Why I fight for Caesar's Legion in Fallout

[Eddie the head]

Yes yes, very convincing, grey and grey and bad governing on both sides.

But this is what it comes down to, do I support a bloated but well meaning retarded government?

Or do I support a bunch of sociopathic, misogynistic, homophobic hypocritical dickwads?

That choice was VERY easy.

Are you referring to Fallout or the upcoming US federal election?

I, I like this guy. Anyway NCR for me, I could see House. But I mean they could just let Freeside rot like House, but they at least legitimately tried to help. It didn't work out but there heart was in the right place.

 

[Twilight_guy]

Here's why I don't support them: They're a bunch of bastards. Their armies are composed of assholes and murders and they have no morals, only a desire to make the world good in their own eyes and a willingness to sink to the lowest possible levels if it means getting there. They're never going to achieve anything because the majority of their forces are mad dogs that would descend into anarchy if the leadership ever slacks. There basically raiders with an iron-fisted dictator keeping them in check. There world would be a civilized abomination. The NCR might be full of bureaucracy, idiots, bad leadership and general garbage but at least there goals would make everything a hellhole. (it might wind up a hellhole but at least you planed something better)

 

[dvd_72]

Even if the NCR are spread too thinly to be an effective governing force I don't really see the problem in that. It makes more sense in a world where communication has become relatively rudimentary again would limit the region any governing body can exert its influence, meaning that settlements or groups of settlements will have to become self governing. As long as they don't turn to banditry and slavery, a whole bunch of independent settlements is the better option than Caesar Legion forcing you to send your young men and children into their military, or to become slaves.

In short, even an ineffective NCR is a better option than Caesar legion with a strong grip on its territories. Perhaps even better than an effective NCR presence within its territories.

Capcha: Great Unwashed. Well now, it's not their fault its difficult to get enough water to spare for a bath!

 

[Radoh]

I find it very silly that I should have to compromise what I want for a side that is 'good enough'.
My choice is almost always the Wild Card, and lucky me, there are plenty of ways to do it.

Do I kill Caesar and leave that legate in charge, knowing he will slowly run them into the dirt Or do I kill them both to remove an unknown?
Do I let the NCR sustain heavy casualties to leave me time to consolidate my power, or do I try to make them an ally?
When is it best to dispatch House, and do I want to kill him or not?

Then there's the DLC, oh boy the DLC.

 

[BehattedWanderer]

I spy with my two eyes, a ninja expressing my thoughts!

i gather you dont play a female character when you side with a bunch of women hating rapists then

Yeah, the one time I played Caesar's side was one of the few times I played as a guy. I hated every second of siding with that fucker. Ex-Follower of the Apocalypse who embraces all the worst aspects of Rome, absolutely eschews civility in favor of unified barbarism, and has no use for technology, human rights, or society?

FUCK. THAT.

The NCR might not be as efficient, but they remember that the soil they're fighting over was once a nation that was founded on law and the rights of humanity, not a dictatorship led by a misogynistic, culture-destroying, society-reducing sociopath. Caesar might be stable, but when Caesar dies (from whatever I was using to kill him), his legion will soon start to fracture, to say nothing of how his stability is derived from killing any who would question his law. Easy to have peace when all your criminals are given badges.

Yeah, it's not a clear cut decision. Turns out, that's more realistic. I'd favor Mr House more if he was open to suggestions, rather than assume his is the only way. The tribes and groups of the Mojave could be valuable allies, if shaped right, but he assumes he knows what to do about them. A benevolent dictatorship, yes, but a dictatorship none the less, and Mr. House's agenda is known only to him. Losing his cold, calculating brilliance as a guiding hand is the downside to the Yes Man side (in addition to having both the NCR and Legion at your throat for then after, which also applies to Mr House's side).

So no, despite there being grey areas, I do not support siding with the slavers who make habit of cultural destruction, rape, murder, arson, crucifixion, torture, and technological regression.

 

[DudeistBelieve]

In my cannon game, I ended up siding with Mr. House.

Really nothing about him I could complain about.

 

[Savryc]

When stuck between NCR's "Join us or else" and the Legion's "Join us or else" I'll side with the guy with all the caps and laser/rocket/grenade/machine gun robots.

 

[Your Fearless Captain]

I loved the shit out of the 5 or 6 hours I got to play of NV. Unfortunately, both it and Fallout 3 give me terrible vertigo and nausea T_T

Turn up yo FOV. It's a common thing. Try 85 to 90.

