I think this comes from the 'evil is cool' effect. It's not that they're seriously agreeing with what the Legion does (out of universe, obviously), but they like the idea of dressing up as Romans and being a Lawful Evil-type character.
New Vegas: Why Join the Legion?
- Thread starter Thunderous Cacophony
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I get the impression that Obsidian wanted to do more with the legion, but it got cut off by some thing. kind of a bummer. I think there are mods that better this though, I'll have to check.
House subverts the weaknesses of the government of personality model by being, functionally, at any rate, immortal. His lack of a tangible body, as he stated, also makes him immune to the corrupting factors of excess or lust, and his regime, while totalitarian in terms of political control, is actually fairly liberal in terms of individual rights. (his "I could care less what they worship or what they do in their own homes" speechUltratwinkie said:
Totally agree with your assessment of the NCR. Their value as an organization aside, they're primarily in the mojave to gather resources for their home. overextended, and quick to establish marshal law, whether they have the best idea for a long-range government isn't even an issue. they're by far not the best fit for the current mojave. that'd be house, in my opinion, for the reasons I outlined above.
Ulysses was originally conceived to be the legion-supportive companion, but was ultimately changed to being the primary antagonist of the overarching DLC. to be fair, if he HAD stayed in the main game, the legion would have had the hands-down most awesome companion of the lot.
finally addressing the OP. the only reason one would join the legion is if they want their courier to be that allegedly attractive mixture of evil, shortsighted, and somewhat stupid. multiple sources throughout the game repeatedly warn that Caesar's legion is inevitably going to implode upon itself, and that succeeding in taking the mojave will only make this happen faster. Even if you could argue that their very extreme lifestyle DID give their people security, the fact that they're a ticking time bomb makes it hard to justify joining them.
I'll divide this into a few points.Ultratwinkie said:
1) The NCR does notice how important logistics are, but when you only have one route into the Mojave of course your logistics are going to be fucked up.
2) I know you say this within the next paragraph, but?. NEW VEGAS is NOT Van Buren. I know you may have wanted it, but you cannot substitute its lore into New Vegas.
3) What are you kidding? Have you looked at NCR units, all of their equipment is standardized. The service rifle may be a piece of crap but it is standardized. Also all of their armor is factory produced and made out of the same components; the only difference is that some of their armors have extra padding and personnel modification.
4) The NCR does have factories, they just don?t have any(besides the gun runner compound) in the Mojave, but considering its contested territory this is understandable.
5) See 3 and 4.
6) First of all, 1st Recon is not the best sniper group, that is the Rangers. Second, do you know why they are so poorly equipped? The NCR lost most of their supply train and army when the Divide exploded, so of course they are operating with sub-par weapons.
7) You mean their best armor is armor that was used to invade China during the initial stages of the U.S. invasion. It may have been shit for the time, but in the post-apocalypse the stuff is pretty impressive. Yes the T-51b may be better, but there isn?t that much of it lying around because it may have been produced in the West, but a lot of it was lost when the bombs fell and a lot of the suits were already deployed into China. Not even the Brotherhood has a lot lying around considering that they had to arm their men in the 45s.
8) Are you fucking kidding me? The NCR has culture, every nation has culture, just because you dislike it does not mean it does not exist or is not valid.
9) Ignoring the dam, the strip, the airport, and the ranger stations. And they do all of this with very little supply in unfriendly territory they have only held for five years.
10) NO real nation ever has had an end game besides continue to exist. The legion does not have an endgame besides driving West and that is not an endgame. Also WW1 strategy, if you had not noticed, is not strategy it?s attrition. Also WW2 didn?t use new strategy, it used old strategy that was adapted to new tech. Instead of going off on a tangent lets actually compare NCR and Legion Strategy.
Legion: Frontal Assault with the entire legion into heavily fortified positions that actually use guns and armor instead of football padding and lawn care equipment.
NCR: Wow we are really strapped for supplies so let?s hunker down.
