenging every Jarl to personal combat. In the end Ulfric has to force the issue, and he chose to give Balgruuf a chance to join him instead of potentially ending up attacking a city and army that could have joined him. Frankly, Balgruuf was hoping the situation would deal with itself and was simply stupid to think he could hold on to his neutrality. He should have come out and picked a side the second the Imperial gambit to capture and execute Ulfric failed (game called on account of dragon), and made his city ready. He did not. The laughable state of Whiterun's walls and defenses mark a very considerable failure on his part (and on the part of Bethesda in the generally crap and rundown appearance of what is supposed to be a populous, wealthy, and VERY powerful province).

UESP Wiki is your friend. Dawnstar does not require you to become the Thane. You have to do the quest to cure the nightmares in the town, then go back to the Jarl. You may have to ask them for work if you've done nothing else to make them like you (Skald sends you to splat a giant, here's hoping you're feeling awesome), but that's all the prerequisites you need after that. Also, all stone and clay deposits are unlimited. Seriously, bookmark the UESP.

Number of NPC's in the game with heavy, modern style make-up: zero. Number of NPC's in the game with any form of heavy historical make-up: zero. Argument on 'is make up in the lore?' finished. Game's right there people. Any lore-based argument takes about five seconds to resolve. Does your mod put on heavier and more extensive make-up than has been placed in the actual setting already? Yes? Congratulations, you're not 'lore friendly'.

Was anyone seriously daft enough to click on the link?

Putting Ulfric on trial is disasterous. Utterly disasterous. At that point the Empire must explicitly and publically overrule all Nord tradition in favour of Imperial law in an overtly public fashion. They literally have to say it to the Nords face, "Imperial law comes first, you culture comes second". This. Is. Not. Good. Ulfric will stand in that trial room banging the Nordic Culture drum relentlessly, and you know what? He's right. All his crimes are Imperial crimes, that's why there's such a big problem going on here. As much as he's forcing it to happen, Imperial culture is clashing with Nordic culture, and guess which one is the foreign invader? The Empire will be forced to allow him to put forward his case in this way, in front of all Nords, and the only recourse for the Empire is for this to be a kangaroo court that executes him anyway, they can't let this go down with Ulfric remaining alive, so he won't. The Empire has no choice to kill Ulfric, he's an ultra convicted crusader now, death is all that'll stop him. By far it's better for the Empire to kill him immediately, as opposed to allowing him a public forum to fire up Nords, put down the Empire and their laws, and then be symbolically killed by that Empire. And yes, it's a colossal plot hole that he wasn't killed immediately. The Imperials should have descended on the Stormcloaks, killed everyone, and left. Best victory possible. Mighty General Tullius arrives, almost effortlessly slaughters the head of the rebellion, and restores order. Nords would have freaking loved that, would have made the Empire look decisive and awesome. But no, Bethesda utilises monkies for their writing duties, so instead of a satisfying intro situation they poke plotholes in Tullius, Hadvar, Alduin...did I miss anyoone?....because it's likely they built the scene they wanted first and then tried to build the story around it, which requires, you know, a half decent writer to pull off without creating Plot Hole City.

I'm just irritated that the short elven hair isn't available on all the women.

I chose the Stormcloaks. Because the viking cliche is way more fun than the collapsing empire cliche. Geez, at least the Empire in Morrowind and Oblivion looked cool. Now they're an army of leather and bows. What the hell happened there? I'd kill Stormcloaks all day, every day, 365 days a year, if the Empire at least managed to pull out some damn aesthetic appeal. But nooooooo. So sod them. Not that the Stormcloaks are much better in that regard, but there's always a bear on your head to look forward to, which is modelled throughout the entire questline by the most hilariously angry, gravelly voiced man in all of Skyrim.

Or someone who can be easily manipulated. Asset can mean many things, the least of which is him owing them a favor. For all we know it could mean he is magically subverted to bow to the Thalmor under a particular circumstance or in the presence of a particular individual. It could jsut as likely mean that the Thalmor know he'll be goaded into a doomed frontal attack. We simply don't know what the context of the term 'Asset' is in with regards to Ulfric. 'Asset' is also a word used by the people who think its an asset. It doesn't have to be true. As the Thalmors own dossier indicates, Ulfric doesn't co-operate with them and he is an 'asset' only insofar as the Thalmor consider an ongoing civil war in their own interests. He ceases to be an asset if he wins, as it baldly states that such an outcome is also to be avoided. The Thalmor have attempted to play Ulfric, there might have been some vague success at some early point but nothing that can be pulled out and looked upon as significant, and if you take the Stormcloak side it'll be a case of the Thalmor being responsible creating the very Elf slaughtering monster now trying to tear their nipples off. It's depressing reading how people interpret that dossier, because it shows how people read in such little depth (because to read it and assume he's some sort of paid up Thalmor spy or operative doesn't even make sense). It's shocking insofar as Ulfric has had dealings with the Thalmor before and that they've tried working him over....but ultimately the dossier tells you why Ulfric is a rampaging Elf hater. It explains his attitude, and the racism that goes with it. He has very real reasons to hate elves, and very real reasons to be taking power in Skyrim. He is on a crusade. The dossier is also fun in that it turns your assumptions on their head regarding other little story details. Remember in the intro? Thalmor! They must have had something to do with this! As Ralof says. At that point you're fresh to the game and take what he says at face value. Damned Thalmor must be helping the Empire. Then later you get more information on the Thalmor and realise they would have been helping the Empire get Ulfric in order to crush Talos heresy, makes sense.....then you get this dossier and find out they were actually there probably having an argument with Tullius because they want the civil war to continue! :D Tullius caught Ulfric all on his own, the Thalmor were pulling an "Oh DAMN! The new guy is about the cut the freaking head off the rebellion a couple minutes after arriving!".

