The Empire or The Stormcloaks? Skyrim. Which Are You? and Why?

[Vortex]

But.. But... Eh I guess your right, but I couldn't help myself!

[Queen Raidne]

What? Which side am I on in the civil war? What civil war? Do you mean which side quest distracts me most often from the main quest? That'd be the Theif's Guild. Sometimes I just wander the countryside, find a random town, complete all the quests, and then disappear into the distance again. But I've never gotten past the second scripted dragon encounter. I try sometimes, and then some peasant comes running up to me, begging my help in finding her adventuruous husband, and the next thing I know, I'm trapped in some Dwemer ruins because of some greater conspiracy involving an Aedra and some ancient lost race of elves that I, frankly, had never heard of before entering the place!

I like to imagine that my character stumbles drunkenly around the world, occasionally slurring to themselves, "Oh yeah, don't I haveta do somethin' about some dragon guy, again?" as some elder dragon appears from nowhere while he's hauling some random shopkeeper's magic claw back from a barrow filled with undead horrors, all because he chose to stop at the wrong inn in the wrong town on the way back from finding some lady's dead husband.

But then he'll spot another invitingly blood-soaked cave and pop in just to have a look around, because you never know, hey?

Hell, one time he decided to look into a "haunted" house, and ended up torturing a guy in a cage who he'd never met before with a rather unpleasantly spiky mace for an elder god that he didn't know existed. I mean, hey, if that's your thing, he doesn't judge, but it was still a little awkward.

Writing this makes me want to do a Let's Play of Skyrim from that guy's point of view. Maybe do it like a diary:

Dear diary,

Today I woke up in a cart of prisoners. Not sure why I was there, but I must've been drugged, because I couldn't move anything but my eyes. When the effects wore off, I was already in the town we were headed for. Turns out that the incompetent b**** in charge, when faced with a prisoner not on her list, skipped the necessary paperwork and ordered my head cut off anyway. Turns out my protests were moot, because an honest-to-Emperor Dragon showed up....

[Drakel]

Hi guys... Let me tell you about my life. :)

I am a lizardkin when I moved into this cold, cold place. Literally most of it is either covered in forest, mountains or snow... only colors you'll ever see are green, brown, grey and white... but that's not the point. When I started my life was going the wrong direction. I was on the path towards execution though a miracle happened and for some reason all of the guards got overly distracted... so I managed to escape.

Knowing that my life was turning out horribly for a lizardkin I decided to go to college, and with some help with student resources there (and my lack of written record/history) I managed to get into college happily in this really nice city that had people of all types, heck I even met some other lizardkins and these tigerkins. Hell I even got to join this awesome fraternity that worshiped this dragon and they had this language that was SO COOL!!! Best part is that since I was a natural at speaking this language they accepted me even though I was lizardkin. While I was getting my degree I went to all sorts of places in the nation and even found this super secret place where people were smoking this awesome drug... though after I took a hit I knocked out for some reason and woken up in this cage. All around me I heard screams and shit so once this scary, sharp toothed guard came in I knocked him out and managed to make my escape. Once out I went back to my college and learned that I was in some major debt and that my courses were all failing and shit and that I actually sucked in liberal arts.

So I lost everything and was seriously bankrupt. I was so bad that I had to beat the shit out of bums for money!

Eventually I got this job where I get to fight bad people and kill shit but it turns out that they were also a secret group of "special individuals" and they had this monster and these sick people forced me to take what my old boss called "the beast" inside this secret cave... after that I got out of control and managed to make my escape with "the beast's essence" still inside me... I eventually went to this tower and cried for several weeks and even tried several times to kill myself from it. I even tried talking to the police but they ignored me (hell even attacked me) for it. I then learned that I received some sort of disease from taking in "the beast" and for me to get cured I had no choice but to work with these people. So I do and I get cured and then I left and NEVER went back.

Once I left I was back to my old habits (still depressed that I had to take "the beast") and started to steal shit and do odd jobs (just small quests and helped people out with stupid shit that they could do themselves) for money. Soon after I met this individual who invited me to join their little gang of thieves and so I did. Damn straight... I stole so well that I was practically better than their best!

Though that wasn't the life I wanted and soon I learned that a civil war was happening between some loyalists and some rebels.

When asked which side I'd join I said neither. The loyalists were getting owned and bowed to corruption of these yellow skinned people that told them what they can/can't believe and the rebels were racists to me and very means... just because I was a Lizardkin. ;_;

So... Since I was still in good health and that being a thief wasn't making money, and since I wanted to have no part in this war I had very little options... I MUST become an assassin and the only way to do that is kill... FOR JUSTICE!!!! That's right I was a vigilante and in the shadows of the night I went to the rebel's major city and met this kid who wanted me to defeat this vile, evil old hag who abuses children... AND I DID!!!

