Season Unending

Quest Giver	Various
Location	Sky Haven Temple High Hrothgar
Prerequisite	Alduin’s Bane
Next Quest	The Fallen
Faction	Blades
Type	Main quest
QuestID	MQ302

After completing the Peace Treaty with both sides, the Civil War questline is halted until the main quest has been fully completed. Season Unending is automatically skipped if the Civil War questline has been completed.

Objectives

Talk to Arngeir
Talk to General Tullius
Talk to Ulfric Stormcloak
Talk to Arngeir
Take your seat
Negotiate a truce

Walkthrough

The Dragonborn must talk to either Paarthurnax, Arngeir, or Esbern. Whomever is picked will say that Dragonsreach was originally designed to capture and house a dragon.

Jarl of Whiterun

The Dragonborn tries to enlist the Jarl of Whiterun’s help, however the Jarl will say that he cannot try to capture a dragon while Whiterun is under threat of attack. He says if a peace treaty can be agreed between the Imperials and the Stormcloaks he will help capture and hold a dragon. The Jarl will also suggest talking to the Greybeards, as both General Tullius and Ulfric Stormcloak highly respect them.

Note that if the Dragonborn has completed the Imperial Legion or Stormcloaks questline except the final battle for (capture Solitude or Windhelm), or completed the questline entirely, the Jarl will agree to capture a dragon without talking to the Greybeards.

Peace treaty

Speak to the Greybeards and they will agree to help negotiate a truce. Arngeir will suggest the Dragonborn speak to both General Tullius and Ulfric Stormcloak, and extend an invitation to meet with the Greybeards and discuss the future of Skyrim.

Once the peace conference has started, the Dragonborn is given many options, mostly having to do with the side taken in Civil War questline.

Negotiation 1: Elenwen

As soon as the negotiations begin, Ulfric raises objections about Elenwen even being involved in this council. Tullius or Ulfric will ask what the Dragonborn’s thoughts are:

To agree with Tullius and keep Elenwen in the meeting.
To agree with Ulfric and eject Elenwen from the meeting.

Negotiation 2: Markarth or Riften

The next item to discuss is giving up a major Hold.

If sided with the Stormcloaks, General Tullius will demand that Riften be turned over to the Empire. Otherwise, Ulfric will demand Markarth surrendered to the Stormcloaks. The opposing faction’s reaction depends on the state of the Civil War: The faction that controls Markarth or Riften asks the Dragonborn what they believe is a fair trade for the city.

The answer is always one of three choices:

An exchange of a major Hold the opposition has.
An exchange of a minor Hold the opposition has.
Alternative dealing with choice in Civil War questline.

The council goes along with whatever choice is made. The side that controls Markarth or Riften will be unhappy if it is bargained for a minor Hold.
Negotiation 3/NA (Through Console Command): Falkreath or ???

If Console Command is used to do the mission when The Stormcloaks or the Imperials only have their capital left, the other side will down size their demand to a minor hold. Here the Dragonborn has the choice of giving up Falkreath to the Imperials or the Stormcloaks. There is no difference in Speech other than at the end if Falkreath is given up, Tullius tells the Dragonborn of his displeasure. He does not use that speech if Falkreath is kept. The Stormcloaks will take the deal either way.
Negotiation 4: Concessions

It is now time for the faction that has been favored less (and thus “losing” the negotiations) to ask for additional concessions. For each demand, the Dragonborn can choose whether to agree to the concession.

This continues until the side demanding a concession runs out of concessions to ask for (which requires one to refuse all their demands).
Conclusion

Once the treaty is agreed, the quest is complete.

If the Dragonborn has sided with the Stormcloaks and has liberated Falkreath in the quest line Liberation of Skyrim, in which the next objective is to Liberate the Reach, then it is possible that after completing Season Unending the “Liberate the Reach” objective will also be complete. Note that the Liberation Quest line cannot be completed, if the Dragonborn has a bounty in Windhelm or Solitude.

If the Dragonborn has sided with the Legion and decides to trade the Reach for the Rift, then the quest Compelling Tribute (Imperials) in the Civil War line is skipped.
Notes

Whether Paarthurnax has been killed or not will affect the dialogue between Delphine, Esbern and Arngeir during the Blades request to attend the negotiations.

Trivia

Season Unending is the Ancient Nordic term for war. This is revealed through dialogue with Arngeir, which further reflects his opposition to war and his pessimism about the usefulness of the peace treaty.

Bugs
This section contains bugs related to Season Unending. Before adding a bug to this list, consider the following:

Confirm all bugs with other editors on the talk page before adding them below.
Always try reloading an old save first, before asking for assistance.
Don’t discuss possible bug fixes or origins. Leave those and all other first-person-anecdotes on the talk page, not the article.

