Imperial VS Stormcloak

[HighkingUlfricStormcloak]

Im having a hard time coming up with more arguments for the Empire, you've pointed out everything I can think of. Perhaps more friendly trade with Cyrodiil or not having to worry about the border with Cyrodiil, a slightly larger military force . . . . thats about all I can come up with.

 

Um . . . . Each time someone becomes Stormcloak soldier they put their families lives in danger of being dragged away by Imperial forces or worse.

 

The Nords are a bit prejudice.

 

Thats all I can think of.

 

- Stormcloak Arguments

 

They know how to deflect magica with a shield, One Nord is worth a few elven infantrymen, the Nords have more will to fight than the Empire etc. etc.

Edited March 23, 2013 by HighkingUlfricStormcloak

[RighthandofSithis]

Some counter arguements for the Empire, if you want them:

 

The Empire is Egalitarian:

 

As evident in the Oblivion Crisis, and again in the Great War, the Empire is concerned with Cyrodiil. In the Oblivion Crisis, the Empire recalled its troops from Summerset and Morrowind, causing bitter resentment from both of these nations lasting until this day. Hammerfell in the Great War should need no mention.

 

Similarly, it is absurd to call ANY Empire egalitarian. The very point of Empires is to subdue nations to Imperial whim. In Cyrodiils case, we know that all power in the Empire is directed in the hands of the Emperor and his nobility. Even Tiber Septim declared war on neutral kingdoms to put his cronies in power!

 

And As mentioned on the Stormcloak Arguements page, there is nothing to suggest Ulfric is an ethnic supremecist. in fact, there is evidence on the contrary.

 

Ulfric is possibly a Thalmor plant:

 

Even the thalmor admit this is false. They mention him as a 'dormant' asset, and even then, there is no evidence he was ever directly in league with the Thalmor.

 

Skyrim will experience a famine:

 

See Stormcloak Arguments.

 

 

Edited March 23, 2013 by RighthandofSithis

[HighkingUlfricStormcloak]

We need more Imperials, they seem to have left us.

 

Ironic, the Stormcloak agenda is to be rid themselves and Skyrim of Imperials, and here I am asking for them haha.

 

I also just noticed

 

The Nordic clans or Families of Skyrim, out of all of them only 2 support the Empire. And both of them have special connections with the Thieves Guild. Granted so does Torsten Cruel sea, but not all the others. Although Torsten has very good reason behind his connection with the Guild.

 

Black Briar - Imperial

Battle Born - Imperial

 

Snow Shod - Stormcloak

Shatter Shield - Stormcloak

Cruel Sea - Stormcloak

Grey Mane - Stormcloak

Silver Blood - Stormcloak

Stone Fist - Stormcloak

 

Those are just the Clans

Edited March 24, 2013 by HighkingUlfricStormcloak

[Kayyyleb]

We need more Imperials, they seem to have left us.

Got bored of the back and forth repetition of the same talking points.

[TheLoreSeeker]

It is also possible that any late coming Imperial supporters would be quickly deterred by the fact that they'd be the only one up against a wall of Stormcloak support.

 

As I explained to Ulfric about 2 posts in, I have found it to be much easier and less stressful to pose questions and scenarios to test how you all as Stormcloak supporters would handle them, rather than try and argue against your obviously cemented viewpoints.

Also, from my experience, a lot of Imperial supporters feel a sense of trust in a "The Empire will persevere" mentality; which in hindsight does not lend itself well to a debate because things like faith never hold up well to scrutiny and only tend to enrage people when called into question.

I suppose what I mean to say is that....it's unlikely that after 110 pages of this argument, that you will find more people willing to go into it with you.

What this debate needs is a good mediator.

[sisterof]

Why a mediator? That would be necessary if there was fighting going on, though I see none. And about "Imperial supporters coming here to meet a wall of Stormcloaks" (that made me giggle irl :D ), we're not asking for arguments that Stormcloaks consider flawless and must bow to - but rather any argument so that those synopsis Lithium Flower has been organizing will be good representations of both sides. And I still think that once those two are done, we could get working on each side answering to the points' brought up by the other.

