Which side did you guys choose, if any, and why?  it's been hard for me to choose as the stormcloaks seem kind of like racist pricks but the imperials seem like power hungry, callous backstabbers (and they try to kill you in the very beginning of the game).  if i was a nord i'd probably choose stormcloak, but if i was a dark elf i'd probably choose imperial because the stormcloaks hate dark elves, like a lot.   
 
however, i'm argonian and i just feel weird because nobody really seems to really like me but nobody really hates me either (hey, kind of like real life).
 
so in short, both sides suck and i'm gonna wait it out.  what are your guys thoughts so far?

I still haven't made a decision. I'm going to remain neutral through the entire main quest, then I plan to kill both sides (if that's possible).

I still haven't made a decision. I'm going to remain neutral through the entire main quest, then I plan to kill both sides.

stormcloaks hate everybody that isn't a nord

also I chose stormcloaks because I followed the storm guy instead of the imperial guy in the prologue. gotta be consistent.

I started my own faction called the rapehammers

I'm a wood elf, and I'm conflicted as well. However, I came across a stormcloak encampment, and the general (or whatever) made a disparaging comment about elves. In response, I killed every person in the camp. Based off this incident, I will likely side with the imperials. It's unfortunate, because I do enjoy a good rebellion.

This has been the source of my incredible video game OCD flare up. I've come to the point where I've made a melee focused Nord for the Stormcloak and a magic focused Imperial for the Imperials. When I go back to play as another race I have no idea which side I'm going to choose. Guess I'll flip a cord or something.

I also agree that they are doing a wonderful job making everyone seem equally terrible. The only redeeming quality about the Imperials so far has been Hadvar and his loyalty to the ideals of what the Empire used to stand for. On the Stormcloaks side...I've seen nothing but racists. Sure they have some viable points about the worship of their god being abolished but their behavior isn't winning any points with me.

I haven't gotten involved at all in this stuff in my game but from where I stand, it seems like everyone sucks. Also, I don't feel like I properly understand what they're fighting about or what the views are of each side.

legion because I'm a woodelf and nords are racists

I joined the Imperial Legion because they seem like the guys who can exercise authority. The Stormcloaks just seem like a bunch of dirty self centered rebels.

They made both sides terribly unlikable. I was all set to be a stormcloak but then I thought that I didn't want to help these racist pricks out. And the Imperials tried to kill me and shit. I want to kill them all and rule Skyrim myself.

I followed the storm guy out of prison and haven't really seen much of the Imperials save for the fact that they tried to kill me. I'm leaning slightly toward the rebels, but I'm going to wait awhile to make my decision on that quest line.

All of Tamriel is falling apart, the Imperial Legion is trying to claim order again by forcing their ways down other provinces throats. It's hard to say if what the legion is doing is worth it, in Valenwood they're going back to their old traditional ways before the 1st Era. Maybe it's best Skyrim retreats to their old traditions, hopefully that'll turn things around. This is why I chose the Stormcloaks, Skyrim is filled with so much pride that the Legion should just stay out of it. Skyrim is a tough province, they can handle themselves, if not then let them destroy themselves.

I'm playing a Nord who always tries his best to do what is noble, just and fair, but I sided with Stormcloak. I don't agree with their extremist attitudes, but I see it as the lesser of two evils - or at least, a necessary evil to bring an end to the bloodshed. 
 
I really like the way Bethesda seem to have taken some cues from their work on Fallout and made questlines more morally ambiguous.

im gonna go with stormcloaks; i am a nord, but the main reason im with the stormcloaks is to get my revenge for getting captured!

How the **** can stormcloacks suck? They're fighting for Skyrim dude. They're the Sons of Skyrim. I mean come on.

Stormcloaks are better.

Imperial Legion is nothing like the good old Oblivion days. The Empire has forbidden to pray to Talos! And they've sold themselves to the Thalmor.

