Anyone else disappointed with the Stormcloak questline?

[SFBryan18]

Ulfric is as much a "treacherous revolutionary" as was George Washington, and Tullius is as much a "abiding military officer" as was Robert E. Lee. Your idea of equals is bias, because if according to rank, a General is below a Jarl since a Jarl is a noble lord while a General is just a soldier who serves the nobility.

 

"Maybe because none of those countries were highly organized, united, and driven towards some manifest destiny....like Nazi Germany"

 

They were organized enough to sack Rome. I really get the feeling you know nothing about warfare.

 

Nazi Germany never had to defeate a Roman Empire, and instead, had to defeat the Solviet and US Empires. Who won that war again?

 

So, in proving my point, Skyrim has nothing to fear against a weak country.

 

The Thalmor don't want to see an Imperial victory because they don't want to see an end at all. The longer the war goes on in Skyrim, the longer they can rebuild their own weak military, but that doesn't mean they will be strong enough to take over the world.

 

In fact, no country in history has conquered even half of planet Earth, so this fantasy RPG isn't very realistic at all to say conquering a planet would be so easy. It's actually pretty hard to transport troops across the planet to fight a war. They need to eat and when there are thousands to feed, it can get pretty difficult. Maybe easier when you have aircraft carriers, but they don't.

[Kraeten]

Ulfric is as much a "treacherous revolutionary" as was George Washington

 

George Washington wasn't an egomaniac, and actually turned down a crown. Don't compare them.

 

because if according to rank, a General is below a Jarl since a Jarl is a noble lord while a General is just a soldier who serves the nobility.

 

No, the legion serves the Emperor not the nobility.

 

Nazi Germany never had to defeat a Roman Empire, and instead, had to defeat the Soviet and US Empires. Who won that war again?

 

Russia won, after losing more then TWENTY MILLION soldiers and civilians. If you can look at that figure and shrug, then I'm afraid you know little about warfare in addition to history. Is Skyrim the equivalent of Russia? Not by a long margin, and Ulfric is certainly no Stalin. More importantly, the Aldmeri Dominion wasn't destroyed after its first failed invasion so they have an opportunity to learn from the mistakes made in the first Great War. In addition they have no doubt amassed plenty of information about Skyrim's landscape since they've begun their little witch hunt. The next invasion will be just as destructive as the first if not greater unless Titus Mede or whoever succeeds him gets a convenient advantage from an Elder Scroll or a similar super weapon.

 

The Thalmor don't want to see an Imperial victory because they don't want to see an end at all.

 

True enough but the Dossier proves the Thalmor do regard the Empire as a threat. Which scraps the very tired "Empire Puppet" nonsense.

 

In fact, no country in history has conquered even half of planet Earth, so this fantasy RPG isn't very realistic at all to say conquering a planet would be so easy.

 

Indeed it isn't. And with things like the Numidium and the Elder Scrolls there's always room for the tide to change drastically....which I suppose makes this a very unnecessary exercise.

Edited August 8, 2012 by Kraeten

[SFBryan18]

I don't know what game you're playing, but Ulfric doesn't act like an egomaniac. That's just your own bias opinion. And as far as the story goes, he still hasn't taken the crown, but Washington and Ulfric live in different eras, and maybe Washington would have taken a crown if circumstances had been different, who knows? My point about comparing the two is that from the English point of view, Washington was a traitor who they would have executed if they had won. This is no different than calling Ulfric a traitor. If he wins, history will call him a hero. Legion may serve the Emperor, but General is still a soldier so Ulfric out ranks him, so any type of treatment you expect the rebels to grant a General should also be granted to a Jarl as well.

