Sometimes the game can look rather nice, like in this screenshot with the sunset.
Oh shit, they have artillery?
It doesn't work, however. Good then, let it stay that way. There is a sidequest to fix it, but obviously we're not doing that.
More tents.
We get all our gear back. Good, because we're going to need it.
First we need to interact with this console to open the passageway.
"Why did you send me here?"
"The Platinum Chip is a data-stroage device. I need you to manually upload the data from the Chip to the facility's primary computer. There's a terminal at the other end of this facility. There's a complication. While I can broadcast to this screen, I can't control any of the facility's systems. That means I can't deactivate its security bots... most of which appear to be active, according to the status board I'm looking at."
Eh, what's a few Protectrons? As long as they aren't those stupid, annoying sentry bots, we'll be good.
"What will you do with your Securitrons?"
"My army will do what an army does best - defend territory from invaders... and maintain order."
"I'll upload the data, as you ask."
"Good. I won't hold you up any longer."
House is right and to the point with this conversation. Which is good, because this place is
bathed in radiation.
Oh look, a Protectron. We haven't fought one of those in awhile.
If you have a high enough science, you can hack these terminals and make the next part easier for you. It's still a pretty easy segment regardless.
The game is kind enough to hand us some pulse and plasma grenades too.
You probably can't tell what's going on, but it worked.
We randomly picked up a .44 Magnum in here, which is pretty useful weapon.
Grenade Rifle spam go!
Even with terrible explosives it still gets the job done.
Also had a Power Fist in our inventory too, no reason not to use that as well.
When turrets explode, they just disappear. Pictured: I punched a turret so hard, it faded from existence.
This section is a lot harder solo. Usually I forget to tell my companions to follow me again after leaving Caesar's tent, so I'm stuck down here by myself fighting turrets, which are pretty annoying and can get in some good damage on you if they stay alive for too long.
Considering we're the only non-robot entity in here, that's a lot of our blood.
Still don't get why House needs the Platinum Chip to activate this, but whatever.
Hmmm. One single giant laser shooting robot at our command or hundreds of smaller laser shooting robots?
Doing the main quest nets you a lot XP pretty quickly, so naturally we level up.
I use shotguns a lot, so this perk should be of use to us.
Now we go back through the hallways and back up to the Fort.
Well, House seems happy enough. Wonder how Caesar will react.
They seem to think we actually destroyed the generators. Let's keep it that way.
It's nighttime now. We weren't down there that long...
Back in Caesar's tent. It looks significantly cooler at night.
Phew, he fell for it. I was worried we would have to fight our way out of here, which is not an easy task, by the way.
"There are rewards for doing as I command. Today, your reward is vengeance. You get to decide how Benny dies. Go to Benny, let him know what you've decided. My Praetorians will perform the execution - unless you want to perform it yourself."
"Thank you, Caesar."
"Consider it the first of many bestowments."
It would be if we were helping the Legion.
"Hundreds of Securitrons. All of them upgraded now, just like Mr. House wants."
"So all this time the old man had an entire army on lay-away? Clever player."
One of the best thing about this game is that all the factions are working against each other, with different plots to take each particular group out, and it all weaves together into this intricate political plot. I certainly understand why people didn't like it compared to the more personal plotline of Fallout 3 though.
"Just imagine the look on Baldie's face when those Securitrons come pouring out on judgement day! I'd pay to have that bronzed! So all you gotta do now is talk to Yes Man, figure out how to set things in motion. Make Vegas a town I woulda been proud of, baby. Let it swing."
I rather like Benny as a character. Sure, he doesn't have a whole lot of depth, and he is a major dick to you but it's nice to have a villian who isn't the absurd, "I'm going to kick a puppy just for the hell of it" archetype that some games go into.
"I have to decide what happens to you now."
"I see. And how's that gonna happen?"
"I've decided to kill you here and now."
This playthrough we're simply going to shoot Benny. I'm saving the "Kill everyone in the camp and rescue Benny" option for the NCR run.
"I see. Keep it simple, hey? Around here, it's one of the better options..."
"Close your eyes, if you want."
"Nah, I'd rather see it coming. Do it, baby. Make it clean."
What happens afterwards is that I try to pickpocket his gun Maria from him. It doesn't work, so I reload the game like 20 times. Nothing, he catches me every time. So I try a Stealth Boy to steal it from him, no dice. Googling shows that it's impossible to steal Maria from Benny in this area. Why? No clue.
I used console commands to get it. I don't care if it's cheating, this particular choice of game design is stupid. Why didn't they check him for weapons anyway?
Benny's pretty much in the same position we were at the beginning of the game.
That's it for Benny. (It took more than one shot in VATS, not because we suck, because he has a lot of health.)