The Stormcloaks are a bunch of crazy guys too, but Ulrich seems a reasonable guy. He murdererd the High King some say, but it was an honest duel with respect to the Nord's traditions. He also has a hard time when asked for permission to siege Whiterun saying "no easy decision when it will mean the death of many" or something like that.

Do you guys btw also see some elements of Fallout: New Vegas with this war? In Fallout it also seemed that both NCR and Legion were asswipes. So I choose myself that time. Maybe that's also possible in Skyrim?

@Legend_23: I doubt it, there's achivements for siding with the imperials or the stormcloaks but nothing for siding with yourself.

though I suppose you can side with yourself by not doing any main quest.

I haven't gotten in to this yet so I don't have a lot of the details. Is there a third option? Because, I don't really like either one.

@TheDudeOfGaming said:

How the **** can stormcloacks suck? They're fighting for Skyrim dude. They're the Sons of Skyrim. I mean come on.

Yeah but their leader is just concerned with giving himself more power. He didn't even need to kill the high king, Solitude's court wizards tells you that Torygg would have more than likely switched to Ulfric's side. But Ulfric wanted him out of the way so he could claim the throne. The rebellion might have honest intentions but their leader is a power-mad jerk.

But really, the ultimate reason why the rebellion is a bad cause is because it will lead to further domination of the Aldmeri Dominion. The only reason the empire is kinda evil now is because they were utterly annihilated by the Dominion, and made into what is basically their puppet. There are imperials who are still willing to fight them back but unity across what's left of the empire will be the only thing that could possibly defeat the Dominion. United we stand, divided we fall and all that. But if the Stormcloaks win, you'll have another state for the Dominion to easily squash, already weakened by civil war and having no imperial support. The Dominion clearly wants to enslave and dominate mankind, so nationalistic squabbles is a bad thing to worry about when you have what's basically a race-war on your hands.

@Legend_23 said:

Stormcloaks are better.

Imperial Legion is nothing like the good old Oblivion days. The Empire has forbidden to pray to Talos! And they've sold themselves to the Thalmor.

Well it's more the Thalmor and the Dominion who forces the Imperials. They certainly aren't willing friends to them, their capital city was sacked by the Dominion.

@XII_Sniper: Man, Skyrim for Nords, Imperials OUT!

@TheDudeOfGaming said:

@XII_Sniper: Man, Skyrim for Nords, Imperials OUT!

But the Empire is more than Imperials, it's everybody!

Either way, Stormcloaks with their Nordic ideals, racist attitude, and violent tactics remind me all too much of skinhead neo-nazis. I mean if jews existed in Tamriel, they WOULD be neo-nazis. They fill literally every other category.

@TheDudeOfGaming said:

@XII_Sniper: Man, Skyrim for Nords, Imperials OUT!

But the Empire is more than Imperials, it's everybody!

Either way, Stormcloaks with their Nordic ideals, racist attitude, and violent tactics remind me all too much of skinhead neo-nazis. I mean if jews existed in Tamriel, they WOULD be neo-nazis. They fill literally every other category.

@TheDudeOfGaming said:

@XII_Sniper said:

@TheDudeOfGaming said:

@XII_Sniper: Man, Skyrim for Nords, Imperials OUT!

But the Empire is more than Imperials, it's everybody!

Either way, Stormcloaks with their Nordic ideals, racist attitude, and violent tactics remind me all too much of skinhead neo-nazis. I mean if jews existed in Tamriel, they WOULD be neo-nazis. They fill literally every other category.

Seriously? Like really? You're going to bring in neo-nazis and Jews into this? Some of the stormcloaks are racist, but most aren't. They just want an independent Skyrim run by Nords, and not Imperials who serve the Altmer and kill Nords by the dozens.

Only jokingly. I just find them eerie reminiscent of the stormwatch types who embrace nordic ideals and want non-whites out of their country.

Anyway, the Empire consists of more than the Imperials, and they were forced into whatever they're doing, especially the Talos stuff. They need to recuperate because the Dominion will attack again with the intention of completely wiping out the empire and man-kind with it. That includes the Nords, independent or not. Separatism is a selfish idea when entire peoples are threatened.