 

The number of casualties during WW2 were very high, but keep in mind that they had guns and bombers. Perhaps you shouldn't have used the Nazi's as an example since the Thalmor don't have the same technology. The Nazi's might have been able to take over the world thanks to airplanes and guns, but what do the Thalmor have? Crossbows? If you really think the Thalmor are a threat to Skyrim, then let them prove it. All that matters is that Ulfric followed Nord tradition, maybe not Greybeard but Nord, and he has used his right to rebel against a weak occupying force because they have allowed the tyrannical ban of the most sacred God. Did it take 20 years to rebel? Who cares? It takes time to build an army. If the Empire wasn't a puppet of the Thalmor, then they must be worse for not tearing up that treaty after 20 years, so this rebellion is more than justified by any Nord who worships Talos.

[Kraeten]

I don't know what game you're playing, but Ulfric doesn't act like an egomaniac. That's just your own bias opinion.

 

Let's see, what happened after Ulfric poorly attempted to play hero during the Markarth Incident? His actions caused the Thalmor to arrive in Skyrim in greater numbers. If that wasn't bad enough, he then decided to wage a bloody and completely unnecessary civil war just so he could take the throne. To make matters EVEN worse, he then decided to hurt any future prospects of an alliance with Cyrodiil when he decided to kill one of the Legion's valued Generals despite the fact he could have sent the man home. Oh, and Legate Rikke also considers him an egomaniac FYI. She's one of the few characters who could be considered a patriot.

 

Legion may serve the Emperor, but General is still a soldier so Ulfric out ranks him, so any type of treatment you expect the rebels to grant a General should also be granted to a Jarl as well.

 

Tullius is not only a General, but he's also the military governor. Ulfric doesn't outrank him by any means. Better luck next time.

 

 

The Nazi's might have been able to take over the world thanks to airplanes and guns, but what do the Thalmor have?

 

As the most magically attuned race, they have not only the most spell casters but by virtue of their longevity also the most experienced.

 

 

All that matters is that Ulfric followed Nord tradition, maybe not Greybeard

 

The Greybeards are a part of Nord history and traditions. They're not separate.

 

 

Did it take 20 years to rebel? Who cares? It takes time to build an army.

 

Ulfric has only just started building his army in recent years. Until the Markarth Incident the ban of Talos wasn't even enforced. It was only when Ulfric stirred up trouble that his people began to chafe under the yoke of Imperial rule.

 

If the Empire wasn't a puppet of the Thalmor, then they must be worse for not tearing up that treaty after 20 years

 

War like this leaves a lot of damage in its wake, especially for the Empire. It hardly paints them as worse than the Thalmor for wanting to recover as much strength as possible. The damage in Cyrodiil no doubt took years to repair. Most of the cities were sacked after all, and that includes the capitol.

Edited August 8, 2012 by Kraeten

[RighthandofSithis]

Nazi Germany never had to defeat a Roman Empire, and instead, had to defeat the Soviet and US Empires. Who won that war again?

 

Russia won, after losing more then TWENTY MILLION soldiers and civilians. If you can look at that figure and shrug, then I'm afraid you know little about warfare in addition to history. Is Skyrim the equivalent of Russia? Not by a long margin, and Ulfric is certainly no Stalin. More importantly, the Aldmeri Dominion wasn't destroyed after its first failed invasion so they have an opportunity to learn from the mistakes made in the first Great War. In addition they have no doubt amassed plenty of information about Skyrim's landscape since they've begun their little witch hunt. The next invasion will be just as destructive as the first if not greater unless Titus Mede or whoever succeeds him gets a convenient advantage from an Elder Scroll or a similar super weapon.

 

Well, I'll start this off by saying I don't refer to the USSR as Imperialist, nor do I classify it as socialist. I think, at least at the time of Stalin, it was a Degenerated Workers State. That had nothing to do with anything. I just felt like saying it.

 

Now, to business. I agree that Ulfric does not equal Stalin (or Lenin, or Trotsky, or Beria etc). There are clear differences between the Stormcloaks and the Bolsheviks/CPSU.

