Quote Originally Posted by Grim Portent View Post
I do think you have something with him being there to prevent Ulfric's execution to prolong the civil war and get more souls to eat, but we don't know what Alduin actually knows at the time. Does he know Ulfric is the leader of the rebels? Does he even know there's a war on at the time he attacks Helgen? How long exactly has he been back by the time of the foiled execution?

If he could still percieve things while in his time out, or has been back for a little while, then he'd probably be aware of the general circumstances and move to maintain the status quo that benefits him.

If he's not aware of what's going on then throughout the province the only reason to show up at Helgen is the Dragonborn. Or generally being an *******, which is always an option with dragons.
Well, as someone mentioned earlier, Delphine stated that for a while dragon tombs had begun showing up empty. One can assume Alduin has been around for a while. Long enough to get a general consensus of what is going on in Skyrim. Also, the entire kingdom of Skyrim would be talking about how Ulfric killed the king by using the voice. I'm sure Alduin would have picked that up with his general information going on. Maybe even from some of the souls he began consuming that died in the war. So I'm sure he just figured out that the leader of the rebels, who can use the voice or atleast a few words, would sow enough confusion for him to run around and do what he wants and consume the extra souls for free that were dying in the civil war. Also the Thalmor were going to step in to save Ulfric for their own purposes to keep the war going. Why wouldn't Alduin step in to do the same for his dragon agenda?

Also, is there something established that dragons can sense the souls of other dragons anywhere in the game? I was under the belief they didn't do to the first dragon you absorb coming to the realization you were dragonborn once you started absorbing his soul.