CasperTheLich

there are a few mods that already tweak the generic dialogue, adding in extra pc responses and such. one of those might fix the quest trigger, but it's doubtful. also don't use the console to alter the quest stages, battles can't be started by console.

This might be a longshot but a dialogue tweak mod might work. Or the unofficial skyrim patch, though that’s about as likely.

the stormcloak questline plays though?

i haven't a clue about what's going on there. wish i could be more helpful

Roggi Knot-Beard disapproves of this message. i don't understand your meaning here... care to clarify? ---edit oh, i must be more brain fried than i thought. it took me a minute. nice. ;D ---edit again and i was nice enough to go back and fix the typo too. :rolleyes:

i've got no ideas. :wallbash: ---edit are you using any alternate start mods, and maybe did the legion quest before the fight with the first dragon at the whiterun watch tower? ---edit again sorry i'm kind of brain fried tonight. you said you did a playthrough without any mods right? so just disregard that last bit.

Good, I like the debate. as do i; that is until people start setting fires.

i don't think we'll ever settle any of the which side is better discussions. we simply don't have enough hard facts about anything that happened during the great war or the aftermath there of, at least that which is outside of skyrim. now, using what we do know we can make assumptions; all day in fact, and we tend to talk rings around each other. It’s easy to say mede was weak or foolish, which does seem to hold some weight; we just can’t be sure. We don’t know what he knew, what he thought he knew, what he didn’t; nor what he was thinking. there seems to be unrest in cyrodiil, but how bad, and how accurate are the texts we read about it. In my opinion there are just too many unknowns to come to any hard conclusions about pretty much anything, or at least in regards to what is the “more correct course of action” on this particular subject.

glad to be of help :happy:

did the convo with the jarl go normally? ---edit and sorry for the late reply... i sort of forgot about you till now, sorry. :blush:

This goes back a while. I had a nord who liked sneaking with knives, who would also use a 2 handed spear in combat otherwise. She was doing the stormcloak questline. It was the mission where you need to sneak into the fort’s prison and free the prisoners within. I left my follower at camp for this mission knowing it would be easier without Lidia, moved stealthy into position with one imperial legionnaire between me and the hidden entrance I’m aiming for. After I gave him a rather close shave without being noticed I proceeded to the entrance… before I got there a blackwing dragon, an aspect of alduin, and a magma dragon attacked the fort. All I could manage to say was “Are You F**king Kidding Me!” as the *you have failed to infiltrate the prison* notice popped up. And the 3 dragons owned both the legionaries & the stormcloaks, then I owned their souls.

Some blades can, but let's not get derailed by magical artifacts, those things are all kinds of crazy. Here's the thing about the Daedra (And Aedra) they don't really have the ability to choose. Or rather, they can not choose to do anything that goes outside the bounds of their spheres. An example was raised earlier in the thread that spawned this one, about the quest for Mehrunes razor in Skyrim. It was said, that Mehrunes chose to kill you if you disobeyed him, and impied that this meant Dagon could choose not to kill you if he wanted to. The flaw in this argument is that if you do exactly as he says, to the letter, he still sends a couple of angry Dremora your way. No matter what you do, you'll have to fight for your life, for Dagon destroys. So while Dagon can choose what to do, he can not choose not to destroy you (or try to anyway), wether it is to punish you or to test you, the result is the same, something gets destroyed. And that is the essence of my argument, choice is not the same as free reign to do anything. The Daedra have choices but limited options of which to choose from. That's why I don't consider Dagon to be "Evil", because he doesn't have the ability to do anything other than what his sphere encompasses. I'm not saying what he does is a good thing (Allthough it can be), I'm saying that he is no more evil than an earthquake, neither of them can choose to do anything else. I may not be able to argue my point as well as I would like (English is not my native language, it's a poor excuse but there you have it.) but I stand by it. i don't think i can agree with that; however, you write & express yourself quite well. And I’ve said my piece. I’ll end it here.

a few things i'd like to add here. akatosh doesn't cause death, he isn't some hooded figure with a scythe chopping off heads. just because people grow older doesn't mean time itself kills them. Akatosh gives order to death, not even that; it's more like he guides the dead, he doesn’t make them that way. (at least as far as i can tell, religious texts are among the things i have trouble recalling) love & jealousy don’t go hand in hand, and jealousy is more the realm of mephala anyway. beings are not simple tools, a sword kills because it doesn't have the ability known as choice, free or otherwise; a blade can't pull itself willingly from its wielder's hand to avoid a fatal blow. a daedra can if it wished to.

does the legate talk to the jarl, and does the imperial soldier run up trying to talk to the legate?