 

However, Skyrim and Russia do, in my opinion, bear some similarities:

 

1. Both experienced a revolution toward the end (or in Skyrim's case, after) a 'Great War'. The Imperials fear that should Skyrim become independent, the Thalmor will be able to dominate Tamriel. Similarly, the Entente Powers feared that, with the October Revolution and Russia's peace with Germany, the Germans would be able to win (or put up a better fight in) WW1. Following the Treaty of Versailles, there was still fear that Germany (and Austria) would try and reclaim their previous prestige (which, eventually, they did).

 

Furthermore, the Empire has intervened in Skyrim, as we know. Similarly, the Entente Powers intervened in the Russian Revolution. And lost.

 

2. The climate of Skyrim is similar to that of Russia. Both are hard, harsh and have very cold winters. This was a major factor in the German defeat in WW2, and, in the event of a Thalmor invasion of Skyrim, would present the same challenges to the Thalmor that he Germans faced.

 

3. Russia and Skyrim have bloody histories, with hardened people. The Nords were born out of Ysgramor's brutal conquest of Skyrim, and united by the hand of King Harold. The Russians are a mixture of various warrior groups, including the Varangians (Vikings who conquered and settled Rus) Cossacks, Tartars, Armenians etc. Originally, there was no single Russian state, but various kingdoms and principalities, including Kiev, Novgorod and Moscow. These kingdoms were eventually united by Ivan IV (the Terrible).

[Relativelybest]

People keep saying that Ulfric just want to be king, but what about the Empire? What do they want?

 

Political stability? Not lose a major province they can't really afford to lose? Regain as much strenght as possible so they can take on the elves again?

 

To rule over a country where some people want them to leave?

 

Fixed that for you. It's not like every single Nord wants independence. Heck, basically half of every NPC you meet supports the Empire.

 

Since I chose Ulfric, he sounds like a patriot, but if he was my enemy, he wouldn't. Even as a Stormcloak, I still think Tullius sounds like a patriot of the Empire, because neither side is evil.

 

While I agree on that, I did use the Jagged Crown to switch sides mainly because I found I that Ulfric was just screaming "Bad Guy". (No pun intended.) And Tullius struck me less as a patroit and more as a man who was just trying to do his job. He mostly seemed frustrated with the whole thing.

Edited August 9, 2012 by Relativelybest

[Scorch621]

@SFBryan18

Back to the fair fight thing:

 

A fair fight I believe is if both participants have an equal chance of winning, I'm pretty sure you'd agree.

Now if Ulfric had a fair fight with Torygg he would not have used the voice because Torygg cant use the voice, or any kind of magic for that matter, he was defenceless against Ulfric's power

 

Ulfric also did NOT challenge Torygg, speaking to the court wizard and several guards on the matter reveals that Ulfric walked in and start using his Thu'um on Torygg right off the bat.

It is also revealed that Torygg respected Ulfric, and if Ulfric simply asked Torygg to join his cause, he would have.

Instead Ulfric chooses to kill Torygg (fair fight or not) and causes a civil war.

 

Nordic Tradition does not like magic, if you talk to several nords, hell even having a spell out in front of the guards in Skyrim reveals Nords dont like magic, they see it as evil and malevolent.

So even if Ulfric didnt use the voice but fried Torygg to a creamy clemintine flavoured sauce with various spells...it still would not have been following nordic tradition.

 

An example of a fair fight to the death would have been with axes, swords etc. using strength, and skill, rather than magical energies and the voice.

 

 

Also as my own side note, I'll back up Kraetens views on the empire not abandoning Talos

If you speak to Alvor in the beginning after escaping Helgen he says when he was young, all boys used to have small shrine to Talos, considering Alvor is around his thirties or early forties, he was a kid during and after the Great War, this shows that the Empire never Enforced the ban on Talos and turned a blind eye to it and only in recent years with the civil war, has the Dominion been strictly enforcing the Talos Ban.