This offically brings what many consider to be the games first Act to a close. Describing this game in a three act structure is kind of weird. I originally planned on splitting the updates for each playthrough into Acts in the OP, but the problem is that Act 3 is considered to be the Hoover Dam battle so there would only be one or two updates for that particular Act, and the DLC even complicates this further.
Just a fair warning, this is the longest conversation we've had yet in the game. It goes over pretty much all the info Caesar gives on the Legion, so it's pretty extensive.
"Let's press on, shall we? As I was telling you before, I want Mr. House out of the picture."
We're taking Mr. House out, but not because Caesar wants us to.
"You have an interest in his death, too. If he knows that you destroyed his gadgets beneath the Fort, he will strike back. You know where to find him. How he dies, I leave up to you."
"I have some questions for you."
"What did you want to know?"
"Are your bodyguards special in any way?"
"My Praetorians embody the martial ideals of my Legion. Each one of them has done enough conquering and killing to deserve the rank of Centurion."
Those guys are pretty tough, they're not to be fucked around with. Especially once they start wielding Ballistic Fists and 12.7mm Submachine Guns.
"Instead, I invited them to join my guard. So the invitee chooses whichever current guard he thinks is weakest - and challenges him. The fight is to the death. It keeps them from getting complacent."
"How long has Lucius been the head of your Praetorians?"
"Lucius has been the head of my guard for five years now. He was a subordinate guard for eight before that. No invitee has dared to challenge him yet. Maybe it's an issue of respect - he is getting on in years."
"I've heard rumors of your legate, Lanius? What's his story?"
"Lanius is the greatest of my battlefield commanders. Some might call him a great man, but I'm not sure he qualifies."
Even Caesar is somewhat scared of Lanius.
"Once, he was the greatest warrior of the Hidebarks, a tribe of the Arizona. Maniacal in battle. Sometimes he'd ambush Legion patrols by himself. When, after several months we found and surrounded the Hidebarks' camp, their Chieftain raised a banner of surrender. The warrior who was not yet Lanius went insane with rage. He struck down his Chieftain and attacked his own tribe."
"What happened when Lanius attacked his own tribe?"
"He killed fifteen before they brought him down. He didn't die, obviously. I had him tended to. He was maimed, most of his face torn off. It was days before he regained consciousness. When he did, I went to his bedside and showed him the helmet I'd had forged to cover his face. I said he could have it if he'd fight for me. He accepted... on condition that he be allowed to kill the surviving males of his tribe."
This guy is fucked up.
"I said, make it the adult males and you have a deal."
"He sounds more like a savage than a general."
"Lanius is savage. Savagely loyal, too, but only to me - he has no love for my Legion. But this has its uses. He has no attachment to his men, no compunction about battlefield losses. All he cares about is destroying the enemy. When another legatus or a Centurion fails to achieve results, I send Lanius to make things right. His first step is to beat the failed commander to death in front of his assembled troops. Then he orders the ritual of decimatio."
"What is "decimatio?"
"It means "decimation" but in ancient Rome the word had a very specific meaning - a punishment for cowardice. The Legionaries are lined up in ranks. Every tenth man steps forward and is beaten to death by his brothers."
Mr. New Vegas talked about this over the radio.
"It instills a certain... robust obedience."
"Lanius will lead the assualt on Hoover Dam?"
"Yes. This time my Legionaries will be more frightened of the commander behind them than the enemy before them. There will be no failure this time, no retreat, no years of gathering slaves and resources for another assault. With Lanius to drive the Legion forward, the dam will be taken. It will be our bridgehead across the Colorado."
"Why did the Legion lose the first battle?"
"It's not going to happen again. That's all I have to say about it."
It's a touchy subject for Caesar.
"I've heard the commander of the first battle called "The Burned Man.""
"And I've heard it's a bad idea to tempt the wrath of Caesar. Change the subject."
"Tell me about Vulpeas Inculta."
Vulpes was the guy at Nipton with the dog hat and Legion spy who talked to us on the Strip.
"Vulpes is the best of my Frumentarii. A remarkable individual from an unremarkable tribe south of the Utah. He was brought into the Legion as a boy, survived training, fought well enough as Legionary to be promoted to the rank of Decanus. Then, in battle against an unimportant tribe, he broke ranks and led his contubernium through a hole in their defenses to capture its chieftain. Well, his Centurion wanted him crucified for disobedience. So I made him a Frumentari."
All this Latin is getting annoying.
"What do the Frumentarii do?"
"Whatever I require. Infiltration, assassination, dramatic atrocities to break the spirit of the enemy - et cetera. They're mentally flexible. They operate behind enemy lines for extended periods, imitating the enemy's customs without becoming sullied. In all these things, Vulpes is a master."
"How did you capture Benny?"
"I'll hand it to that piece of shit, he was determined. He used some kind of Old-World stealth device to get across the river in a Legion boat."