Both are stupid, but directly assaulting an army that has guns with a iron age army is the dumbest thing ever.
11) So they are not working when they are simultaneously expanding in three directions while facing the entire Midwest with only one semi-open caravan route and less than half of their army which is under equipped due to the explosion that took most of the NCR with it.
12/13) So the one strong point in the Legion's favor is that they have a strong leader. WOOOHOOO we have one capable person leading us, we must be the best thing on the damn planet. Do you know what the problem with strong man leadership is? IT DOESNT LAST. This is due to the fact that: people die. Just because a nation has a strong leader at one point, does not mean they will last. Strongman government is not a form of government it is a periodical in every government. The NCR had Tandy, the Legion has Ceaser, the Eastern Brotherhood has Lyons. In real life places: England had Elizabeth, the HRE had Charles V, the Russians had Peter, Mali had Mansa Musa. Let us look at where these powers are now: England has lost its empire and is no longer as relevant as it was, the HRE ceased to exist, Russia's government suffered through centuries of political corruption, and Mali fell multiple times and was conquered by France.
Also the Legion is not more realistic in any way. They seek to cleanse the world of amorality when they themselves break their own moral code. They seek to destroy infrastructure and instead try to substitute it with mass slavery. They think they can win a gun fight with swords. None of these are realistic. Also their form of government, isn?t a government, it is a cult of personality. The only thing that is keeping the legion going is the Frumentarii.
Reasons not to play the legion:
a) They bastardized a failed society and use it as a government.
b) Everyone hates them. Something that never works well (ex. Nazis)
c) Caesar is the only thing holding them together.
d) They are sexist bastards.
e) They ignorant luddites.
f) Very few members of it actually fight for the Legion, they fight for Caesar.
g) All they do is loot and burn and threaten to loot and burn.
They're the challenge faction. You want the hardest playthrough possible while having the option to be completely, unambiguously evil? Then the legion is for you.
That's my next playthrough, when I get around to it. Scorched earth policy with nothing but melee weapons and explosives.
As for any argument for the legion being "good for the wasteland"... The NCR may be making the mistakes that toppled the US, but Caesar is making many of the mistakes that toppled Rome. The Legion wouldn't be able to survive the infighting that would be caused by his death while dealing with outside forces. Caesar's legion and its peaceful lands are a house of cards resting upon Caesar's life.
That's my next playthrough, when I get around to it. Scorched earth policy with nothing but melee weapons and explosives.
As for any argument for the legion being "good for the wasteland"... The NCR may be making the mistakes that toppled the US, but Caesar is making many of the mistakes that toppled Rome. The Legion wouldn't be able to survive the infighting that would be caused by his death while dealing with outside forces. Caesar's legion and its peaceful lands are a house of cards resting upon Caesar's life.
Little Gray said:
wombat_of_war said:
Ah, there was some confusion - when I referred to Legion territory, I meant the future towns the Legion hopes to frighten by destroying Nipton. As in - their strategy is to use fear to keep other towns in line, but in reality this just causes them to fear Legion control.Dr. McD said:
And a large part of that is the fact that they basically sacked Nipton for three reasons:
1) It's how the Legion supplies themselves and keeps supplies away from their enemies. They raid a location or caravan and take everything they want. This is a completely unsustainable policy, and is basically what I meant by them being to prepared to sacrifice any long-term stability for short-term gains. I get that they don't believe in capitalism, but trade between settlements is what keeps the towns going.
2) By demonstrating the brutal punishments they are prepared to use if you break Legion law (in this case running a town deemed immoral and using it to trade with the enemy), they intended to frighten other towns into line. Firstly, I believe this was a waste of resources, but also I do not believe that this would work. Towns, while they should fear the approach of the Legion, would never feel at all torn in their loyalties. People in what is to be Legion territory would hate them. Ruling by fear is not sustainable.
