New Vegas: Why Join the Legion?

[Sean Steele]

Because you've done everything else.

Meeting Caesar's really underwhelming too. He has a whole cult of personality built up around him and he comes across a just another boring guy. I was at least expecting voice acting to sound like something out of 300.
It's like I met Kim Jong Um and it turns out he's actually just your Dad.

But thats the point man behind the curtain ect ect most of these horrid dictators are people, normal people who want things.

 

[Alssadar]

Here's a quote from the escapist a long time ago that I saved in wordpad (I'm sorry, I forget who said it)about why Caesar does the evil things he does.

"Caesar in New Vegas isn't a monster, it's just a role he accepts. He believes humanity works best when there's a quantifiable, mutual threat to tackle but with the Enclave essentially destroyed that threat no longer exists. By forming the Legion and encouraging their atrocities he's simultaneously giving a rallying cry to the best humanity has in that world and grouping its worst examples together in one mass.

That's why his target is the Hoover Damn, it's of vital importance for the NCR and the electricity it generates is also vital for rebuilding humanity. But it's near worthless for the Legion and their beliefs.

He encourages the use of melee and limited firearms against the NCR's professional armies because the loses will always be high on his side and the hapless monsters under his command see this as culling the weak, they stay and fight, more die.

The threat he poses can potentially form an alliance between the NCR, The BoS, The Boomers, The Strip Families, Enclave Remnants, The FotA and even the Khans. With these specialties working together the hope for civilized humanity is strengthened. The Legion has a massive spy network, there's no way Caesar couldn't know this was happening but he did nothing to stop it.

Sometimes you have to play the villain of the piece."

Additionally: I have to say that it is very interesting that we can still debate the political, social, and economic benefits of all of the choices from New Vegas. It shows good design from Obsidian's part for writing and designing characters that appeal to different viewpoints and ideologies.

 

[Mr F.]

*SNIP*

Firstly, Congrats on being the author of one of the few walls of text I have ever bothered to read on this site, outside of the fun fun fun debates on R&P.

Secondly, Cheers for pointing out another book I should read. I think its about time I got back into Sci-Fi, I loved it until I started reading Peter F Hamiltons stuff (I got halfway through The Naked God and realised I had no interest whatsoever in what was happening any more and that the last two books could be summarised "Shit happens and Space Casa Nova Author Surrogate is pure awesome") and I have not read any since. Unless Cloud Atlas counts. But other then Pratchetts stuff, Cloud Atlas is the last book I read. And I read that at some point last year.

Thirdly, cheers for making a more reasoned argument for the legion. I have always been off on them, yet I try to be slightly more rational (I believe that "The ends justify the means" is a logical argument and, at heart, I am a utilitarian socialist.) the main reasons I have for being against them is the utter failure at Hoover Dam. The rape and slavery? Well, that happens in a war zone and they are tribal, you cannot judge them using the moral systems of a functioning society. We idolise the Greeks and the Romans, that is the shit they did. But if you are going to be a military dictatorship you might as well be a FUNCTIONING military dictatorship.

I dunno, overall I think they are much more morally grey then they originally appear. There are weird little things that throw that my way. Hell, one of them comes from me being Bi. I cannot remember the name of the dude, but if you have the Confirmed Bachelor perk and talk to the supply guy at the NCR outpost (The first one) he points out that the NCR are not ok with homosexuality, yet the Legion do not really care at all. The NCR really are rebuilding the old world, the Conservative American old world, the Legion is trying to stabilize things before reconstruction.

Out of interest what does the legion think about the Followers of the Apocalypse and vice-versa? Its been a while since I replayed the game. Caesar seems to be a rational guy, if the Followers were to rebuild in the stability of the Legion that would be a future that is not too horrific.

All of that said, I disliked New Vegas for the same reason I loved it. Civilisation. In FO3 you had a definite feeling that everything was fucked and your primary aim seemed to be survival. There was one major city and that place had a population that would be outclassed through adding a moderately sized trading post to Novac. New Vegas has the march of Civilisation, things are getting too... calm. Then again, I disliked FO3 for one simple reason: I disagree that the Enclave are the bad guys in it. In comparison to the Brotherhood, they are significantly better and far more realistic. They have the power to sort out the capital wasteland.

