The Rebel Faction

I played some Skyrim too, stunned everybody with two handed power attacks.

EVE is like if you wanted to be an accountant/truck driver, but in space.

Yeah, but you have to wait for years of training first. xD

Do you play EVE?

Actually it's not an insult for me either. You just have to warn people/yourself that that's what it is because, well, like one wiki put it: in many ways the space aspect is like a "flavor" or "skin" for the spreadsheet implementation.

Wow. I just did the whole Elder Scroll reading/Alduin fight this morning jumping from level 40 to 41.

lol, I so want to talk about what happens next, but, I don't want to ruin it for you

All I can say is, just when I thought, yeah I've seen it all in this game, something new and awesome pops up.

Which you will see, when you get to it next , Om.

I was doing all the side quests but left some hanging because I really did not want to become a member of the Dark Brotherhood..

I know, in fact the only reason why I did, was because they kept sending assassins after me, so I went looking for them in the end with the express intention of wiping them out, lol

Now I am their leader, go figure, and yes i did do that last thing, you know that big thing, which Om won't know about since he hasn't done any of their quests

I was doing the Companion thing and was digging it right up to the point where I met the leaders secretly and they turned into werewolves and I tip-toed back out of that cave and said, "See ya". Who wants to turn into a dog-man at night? I mean, besides Seth?

Thought it'd be a laugh!

And it was for a while, until I woke up half naked in the middle of nowhere miles away from the nearest town, and not being able to run because I was carrying too much stuff...

Still, once I made it back to town, the guard at the entrance did make me chuckle, as I came running up in my underwear..

"Gods...You must be freezing"

The funny thing is that I am struck by the moral-choices one has to make in this game.

Totally, I didn't steal anything or kill anyone , until very late in the game, the Dark Brotherhood series of quests really was the biggest moral dilemma for me, especially that big thing at the end which Om doesn't know about, lol

It did bother me when I let the werewolf-guy go ..they guy who killed the little girl.

Yeah, I went back in to kill him again, after I had killed the hunters, I don;t believe a whole team of hunters against one guy is fair, so I killed them, but I also went back in to kill the werewolf guy and he had disappeared, so he got a lucky escape, but if I run into him again, his time is up.

That way I can get both sets of Daedric items.... (I am nothing if not pragmatic, lol)

I did see how the natives wanted their land back and cheered the Stormcloaks but I still backed the Empire and crushed them. Whoever writes this stuff is really good.

I can see this is the next step for me, I cannot delay it anymore, as yet I have not yet decided, I do want Skyrim to be free of the Empire, but ...

I do not trust or like Ulfric, especially after hosting that peace council.


o_O

What did it for me (apart from that fact that in the beginning of the game the Imperials were seconds away from KNOWINGLY KILLING YOU FOR BEING IN THE WRONG PLACE AT THE WRONG TIME) was the religious persecution of Talos worship. Common religious belief at the time by most Imperial citizens were that there are Nine Divines, 8 Aedra and Talos, the original Nordic name of Tiber Septim. The elves of the Aldmeri Dominion think this is offensive, that the belief that a mortal, particularly a human, could ascend to divinity amongst the Aedra is sacrilegious to their own creation myth.

One of the conditions of the White-Gold Concordat (the peace treaty that ended the Great War) is that the practice of Talos worship shall be banned throughout the Empire. Obviously, the Nords are particularly pissed off, as Tiber Septim was originally a Nord, and not only do they consider him divine, but also one of their greatest historical figures. I always tend to lean towards those persecuted for their beliefs.

I came to regret it later on in the game, though. Nords are fucking assholes, man. They treat the Argonians and Dunmer refugees like shit in Windhelm, and their basic philosophy towards the Dominion is "We don't care how powerful they are, we want to fight them until the Empire is utterly destroyed." Plus they're engaged in a horrific ethnic conflict with the Bretons of the Reach. Ultimately, siding with the Empire is the "greater good" choice. Skyrim's segregation basically means the downfall of the Empire as we have known it throughout the Elder Scrolls, and more than likely paves the way for an Aldmeri Dominion that spans all of Tamriel.

Omnae: The natives in Markarth are the Forsworn, and are actually sworn enemies of Ulfric. 20 years before the events of the game, the Reachmen staged an uprising after the Dominion attacked the Empire and took control of Markarth. After the treaty signing, the dead Jarl's son told Ulfric that if he kicked the Reachmen out of the city and restored a Nordic ruler, he would allow Talos worship regardless of the wishes of the Emperor. The Reachmen were forced from power, and fled into the woods to become Forsworn. If it makes you feel any better though, the Forsworn have no love for the Empire either. Generally, they're just kind of dicks.

Seth: Like I said before, I'd say the Empire is the better of the two choices, morally, if you're looking at the grand scale. Ulfric is genuine, at least in that he means what he says and his intentions are for the betterment of his people, but he is unwittingly being used by the Thalmor (the elves that run the Aldmeri Dominion) as a pawn to hasten the downfall of the Empire by weakening it from within. Either way, you don't see the far reaching consequences of this during the game itself. The differences are pretty much all cosmetic, although some of the ramifications of the Stormcloak storyline can weigh heavy on you, although I'm sure the same can be said for the Empire.