The Nord economy seems to be based on mining, logging and smithing. Then they go drink. And fight. I think if they had a book store, they'd simply end up fighting each other with books as 'less than lethal' weaponry. Economy is seperate from culture. The Nords have no real need or care for the trappings we relate to wealth. It's more likely they make the things we relate to wealth (the Reach hauls out craploads of silver and gold) as opposed to being the consumers. They'd much more appreciate a finely crafted axe than overly ostentatious displays of wealth. Just because we don't see anything in the way of decadence or shining fineries and jewels doesn't mean that isn't an absolute s***load of money swimming around the place.

I have biology on my side. What's your evidence? Muscle is your locomotive force. It's where all your energy for movement comes from. Your muscle works, your limbs move. Greater muscle mass/density means you put out more energy. Positioning and leverage, generally things falling under the heading of technique, can allow the best possible use of what you have have, but claiming that muscle is not strength is the most ignorantly ***king stupid thing I have ever heard. I dread to think what utterly facile idea you're going to be using to support the idea that muscle isn't strength, or semantic bull**** to squirm around the idea of 'strength' instead, but it's going to be a real doozy to avoid the basics of human locomotion and power. No matter what is happening, whatever you distribution of type I and type II muscle fibers is, no matter how perfect your technique, everything always, still, comes down to muscle. And having a vast pile more muscle means having a vast pile more strength.

The first kilt people would recognise today came about in 1792. It is derived from a fairly massive cloak that is in no way comparable to any garb seen in Skyrim, being far more extensive. Also, Scotland is not as cold as Skyrim. One can tell from the lack of permanfronst, glaciers and icebergs hanging around the coasts of Scotland, unlike the Sea of Ghosts around Winterhold. The northerneastern reaches of Skyrim are Siberian. You can wear a kilt up there, but you'll die.

Napoleon was 5'6 at least, more commonly taken to be 5'7, which was vastly above the average French height then of 5'3. The nonsense of his height was constructed entirely by British propaganda with no basis in fact at all. It took me less than fifteen seconds to go find that out. A minute later I'd found a far more contemporary source where at the maximum Wellington was 5'10, which in no way towers over Napoleon.

Uh....muscle is strength, what on Earth are you smoking. Ronnie Coleman is the worlds greatest bodybuilder (by victories) and he deadlifted eight hundred pounds five weeks after the starvation diet of competition. The world record is 1015. For a single lift. Position yourself how you want, you're not lifting that. Bodybuilders are heavily concerned with definition, shape and symmetry, but they are every bit as strong as their physique suggests. They often have to work to their own physical detriment when in competition to make everything pop out for the sheer aesthetics, but they are massively physically powerful. Just because smaller people can make more efficient use of what strength they have with simple leverage and positioning, doesn't suddenly make them as strong as someone who clearly has a load more muscle. Bruce Lee was the inspiration for many bodybuilders for a simple reason; he understood that strength still has to come from somewhere no matter how good your technique, and his jaw droppingly amazing musculature was the result.

Yeah I have no idea why Bethesda were so eager to make so much armour a skirt or loincloth affair considering the location. And even more so considering they didn't even bother animating them properly so you get stretched textures and clipping that wouldn't occur if people wore some God damned trousers instead. Every time I see Adrianne sit at the grindstone, I want to punch a designer in the throat. Put that woman in trousers already, I don't need all women to be in a dress so I know they're women. It's like they have an illness for it or something. I have this image in my head of a designer creating the Steel Plate armour as a proper 'white harness', then bleeding from the eyes, nose and ears trying to defeat the primal urge to put some sort of loincloth or skirt on it. They failed, or just haemorraged, because your furry growler ended up with the skin of a furry growler over it.

That's an Imperial thing. Hold Guards and Stormcloaks are often female. I once invaded an Imperial fort with a Stormcloak Amazon Brigade at my back. They're a monastic order, this is like complaining that there are no male nuns. UESP lists eighteen inns in Skyrim. Women own ten of them. The number is slightly deceptive; one of the male inns has no services because it's a bandit inn you massacre entirely. If you've got a problem with women being cleaners, then talk to their female employers, because I went through the stores as well and what do you know, women galore. As far as just the inns are concerned, women hold that business so firmly by the metaphorical balls that it's starting to edge into literal territory. Real life is also sexist in that department. We can hardly bag Skyrim for it, frankly. And it's not even a big deal when you look at it more properly. The game starts with two holds ruled by women, who are in fact replaced with more women when their holds change hands. The Imperials install a woman in Dawnstar also if they're victorious. No-one actually cares that Elisif would be High Queen because of her gender, but because she's regarded as generally crap. They certainly did not fail. Women are well represented in all facets of Skyrim. I slaughter them on as regular basis as I have to deal with them in business or positions of power. Heck, Skyrim even presents a martial culture that doesn't actually have a problem with female rulers or fighters! Sexism is pretty much the last problem you ever see in Skyrim. The first blacksmith you come across in a major city....is a woman! Her huge, beefcake husband is reduced to 'vendor *censored*'! It's glorious! Women are fighting, mining, smithing, ruling, owning....they're more than a little formidable in Skyrim. The gender lines in Skyrim are less defined than in real life. Somehow the medieval, martial culture, traditionalist Nords have more gender oppounity than 21st century modern countries. Work that out.