Tullius, Elisif and several Imperial Nords I've ran across during the story all still worship Talos, albeit secretly, they are not puppets of the Thalmor, they all hate the Thalmor.

 

Another thing I'd like to mention SFBryan is that your policy of isolation will not work, the Thalmor hate the race of men, not just the empire, considering Skyrim is the home of man then they would go out of there way to invade Skyrim.

They also probably do not seek to conquer the world at present time, considering Nirn is like 12 million square miles in diameter (I'm not sure this is just what I've heard) and that the only really inhabitable places on Nirn are Tamriel and Akavir (Yokuda having sunk during a cataclysmic event and Atmora being a cold barren wasteland)

they're only real interest would be Tamriel, perhaps if they conquered Tamriel they would try and invade Akavir

but I doubt that would work...considering no one knows anything about Akavir, and the last invasion attempt was a catastrophe that resulted in about 90% of the invasion being completely wiped out by Akaviri warriors (The Tscaesi who are reputed to be snake men who ate the human population of Akavir, ate probably meaning assimilated in my eyes)

 

just my thoughts on the matter, sorry for rambling

[SFBryan18]

Well, just because the Nords don't like magic, doesn't mean it's not allowed.

 

What if you were to have a Boxer fight a Cage Fighter, and tell the cage fighter that he could only use his fists? How fair would that be considering that the boxer is an expert in boxing while the cage fight might have trained in other aspects of fighting. Or consider that someone has trained with a sword while someone else has trained with and axe, and then the day of the fight, you say the rules are swords only. How fair would that be?

 

As far as a challenge goes, the people in Solitude obviously hate Ulfric so I don't think I'll just take their word for it. Fact is, the NPC's all tell conflicting stories around Skyrim so only Bethesda really knows what happened, because acording to Rogvir, there was no murder, and look what happened to him.

 

Do you see what I'm saying? Chosing to take the word of one NPC over another is just being bias because you weren't there.

 

In fact, if the evidence is so stacked against Ulfric, then why didn't they want him to have a trial? You'd think that with all their influence, they could at least force a verdict in their favor and execute him legally. Something just doesn't add up as far as the Empire goes. I mean, I've heard this arguement before, but I'll say it again, how do guards allow a man to just walk into an Imperial controlled city and murder their king? And then they place the blame on one guy for letting him go? Just doesn't make sense at all.

 

Try this... Walk into Markarth and attempt to murder the Jarl and see if you can walk out the gate and only see one guard. And that's a Jarl. In fact, try it in any hold at any time, and use Unrelenting Force and see if you can avoid detection. If those guards you say have so much eye witness evidence... Then why did they let him go? And if there wasn't a fair challenge, then why didn't the guards help the king? Do you see the flaw in this story?

 

You basically have to chose one of these...

 

A. The guards witnessed Ulfric kill the king and let him walk away, so everything thing they tell you is because they saw it happen and allowed it.

 

B. The guards didn't see anything and their word is about as useful as the town beggar because it's all hearsay and is most likely going to be bias in favor of the Empire. In this case, they are not good witnesses at all.

 

Either way, something doesn't add up.

[djinx187]

Try this... Walk into Markarth and attempt to murder the Jarl and see if you can walk out the gate and only see one guard. And that's a Jarl. In fact, try it in any hold at any time, and use Unrelenting Force and see if you can avoid detection. If those guards you say have so much eye witness evidence... Then why did they let him go? And if there wasn't a fair challenge, then why didn't the guards help the king? Do you see the flaw in this story?

 

 

Rarely until Ulfric and the Dragonborn do guards actually see people using shouts since the greybeards are on top of the mountain.

So the Guards were more then likely in shock of seeing that. Sort of like a county sheriff sees his boss get mowed down by a guy with an assault rifle and in full tactical gear 99 times out of 100 that guy isn't going to try to move on the guy unless he is foolhardy or stupid. Let alone the fact that he is a Jarl would also add confusion.