3) Ideological conflict, in which the Legion decide to destroy Nipton as an example of immorality, in their eyes. It's been said that it had a self-interested mayor, and more importantly -
"Nipton was a wicked place, debased and corrupt. It served all comers, as long as they paid. Powder Gangers, Profligate troops, men of the Legion such as myself. The people here didn't care. It was a town of whores." - Vulpes Inculta. (Source)
A place where the town economy is based on trade with multiple factions, prostitution, and gambling (without adequate law enforcement to prevent crime). These are not traits unique to Nipton. With the exception of the mayor, the properties of Nipton that made it "debased" are also properties of New Vegas itself.
This is not a valid reason to remove a town that was prepared to "join" your faction (I know the mayor was just selling out to the Legion for personal gain, but fear motivated him, and Nipton would have become a Legion-controlled outpost). If Legion law is that any town with corruption, prostitution, gambling, or crime is to be destroyed then they are going to have to destroy just about every Mojave settlement around.
Nipton didn't "stand" for anything. It wasn't an ideological defiance of the Legion cult, it was simply the kind of town you get in unstable areas without proper policing and government. Vulpes Inculta is so indoctrinated that he is unable to appreciate the long-term advantages of keeping Nipton alive, and would rather destroy it because its "morals" disgust him. I hope you can see why, even for an evil character, this is an unsustainable policy.
The Legion content was cut due to lack of time. It's a shame really. J E Sawyer one of the game developers described Legion lands pretty well on formspring a while back. You should take a look around for his comments if you want a feel for life in Arizona.
Probably to war, if not with themselves over who gets to sit on what tech, then the wasteland as a whole. The east coast Brotherhood as a whole openly has a fairly low opinion of 'outsiders' and would likely wind up going the way of the Enclave once they acquired the fire power to do so and realized they need another goal to keep from seizing up and ceasing to exist... Which they're already well on their way to doing anyways. One less group of isolationist, xenophobic technophiles? No big loss there in my opinion.Madman123456 said:i always wondered where the Brotherhood would go after they have "achieved" their goals; if they have plenty of each futuristic weapon in stock, every power armor built up to the great war (they're trying to preserve old technology) and have everything filed and catalogued, will they just sit down and play tic-tac-toe for all eternity?
The Brotherhood chapter in D.C. kinda broke their mission statement a bit by helping the people of the Wasteland but if they where to institute a program in which they give out ammo, caps or projectile weapons in exchange for energy weapons, every waster would come to the Citadel with a wheel barrow full of laser pistols.
With the War against the Enclave, the D.C. Brotherhood grabbed more technology the the main chapter in Lost Hills ever had, so maybe they will have to build a giant wheelbarrow for Liberty Prime to push westwards
House wants to colonize other planets, which would likely include terraformation, a process for which the technology exists somewhere in a VaultTec server room, just waiting to be rediscovered, assuming he doesn't just decide to reverse-engineer a G.E.C.K. that must be sitting in a dilapidated Vault somewhere that is. This demonstrates remarkable vision and ambition on House's part, and unlike the NCR, whom I seriously doubt would even be able to maintain a hold on the Mojave for very long (it's repeatedly stated that they simply do not have the man power to keep expanding at the rate they have been, and can't even keep the roads in their damned undisputed territory Raider free), House actually gives adequate reason to believe he could achieve his goals with his astonishing ability at playing probability (he was off on his estimates on the date of the nuclear war by but a single day, and even so spared Las Vegas and the vast majority of the Mojave desert from nuclear devastation without the help of the platinum chip). House may be the most egotistical fuck in the Mojave, but unlike most he's more then earned his egotism.
The red tape, bureaucracy, and corruption they DO have to deal with is excessive for the world they live in though, not to mention how very VERY incompetently run their entire government is. With the lack of natural resources that modern governments and civilizations have to work with a post-apocalyptic variant just can't afford to suffer that kind of stupidity in the long term.
Yes, the NCR is too good to be true, seeing as how all signs point towards them having to eventually abandon any footholds they may gain in the Mojave due to them simply lacking the man power or bureaucratic competence to maintain a government or military force there.