It says wonders about this game that we can have a political argument about it though eh?

@XII_Sniper said:

It says wonders about this game that we can have a political argument about it though eh?

True. It's just awesome.

Imperials had to die after the Dark Brotherhood questline, I couldn't care less about the Stormcloaks, I just want to murder Imperials.

Stormcloak. Elves are takin' all our jobs. Gotta put an end to that.

Imperials have banned worship of Talos the ninth divine. Reason enough for me to join the storm cloaks.

They both kind of suck. The Empire is the lapdog of the Thalmor and the Stormcloaks are a bunch of racist jerks. Either way, Tamriel isn't in a good place.

@yoshimitz707 said:

Imperials have banned worship of Talos the ninth divine. Reason enough for me to join the storm cloaks.

But there's a reason for that. They didn't just do it to be evil jerks. They did it to attain peace with Thalmor. The Stormcloaks consider making peace with the elves beneath contempt, hence the rebellion.

Not all of their ideals are bad, but the heart of the Stormcloak rebellion is anti-elf racism, headed by a power-hungry asshole. That, combined with the fact that every time I encounter a rebellion sympathetic town all of the people do nothing but slag the non-Nord races, made it an easy decision for me. And I rolled a Nord character!

The Empire is far from perfect, or even great, but the shades of grey to their side at least seem to have rational origins - stopping the spread of the Dominion into Skyrim. The Stormcloaks just don't like the idea of Skyrim in any way conceding to the elves.

- Scott

@Scotto said:

@yoshimitz707 said:

Imperials have banned worship of Talos the ninth divine. Reason enough for me to join the storm cloaks.

But there's a reason for that. They didn't just do it to be evil jerks. They did it to attain peace with Thalmor. The Stormcloaks consider making peace with the elves beneath contempt, hence the rebellion.

Not all of their ideals are bad, but the heart of the Stormcloak rebellion is anti-elf racism, headed by a power-hungry asshole. That, combined with the fact that every time I encounter a rebellion sympathetic town all of the people do nothing but slag the non-Nord races, made it an easy decision for me. And I rolled a Nord character!

The Empire is far from perfect, or even great, but the shades of grey to their side at least seem to have rational origins - stopping the spread of the Dominion into Skyrim. The Stormcloaks just don't like the idea of Skyrim in any way conceding to the elves.

- Scott

The empire didn't do it because they're evil jerks, yeah. It was the Thalmor who made them do it so that makes them the evil jerks. I just viewed the Imperials as a roadblock to the actual problem of the Thalmor. Hopefully some DLC can come out where you fight the Thalmor off of Skyrim because banning things like the worship of someone's god just isn't okay.

Neither, but after those "peace" talks I wanted to slit General Tullius' throat.

I gave them two holds! they only lost one! and still he called me biased, bastard.

@XII_Sniper: If I remember correctly in the Thalmor Embassy one of the pieces of evidence you find talks about how the Thalmor are on no-ones side really and are just trying to prolong the war as much as possible, so both sides are weakened and they can swoop in and destroy the last of who ever's left, so supporting either side would be favouring the Dominion wouldn't it?

I hate Ulfric so fucking much. But joining with the imperials would be entirely out of character. I kind of just want to kill Ulfric and take over as the rebel leader.

I miss Yes Man.

As a Nordic warrior, I find that the proper thing to do is to join the Stormcloaks and get all the other jackass races out of my province. Thank you and have a pleasant tomorrow.

@Hulsey90 said:

@XII_Sniper: If I remember correctly in the Thalmor Embassy one of the pieces of evidence you find talks about how the Thalmor are on no-ones side really and are just trying to prolong the war as much as possible, so both sides are weakened and they can swoop in and destroy the last of who ever's left, so supporting either side would be favouring the Dominion wouldn't it?

Oh snap, that would be a interesting development. Just about to do that main quest-line mission, so I'll pay extra attention. It would certainly change matters, though either way, a multi-nation alliance is going to be stronger than a fractured one. Maybe destroying the Thalmor is the priority then. I always assumed they were the enforcers for the Dominon.