Hell, it is already established that the Brotherhood is a breakaway group from the real brotherhood, I think they should have aligned themselves with the Enclave and thus annihilate the petty conflict that was causing heavy casualties on the ONLY organized groups in the wasteland.

But thats just me xD

 

[Dark Prophet]

Really don't know why anyone would want to join legion other than achievements or to be a complete asshole. Another thing I hate about legion is that even if I try to stay neutral, there are thse random wondering patrols who are just hostile towards you without any reason they are pretty poorly equiped and low level but even so if you kill even one patrol of 3 you'll fuck up your neutral status.

 

[Byzantinium]

I joined them the first time because I'm a big classics nerd. But after seeing that there is no Senate, no Virgil, no great works of architecture or technology, and no rule of law...I regretted it.

The Legion isn't Rome, it's the barbarian hordes pounding at the Republic's gates.

So, I'm a House man.

 

[Haakmed]

You get to wear those really nifty Roman skirts?

 

[Xan Krieger]

I joined them because they weren't little pansies like the NCR. They didn't have the problems of things like democracy, they got things done and I loved them for it. I sided with them for moral reasons, they seemed to run things the best given the situation and I would love to see them in future games.

 

[major_chaos]

I think the two big reasons would be either A. because they have some really fun quests (assassinating the president was awesome) or B. if you are like me and hate absolutely all the factions and so decide to side with the one that you are sure is gonna wipe out most of the others.

 

[vasiD]

EDIT 2: J.E. Sawyer, project director and lead designer, released a bit of background info on life in Arizona under Legion rule (spoilered below). Basically they live under a secure military dictatorship: there's plenty of food, water and power, but the Legion occasionally asks you to do things and expects them done (with dire consequences if you don't immediately do it). Areas like this were cut from the final game, which is too bad; seeing a place of abundance, safety and strict governmental control would provide an excellent contrast to the Mojave.

Spoiler

[link]http://www.formspring.me/JESawyer/q/325677464040792162[/link]
"The additional Legion locations would have had more traveling non-Legion residents of Legion territories. The Fort and Cottonwood Cove made sense as heavy military outposts where the vast majority of the population consisted of soldiers and slaves. The other locations would have had more "civilians". It's not accurate to think of them as citizens of the Legion (the Legion is purely military), but as non-tribal people who live in areas under Legion control.

While Caesar intentionally enslaves NCR and Mojave residents in the war zone, most of the enslavement that happens in the east happens to tribals. As Raul indicates, there are non-tribal communities that came under Legion control a long time ago. The additional locations would have shown what life is like for those people.

The general tone would have been what you would expect from life under a stable military dictatorship facing no internal resistance: the majority of people enjoy safe and productive lives (more than they had prior to the Legion's arrival) but have no freedoms, rights, or say in what happens in their communities. Water and power flow consistently, food is adequate, travel is safe, and occasionally someone steps afoul of a legionary and gets his or her head cut off. If the Legion tells someone to do something, they only ask once -- even if that means an entire community has to pick up and move fifty miles away. Corruption within the Legion is rare and Caesar deals with it harshly (even by Legion standards).

In short, residents of Legion territories aren't really citizens and they aren't slaves, but they're also not free. People who keep their mouths shut, go about their business, and nod at the rare requests the Legion makes of them -- they can live very well. Many of them don't care at all that they don't have a say in what happens around them (mostly because they felt they never had a say in it before the Legion came, anyway)."

God that cut bit sounds great. I wish some modders would work on adding back in one or two Legion towns, I still haven't done a Legion play through but it would be really nice to have a solid reason to believe in the Legion when the time comes to role play it. I mean I guess I could just make another stupid brute like I did for my Mr. House run, but I'd rather make an Ayn Rand-loving charismatic-but-still-somewhat-dense character.

 

[GloatingSwine]

You join the legion if you wanna see the world burn...