 

[Easton Dark]

You support a society thats only morals are being male and being strong. They contribute nothing, only consume what they take from others. Their military model will not work in the long run, armies can only get so large without an infrastructure. Honor and tradition on the battlefield, especially in the Fallout universe, is a silly notion.

They haven't learned from history, and are dooming themselves to repeat it, only in a world that is much less hospitable for an empire to be crumbling in. I guess if you like them, whatever, but I'll never support those morons.

 

[ww666]

I for one didn't like both side in the fight for the Mojave. You can see that the NCR are a bunch of thugs trying to force themselves into everything that has two legs and can hold a gun straight, and the Legion, well you maybe right about their methods being straigth-forward and all, but they are cruel and their attitude towards you even after you help them, is not friendly unless you join their side. So I choose my own path in the end, i'd rather be on my own side then having to back up either of them.

 

[NeutralDrow]

I was put off the Legion the minute I came across that place where they had crucified everyone and said, "What are you going to do about it?".

Fucking blew the buggers up with dynamite is what I did about it.

If they had been less dickish to me I would have been inclined to listen to them but they were hostile to me from the get-go so stuff 'em. I sided with House because, well, he seemed to know what he was doing. Plus I got a comfy bedroom in his tower.

Heh. Off-topic, but funny thing is, that's how I reacted to both the Legion and House. The Legion I of course blasted to hell after discovering Nipton (then got in their good graces long enough to talk to Caesar, then carpet-bombed his tent).

Unfortunately, I made the mistake of getting the poker chip before talking to House. When you do that, his immediate reaction is to demand you hand it over...and if you say you want your questions answered, he refuses to talk and threatens you. The man may be smart, but he's got the social graces of a rabid chipmunk, and really didn't know how to handle someone who's been strung out all over the Mojave and nearly killed half a dozen times, and isn't in the mood to take crap from anyone. Then the bastard demanded to know why I was killing him, and seemed shocked when I pointed out that I didn't like him. On the plus side, I discovered that comfy bedroom for myself!

I'll probably play a little differently next time, with a mellower character, and listen to what he has to say.

 

[blindthrall]

I really wanted work for House, because as much as he's an expy of Howard Hughes, I got a heavy Andrew Ryan vibe from him too. Everything was groovy...until he demanded I nuke the Brotherhood. Not that I have any especial loyalty for them, since I remember in the first game they were only helping out of self-interest, but without their help the Mojave would be ruled by mutants. That deserves a better reward than extinction. But House wouldn't hear about sparing them, and got PISSED when I questioned him. He's great at making plans, but shitty at adapting them. He made his admittedly genius plan before the war, and hasn't changed it one iota. Brotherhood was unforseen, so he just takes them out of the equation. He's good at playing the NCR because they're the same government he was dealing with before the war, and he dominated them as well. The Legion makes it obvious what to do about them just through their own philosophy. There's not even any indication that he reacted to Benny stealing the chip at all, Vic was already programmed to follow you. If he knew you were alive, why did you have to go to him? Why let you just wander around the Mojave finding the chip? If House were as competent as he thought he is, with his resources, he could have figured out what happened and tracked the chip down, especially considering it was across the street from him. House is just as stagnant as the other two options, because his brain is 273 years old. And I really don't see why people believe the benevolent part of benevolent dictator. He wiped out a lot of people when he came back, simply because they were in his way. He'll kill you just like Ceasar, although he won't torture you first. The NCR at least gives a warning.The only reason he didn't try to massacre NCR is because he wanted their money. You have to remember that House is a salesman, and lots of players got sold.

The NCR isn't the same one from F2, NPCs say lots of Tandy's reforms got repealed. Their citizens may have a high standard of living, but population pressures will result in mass starvation, and Hanlon says they drained all the lakes back West. If the Followers actually got involved in NCR politics it could work in the long run, but the NCR needs an internal revolution. Which I'm pretty sure Ceasar was trying to cause. But he has the least foresight out of any of the factions. Which is why House's plan needs new blood to implement it, that would be best for Vegas.

Anyway, I'm pulling for the Midwestern Brotherhood, the only faction to successfully recruit supermutants.

 

[Wayneguard]

I loved the shit out of the 5 or 6 hours I got to play of NV. Unfortunately, both it and Fallout 3 give me terrible vertigo and nausea T_T

Turn up yo FOV. It's a common thing. Try 85 to 90.

I have the console version. Is this a well known issue with that one as well?

 

[Zenn3k]

(There seems to be a lot of fallout threads lately...)