I've been thinking about it, and the best hope for Tamriel's men is a Skyrim-centric empire lead by the Dovahkiin, cause he'd be a semi-mythical symbolic rally point of hope for men kind to gather around, plus all his parallels with Talos practically beg for him to unite the lands and push back the Elves. He's fairly qualified I think, battle-hardened and used to problem solving from all those damn quests haha.

@XII_Sniper: I'm sorry! I didn't know you haven't done that yet, I hope I didn't spoil too much for you

They both seem to suck really badly. But I consider that a feature, not a bug. I like being able to sniff and tell them both to F off while I save the world.

@Ravenlight said:

Stormcloak. Elves are takin' all our jobs. Gotta put an end to that.

I still haven't decided, i chose Imperial so i don't know who i should choose. Probably should pick the Imperials since they are from my home turf but they kinda suck, especially since they tried to kill me.

I'm pretty much going to spoil everything concerning the factions so be warned. Spoilers!

It feels like the game is trying to push into the Stormcloaks to make a decision you'll regret. After dealing with Ulfric, finding the information about him being a Thalmor agent and seeing how Windhelm is run it makes it obvious that Ulfric and the Stormcloaks are not good for Skyrim. While the Empire may have its problems the Stormcloaks are acting for the benefit of the Thalmor that Ulfric hates so much.

From the start of the game it tries to make it superficially seem like the Empire is bad, I didn't like the banning of Talos worship, the Medes dynasty doesn't have any special justification for rule and they're going to kill you at the start of the game. That's why in my first game I went Stormcloaks and soon regretted it. Ulfric and the leadership of the Stormcloaks is incredibly racist against all non-Nords, the widespread support seems to be quietly in favour of the Empire despite a lot of vocal Stormclock supporters and finding out Ulfric acted as a Thalmor agent didn't help this at all. While the Empire may have banned Talos worship it becomes obvious that until later it was accepted for everyone to privately worship Talos and Ulfric's movement for opening it led to the crackdown. The Stormcloaks leading Skyrim likely wouldn't be able to deal with the Aldmeri Dominion and the Empire needs Skyrim's help as well to deal with it. Cyrodiil was devastated by the war and agreed to something that wasn't good but was obviously a temporary concession. Skyrim had been an important part of the Empire for its entire existence and remains the most important province outside of Cyrodiil itself.

On top of that, the concession doesn't stop Talos from being real and anyone's who has played Morrowind and Oblivion should realize that Talos is probably the most active of the various Aedra. This isn't like that episode of Star Trek where the Greek pantheon were actually aliens that required acknoledgement and worship to exist. "Who mourns for Talos" isn't a quest in Skyrim.

I'll side with the Empire every day of the week, and twice on Sundays. They are far from perfect, but the "worst" thing they've done - banning Talos worship - was a concession to stop a war that would have devastated all of Tamriel, and led to Dominion rule (which the Stormcloaks would have hated even more). They didn't make the decision lightly, and many in the Empire even sympathize with those who still worship Talos.

The Stormcloaks? They murdered King Torygg, they treat all other races (particularly the elves) like second class citizens, and only serve to destabilize the entire region. And they are headed by a guy who just wants power for himself. And upon deeper conversation with Stormcloak characters, it's clear that their main problem isn't even the banning of Talos worship - it's the fact that the Empire dared to surrender to the elves.

Their grievance about Talos is a valid one, but everything else about them is pretty terrible.

Lets say i side with both but for the survival of Tamriel i side the Empire but I want independence for the people of Skyrim what do you guys think i should do? im a nord by the way

Spoilers for Dark Brotherhood:

I killed the fucking Emperor. The rest of his men will follow suit.

Imperials, because the Stromcloakes are xenophobic dicks. Their leader has no interest in the needs of any inhabitant of Skyrim that isn't a Nord ... I play as a Bosmer so I choose the imperium.