Then I went to a tavern, drank a lot, listened to some music from an old colleague of mine, learned that liberal arts was actually a very hard degree to live off of, and then went to sleep.

When I woke I wasn't in the tavern and was in some other place. In front of me were three people bound up and a woman dressed completely in black. She told me that I did her job for her and that my debt is to kill someone who did evil, but she wouldn't tell me who so I had to learn this myself by asking the people... eventually I just had to make a guess, good thing I had a good sense of finding evil... and so I chose to kill the racist. :D

Then this girl said I could get PAID for my work and that was cool in my opinion... so I worked with these groups of vigilante as SHADOWSCALE and continued to kill evil doers where they stood... in disguise. I did good work and it was good pay but soon I learned that as a lizardkin I don't want to live my life as a superhero anymore and so... I went back to college, this time NOT for liberal arts but instead I was after a very fucking magical major in sciences...

So again, college, rejoined my fraternity, did some cool things and learned some history, and did very fucking magical things. Eventually I graduated and shortly after I found myself a job that was related to my fraternity. I met a lot of cool, inspirational and powerful people during my work and even caused a short peace treaty between the loyalists and rebels! I became liked EVERYWHERE and life was looking so up. I also met a very special person who was also the leader of the organization that I worked for (though I'm not really supposed to talk about him... but... I'll say he likes Dragons and has an evil older brother.)

After all was said and done I lived a very successful life, I was rich and was able to retire at a young age.

That is my story about how great of a stepping stone college was for me when it came to my success. So join college and don't give up on your dreams, even though they give up on you. and if they give up on you, than it's for you to get a bigger, brighter future! Trust me, I'm a lizard kin who actually reached a life of success. :D

If I can do it in this land full of racists and retards, so can YOU!!! All you need to do is Join Winterhold University Today!

[BrobyDDark]

There's a civil war going on? I guess I hadn't noticed because I was BEING THE FUCKING DRAGONBORN. Seriously, I travel the God firsaken world killing dragons just because I can and saving everything while you mortals wage your petty war. You ever think of anyone but yourselves? The Blades do. They thought of everyone when they recruited an evil warlock to be the Dragonborn and kill things for a living. Heh. Killing things is fun. Especially if they can't do anything about it. What was I saying? Oh yeah: Screw the war I have dragons!

[Drakel]

BrobyDDark said
The Blades

Paarthurnax...

[The Nexerus]

Drakel said
Paarthunax...

A dragon is a dragon is a dragon.

[GreivousKhan]

Oni said
I think the blame lies with the Nords for waging a genocidal war against the Snow Elves which caused them to seek the Dwarves help. The Snow Elves wouldn't even exist as the Falmer if the Nords had had their way. My point was though, that Skyrim wasn't originally the Nord's homeland and that they are the true foreign invaders of Skyrim.

But remember who started it, the snow elves betrayed the first settler nords and then enslaved therm...so ya I think they were entitled to a little pay back.

TunaticTyler said
Meh, I suppose The Empire/Imperials.However, I really wasn't that engaged into Skyrim like most people. It was a bit too easy, even with difficulty cranked up at times, and I think the main issue I had with Skyrim was the combat was extremely bland. Most of them you would just win by randomly swinging your preferred weapon of choice with no thought, occasionally raising up a shield if you even had one (Or you was some MLGQuickshotPro and duel-wielded swords because, you know, thatsa what cool cats do these days). Magic was a little more interesting, but a little generic. Of course, there are the Shouts, which are a bit creative for the most part.Maybe I've just been spoiled by good RPGs like Dark Souls, but oh well. I've been more of a Fallout guy myself when it comes to Bethesda's products.

Hence why combat mods are a must. Make Skyrim ten times better. :K

[GreivousKhan]