Oh come on Caesar, a man so educated as yourself must have heard about stealth boys. They're all the rage in the Mojave Wasteland, especially among Nightkin. Not in the Capital Wasteland though, they have their fancy stealth suits, pfft.
"Seems the device ran out of juice once he got here, but he was dressed like a Legionary. He was caught just outside the weather station. See, thing is, he didn't change his hairstyle."
Bahahaha.
"To go through all that effort and fail because you're too vain to muss your hair..."
"What happened after Benny was caught?"
"He was brought before me, along with the Platinum Chip. That's how I knew he wasn't some kind of Profligate infiltrator. Benny tried to sell me a story, but Lucius has a way of coaxing the truth out of captives. Everything just comes spilling out."
What was his story I wonder? "I left my glasses in this mysterious bunker of yours, can I go get them?"
"What do you think of the NCR?"
"Do you want my opinion as a former citizen, or future conqueror? Actually, my opinion's the same either way. As a young man I was taught to venerate President Tandi of Shady Sands."
Tandi was an NPC you met in Fallout 1, who would get kidnapped by the Great Khans. You had to go rescue her, and from her town Shady Sands, apparently she started this huge democracy.
"'The Founding Mother of the New California Republic.' Did you know her Presidency lasted 52 years? And that her father, Aradesh, was the Republic's first President? Does that sound like a democracy to you, or a hereditary dictatorship?"
"President Tandi was voted into office each time."
"Because the council didn't dare oppose her. She was too popular. She had the people's love. So things ran smoothly, more or less. And as soon as she was gone, as soon as there really could be "democracy" - what happened then? Ever since losing its queen, the NCR has been weaker, more diffuse. Democracy has been its weakness, not its strength."
"How is the NCR weak?"
"Greed runs rampant. The government is corrupt, accepting bribes from Brahmin barons and landowners, to the detriment of citizens. The NCR is a loose conglomerate of individuals looking out for themselves. It's lost virtue. No one cares about the collective, the greater good. It's not built to last. I'm just hastening the inevitable."
What's ironic about Caesar saying this is that there are a lot of NPC's in the game that point out that after Caesar dies, the Legion will be thrown into disarray because they won't have a designated leader to control them.
"Surely, the NCR is a powerful foe?"
"Of course. The most powerful my Legion has faced. Also the first to which I am ideologically opposed. Until now, every tribe I've conquered has been so backwards and stunted, enslavement has been a gift bestowed upon them. My conquest of the Mojave will be a glorious triumph, marking the transition of the Legion from a basically nomadic tribe to a genuine empire. Just as my namesake campaigned in Gaul before he crossed the Rubicon, so have I campaigned, and will cross the Colorado."
"What do you know about Mr. House?"
"I know he's a coward, hiding behind an army of robots, ensconced in that tower of his like a wizard in one of those Grognak comic books."
Sometimes I wish the skillbooks and magazines in these games were readable.
"Some say he's a man, others a machine. I don't care. He's in the way."
"How did you rise to power?"
"Ironically, I was born a Profligate myself, a citizen of the NCR. My family lived not far from the great Boneyard. After Raiders killed my father, my mother sought the Followers' protection. I was two years old. She found work at their Library, cooking and cleaning. I learned how to read and soon I was taking courses, free of charge."
"You were a Follower of the Apocalypse?"
"Oh yes, raised in that tradition. And the teaching stuck. I was taught it was my responsibility to bring the torch of knowledge to the wastes. I may have taken the torch part more literally than they intended."
"What changed you from a Follower to dictator?"
"When I was 20, the Followers sent me East to Grand Canyon. It was my first expedition, just me and a physician named Calhoun. As an anthropologist and linguist, my assignment was to learn the dialects of the Grand Canyon tribes. What a fucking waste of time!"
"Why would learning dialects be a waste of time?"
"If you think it's worthwhile to make smart people learn how to talk like backward savages, you're a Follower of the Apocalypse... or an idiot. Anyway, we met up with a Mormon missionary who already knew a bunch of dialects - Joshua Graham. He was supposed to teach me. But before that went too far, the Blackfoot tribe captured us, to hold us for ransom. They were a backward bunch. But the real problem was, they didn't know how to fight."
Then how did they capture you?
"What was wrong with the Blackfoot?"
"The Blackfoot were at war with seven other tribes, each just as pissant as they were. But outnumbered like that, they weren't going to last long. It's one thing to be taken hostage, another to be lashed to a sinking ship. So over Calhoun's objections, I decided to take certain steps."
"What steps did you take?"
"I taught them how to use the guns they already had - how to strip and clean them, how to breathe when pulling a trigger, how to reload ammunition. They looked at me like I was some kind of a sorcerer. so I taught them how to make explosives, and started drilling them on small unit tactics. If there's anything I learned as a Follower of the Apocalypse, it's that there's a lot of good information in old books."