Which, according to the one trader we encounter that mostly works in Legion territory, has led to him being able to actually move between settlements completely on his own without worrying about hiring guards, in stark contrast to NCR trading routes, wherein one can leave town with an entire fucking platoon of men and still likely wind up food for the buzzards after the Raiders are done with you. I agree with you on the slavery portion though.
I really liked the idea of the Legion when I began playing. But after seeing them throw spears against men with guns, and meeting Caesar himself... I killed him immediately. It was an Independent Vegas for me and Mr House.
I think that they were supposed to represent order at the expense of freedom, but they just came off as psychotic.
I tried to make a believable character that would want to join the legion and I couldn't think of someone who isn't mentally ill.
These guys dress and talk like roman soldiers (delusional), use melee weapons even when faced with gun-wielding enemies (suicidal) and crucify people (sociopath) - Regardless of the ideals they represent, I don't know what sane person would ally himself with the legion.
I tried to make a believable character that would want to join the legion and I couldn't think of someone who isn't mentally ill.
These guys dress and talk like roman soldiers (delusional), use melee weapons even when faced with gun-wielding enemies (suicidal) and crucify people (sociopath) - Regardless of the ideals they represent, I don't know what sane person would ally himself with the legion.
The reason you can join the legion, beyond a gleeful deconstruction of everything moral, is to lend weight to your choice to NOT join the legion. The fact that it is possible to become a monster makes the fact that you DON'T more significant, because you actively made that choice rather being railroaded into it. It's similar to the choice you make regarding the interracial couple at the beginning of Bioshock Infinite. The choice to do what is right has a larger impact when the choice to do what is wrong presents itself as well.
In one of my playthroughs I played a female for the soul purpose to see if the developers would stay true to the lore they had set up... and I was upset they threw it all out. The legion sees women as breeders and slaves.
I know playing a female and expecting to be beaten over the head and made a slave seems a little off but I wondered if they'd keep to their own story. Instead I was a male character who couldn't fight in the ring. Granted when you're able to ***** slap Kerrigan out of the Queen ***** of the universe position that might explain why the male peasants wouldn't dare!!!
I know playing a female and expecting to be beaten over the head and made a slave seems a little off but I wondered if they'd keep to their own story. Instead I was a male character who couldn't fight in the ring. Granted when you're able to ***** slap Kerrigan out of the Queen ***** of the universe position that might explain why the male peasants wouldn't dare!!!
Funny enough, though, Rex used to be Ceasar's personal hound. If you visit the Legion's kennel master, he'll mention that Rex looks like Ceasar's old cyborg dog, and there's a legion bull painted on Rex's chassis.Hagi said:
The closest thing to a Legion companion is a dog.
Originally, there was gonna be a companion named Ulysses, a fellow courier and a Legion frumentari. He was cut from the main game though, but plays a MASSIVE role in all the dlc.
This is the main problem I had with New Vegas.... yes... binary choice moral choice systems like in FO3 are over done... but atleast binary choice means 2 choices... NV has 4 endings but only 1 real choice.
Legion are morally bad but they work, the entire game is spent talking about how the legion run places are efficient and people are actually well off once they get past the whole getting conquered stage.
The NCR is morally good but again, everyone including the NCR loyalists know the NCR cant hold what they have don't have the internal structure to keep their people fed and happy.
Then theirs house.... the egotistical robot guy that treats you like a dog and whose only goals is being proven right after being a corpsical forever.
Being independent is the only ending that doesn't represent you putting the fate of vegas in the hands of complete morons(atleast not directly, people are stupid in that game)
Other than the massive bugs that never got fixed, I liked the gameplay in new vegas, but the story was terrible when taken over all(there was individual moments of good story telling but most was crap) which just bewildered me considering how amazingly written the dialogue of OLD WORLD BLUES was, best DLC of the game.