Quite the opposite.

The Legion is there if you believe that the Nevada Desert needs to be forced into civilisation by any means necessary, no matter how harsh and repressive that civilisation actually is.

It's there in the ending narration. "Under the Legion banner civilisation, unforgiving as it was, finally came to the Mojave wasteland".

If you paid attention to the backstory of Caesar's Legion you'd know that it's actually a functioning civilised power, just like NCR is, it's just not a nice one.


If you want to watch the world burn take the Yes Man ending with bad karma.

 

[BrotherRool]

I think it's important that you can join the Legion even if there isn't much reason to, because it's saying that the developers don't choose your motivation, you do. If you were want to be crazy and pretty much a dick for little motivation other than self-gratification, you can choose to do that

 

[GloatingSwine]

I joined them the first time because I'm a big classics nerd. But after seeing that there is no Senate, no Virgil, no great works of architecture or technology, and no rule of law...I regretted it.

The Legion isn't Rome, it's the barbarian hordes pounding at the Republic's gates.

So, I'm a House man.

The Legion isn't Rome, it's the Roman Army on campaign.

 

[GloatingSwine]

Out of interest what does the legion think about the Followers of the Apocalypse and vice-versa? Its been a while since I replayed the game. Caesar seems to be a rational guy, if the Followers were to rebuild in the stability of the Legion that would be a future that is not too horrific.

Caesar was part of the Followers of the Apocalypse, so whilst he doesn't allow them to be a competing power structure, If he's alive in a Legion victory they are allowed safe passage out of the wasteland.

 

[Mr F.]

Out of interest what does the legion think about the Followers of the Apocalypse and vice-versa? Its been a while since I replayed the game. Caesar seems to be a rational guy, if the Followers were to rebuild in the stability of the Legion that would be a future that is not too horrific.

Caesar was part of the Followers of the Apocalypse, so whilst he doesn't allow them to be a competing power structure, If he's alive in a Legion victory they are allowed safe passage out of the wasteland.

Its more a question of if the followers would be allowed to be integrated within the Legion. Hell, I had forgotten about his Follower background which, if anything, indicates that the whole Legion in the Mojave is an "Ends justify the Means" situation with something akin to real civilisation following. Wouldn't be the first.

The real question is could the military dictatorship of the Legion be able to evolve into something far more following the end of the needed expansion. Although the "Needed expansion" could be the entire continent. Which is bad. But, assuming they end up with Hegemony, they could end up with peace.

It just occurred to me that New Vegas could also be seen as an experiment with Political Theory. Caesar is quite obviously a Realist, believing the world is an anarchist system in which the only logical conclusion is the dominance of one superpower (Hegemon) that cannot be challenged which will as a result lead to peace. The NCR is quite obviously a Liberal Democracy (By political definition) with all of the problems that follow. The game can be seen to be a struggle between Liberalism and Realism.

Which makes it FAR more interesting in my eyes and justifys me playing New Vegas instead of doing any revision for my politics exam next Thursday.

 

[martyrdrebel27]

when i did my Legion playthrough (something i wasn't particularly looking forward to) something... unexpected happened. i found myself understanding Caesar's vision. yes, he does horrible things, but if you talk to him, you can see he's not just an insane dictator, but an honest visionary.

 

[ward0630]

Joining the Legion is basically joining the most badass group in the mojave. With the exception of First Recon, the NCR is pretty lame. Forlorn Hope is being overrun, McCarran is practically swamped with fiends, and the entire government has been tricked by a mummy into protecting one city and a giant concrete wall they can barely use or defend. The Legion, on the other hand, wields nothing but knifes, explosives, or their own fists except in rare occasions. Another reason is that you get to actually meet Cesear and learn about him. He's an interesting guy, who's lived a long life and has a real, tangible goal for the wasteland. By contrast, the only meeting you get with President Kimball is protecting him from Legion assassins.

 

[Xdeser2]

The NCR may be powerful, but its far removed form the Mojave and already has a comparably vast swath of land to manage back west. The Legion, on the other hand, has its territory literally right across the river in Arizona. Its closer, and has more military strength in the region. The only reason that the NCR holds out is because of superior tech.

