Kayyyleb

You do make a good point about the Dragonborn. He/she is practically a demigod among mortals. Just imagining the sheer devastation your basic Unrelenting Force could do to a formation of soldiers in a battle is staggering. I really have my fingers crossed on taking the fight to the Thalmor in either DLC or TES VI. People might try to say the Empire doesn't have any fight left in it but this legionnaire is itching for a chance to give the Thalmor some payback.

This 100x over. That's a huge immersion-breaker for me. I love Skyrim but having an entire country with an ingame NPC population of around 1000 nags at me. There's more bandits than normal people...

I know Game mechanics aren't the most definative resource, however, the book 'Killing before you are killed' backs states that a warrior trained in the use of a shield can block destruction spells. So, a trained and drilled Nordic Phalanx would, in fact, be able to withstand Aldmeri Magics. And about half of Skyrim's population support Ulfric, and half don't. Its a balanced game, remember. A steel shield is a crappy defense against lightning. A shield would only work against fire really since the Thalmor don't seem to use frost magic (smart for them, bad for Nords). At the start of the game 15 territories are Imperial and 10 are Stormcloak. Mathematically that's a 60% tilt in the Empire's favor, not half. While this could simply be the result of the Empire currently winning the Civil War. Hell, they HAD won until Alduin showed up. Also worth noting that Delphine pointed out how convenient the timing was favorable for the Thalmor's goals. She ended up being wrong, but the principle remains.

Indeed. Ulfric loudly boasts about fighting for Skyrim and the people but if that's what it was really about he quite likely could've gotten it through diplomacy. His real goal is to take the throne for himself and he's just duping his followers into believing otherwise.

Becoming the guildmaster of the Thieves Guild. You go from being a random member who does Vex and Delvin's b&@*$ work to being the head of the organization...who still does Vex and Delvin's b&@*$ work. No authority was gained at all.

Life is it's own reward. You only get to do it once. Suggesting that one must be a passionate ideologue or be willing to die for some cause in order to deserve life is an idea I rather strongly resent.

Hitler found himself a justification to do it. It doesn't mean it was a good reason or a "good" action but in his mind he thought he was doing the right thing thus it is still morally grey. Grey denotes that there can be differing opinions on the morality of an action and this applies to virtually every action taken. The people who commit the most horrible atrocities in human history still found a reason good enough in their mind (and that of their followers) to carry it out. Which is why I brought up societal health. Seemingly senseless genocide is under no realistic circumstances good for the well-being of a community thus why the majority of mentally stable people oppose it.

Oh look Galmar is the idealistic, pissed off, emotionally-driven Stormcloak poster boy...who would've guessed? Listing quotes from one of my personally most hated NPCs in the game isn't really earning you any points. I am by my very nature a very pragmatic and practical person, which I would say is a huge reason why I support the Empire's practical, deliberate approach toward confronting the AD as opposed to the Stormcloaks mentality of "we're angry and wanna kill all the things!". It's as simple as this really. An Imperial and a Stormcloak see a bank robbery in progress. The Stormcloak tries to wrestle the gun from the robber and be the hero despite the high likelihood of being shot and dying in vain. The Imperial calls the police and monitors the situation for an opportune time to intervene if deemed necessary. The robber might still get away with the money but for how long?

No I actually understand the analogy. Yes I did go through basic 3 years ago. I can look up the dictionary definition of "empire" easily enough. And empires have been formed from other empires all across history/

Building empires and going to basic training have nothing to do with each other. Source: I'm Julius Caesar and I'm in the US military. :3

The gods didn't do jack to help them in the first war...why should anyone care about them the second time?

The next emperor? Just because TMII dies doesn't mean his entire family has to drop off the face of the earth for the sake of your argument. And you keep bring up "tradition" well...I hate to break it to you but "tradition" is little more than doing something a certain way because that's how it's always been done. Has nothing to do with it being the right thing to do or even sensible at all. A system of rule in which any random schmuck can challenge the king to single combat for rule of the kingdom is a downright crap system whether it's "tradition" or not.