i'd say hanging around falkreath hold would be a good fit for your character, doing bounty quests for the jarl's steward for some extra income. maybe build a cabin near the lake when the jarl likes you well enough.

then i'd say it seems she would go imperial then.

can you give us a better idea of her personality. from what you've said it seems like she would lean more towards the stormcloaks then the empire. would she look before she leaps, or is she more impulsive for instance? i think if she looks too hard at the stormcloaks she might not like what she sees, though she might not sign-on with the empire either, seeing as she is a devout talos worshipper it seems? Burenwolf (I don’t think my spelling is accurate here) seems to hate ulfric & disagrees with the standard stormcloak sayings but still calls himself a stormcloak unless the empire takes windhelm. You could roleplay your character as a stormcloak who hopes to level out the elitist dogma through her service to skyrim. I had a darkelf who kind of did that, even though her reason for joining the storkcloaks was the fact she didn’t care who she served as long as she got to kill imperials. (she held a fairly large grudge for a very long time until she eventually leveled herself out) ---edit something someone else said a while back might sway your character’s mind, let me recall... it twas something along the lines of "ulfric is using the name of talos to justify destroying the very empire he built so he can name himself high king- that is beyond heresy too me" or something like that. ---edit again that little sentence swayed the mind of a few of my nord character who would have gone stormcloak otherwise

Sorry, I do tend to misunderstand people occasionally. no worries, it's just i usually wind up having to re-explain things, and i just don't know if it's my vocabulary, the way i form sentences, or what... it's just my normal state of existence i guess. to fail to be understood at all costs. it's a curse. lol

i wasn't saying the imperial army would fully commit to skyrim if it fell to the stormcloaks, i was just trying to point out the thalmor intel report could have been referring to any number of situations that could follow a stormcloak victory in skyrim. However, it is likely that the simple answer is the likely one, but there are other possibilities to consider. Why is it… whenever I try to have an intellectual discussion; I’m either miss heard/read, misinterpreted, or taken completely out of context? Is it the way I write? *sigh* ---edit my bad, i did miss speak. i didn't mean to infer that that was the course of action the empire would take, just that it's what the thalmor doccument could have been referring to.

I feel I should clarify a few points. The thalmor document recovered from the embassy states a stormcloak victory is not a desired outcome. They don’t say why, it may be as simple a matter as it seems or it may be more complex. For instance, unless I’m fairly mistaken the bulk of the imperial army is already fully committed elsewhere; perhaps the dominion borders. If skyrim falls to the rebellion the empire would be forced to take it using to full force of the imperial army. In which case the rebellion is over and skyrim is back in imperial hands. This is just a guess, as I have no idea about the current strength or knowledge about how the imperial legion is currently deployed. Now someone stated that general tullius said the imperial legion was overstretched. Did he actually mean the entire imperial legion or the individual legion under his command? ---edit you may have noticed that i stopped posting for a bit. the thread was starting to fall out of my zone of knowledge, and i try not to post when i'm unsure of the content i'm posting.

Many people have stated in game that there wouldn't have been a rebellion at all without Ulfric or the Markarth incident (don’t know how accurate their thoughts are, but there it is anyway), now not being a master of social/political science or of applied history i feel unable to add my opinion on the matter. Though i don't recall hearing about any major incidents involving flame fanning other than the event mentioned earlier in my post. If Ulfric or the MI weren't the sole cause of the stormcloak rebellion i don't see any parallel action that would lead to the same event, ie a rebellion, even one that wasn’t all out open war. Resentment and harsh feelings usually aren’t enough to spark a rebellion without a major catalyst, at least from what I think I know. If resentment and whatnot had reached critical mass by itself there would have been a flash-fire of small incidents popping up and we don’t know if that was the case or at least I haven’t heard anything about it. and I’d think that would be worth reporting in the lore if that was the case, however I’m not sure about anything I’ve just said. I also can’t say if ulfric was right using his voice to duel the high king. From my point of view the thu’um doesn’t count as an acceptable weapon in a duel of arms. If the terms of a duel were broken by the victor the duel is forfeit and the death classified as a murder (I might be wrong but I think I’m right on that case, in TES lore at any point). Though I can’t say what the terms of the duel actually were. Nor do I care to guess I’ve played on both sides of the civil war, stormcloak and imperial. My very first character went stormcloak because she had already been wronged by the legion and the imperial sponsored neck shaving was the last straw. (I rp heavily) Now, from what I’ve seen and heard of Ulfric, even from my first playthrough… I can’t seem to ditch the idea that the only thing ulfric truly cares about is ulfric stormcloak. From my perspective Ulfric seems to think the only thing the war is about is his chance to be high king, nothing more. And I can’t help but wonder if the thalmor offered him the emperor’s throne if he helped the dominion destabilize & conquer the empire. In which case he’d rule the empire for them, at their behest (assuming they don’t intend to murder him right after a dominion victory). This is all just speculation and my personal gut feelings towards Ulfric from those I’ve interacted with in game, or lorebooks I’ve read. Interactions I’ve even had with Ulfric himself, but of course he never actually came out and said anything this is just the feeling I got off him.