I think that if this was done correctly with proper aid from both sides, we'd get documents roughly the same size. I do believe Bethesda wrote the Civil War in a complete gray-and-gray morality, so we should always have Imperials and Stormcloaks who are both aware of all the points of both sides, can acknowledge them, and still choose their own (those who pick a side and passionately try to the make the other into a villain do not count). It's a great technique they used, to make all interpretation of good and bad fall to the player (or to his character, if he has several). The developers avoid defining things too much - in the making of, they openly admit they avoided defining what being Dragonborn means, so the different kinds of players would all get kicks out of their own versions of the story. The magic of TES for me is this - having the freedom to play whomever you want, and not have lore forced down your throat later on contradicting the interpretations you made. Unlike, as I mentioned before, Knights of the Old Republic, where a female Revan is thrown out the window and so on. Of course you have lore, but it doesn't get into details to the point of invalidating your own headcanon. So in that way of not defining the things too much, they didn't define the Civil War either. And what great way to make players still be involved years after the game's release - we're still here debating! :D

I have seen an increasing number of people here (though not in this thread) saying that they also believe that Bethesda did not make any side good or with a better chance of victory against the Thalmor. That pleases sisterof greatly. That is the point when we leave the Disney-level plot behind, with its clearly cut villains and heroes, and go to better developed, more mature fiction.

As a person, not as my character, I clearly have a greater liking for the Stormcloaks - and for anything that de-centralizes power. But I have one Imperial character and I use what we discuss here to make me more able to put myself in his shoes.

[LithiumPower]

Im having a hard time coming up with more arguments for the Empire, you've pointed out everything I can think of. Perhaps more friendly trade with Cyrodiil or not having to worry about the border with Cyrodiil, a slightly larger military force . . . . thats about all I can come up with.

 

Um . . . . Each time someone becomes Stormcloak soldier they put their families lives in danger of being dragged away by Imperial forces or worse.

 

The Nords are a bit prejudice.

 

Thats all I can think of.

 

- Stormcloak Arguments

 

They know how to deflect magica with a shield, One Nord is worth a few elven infantrymen, the Nords have more will to fight than the Empire etc. etc.

 

I expanded heading no. 6 of the imperial document to cover the points you raised about the combined military and easier trade. The point about racism seems to have been covered substantially under heading 6 - the Empire is Egalitarian and the Stormcloaks are racist. Thanks for the feedback!

 

 

Some counter arguements for the Empire, if you want them:

 

The Empire is Egalitarian:

 

As evident in the Oblivion Crisis, and again in the Great War, the Empire is concerned with Cyrodiil. In the Oblivion Crisis, the Empire recalled its troops from Summerset and Morrowind, causing bitter resentment from both of these nations lasting until this day. Hammerfell in the Great War should need no mention.

 

Similarly, it is absurd to call ANY Empire egalitarian. The very point of Empires is to subdue nations to Imperial whim. In Cyrodiils case, we know that all power in the Empire is directed in the hands of the Emperor and his nobility. Even Tiber Septim declared war on neutral kingdoms to put his cronies in power!

 

And As mentioned on the Stormcloak Arguements page, there is nothing to suggest Ulfric is an ethnic supremecist. in fact, there is evidence on the contrary.

 

Ulfric is possibly a Thalmor plant:

 

Even the thalmor admit this is false. They mention him as a 'dormant' asset, and even then, there is no evidence he was ever directly in league with the Thalmor.

 

Skyrim will experience a famine:

 

See Stormcloak Arguments.

 

 

 

I was looking over the document last night and I realised I hadn't addressed the Dossier in any detail, nor had I considered this point. I have since then added a new para under heading 7 - In Defence of Ulfric, 7c - On the Thalmor Dossier where I have analysed the dossier. I have also added a new heading 8 - The myth of the Egalitarian Empire, into which I've incorporated your first paragraph almost in its entirety! I also added a little background of Marius and Alessia Caro of Leyawiin's Let's-Torture-Argonians-For-Fun dungeon from Oblivion. Thanks for the feedback

 

 

It is also possible that any late coming Imperial supporters would be quickly deterred by the fact that they'd be the only one up against a wall of Stormcloak support.

 

As I explained to Ulfric about 2 posts in, I have found it to be much easier and less stressful to pose questions and scenarios to test how you all as Stormcloak supporters would handle them, rather than try and argue against your obviously cemented viewpoints.

 

Also, from my experience, a lot of Imperial supporters feel a sense of trust in a "The Empire will persevere" mentality; which in hindsight does not lend itself well to a debate because things like faith never hold up well to scrutiny and only tend to enrage people when called into question.

 

I suppose what I mean to say is that....it's unlikely that after 110 pages of this argument, that you will find more people willing to go into it with you.

 

What this debate needs is a good mediator.

Please don't feel intimidated! If you have an additional argument on the imperial side not covered in the document, I'd love to read it and add it in.

