A question about the quest, 'Season Unending'

[unga bunga]

In the quest Season Unending, you need to temporarily halt the civil war to continue the fight against the dragons. But there's something I've always wanted to test in this mission, but I've never had the time to do.

What happens if you've finished the Imperial/Stormcloak questline before starting this mission? Do you still have to make a treaty between the two armies or does the mission just skip entirely?

[Jjp7123]

You skip the mission entirely.

[unga bunga]

That's pretty neat. I'll have to try that sometime, because that's a boring @$$ mission.

[DrNewcenstein]

I've actually only done the Civil War twice - once for each side. It's probably the worst quest in the game, simply because it doesn't offer any sort of realistic and rational flexibility such as double-agency (i.e. "join" either side just to kill the leader of either faction, thus ending the whole affair quickly) or sensible discussion (i.e. convincing Tullius that it would be easier to abandon the effort to focus on the Dominion, and let Skyrim secede as Hammerfell did and then negotiate an alliance against the Dominion). You could have even used the Dork Brotherhood questline to gain an audience with the Emperor to either (A) demonstrate your Dragonbornness and rightfully claim the throne, or (B) say "look, bro, I'm here to kill you, but it doesn't have to go down that way. What you can do here is let Skyrim bow out of the party like you did for Hammerfell, then negotiate an alliance against the larger enemy, rather than waste resources here. You stay within the bounds of the White-Gold Concordat by upholding the ban on Talos worship, which you were a total 'tard for agreeing to in the first place, and Skyrim supplies troops to fight the common enemy, all while not being bound to the Concordat or its "anti-Talos" stipulation. When it's all over, and the Dominion is crushed - yet again - then you can sit down and talk about reunification like adults. Or I can spill your guts all over this ship and you get to hang out with Sithis in the Void getting poked in the pooper with the Mace of Molag Bal, your choice. Tick tock the clock is ticking cuz I got things to see and people to do."

Season Unending also missed the chance to assert your Dragonbornness by shouting both sides down and basically say "look, you little window lickers, Alduin is a World-Ending problem, so STFU and call off the hostilities so I can deal with this far-more-important issue directly, or else I'll Shout every last one of you petty little f**ks off the top of this mountain, do I make myself *crystal* clear? And yes, I will Soul Trap you when it happens, and you don't want to know about the Soul Cairn. At all."

Or at least to be able to tell Jarl Ballscruff that "I need to trap a dragon. You've got the trap already. I'm not worried about how you "look" to the Imperials or to Ulfric Storkchoad. Either you help me, or you lose more than your fair city. Today. Right here. Starting with your Burger King beard and your 2 little brats. Comprende jefe?"

I mean, they just missed so many opportunities for handling these two quests in a much better fashion.

Then again that's to be expected when you can't return the Ancient Traveler's Skull to the Headless Horseman, and all the coolest Shouts are in Questlocked dungeons.

[Zsrai]

Originally posted by DrNewcenstein:

I mean, they just missed so many opportunities for handling these two quests in a much better fashion.

Then again that's to be expected when you can't return the Ancient Traveler's Skull to the Headless Horseman, and all the coolest Shouts are in Questlocked dungeons.

That's because, as much as the game (and Oblivion, honestly) are touted as "open world sand box", they really aren't. You can IGNORE the main quest, yes, but most quest and dialogue options are either "do this quest on rails" or "skip it entirely". You can explore the open world, but you can't really do what you want to do in it (unless that's just explore).

[drizzan]

There is no reason to skip Season Unending, it makes the Civil War less painful since if you do Season Undending correctly the side that you want to support end up with 1 more hold than the other faction, and I rather get it for free by just talking than having to go to those boring forts and camps and fight some guards.

[Zsrai]

Originally posted by drizzan:

There is no reason to skip Season Unending, it makes the Civil War less painful since if you do Season Undending correctly the side that you want to support end up with 1 more hold than the other faction, and I rather get it for free by just talking than having to go to those boring forts and camps and fight some guards.

You either do an extra "combat mission" by taking a fort or you run around and deal with the BS at High Hrothgar; either way you spend a chunk of time doing whatever. It's mostly up to you if you want extra fighting or extra dialogue.