my current character Ingrid the Icewolf Level: 155 (character type: Assassin-ish) Race/Sex: Female Dunmer (I know it’s a nordish type of name) Birthdate: 3E 428 Lokken Village, Solstheim, Vvardenfell Parents: Selene the Wraith (Female Dumer Nightblade), Wulfren (Male Nord Warrior/Chieftain) Ingrid was born the only daughter of the Morag Tong’s guildmaster and the Chieftain of Lokken Village. Selene also happened to be the Nerevarine & Head of the Morrowind branch of the Imperial Intelligence Service, amongst other things. Selene, Wulfren, Ingrid and the rest of their family lived in the castle overlooking Lokken Village. Ingrid picked up most of her mother’s features & her father’s white hair. She also inherited her mother’s immortality. At the age of 4 Ingrid was abducted by an ancient & powerful lich, possibly linked to the underking (perhaps not though). Ingrid was banished to a lesser realm of oblivion (in a fashion similar to how Uriel the VII was held by his battlemage), it took Selene 2 months to track down and defeat this lich & figure out how to rescue her daughter from oblivion. In the two months that passed in the mortal realm Ingrid lived 10 years, becoming 14 instead of 4 years of age. Surviving in a realm of oblivion for 10 years turned Ingrid into a lethal stealthy killer, with a cold personality and pale complexion to match. These features earned her the moniker “Icewolf”. Ingrid the icewolf began taking writs for her mother’s guild of assassins, quickly rising in the ranks under her own merits, and doing so nearly as quickly as her mother did in the previous years. In 3 months she attained the rank Exalted Master (though 3 times as long as it took her mother) 1 year later Selene the Wraith vanished from solstheim, a few months later her daughter tried to follow, first heading to the main island of morrowind then to Cyrodiil. Ingrid lost the sent in the imperial city. Where she ran afoul of a certain corrupt imperial guard captain who had her imprisoned just before the mythic dawn attacked the emperor and his heirs. ***Oblivion Crisis Happens*** After the battle for the imperial city & the daedra all dead, well dead-ish... Ingrid decided to stop looking for her lost mother and for a time settled down in the imperial City with her good friend Vilja. However, the dark brotherhood wouldn’t likely forget the actions of her mother (mainly slaying the nightmother in morrowind), and having the daughter of the Morag Tong’s guildmaster in reach was too good to pass up... so they tried to strike, and failed to connect. And Ingrid decided to go on the move, never stopping for long, never making friends, just a never ending series of movements... and every so often a group of dark brotherhood assassins would turn up dead somewhere, until the rival guild of assassins was no longer able to strike. And Ingrid returned to cyrodiil and decided to head north to skyrim. Personality: Tight-lipped, and more than a tad frosty, initially. However, she is honourable, confident, charismatic, and clever. At first glance appears to be all business, no humour, just matter of fact in general. Deep down, she is actually quite kind, caring, and empathetic. You just have to get past the frosty exterior to get to the warm & fuzzy parts.

one should also take into consideration how long it takes to rebuild a large military force from scratch in roman/darkage settings. if memory serves after the failed invasion of akavir the empire lost almost 4 full legions, which was also one of the reasons the empire had issues during the oblivion crisis, after what 60 years or so the empire was only able to rebuild one of those legions, the 5th if i recall correctly, or was it the 10th? now during the great war the empire only lost one full legion outright, however of the… was it 3 full legions that partook in the red ring engagement all suffered losses with one totally destroyed. And it’s only been 30 years.

i wasn't saying that's my reason to side with the empire, i was trying to explain why delaying the start of a new conflict with the dominion was the smarter play for the empire. that's all.

the dominion's military was ravaged by the great war as was the imperial army, and yes the dominion did get it a lot worse, however time is still on the empire's side in a new thalmor war. the dominions war machine is recovering at a much reduced rate compared to that of the legion, if the empire can put off the start of a new conflict without wasting the resources it needs to rebuild the imperial army with, they will be in far better shape compared to the dominion, assuming the empire can avoid wasting resources in say fighting a costly civil war; IMHO, it was smart for the legion to use mostly local resources to combat the stormcloak rebellion to preserve what resources they were able to in an effort to rebuild the rest of the imperial army.