 

Why a mediator? That would be necessary if there was fighting going on, though I see none. And about "Imperial supporters coming here to meet a wall of Stormcloaks" (that made me giggle irl :biggrin: ), we're not asking for arguments that Stormcloaks consider flawless and must bow to - but rather any argument so that those synopsis Lithium Flower has been organizing will be good representations of both sides. And I still think that once those two are done, we could get working on each side answering to the points' brought up by the other.

 

I think that if this was done correctly with proper aid from both sides, we'd get documents roughly the same size. I do believe Bethesda wrote the Civil War in a complete gray-and-gray morality, so we should always have Imperials and Stormcloaks who are both aware of all the points of both sides, can acknowledge them, and still choose their own (those who pick a side and passionately try to the make the other into a villain do not count). It's a great technique they used, to make all interpretation of good and bad fall to the player (or to his character, if he has several). The developers avoid defining things too much - in the making of, they openly admit they avoided defining what being Dragonborn means, so the different kinds of players would all get kicks out of their own versions of the story. The magic of TES for me is this - having the freedom to play whomever you want, and not have lore forced down your throat later on contradicting the interpretations you made. Unlike, as I mentioned before, Knights of the Old Republic, where a female Revan is thrown out the window and so on. Of course you have lore, but it doesn't get into details to the point of invalidating your own headcanon. So in that way of not defining the things too much, they didn't define the Civil War either. And what great way to make players still be involved years after the game's release - we're still here debating! :biggrin:

 

I have seen an increasing number of people here (though not in this thread) saying that they also believe that Bethesda did not make any side good or with a better chance of victory against the Thalmor. That pleases sisterof greatly. That is the point when we leave the Disney-level plot behind, with its clearly cut villains and heroes, and go to better developed, more mature fiction.

 

As a person, not as my character, I clearly have a greater liking for the Stormcloaks - and for anything that de-centralizes power. But I have one Imperial character and I use what we discuss here to make me more able to put myself in his shoes.

 

It's the Vladimir effect, I tellz you! I started Skyrim again recently as a male Altmer and it took so much effort to resist running after him in Helgen. But Hadvar is pretty cool now that I'm getting to know him. I only wish he had some levels in restoration magic, then my alchemist/illusionist I've named Hemlock Bones could settle down with him to raise bees at Honeyside in Riften. :D

 

Also how do you mean Revan was canonically a man? I remember a dialogue tree in Sith Lords where Atton mentions Revan and you can correct him that she was a woman - thereafter the game refers to her properly. Though my Revan was a dude and my Exile too. Ah the days you had to play male to get a video-game chick! :P Oh, also I'm really digging Vikings now that I'm all caught up. Is it just me or is Laegerta really hot?

[sisterof]

It's the Vladimir effect, I tellz you! I started Skyrim again recently as a male Altmer and it took so much effort to resist running after him in Helgen. But Hadvar is pretty cool now that I'm getting to know him. I only wish he had some levels in restoration magic, then my alchemist/illusionist I've named Hemlock Bones could settle down with him to raise bees at Honeyside in Riften. :biggrin:

 

Also how do you mean Revan was canonically a man? I remember a dialogue tree in Sith Lords where Atton mentions Revan and you can correct him that she was a woman - thereafter the game refers to her properly. Though my Revan was a dude and my Exile too. Ah the days you had to play male to get a video-game chick! :P Oh, also I'm really digging Vikings now that I'm all caught up. Is it just me or is Laegerta really hot?

You know, I have avoided the Civil War like the plague with all characters before (that died due to lack of my interest). Out of the three ones I fell in love with and kept playing for longer, two were Dark Brotherhood assassins and by definition couldn't care less about the whole affair. The third is my Dragonborn, and for a long while he avoided taking sides for feeling they're both sub-par. When I decided there was no running away from it and that my character wouldn't stand for another year of bloodshed and would take a side, I begun investigating more - and I was indeed inclined to play Imperial, believe it or not, for all the arguments we know and for the "the Empire was founded and kept by the chosen of Akatosh". The first time I was swayed from that ambivalence was when I watched a few playthroughs on Youtube and saw when Tullius goes along the lines of "I'll settle for nothing less than execution, I'll take his head on a pike to the Imperial City". That's just disrespectful to a fellow veteran and a proud man who's doing what he believes is right. I took me some more two months of reading around the arguments of both sides and playing bits of both questlines to make my mind, but the character of Ulfric (and his voice!) have such a strong presence. I wish they had made Tullius more multidimensional too. With Ulfric you have all the complexity of a man who is haunted, who is proud and ambitious (arguably to a fault), who is prejudiced, and also brave and heroic at the same time. With Tullius we have just a dutiful, stern soldier. Characters make the story! It hurt my stone heart to humiliate Ulfric.