 

I can see it now the one guard who would have balls to actually say halt your under arrest to Ulfric.

 

Halt! Ulfric your under arrest.

Did you not see me knock the king down with my voice and stab him through the chest?

Yeah.

Did you not notice who I am Ulfric Stormcloak the Jarl of Windhelm?

Oh I noticed

So your going to presume to arrest a Jarl who knocked down a man with his own voice. You might wanna stand down there or an arrow in the knee isn't going to be your biggest problem.

Have a nice day sir.

 

or

 

Halt! Ulfric your under arrest.

Ulfric shouts guard drops to the ground and he gets stabbed in the chest.

 

 

The guards dp not act the same way to the player as other people but I can spin it. After Ulfric shouted in public the guards became use to it and no longer are surprised. Since you can't request a duel it's straight up murder so you have no "but it was allowed a couple thousand years ago excuse." That and nobody in their right mind would agree to a duel with the dragonborn in the first place.

 

In fact, if the evidence is so stacked against Ulfric, then why didn't they want him to have a trial? You'd think that with all their influence, they could at least force a verdict in their favor and execute him legally.

 

Now why wouldn't they want to give a charismatic rebellion leader a trial. Hmm I just don't know making him a martyr is a bad idea.

Treason in itself is usually an automatic death sentence(maybe lifetime imprisonment if your lucky and not in a movie or video game)

Murder of a high ranking official is usually death unless your the player.

 

Now for the evidence......

He leads the rebellion. He admits so himself which makes him a traitor to the Empire.

He admits to killing the High King. Since dueling is against Imperial law guess that makes him a murderer as well.

 

Old customs do not trump modern law. Skyrim is an Imperial province and follow Imperial law. People follow the laws and customs of the conquerors not the conquered and guess what in this case the Empire is the conquerors and Skyrim is the conquered. (By war or politics it makes no difference)

[SFBryan18]

First, nice job at pulling two lines out of much more information, but I'll respond to those two points...

 

1. You're trying to argue that the guards were intimidated by Ulfric enough to not do anything at all.

 

LoL. Seriously? I've seen the guards run at everything in Skyrim including dragons, but the big bad Jarl was too scary for them. Besides that, prove your theory. Do any of the guards say this?

 

2. He is the leader of the rebellion. That is correct. So Imperial law means nothing because it's a rebellion. Do you understand what it means to rebel. Basically, it means we don't want you here anymore so take your laws and leave or we'll kill you. So a trial would obviously had convicted him in Imperial territory... So why didn't they give him one? Maybe the Empire had some things they didn't want made public? Like that they allowed the king to die and they allowed Ulfric to escape? Because that's what it looks like. Perhaps the Empire knew the people were getting fed up with the Thalmor treaty, so they allowed this to happen because they knew it would split the people into a civil war instead of a unanimous war against Cyrodil.

 

The combat was fair according to Nord tradition. This is not an arguement of whether Ulfric is guilty of Imperial law. That part is obvious. The argument is whether or not Ulfric violated Nord law, because the Nords are taking their country back and they want to know if he's the right man for the job. And the answer is... Yes he is. Challenging the king was a tradition and the fight was accepted. He won the right to be king by killing the king according to Nord tradition. The Empire obviously doesn't want to respect the traditions of the country, and that is one more of many reason that they need to leave.

 

So it brings me back to my first point many pages ago...

 

There is no right and wrong. Bethesda made the story so you could chose a side and it would be right, because your view on which laws should be followed are simply based on loyalties.

 

It was after saying this that someone was determined to say Ulfric violated Nord tradition, but he didn't. Both sides are correct. I personally like Ulfric's cause more, but I'm not going to say the Imperials are evil. Those of you who insist that one side is more evil simply do not understand that this is a fictional game and the creators of the story didn't want either side to be evil. That way people could play both sides. Understand this and move on because there are some issues in the real world that are matters of right and wrong... This isn't one of them.