The Legion is the Mad-max style of one tribe coming to dominate many others in the wasteland, the only reason its became so powerful, however, is because of Caeser, who had the benefit of education by the Followers and was able to institute Roman-esque values of discipline to it.

I think its a great faction for a Bad-Karma playthough of the game. Im personally fine with some black-and-white morality, but it also has real shades of grey, seeing as the NCR is similarly reprehensible in alot of ways. (only it comes off clean on the outside) Besides, in a tribal area like that, how do you think an empire is going to be forged, with love and huggles for all?

 

[Mycroft Holmes]

Secondly, Cheers for pointing out another book I should read. I think its about time I got back into Sci-Fi

While you're at it you should pick up The Forever War and Roadside Picnic. Both really fantastic Sci-fi novels. Especially the Forever War which is probably the best Sci-fi I have ever read; and I'd say I'm surprised it's not more popular but given its powerful anti-war message I'm not all that surprised. "To say that The Forever War is the best science fiction war novel every written is to damn it with faint praise." -William Gibson. And frankly I can't wait to be pissed of when it gets bastardized by Ridley Scott and has all the subtle important points and the general theme ignored when they probably turn it into yet another action movie(I'm still bitter about i Robot.)

Out of interest what does the legion think about the Followers of the Apocalypse and vice-versa? Its been a while since I replayed the game. Caesar seems to be a rational guy, if the Followers were to rebuild in the stability of the Legion that would be a future that is not too horrific.

They don't like the Followers. The Followers believe in creating a better world not just by pursing technology but by trying to learn from the mistakes of the old world and become better for them. They stand for open mindedness, tolerance, and the betterment of technology. They already have no qualms in subverting the NCR and protesting against their military jingoism(hence their troubles with the NCR.) They would have just as few problems with steadfastly protesting the barbarisms of the Legion. And the Legion is much less likely to let them get away with badmouthing them.

If the game ends with Caesar alive and the Legion winning, he will let them leave the Mojave. His reasons for this are anyone's best guess. Could be he intends to eventually make use of some of their technology like farming techniques. Could be that he isn't so certain of his plans success and he still sees what the followers are doing as better than what the NCR or any other group is doing. Could be that he just respects his former comrades and gives them a pass. If however Caesar is dead, Legate Lannius will hunt down and execute every single member of the Followers he can get his hands on.

All of that said, I disliked New Vegas for the same reason I loved it. Civilisation. In FO3 you had a definite feeling that everything was fucked and your primary aim seemed to be survival. There was one major city and that place had a population that would be outclassed through adding a moderately sized trading post to Novac. New Vegas has the march of Civilisation, things are getting too... calm.

Without getting too much into it, Fallout 3 really didn't make much sense. The timeline was out of place and didn't fit with Fallout lore in so many different ways. It's a fine post apocalyptic RPG; but it's really not a Fallout game.

As I mention later in this post. New Vegas and Freeside were supposed to be a lot bigger, but Bethesda took too long in okaying the material, and being as the game was developed for a lump sum of money(They got nothing from actual game sales) they couldn't sit around forever waiting for Bethesda to give them the go ahead while they paid programmers to work extra on a game they weren't getting money from.

I wouldn't say things are getting calm either in fact they seem to be even less calm in FNV than previous Fallout games and less than F3 certainly. F3 had an entirely secure carrier where the only thing people complained about was how the edges of their homes were sharp and they might hurt themselves bumping into them. A place where scientists just chilled out freely doing experiments. Even the town literally sitting ontop of a nuke is magically bereft of any real problems beyond a dude in a suit who wants you to blow the place up. The slavers are totally fine unless you come and wipe them all out. There's even a town of freaking children who somehow haven't been murdered yet. It's like the easiest wasteland to survive in ever.