Always add  360  ,  PS3  , and  PC   to clarify which system the bug appears on.

If the Dragonborn has started the quest to join either the Stormcloaks or the Imperials, it will be impossible to continue with the quest because there will be no dialogue box when he talks to the faction leaders making it impossible to tell them about the Greybeards’ peace treaty. This can be fixed by repeatedly tapping the activate button when speaking to Galmar or Ulfric. They will keep saying that a mission is ongoing. Upon completing the Battle for Whiterun, the option to talk to General Tullius and Ulfric Stormcloak becomes available again. It also is possible to talk to them when returning the Jagged Crown.
Workaround for not being able to talk to Ulfric: use console command “SetStage MQ302 30” after having already talked to General Tullius.
Workaround for not being able to talk to General Tullius: use console command “SetStage MQ302 5” after having already talked to Ulfric.
For those on consoles, joining either of the factions and speaking to the leader immediately afterwards (only works with General Tullius, Ulfric will just direct you to talk to Galmar)
Sometimes one or more of the original guards of the holds that were exchanged will still be inside the main city and the guard(s) will attack their new occupants.
PC   360   PS3  If the negotiators stop talking and the Dragonborn is unable to talk, they should exit their seat or it will be impossible to continue the creation of the treaty. PC players may use “setstage mq302 300” after the NPC’s are seated at the table to complete the quest. Talking to Esbern should continue the quest after that. For the Xbox 360 and PS3 use a previous save that has the older state of Season Unending to reload and finish the quest.
If the meeting does not start after the Dragonborn has taken a seat, staying seated and waiting 24 hours will trigger the meeting. If it still does not trigger, all guests should sit down after five to ten minutes of real time. Or leave High Hrothgar and then come back.
360  Another method for fixing the glitch where the meeting does not start after the Dragonborn has taken a seat: make sure that both the Season Unending and The Fallen quests are selected, then talk to Arngeir at the other side of the table. Finally, walk over and take a seat and wait for an hour once seated. This should trigger the meeting.
PS3   The Achievement/Trophy from the Civil War Quests can be missed because of how Season Unending plays out. If the favored faction gains one or both of the needed forts, the Dragonborn will not get credit, thus never unlocking the Achievement/Trophy. To fix this, ensure the opposing faction gets both Forts, or complete that portion of the Civil War Quests before starting Season Unending.
PC   If Esbern is not talking, he should be disabled then enabled, by opening the console, clicking on him, then typing “disable” and “enable”, repeating every time Esbern stops walking around his seat. This might need to be done several times, after each dialogue of the present persons. Sometimes the console command “setstage mq302 300” will not work.
Sometimes the Jarl of Whiterun does not require this quest and will allow the Dragonborn to trap a dragon even if the war is not yet finished, when all Stormcloak cities but Windhelm or all Imperial cities but Solitude had been captured.
360    PS3   Legate Rikke attacks the Dragonborn if they have committed several crimes such as stealing horses at Imperial camps. This can be solved by attacking her far away from the negotiation room until she’s on her knees (marked as essential) and quickly sprint to the room to start the negotiations. The trick is not to let anyone else see Legate Rikke attack as they all will react quite shocked to the violence.
If The Forsworn Conspiracy hasn’t been completed, it will be automatically completed if Markarth is surrendered to the Stormcloaks. However, the next quest, Escape From Cidhna Mine, will not appear in the Quests screen.
Sometimes, Season Unending will not complete gracefully, causing quest stages for both it and the overall civil war quest (id “CW”) to not engage properly. For example:
Characters from the conference may endlessly walk up and down the stairs just outside High Hrothgar, not responding to the Dragonborn and not participating in any quest dialogue or events. If using the console they are killed, forcibly returned to their home locations, or recycled, they will simply walk back to the stairs and continue their endless loop (even walking across all of Skyrim to reach the steps). This can be solved by ensuring all finishing quest stages have been properly completed, specifically stages past 300.  PC   Check their status with “player.sqs MQ302” and activate stages with “setstage MQ302 <stage>”. As soon as the appropriate stage is triggered, all remaining characters will begin a long walk back to their home locations and will immediately be able to interact with the Dragonborn again.
Season Unending triggers stage 255 of the overall civil war quest (“CW”), a stage which is specially designed to stop the war while the peace conference is in session. When active, this stage puts a forced hold on all civil war combat quests (except for the Battle for Whiterun), preventing the selection of key dialogue options to trigger them. Stage 256 of CW releases this hold thus re-enabling the war, and should be automatically triggered when Season Unending completes. However, if the quest does not complete gracefully, the civil war may become stuck on permanent hold.  PC   This can be checked via “player.sqs CW” and fixed via “setstage CW 256”.