 

Revan is canonically a man in all the comics, romantically involved with Bastila. The Exile is canonically female. This puts Knights of the Old Republic in a very different level than Mass Effect, Dragon Age and The Elder Scrolls. It's their story to write, but I admire DA and TES's effort to expand lore without stepping over your choices. I don't mind that they do so by being vague. A huge part of computer RPG goes in our head, not in the screen. Skyrim has quite a hare-brained script in terms of dialogue and character development, but it becomes very rich by giving us the freedom to add to it through imagination. With DA II, you have nothing destroying the Hero of Ferelden as you made him, quite the contrary - you can import a savegame and have the game mention choices you made. With KotOR II you can stablish Revan's gender and alignment, but it's completely thrown out the window with the comics and novels. In my heart, Revan shall always be female and of dubious alignment, and the Exile a man and a pure heroic and archetypal Jedi. I play as male in 100% of games that offer the choice, being a woman KotOR I was a quantum fluctuation - so the fact that I enjoyed Revan's story as a female character so much is reason enough for me to discard the canon. :D There are too few female Sith Lords of relevance. Darth Revan fits the bill perfectly.

 

In Vikings, did you get to the point of the offered threesome? I grinned like a maniac at that scene. XD Lagertha (had to check the spelling) is delightful. I like seeing how people are so childish and passionate in that series. Though it upsets me that the characters are very shallow too - the show relies more on the sheer awesomeness of Vikings and their good actors than on character development. Even the overall plot is far from epic. But I'm really enjoying it too. And I think I said this before, but I really dig the villain. His wife is too stereotypical "sensual evil woman", though. I'm enjoying the fact they aren't overdoing the sex and violence, and keeping the historical inaccuracies to a minimum (like the landlord being almighty). I just wish the people would show more layers than the pure archetypes they have been representing so far.

 

 

[LithiumPower]

I had a similar conundrum with the Civil War. The character I first started the game with, whom I consider my main was imperial and though I escaped Helgen with Ralof (no way I was going Imperial after they tried to kill me) I remained indecisive about the civil war until the very end because it was so damn hard! My problem was that every time I met a stormcloak or came across them on the road, I sympathised with the cause but I kept trying to convince myself that imperials were the hard but right choice. I talked to everyone about the war I could and I just couldn't justify the Empire as much as I wanted to be able to. Finally, after I didn't have any other major questline left to do on my main, I went and got sworn in as imperial, thinking I'd just quickly run through the quests like a bitter pill and be done with it. I took the oath, cleared the fort and then Rikke briefed me about the Jagged crown and its whole history and significance and the fact that Galmar is the one who locates it and we're basically trying to pirate it from him made me uneasy. I still did the mission and the next morning when I came out of the ruin (I use the mod Frostfall and it's a bad, bad idea to spend the night out in a blizzard) and saw all these dead stormcloaks, I felt terrible (one of those Oh God what have I done moments) and then I just took the crown to Ulfric and giving it to him just felt right.

 

Yes, I was aware about Revan being male in the comics but that's not 'game' canon - that's comic canon. Even the Dragon Age comics establish Alistair as King and Loghain as dead, but your canon could very well be the other way around. In my head canon for Mass Effect the last 10 minutes were Shepard's crazy fever dream as she lay dying beside Anderson, watching the Crucible deploy - at that point it doesn't matter if the galaxy is saved or not, you know that you did your best and came a long, long way from the person you were when you started out and that's the only thing that matters on the doorstep of death.

 

Yep! I saw the 3some offer - I thought it was the priest's hallucination at first, haha. But it's really nice. I'm enjoying it a lot. I do like Jarl Earl Haraldson, he reminds me of Balgruuf for some reason, though I don't imagine Balgruuf would've done what he did to the little boy! Eek!

[AuntieJemima]

Humans are ingrained with the thought of liking to root for the underdogs. And that makes sense considering that the underdogs usually represent the average person. To see them win reminds us of how the average person can achieve amazing things, and there's a certain comfort in that. I believe that is one of the main reasons why most people, be it subconscious or not, choose the Stormcloaks. In all honesty, the story is not at all as in depth as it could be for an actual discussion about the ramifications of choosing either side. The negatives and positives of either faction is shallow in comparison to real life conflicts. The developer of the game did a wonderful job of creating a convincing setting, but to start a game off with your character being executed by the empire pretty much puts the imperials in a very handicapped position. No amount of friendly imperial allies could really justify your joining of the legion. That's probably why you don't see as many Imperial supporters on this forum. That or most people just end up playing both sides anyway, and when you do, the civil war questline just feels that much shallower. Edited March 25, 2013 by AuntieJemima