Meanwhile New Vegas is anything but calm. Legion raiding parties actively move across the river and hit targets. Ranger stations where you previously talk to some of the soldiers are annihilated and have mines planted everywhere. Powder gangers constantly harass and steal from travelers. Fiends are murdering and raping random people to the west. Even on the strip that looks outwardly secure we have groups of gangsters engaged in various schemes. They have sex slaves, they try to cannibalize people, they smuggle guns inside in order to start an armed rebellion. There are very few examples of people in the wasteland who aren't in some form of pretty immediate danger from other survivors. In, again, sharp contrast to F3 where you pretty much never hear about anyone hurting anyone else except in select rare circumstances or when you're specifically asked to join in. You don't hear about raiders picking off people from Megaton, you don't even see it. It's like everyone sits around twiddling their thumbs being swell and having a great time until the Vault Dweller shows up and then they run into the tiniest of problems like in the entire wasteland finally a single person has decided to be mean in one isolated case.

Frankly if I had to pick a place to live that was objectively better(read: easier to survive in) I would pick DC any day over the Mojave.

Hell, it is already established that the Brotherhood is a breakaway group from the real brotherhood, I think they should have aligned themselves with the Enclave and thus annihilate the petty conflict that was causing heavy casualties on the ONLY organized groups in the wasteland.

Of course they should have. But war, war never changes.

Supporting the Legion seems like it would only lead to less opportunities, rather than more.

Of course it would and that's a bad thing for you, but a good thing for the people of the waste.

The opportunities you see in all the NCR character are resolving violent disputes over water rights, hunting bounties on rapist/murderer/lunatics, threatening mercenaries(or killing them) because they are harassing a peaceful mutant township. It's stuff that is interesting and more fun for you. But for a person realistically living in that wasteland, its a fucking nightmare. If there's anything 9/11 has taught us it's that people are willing to sacrifice any little bit of freedom and are willing to put up with a great deal of barbarism for a little peace of mind. And that is what the legion offers boredom and safety. You may not believe all the dozens of characters that told you so, but when there is absolutely not a single person who disagrees with that assertion it's really silly of you to argue anything different.

Still, do the majority of the people in Arizona live in these nomadic camps?

The majority of people in Arizona are sitting right across from Hoover Dam or are heading in that way. Pretty much everyone who wasn't killed is either in the military or is supporting the military as a slave. But yeah the ones still in Arizona that aren't sitting in their temporary government seat of Flagstaff have pretty much roving around in smaller camps patrolling the area.

It seems like the easiest way to show what Caesar's vision could be would have been to create a town-area next to Fortification Hill, a place that they had conquered on their way west which was now thriving under Caesar's rule.

And it's entirely possible that they wanted to do that. But it's a moot point because Bethesda slowed their process across the board and made it very difficult to get projects approved. For example Freeside was originally supposed to be like twice the size it ended up being, but Bethesda took forever to approve any content and Obsidian couldn't keep working forever for no pay. I mean look at Ulysses, he was originally supposed to be a companion and probably give you much more of your desired insight into the legion.

Slaves might not lead a terrible life. We don't know, because the game doesn't show or tell us much about it. When someone says 'slavery', your mind jumps to a few possible locations: You think about the definitely horrible conditions of American slaves, or you may think about the Roman slaves (many of whom did function as highly educated teachers and servants, while many, many more were put to work in mines, as prostitutes, and as gladiators, living short and brutal lives in a system that was only sustainable due to the vast number of slaves brought in regularly from military conquests. Given the nature of the Legion (well-known for horrific punishments, rape and the like), it seems likely that slaves are viewed as expendable labour.

Oh they certainly do lead terrible lives. My point is just that compared to the lives everyone else leads in the wasteland, it's really not as big of a difference as you'd like to think.

Also while we are on the subject, a lot of the gladiator slaves volunteered for it. Being a gladiator was a big honor and they didn't die as often as pop culture like to assert. Also slaves in America really didn't have that bad of conditions either. Not that it was right to enslave them in the first place, but compared to the free factory workers of the cities, most American slaves had it easy. They didn't live in slums with terrible overrunning sewage systems, in the smog of factories, eating sub-par food made from ground up rats and pigs, they didn't have their children working in sewing factories forced to run into the giant machines as they jammed with many of them losing limbs or dying as they get mangled in the machinery they are forced to fix.