"What happened after you trained the Blackfoot?"
"Divide et impera - divide and conquer. I led the Blackfoot against the Ridgers, their weakest enemy. When they refused to surrender, I ordered every man, woman, and child killed. When next we surrounded the Kaibabs and they likewise refused... I took one of their envoys to the Ridgers' village and showed him the corpse piles. This was new for the tribes, you see. They played at war, raiding each other, a little rape and pillage here, a little ransoming there. I showed them total warfare. Like I said, there's a lot you can learn from old books."
"What happened to the tribes?"
"The Kaibabs joined me, and the Fredonians after that - all the pissant tribes, with names that should be forgotten. I knew from the start I'd need to eradicate this plague of tribal identities, replacing them with a monolithic culture, a uniform identity. So that's what I did, once my confederation of tribes was large enough. I crowned myself Caesar and created a single Great Tribe - my Legion. I sent Calhoun, the Follower captured with me, back West with a message that I should not be interfered with. Joshua Graham, the Mormon interpreter, stayed with me and served as my first Legatus."
"And since forming the Legion, all you've done is conquer other tribes?"
"That's right. Decades of warfare, absorbing lesser tribes, gathering power. Forging the dross into a vast, razor-sharp scythe. My Legion's expansion has never ceased. Much of the Utah and Colorado, and all of Arizona and New Mexico, are mine. We have cities of our own, but nothing compared to Vegas. Finally, my Legion will have its Rome."
Eh, Vegas isn't that impressive. It's just like 4 nice buildings and a bunch of rubble.
"Why is Caesar's Legion so... strange?"
"I used imperial Rome as the model for my Legion precisely because it was so foreign, so alien. I'd seen what had become of the NCR's attempts to emulate the culture of Pre-War America - the in-fighting, the corruption. Rome was a highly militarized autocracy that effectively integrated the foreign cultures it conquered. It dedicated its citizens to something higher than themselves - to the idea of Rome itself. In Rome I found a template for a society equal to the challenges of the post-apocalyptic world - a society that could and would survive. A society that could prevent mankind from fracturing and destroying itself in this new world, by establishing a new Pax Romana."
"What does "Pax Romana" mean?"
"It means a nationalist, imperialist, totalitarian, homogenous culture that obliterates the identity of every group it conquers. Long-term stability at all costs. The individual has no value beyond his utility to the state, whether as an instrument of war, or production."
"So you'll destroy the NCR because you hate its inefficiencies?"
"No, I'll destroy it because it's inevitable that it be destroyed. It's Hegelian Dialectics, not personal animosity."
"Hegelian Dialectics? What are those?"
I like that the game is actually discussing philosophy and such, but am I the only one who thinks that Caesar comes off as extremely pretentious here?
"How do I put this basically enough? It's a philosophical theory, the kind you might encounter if you took time to read some books.
Hey, according to the GECK, we have a higher intelligence stat than you.
"The fundamental premise is to envision history as a sequence of "dialectical" conflicts. Each dialectic begins with a proposition, a thesis... which inherently contains, or creates, its opposite - an antithesis. Thesis and antithesis. The conflict is inevitable. But the resolution of the conflict yields something new - a synthesis - eliminating the flaws in each, leaving behind common elements and ideas."
"So what's "dialectic" about you and the NCR?"
"The bombs wiped the slate clean. Human civilization descended to a level of ignorance that effectively set our cultural progress back to zero. The NCR has all of the problems of the ancient Roman Republic - extreme bureaucracy, corruption, extensive senatorial infighting. Just as with the ancient Republic, it is natural that a military force should conquer and transform the NCR into a military dictatorship. Thesis and antithesis. The Colorado River is my Rubicon. The NCR council will be eradicated, but the new synthesis will change the Legion as well..."
Hopefully into something less pointlessly misogynistic.
"From a basically nomadic army to a standing military force that protects its citizens, and the power of its dictator."
Well, that was an enlightening conversation. Okay, what he's created may do some horrible things, but Caesar himself doesn't seem nearly as bad as the people around him. Hell he seems almost reasonable-
"I'm done working for you."
"Mark my words, you piece of shit. This is the last time you will ever refuse to perform an order I've given you. If you meant what you said, you best be on your way, and at good speed. And forget all that I could have given you. If you ever - ever - disobey me again, I will order my Praetorians to hack you to death with their machetes for my entertainment."
Welp, we're outta here.
Caesar doesn't become hostile if you say this, which is good. I've never came back and defied him again just to piss him off though. We're definitely not doing anything for the Legion this playthrough - in fact, I plan on returning here very soon and putting a boot up Caesar's ass.
Might as well return to the Strip.
However, I can't wait for Dead Money.