Imperial VS Stormcloak

[LithiumPower]

Tullius - "The fiercest of the remaining rebels will continue to harass us, but by and large,the people here desire peace,..."

 

Rikke - " There are those who still call themselfs stormcloaks, who continue to fight us and bring misery to the people. But they are few in number. The ordinary citizen will be happy to get back to life as normal, to have their families return home."

Rikke: "It wasn't so bad."

Tullius: "I hope we haven't just created a martyr."

Rikke: "There's bound to be resistance. There are many Stormcloak camps tucked away in the hills. They'll no doubt strike whenever and wherever they can. But without Ulfric to inflame their passions, they'll settle down and return to their homes eventually."

Tullius: "I pray you're right, Legate. In the meantime, we'll continue to root them out and put them to the sword."

 

Rikke is the optimistic one, Tullius is wiser than that.

 

It is an unpopular war, because the npc's who express themselfs against the empire are indeed only a few. No one else supports the war, they just want to go about their business.

There are numerous NPCs spread throughout the provinces, even in Empire controlled towns and villages. We're shown that Stormcloak supporters are committed to the cause and fired up, most of them are nords which form the majority of the population. Where as Imperial supporters are formed of a small number of bribed/bought-out aristocrats, foreigners and non-nords who are an over-all minority in Skyrim and the war-weary, with low morale. Whenever you take a walk in imperial camps, half the soldiers moan about simply wanting to go home. Secondly, don't forget that many people who would prefer Skyrim to be independent wouldn't speak out at all for fear of reprisal. The devs have put in imperial patrols roaming the countryside and a whole dungeon of political prisoners under Castle Dour to show you what happens to those who speak out. You have to look at the whole picture.

[LithiumPower]

On a side note, my questions got utterly ignored.

<goes kick pebbles somewhere, violins play in the background>

If you meant the Lorkhan/Talos/Dragonborn thing, I replied to that but it seems to have been lost in the subsequent deluge.

 

Wow, 96 pages... The op just wanted some points of view on how to decide... and it became a hijacked pissing match fairly quickly... still going strong almost 16 months later... I have my opinion just like everyone else. I have played a nord who sided wiht the stormcloaks and a breton who sided with the imperials. And a Breton that played through the MQ and almost all of the faction quests without ever choosing sides. I have heard all the In game arguments and find meta game arguments tedious to the extreme. Earth history, the definition of empire, oppression, Truth with a capital T. are all irrelivent. This is a Role Playing game.

 

What it boils down to is simple. Who is your character? What are their motivations? Are they law abiding? Rebelious? Criminal? Chaotic? Whimsical? Skyrim is a Role playing game... The original poster wanted advice on playing a role. The decision of which side (if any) to support should be your characters. Not yours. What would your character do? How do they think about the world? Are they emotional? Analytical?

 

And a note to any that would attempt to say that one side is superior to the other, You are of course correct... All of you. I agree completely, your side is the obvious choice.

I'm pretty sure the scope of this discussion has over 16 months, become slightly wider than just addressing the OP's indecision!

[sisterof]

If you meant the Lorkhan/Talos/Dragonborn thing, I replied to that but it seems to have been lost in the subsequent deluge.

No, it was post.. uh... #932. It was about why the player is put in contact with Ulfric from the start and his rank in the Imperial Legion. Oh, also something addressing what the recently-banned person said about the Thalmor "shaping" Ulfric as an asset, while the dossier made me believe he "showed himself to be one" (wasn't made into one) and only during the Markarth Incident.

I'll just quote it here in case people just missed it. This thread moves quite fast. :|

 

 

Question: Does anyone have any idea why Bethesda would want the player to see him from the beginning? The player could have been taken along with Ralof et company, but why Ulfric himself had to be there? If they wanted the player to start on the underdog side, being captured and unjustly (read: with no court whatsoever) sentenced was enough - no need to have the big boss of the rebellion there. When I first played the game, it made me believe he was the Dragonborn and Alduin was there for him - then as plot developed I hoped he'd be a rival. In the end it was nothing of those things. Maybe Bethesda was going for something like that and gave up? I was taking a look at sound files yesterday and there's a lot of voice recordings for the axe being sent to Ulfric, and Ulfric stepping down from Windhelm's throne (same dialogue we get with Balgruuf), so they either recorded it before they knew who was going to play who, or they scrapped a completely different story before coming up with the one we got.

 

Another question: Is there any source pointing out that Ulfric was a high ranking official? I don't remember it from dialogue... What I do know is that he was taken as a boy to High Hrothgar, spent 10 years there. So he was very young when he left to join the Legion - maybe under 18. Then we have only 4 years of war.... Can we get someone so young rising in ranks that fast? I get the impression he was simply a foot soldier. Maybe he's called a veteran simply because that's how we call anyone who's been in a war.