I get so tired of refuting this. -.-

Yes, REALLY. Somehow you seem to think that because morality is subjective that somehow we can't all come to the conclusion certain things are bad for the survival of social structures and some are good. A society that doesn't punish killing, lying or thievery tends to not last as long as those that do. That doesn't mean that killing, lying and thievery are inherently always evil because in certain cases they are justified which is exactly what subjective morality is saying. Morality is heavily dependent on context. Your "personal question" is incredibly naive. Of course I don't and I rather detest this automatic assumption that just because I say morality is subjective that suddenly I'm advocating genocide. That is utterly absurd and I never suggested anything remotely close to this conclusion you seem to have assumed.

All morality is subjective. Always has been. Nothing is black and white. Everything is a shade of grey.

Well first off a victory speech to your men is expected to be arrogant nor does his speech really reflect his personality or position. He's giving a speech out of necessity but if you ever talk to the guy you know he isn't a bloodthirsty warmonger by any stretch of the imagination which ironically is a closer match to Ulfric despite his fancy speeches. The Empire just won a war...that's as good a time as any to gloat and Tullius is congratulating his men to bolster morale. Professional soldiers like the Legion are paid to kill. That's their job so when you win a war I think a bonus is in order. The punishment for betrayal is typically death in cases like this so there's nothing surprising about hunting down the dissidents. However he also mentions to Rikke that they both would much rather the remaining Stormcloaks return to their homes and let peace prevail. He has no interest in hunting down every last person involved in the rebellion and executing them. Most of Skyrim is of the same mind, they want the war to end and are rather neutral on caring whose side wins so long as the fighting stops. He just wants the Civil War to end so the Empire can focus on the Thalmor instead of killing itself. Tullius himself may not mention rebuilding in his speech but the jarl he puts in charge of Windhelm makes it his top priority to rebuild and move past the conflict and he assigns Rikke to doing the same thing so you can't say he isn't in favor of helping Skyrim rebuild. Actions speak louder than words. Ulfric's false humility is little more than a show. He already knows the Moot is going to choose him as high king since he ousted the Legion and pretending to be humble by not outright assuming the title immediately is little more than a publicity stunt and a transparently meaningless one at that. He all but says exactly that to Galmar in hushed tones right after his grand speech. Becoming high king was his goal from the very start. As for mentioning the Dragonborn, yeah it's nice of him but frankly my Dragonborn didn't choose the Empire for recognition but because he/she felt it was the right thing to do. Though it can be noted that Tullius also thanks the Dragonborn privately after his speech and again if you talk to him at Castle Dour so he recognizes the key role you played on his side as well. And to say that it's "conspicuous" that Tullius doesn't mention fighting the Thalmor is rather naive. If you know anything about Tullius he hates the Thalmor as much as any Stormcloak.

What about them specifically?

Whenever I'm put through the torture of visiting the Greybeards for shout practice I always shout at angles that hit Arngeir and knock him around. I hate that guy.

I don't even know what's going on in this thread anymore.

On lower difficulties hunting dragons is pretty profitable. Dragon bones and scales + gold loot can net you around 1000 gold per dragon or more.

I always found the Vigilants to be disgustingly self-righteous which gives me little problem with putting them in their place. For me it was killing Nilsine Shatter-Shield. It was like the crushing blow for that poor bastard Torbjorn whose suffered both his daughters murders then his wife commits suicide...fate seems to hate that family.

Is this a weekly thing for you? Hmm true. Bipolar much?

I swore to serve the Empire and the Legion...then assassinated him to make a buck. Oh well.

I'm really hoping Redguard is TES VI instead of another Skyrim expansion but time will tell. I'd love a new game in Hammerfell. Edit: and no there are no Imperial soldiers on Solsteim. The Empire left the island to the Dunmer refugees when the Raven Rock mine (seemingly) dried up since the colony wasn't worth anything without it. I think it's technically part of Morrowind now rather than the Empire/Skyrim so they wouldn't have any reason to have a military presence.

Basically I can agree to this. It's a dead end argument that even if won for one side or another won't impact anyone's choice.