Fallout is one of my favorite series. The current apple of my eye is New Vegas, partly because, as Yahtzee would say, it's a water cooler game. It's fun to talk about what you did, who you killed, where you went, etc.

It seems that a lot of people I talk to are shocked that I always side with the Legion, being that they see the NCR as the 'good guys' and the Legion as the 'bad guy.' I don't think it's that cut and dry.

First of all, most of the Mojave has been fed tons of NCR propaganda. "Here we are, here to unite the wastes! All lets all converge and stand together under the NCR flag!" they say. What they mean though is "Join us or we'll mark you as hostile and wipe you out." As we can see from the Khans, they don't really give a shit about people. There are plenty of people across the wastes who'll tell you of terrible things NCR troops have done. They want land and power, just like any empire. At least the Legion is up-front about it. And that intimidation is what helps keep Legion territory safe. Unlike the NCR, who spreads themselves incredibly thin with poorly-trained, poorly-armed volunteers, Legion takes care of their own. I mean, if you were a bandit, where would you rather set up shop, the territory that says "Cross us and we'll arrest you and throw you in jail!" or the one that says "Cross us and you'll be crucified and your wife and children will be sold into slavery?" Legion ain't nothin' to fuck with.

That segways nicely into my next point; slavery. Yeah, it sucks. Yeah, it's morally wrong. But it's something of a necessary evil IMHO. I mean, for one thing, free labor. But more importantly, the threat of slavery is a powerful bargaining chip. When the Legion conquers your territory, you can either give your children up to be slaves or soldiers. Any parent would pick the latter, thus growing the Legion's powerful army.

I don't want to sound like I'm pro-slavery IRL. Nothing could be further from the truth. I am for it in the fictional land of Fallout though. The NCR wants to rebuild the old world as it was. Sort of like, if society was on level five, and the war knocked it down to one, NCR wants to rebuild at level five. That's just not going to happen. Civilizations have to start at the bottom and build their way up, and the Legion realizes it. They may seem evil on the surface, but I think they're the best hope for the Mojave. The NCR is bloated, corrupt, and incompetent. As my dad would say, they couldn't find their ass with both hands.

I'm actually doing a playthrough right now where I'm siding with the Legion, if anything for another ending, since I sided with the NCR first (I wanted to be a Ranger, lol).

Anyway, one thing I wanted to fact check you on. EVERYONE in the Legion is slave. They give up their children and those children become slaves. The women mostly for breeding and manual labor, the men for fighting. If you're a man and you can't handle fighting, you are killed. The only non-slave in the Legion is Caesar himself.

 

[o_O]

I didn't much want to side with any of them. I preferred being a disinterested third party with positive karma/morals. I literally did EVERYTHING else in the game, all the DLC/sidequests (in favor of NCR)/whatever before I finished Ring-A-Ding-Ding. Yep. I went the entire bloody game without confronting Benny.

Mind you, I still annihilated as much of Caesar's Legion as I could along the way, in the sneakiest way possible. Fuck those guys.

I destroyed Cottonwood Cove from the Sniper's Nest overlook, sniping all the fools in the head with silenced .308 rifle & sneak attack criticals (you don't gain infamy if no one witnesses you killing), then irradiated the area just to make sure they'd never come back. Did Nipton in a similar manner. As such, I was able to be neutral to the Legion and not have them attack me on sight (not that there was anyone around to attack me ever).

Really, I only did the endings to pick up the achievements, and see what each offered. I'm gonna be doing NCR last, so I'll probably raze the Fort once I'm sent there. I'll also be able to complete Return to Sender.

On the note of that quest, I'm kinda pissed that you have to kill Caesar to convince Hanlon to stop spreading misinformation or committing suicide. I got 100 speech. I should be able to convince him I can take the dam all by my goddamn self (hell, I probably could). But alas, it's just another crappy choice, just like the whole Paarthurnax thing.

 

[EclipseoftheDarkSun]

I hate slavery in all its forms and I find it a struggle to play really evil characters (not that 99% of games really do justice to real world evil), so as soon as I encountered these legion douchebags in that town near the starting location, I took off the kid gloves and took them out with extreme prejudice. My first game petered out due to other distractions, but this thread is inspiring me to give it another go.

 

[Unsilenced]

They rape children. If you talk to one of the slaves as a female character, she'll say that, when it comes to rape (which she tells you is likely going to happen to you,) they "leave young girls alone... usually." Usually. As in not always. As in they sometimes FUCK LITTLE GIRLS.

I don't care if everything else they touch turns into rainbow fucking sprinkles, I don't care if the NCR is literally Hitler, that is not acceptable.