Imperials.  Neither side is clean but the Stormcloaks are as wrong as the Forsworn are.  And all the in-fighting only makes it harder to get rid of the Elves they hate so much.

Stormcloaks since they aren't pussies.

Imperials, even though I am a Nord, the Stormcloaks are just being idiots. Everybody worshiped Talos in secret anyways, but then those obnoxious assholes make a huge deal out of it, and the empire has to put a stop to it, otherwise the Aldmeri dominion will come screw us all over.

They're like some kid who knows he'll pass the test because he can hide his information in his desk, but then he braggs about it, and then the teacher puts locks on all the desk lids, and then he feels like everyone else is screwing him over. It's your own fault, dumbass.

I think of this every time I see their groups.

@Arker101 said:

Imperials, even though I am a Nord, the Stormcloaks are just being idiots. Everybody worshiped Talos in secret anyways, but then those obnoxious assholes make a huge deal out of it

Did you miss the part where there are Imperial sanctioned Aldmeri hunting parties in Skyrim, killing anyone who worships Talos (frequently found close to his shrines)? Or the inquisition like Aldmeri envoys in imperial aligned cities that are trying to root out Talos worshipers? Or the torture in their embassy?

Man it was no nice just worshiping Talos in secret!

... and getting killed in your own country for your beliefs.

They're like some kid who knows he'll pass the test because he can hide his information in his desk, but then he braggs about it, and then the teacher puts locks on all the desk lids, and then he feels like everyone else is screwing him over. It's your own fault, dumbass.

Last time I checked hiding info under your desk was not equivalent to risking a death penalty or torture for your beliefs.

You do also realize that the Aldmeri are persecuting Talos worshipers everywhere not just in Skyrim and that they started enforcing their treaty as soon as it was signed and only some time afterwards the Stormcloack rebellion stated in Skyrim.

@Tennmuerti said:

@Arker101 said:

Imperials, even though I am a Nord, the Stormcloaks are just being idiots. Everybody worshiped Talos in secret anyways, but then those obnoxious assholes make a huge deal out of it

Did you miss the part where there are Imperial sanctioned Aldmeri hunting parties in Skyrim, killing anyone who worships Talos (frequently found close to his shrines)? Or the inquisition like Aldmeri envoys in imperial aligned cities that are trying to root out Talos worshipers? Or the torture in their embassy?

Man it was no nice just worshiping Talos in secret!

... and getting killed in your own country for your beliefs.

What was the other choice? The Empire should have kept fighting a losing war, and eventually the Aldmeri Dominion would have taken over everything? Even though this isn't the optimal choice, it would have let the empire build its strength back up, and eventually repel the Dominion, but these Stormcloaks are weakening whatever strength that the empire was building up.

From my understanding, a lot of people were and are able to worship in secret, but if they were found hanging around the public shrines, well, come on it's unjust, there's no doubt, but once you've learned that just stay away.

@Tennmuerti said:

@Arker101 said:

They're like some kid who knows he'll pass the test because he can hide his information in his desk, but then he braggs about it, and then the teacher puts locks on all the desk lids, and then he feels like everyone else is screwing him over. It's your own fault, dumbass.

Last time I checked hiding info under your desk was not equivalent to risking a death penalty or torture for your beliefs.

You do also realize that the Aldmeri are persecuting Talos worshipers everywhere not just in Skyrim and that they started enforcing their treaty as soon as it was signed and only some time afterwards the Stormcloack rebellion stated in Skyrim.

That wasn't my greatest analogy of all time, but look at it this way. If everyone just fights the Dominion now, the Empire will fall and they'll do worse stuff to them then they were doing, like enslaving non-elves and wiping out Talos worship everywhere. If the Empire, as a whole, could build up their forces while still worshiping in secret, they could eventually repel the dominion and bring Talos back as a divine. If the Stormcloaks take over, all that would happen is that the Dominion who push in to Skyrim and take over. Have you seen how Windhelm is looking? You want the guy who runs that place to be the defender of your lands?

Stormcloaks, because i don't work with bitcheeeees.