 

Related to the previous question - the Thalmor Dossier doesn't say anything about shaping him up to become a dormant asset, as our recently-banned fellow so passionately claimed. They say he was tortured, probably physically and psychologically by believing his "breaking" had costed the Imperial City. Maybe his knowledge of such important information is what people are taking as proof of high rank? Still, I think it may be that the Thalmor tortured him the same way they did everyone else, not having such a great scheme as a civil war in store. They did allow him to escape and intended him to wreck some havoc, but it seems that only afterwards they learned he'd be an useful asset after finding him out again ("contact was established"). From the dossier:

 

"After the war, contact was established and he has proven his worth as an asset. The so-called Markarth Incident was particularly valuable from the point of view of our strategic goals in Skyrim, although it resulted in Ulfric becoming generally uncooperative to direct contact."

 

The point "proven his worth as an asset" could also mean he was seen as a possible asset by having useful information about the Imperial City, that he ultimately gave in too late, hence only proving his worth to the Thalmor afterwards. Opinions?

[LithiumPower]

Ah, sorry. I don't remember coming across this post.

 

Q1: I think Bethesda wanted to place the players in a position where they form an immediate sympathy for the stormcloaks. They also wanted to use one of their top billed voice talents to up the drama I guess. It's arguable they wanted the player to have been personally exposed to Ulfric before you hear other people's opinions about him. Perhaps they wanted to demonstrate the commaraderie among the ranks in the Stormcloaks and how they're all in this together. It's really hard to say what was going on in their minds. Frankly, the whole scene was so chaotic for me and the forced first person made everything so difficult, the only thing I remember from the intro in my initial playthrough was that the Empire tried to kill me and a dragon saved me.

 

Q2: He was most assuredly not a foot soldier. He was the son of Jarl Eastmarch and therefore most likely put in charge of the men mustered to join the legion on behalf of the hold. So he would've been like commander level or thereabouts with Galmar as his second. Young, brash, zealous. Rikke's background is not very clear but she could've been a regular recruit that had climbed up the ranks normally or perhaps she was also the daughter of some feudal lord and in charge of the men she'd brought to the legion. We know they were very close once.

 

The Thalmor considered him an asset and assigned him to Elenwen for interrogation because of his status - as a probable future Jarl and at the very least a VIP prisoner who could be used as a bargaining chip, maybe ransomed. As a mid-rank officer he would have some information about the Imperial City's defences (strength of the legion/weakest spots/generals/supply lines) etc.

 

As far as 'proven his worth' in the Markarth Incident. The Thalmor wanted a foothold in Skyrim and the Empire's handling of it allowed them a pretext to establish a presence there. Elenwen seems to like to play up how the Empire betrayed him if her dialogue during season unending is anything to go by - 'It's not the Thalmor who're burning your farms and killing your men" but he tells her to shut up.

 

Hope that helps!

[Kayyyleb]

Ah, sorry. I don't remember coming across this post.

 

Q1: I think Bethesda wanted to place the players in a position where they form an immediate sympathy for the stormcloaks. They also wanted to use one of their top billed voice talents to up the drama I guess. It's arguable they wanted the player to have been personally exposed to Ulfric before you hear other people's opinions about him.

The irony here is I instantly liked the Imperials when Tullius started talking. Being a BSG fan I would recognize Michael Hogan anywhere.

[LithiumPower]

Vladimir Kulich has been entrenched in my imagination as the honourable viking hero fighting doomed odds since 13th Warrior, Tullius never stood a chance!

[sisterof]

The irony here is I instantly liked the Imperials when Tullius started talking. Being a BSG fan I would recognize Michael Hogan anywhere.

I have that with every single character voiced by Simon Templeman.... In Dragon Age Origins, sentencing Loghain for high treason would have broken my heart if I had one. :biggrin:

 

Vladimir Kulich has been entrenched in my imagination as the honourable viking hero fighting doomed odds since 13th Warrior, Tullius never stood a chance!

Have you watched History Channel's Vikings? :wink:

[LithiumPower]

Not yet but I should catch that. I heart me some Michael Hirst.

 

Loghain! Simon Templeman is made of awesome.

[HighkingUlfricStormcloak]

I love Vikings, the TV series. But Vladimir Kulich has a brown beard but blond hair. It cracks me up. But he's massive.

 

Sorry for not being here for a while. I took a PT test and scored a 287, I have to improve my run time. I hate PT.

Edited March 12, 2013 by HighkingUlfricStormcloak

[sisterof]

He has a very weird hair color - and the same one he had in Ironclad, if I remember correctly. It's a pity his character is hidden under so much hair and mostly sulks in the background, I'd love to hear him speak more. I'm terrible with faces so when I watched the second episode, I wasn't even sure he was in it. But when he spoke I was like "ok, where's Ulfric? Oh... behind all that beard and hair". And yeah, he's really tall. Pity Ironclad was such a piece of less than ideal scripting and featured one of the worst editing/camera I've had the displeasure of witnessing in such a big movie - it may not be a huge production, but it's certainly no school work done in parents' backyard. I would like to see him in a more heroic role. And sporting some furs.

Also, @HighkingUlfricStormcloak, what is PT? Military physical training?

And to keep on topic - I... don't really have anything to add. Maybe we're done with the discussion until someone new comes along and we'll go through the same arguments for another month? :biggrin:

Edited March 13, 2013 by sisterof