In my story I personally went with legion just because no one ever did and I wanted to take the path less traveled.... and the path was meh.
Legion are morally bad but they work, the entire game is spent talking about how the legion run places are efficient and people are actually well off once they get past the whole getting conquered stage.
The NCR is morally good but again, everyone including the NCR loyalists know the NCR cant hold what they have don't have the internal structure to keep their people fed and happy.
Then theirs house.... the egotistical robot guy that treats you like a dog and whose only goals is being proven right after being a corpsical forever.
Being independent is the only ending that doesn't represent you putting the fate of vegas in the hands of complete morons(atleast not directly, people are stupid in that game)
Other than the massive bugs that never got fixed, I liked the gameplay in new vegas, but the story was terrible when taken over all(there was individual moments of good story telling but most was crap) which just bewildered me considering how amazingly written the dialogue of OLD WORLD BLUES was, best DLC of the game.
In my story I personally went with legion just because no one ever did and I wanted to take the path less traveled.... and the path was meh.
The difference is, in Skyrim the Imperials are the non-racist faction which improves the average quality of life under them, and is the only hope against the Thalmor.Hades said:
They're the obvious good faction.
The Legion is pretty much the exact opposite.
The only reason I can see for supporting the Legion is if you care about what's best for humans in the long run, rather than individuals. Their goal isn't to make people happy, it's to secure the future from falling back into what it was like before.
They are very much a "The ends justifies the means" kind of group and they are looking at the big picture far more than any of the other groups are.
Personally I could never join them because that is not how I look at things, but there is a logic to their side beyond "Evil for teh lulz", it's just harsh, cruel and if you have any morals in regards to individuals, wrong.
They are very much a "The ends justifies the means" kind of group and they are looking at the big picture far more than any of the other groups are.
Personally I could never join them because that is not how I look at things, but there is a logic to their side beyond "Evil for teh lulz", it's just harsh, cruel and if you have any morals in regards to individuals, wrong.
Somehow, after reading some of the stuff here, I feel sad that the hinterlands behind the Cesar's Legion war zone weren't in the game. But then the game would of course have been far too huge, I guess...
No matter if you choose it or not, the legion is set up for failure from the beginning. Some of the EDITs in the OP are good reasons to join them, had this content been accessible in the game or DLC. But even if it beats the NCR in Nevada, it would just be stopped in the mountains and after a few years, Cesar would die.
What happens after that would be about the same as what happened to the real Roman Empire. At first, they would have a much larger population than other states because of food and water supplies as well as security. Then Infighting among the leadership would lead to strained armies, leading to pillaged villages and towns, leading to migrations, leading to more infighting, leading to more people killed and forced from their homes, leading to more infighting, death, famines etc.
No matter what the player does in Fallout NV (except maybe taking the side of Mr. House), the consequences would be that after 20 or 30 years or so the Legion would just be history (with a "Holy Cesarian Empire" forming somewhere for a few years before crumbling once more). And this is what will most likely be canon in future games: Beyond the Mojave wasteland, nobody really cares.
No matter if you choose it or not, the legion is set up for failure from the beginning. Some of the EDITs in the OP are good reasons to join them, had this content been accessible in the game or DLC. But even if it beats the NCR in Nevada, it would just be stopped in the mountains and after a few years, Cesar would die.
What happens after that would be about the same as what happened to the real Roman Empire. At first, they would have a much larger population than other states because of food and water supplies as well as security. Then Infighting among the leadership would lead to strained armies, leading to pillaged villages and towns, leading to migrations, leading to more infighting, leading to more people killed and forced from their homes, leading to more infighting, death, famines etc.
No matter what the player does in Fallout NV (except maybe taking the side of Mr. House), the consequences would be that after 20 or 30 years or so the Legion would just be history (with a "Holy Cesarian Empire" forming somewhere for a few years before crumbling once more). And this is what will most likely be canon in future games: Beyond the Mojave wasteland, nobody really cares.