Long, legendarily painful executions is something that requires extraordinary support, and the Legion does it to anyone and everyone they dislike (while every other faction is fine with just shooting a person in the head and calling it a day).

Well you come up with a better way to make groups of extremely disparate people fall in line in an organized manner. It is in large part because of their hardcore torture that the legion sides of the river are secure. You don't see a single NCR spy in their camps. You don't even see any crime in fortification hill. Everything works like a well oiled machine compared to the NCR. Not saying it's right, but it's certainly effective.

I meant 'genocide' in the sense that they obliterate towns and tribes, occasionally leaving some people to join them.

It's not occasional. The entire population of the legion is built on bringing these conquered people into its fold. The vast majority of the conquered tribes survive. Likely not in the way they all wanted to as a lot of them become slaves, but they aren't obliterated.

you also hear that in conquering those tribes he kills thousands.

And you hear mostly the same stories from the NCR. They are a country built on thousands of deaths. They conquered the Enclave remnants. They defeated the Brotherhood of Steel and then chased and fought them again. They defeated the great Khans and chased them to New Vegas where they pursued and attacked them again. The Vipers and the Jackals were tribes like any when the NCR came in and shot them all before chasing the survivors to the Mojave. The only reason house wasn't attacked and conquered immediately by the NCR was because Caesar presented a bigger threat and House recruited three tribes to serve as extra manpower to stop the NCR. And the talking to the NCR military they pretty much agree that they want to conquer the Mojave and believe House to be an enemy of the state to be disposed of after the Legion is conquered. They attack the civilians in Baja. They wreck everyone that won't immediately agree to become part of their imperialistic republic.

As well, they seem quite determined to kill every member of the NCR they come in contact with.

And the NCR seems determined to kill every legionary. What's your point? They are at war.

War is harsh and the NCR doesn't seem to even care about or mention any of the slaves as a priority to rescue. I never heard a single person talk about their plight except for the Followers.

It's a good argument, but the game shows too much of the 'evil fucks' side and not enough of the 'building a better world'.

The fear of a repeated nuclear apocalypse is still a tangible fear and it's the direction the NCR is headed immediately in. It's less about building a 'better' world and more about building a world that wont destroy itself over and over. And that's one of the biggest themes of the fallout series. Well at least the fallout series minus Fallout 3 where the writers ignore everything and go lol wouldn't it be great to have NPCs sit ontop of a nuke for no reason?

 

[Lord T Hawkeye]

I found the legion to be little boys playing with guns trying to masquerade as adults. The most telling sign was when I went to see Caesar and they actually said to my character's face that women are only for making babies (my character is female). Yet they still think I'd be interested in cooperating with them and act surprised when I laid waste to their camp.

Yeah in short, the legion are idiots that I wouldn't join even if I did play an evil character. Even professional villains have standards.

 

[Captain Booyah]

Caesar's Legion is definitely one of the biggest weak points in New Vegas. If I remember correctly, there wasn't enough time for Obsidian to flesh them out as much as they would have liked, which is a shame. A few NPCs give you snippets of information about life being generally okay back in the Legion's established territory, the atrocities they commit can sort of be put into context when you think that Vegas is a war zone only occupied by the Legion's military branch (as opposed to an actual society), and Caesar genuinely thinks he has the best vision for the Mojave, but these are literally the only things to justify siding with them while still being a halfway-decent Courier. It's for players who either want to bring about civilisation in the quickest albeit most brutal way possible (your paperwork be damned, NCR! *shakes fist*), or for evil characters who give zero fucks.

Without wanting to get into a crazy-heated debate, I think that the Legion is basically all the worst of House without any of the best of House. Caesar's controlling, manipulative and backwards, but doesn't have any of House's ingenuity, resources, or forward-thinking. The only real positive outcome over everybody else is...safer trade routes! Oh boy!

[small](HOUSE 4 LYFE)[/small]