Dervish said
Basically, there's an armistice between the Empire and the 2nd Aldmeri Dominion, who had ended the war conditionally after crippling loses on both sides, although the Empire fared worse than the Dominion since the terms they agreed to were almost identical to the ones that they had went to war over in the first place, including disavowing Talos worship and allowing Thalmor Justicars to basically do an inquisition in search of Talos worshipers, as well as having observers in place to make sure the Empire followed the terms. This was called the White-Gold Concordat, which is also a reason Hammerfell broke off in independence from the Empire, and they were at war with the Dominion for quite some time after that, although they managed to repel the Thalmor from Hammerfell. Talos is kind of the patron diety to the Nords, so being told they can't worship him is kind of like someone occupying Israel and telling them they can't worship Moses any longer. It's part of the reason the Civil War broke out, since the Stormcloaks largely view the Empire as elf stooges without a spine to stick up for what's right and that to preserve their way of life and not find themselves under the Thalmor's heel, they need to take their home from the Empire that is a shadow of its former self that clearly no longer has Nord interests at heart. Another thing to keep in mind about the racism demonstrated against the Dark Elves is that it's largely due to the massive influx of refugees after the Red Mountain erupted and the invasion from the argonians forced them to flee their homes, and if you look at real-life examples of how hard it is for a country to take on several thousand to hundreds of thousands of refugees, you can see how the local population could grow to start resenting them, especially if they have a history of warfare and mutual hatred between them. The Nords, dark elves, dwemer, and snow elves had all had it out for one another for quite some time for hundreds of years. It doesn't make the racism and shitty treatment of the dunmer that you see in Skyrim any more justified, but if you take a look at the history and consider how hard it is to take in a huge amount of refugees, you can kind of understand where they're coming from. Before you say, "But Dervs! There's only like a dozen dunmer in Windhelm!", keep in mind the entire game is SEVERELY underpopulated on all accounts. Also, keep in mind that the dunmer (dark elves) are hardly saints themselves. It wasn't long before the beginning of Oblivion there that Morrowind still practiced slavery, especially against the argonians and khajiit. It doesn't surprise me, at all, that the argonians would take advantage of political turmoil to get back at countless generations of oppression.Also, the Nords were the first men to settle in Tamriel, which was ruled by the elves at the time, from a Northern continent called Atmora. The other men came sometime later, the last being the Redguard. There was actually quite a bit of peace between the Nords and the neighbouring snow elves for quite some time before tensions boiled over. It was hardly a war party that started conquering all the land.

Hell Talos is the patron deity for all 'men' in general.

And the Redguards are not from Atmora at all.

[Smiral]

>not picking stormcloaks

Y'all motherfuckers lame, nationalists 5eva

[Dervish]

GreivousKhan said
Hell Talos is the patron deity for all 'men' in general.

And the Redguards are not from Atmora at all.

No, the Redguard have no connection to the Nords, did not mean to imply they did. They came over from Yonkuda

As seen here

, which apparently sank, which forced them to find a new homeland. I'm pretty sure they arrived in Tamriel after the dwemer vanished.

[The Nexerus]

The Redguards, Bretons, Nords and Imperials are all generally perceived as Men, regardless of their partial Mer heritage (in the case of Bretons and some Imperials), which continent their 'human' aspect originated from (Atmora for Nords, Bretons and some Imperials, and Yokuda for Redguards and some Imperials), or their cultural similarities to other human societies.

The four human ethnicities in Tamriel are universally recognized as human.

[AlienBastard]

Empire since it don't matter who wins the civil war the elves will kill everyone in the end.

[BrobyDDark]

AlienBastard said
Empire since it don't matter who wins the civil war the elves will kill everyone in the end.

Aldmeri are huge bitches. They go down so easily it's almost laughable. I don't think think they could take down a whole bunch of hardened warriors and the Dragonborn.

[Vortex]

Kind of op when they are be battling against the Dovakiin

[BrobyDDark]

Vortex said
Kind of op when they are be battling against the Dovakiin

I have no clue what you're on about. I always beat the ever loving shit out of them (and, in a recent installment of murder everything, their prisoner as well) then take their gold and potions.

[Cpt Toellner]

I felt so dirty when I played through the Stormcloak line.

Seriously, I felt bad invading Whiterun, like I was doing a very bad thing.

I actually developed guilt.

[natsumehack]

Blitzkrieg said
I felt so dirty when I played through the Stormcloak line.Seriously, I felt bad invading Whiterun, like I was doing a very bad thing.I actually developed guilt.

I keep reading this, but I can't figure out what is so off putting to me about it.

[Dervish]

I just made a Stormcloak character. What can I say, I enjoy their aesthetic more than the Empire and they were my army during the first play through.

[Cpt Toellner]

Also, General Tullius is a boss.

[Smiral]

Blitzkrieg said
I felt so dirty when I played through the Stormcloak line.Seriously, I felt bad invading Whiterun, like I was doing a very bad thing.I actually developed guilt.

Yeah, I'll admit shitting on Whiterun makes me feel like a huge dick most of the time.

Mostly because I'm a killer merchant in Whiterun/Windhelm. I'm ruining my own business. D: