New Vegas: Why Join the Legion?
- Thread starter Thunderous Cacophony
- Start date
Recommended Videos
The only reason I can think of is maybe it is a call back to the old "Stupid" game play modes of Fallout 1 and 2. If you set your SPECIAL skills extremely low, you would be unable to converse with basically anyone non-essential and would have to either skip or kill everyone else. Since the NCR is in every major hub, joining the Legion would make it where you are forced to kill a large amount of people, skipping possible quests.
If I wasn't such a completionist, I would give a Legion run a try, but I personally was never able to blow up Megaton in Fallout 3 and that seems like a much smaller sacrifice.
The only reason I ever worked for the Legion was for the achievement and to be able to watch their ending.
If I wasn't such a completionist, I would give a Legion run a try, but I personally was never able to blow up Megaton in Fallout 3 and that seems like a much smaller sacrifice.
The only reason I ever worked for the Legion was for the achievement and to be able to watch their ending.
Interesting. To be honest it struck me as a situation where despite their claims of not wanting to make things clear cut and morally ambiguous all around the developers decided to go with a "good" and an "evil" faction, simply giving the good guys some corrupt members, and making Caesar himself a bit less of a jerk than you'd expect. The benefit to joining the Legion is pretty much the benefit someone who likes playing evil derives from being a brutal jerk. I was thinking it was a generally good decision to not make the evil path a real benefit, as it's been my experience in most games that it's the good path that winds up getting screwed with a lack of benefits.... that said though the Rangers/NCR do seem to have nicer stuff, and if your shooting your way through those areas your going to go toting away generally much better stuff. The loot from shooting Caesar's guys isn't exactly great unless you like melee weapons or their style of armor.Thunderous Cacophony said:
That said, I do think they could have done a much better job of handling things. If I was working on it and trying to make things a lot more morally balanced between the sides I probably would have looked toward Robert Adams' "Horseclans" for inspiration. Perhaps even going so far as to give the leaders of the legions some kind of immortality mutation, as a nod, setting themselves up as ghouls who for whatever reason didn't have their skin melt or whatever.
Horseclans did a good job of justifying a really barbaric society in a post-apocalyptic environment, and dealt with the issue of that point of view, as opposed to that of various groups of "Restorationists". It doesn't work as any kind of real world analogy for how people should live their lives, but is entertaining on it's own merits.
I'll also say that a big part of doing "Barbarians" right in fantasy setting, tech-fantasy or not, is to make them appealing for the player by generally putting the PC in the role of one of the elite. There is a certain appeal to being a dominant conqueror, enslaving your enemies, taking their women, and destroying everyone that crosses you (Conan once described it as "what's best in life" in a movie). It's wrong in an overall, real world, sense but that has nothing to do with fantasy. This is why Vikings remain popular in literature, and you have people lining up to say play Klingons and Romulans in games like "Star Trek". To use Star Trek as an example, it would kind of suck to be bleeding Klingon mine slave #571, or even one of the rank and file Klingon cannon fodder, but there is an appeal to being one of the ruling caste in the great houses, commanding your ship, heading out into the great unknown, finding people weaker than you, enslaving them, stealing all their crap, and then singing songs about how awesome you are, praising the honor and justice of doing this, and killing anyone who disagrees. Sure your average Klingon might be a hypocrite, talking about honor and direct confrontation, but fighting battles by sneaking up on people with cloaking devices for a bushwhack, but that doesn't matter when your in charge and anyone who questions you can look forward to a disruptor in the face.
I guess what I'm saying is that you really have to get into selling the lifestyle at the top of the pile to the player and letting them assume that role. The problem with most RPGs is that they involve being a gofer, and really even when groups like this really like you in something like "Fallout" your still pretty much just acting as someone's minor functionary no matter what title they happen to give you. It's not like you get your huge house, slaves, and people worshipping everything you do, with an entire society behind you reinforcing how great and just you are no matter what you do.
When you present a situation with a decadent barbarian-warrior empire in it's prime (long before any cracks are going to get big enough to drag it down), which for all of it's excesses actually DOES present a better lifestyle for even the slaves in the fields than they would expect otherwise, and offer to put someone at the top as one of the elite, this can present more of a counterpoint to something like a progressive society which might be morally right in an overall sense but can neither promise you as much, nor anywhere near as much in the way of safety or stability in the likely future for even the people on the bottom.
To put things into another kind of perspective, while the game doesn't really go there, as even the text above points out the pseudo-slaves of Caesar's empire are taken care of and protected, and exist in peace and stability. To be fair the NCR seems to constantly be getting itself into wars that spill down to the everyman, is constantly strapped for resources, and deals with corruption throughout it's entire organization. Caesar's guys might be brutal, but they are pretty straightforward about who they are. If you were some non-adventurer in Fallout, it's easy to see why you might prefer the Legion to be in charge. In a country like the US we like to go off about freedom and parrot the principles, but how much do even we, in the most liberated country in the world actually have? Something like the NCR being a mere shadow of the government society that inspired it. At the end of the day, one has to ask the very real question of who is most likely to see that you have food and shelter, and less likely to be ganked by some raider or wandering monster. Not to mention ask the question as to whether the average slob has any more freedom in either environment, on some levels you might be able to make a case that Caesar's guys are just more honest about the Status quo. They don't play games by saying "you are free" and then making it otherwise through a system of complicated laws and corrupt bureaucracy, they just achieve the same result through having thugs around to remind you who is in charge.
At the end of the day though if I could be anyone in this environment, I'm honest enough to say that I'd rather be the equivalent of say Milo Morai or Billy The Axe (and I can actually kind of agree with Milo's overall endgame if I remember it correctly) than some cheeseball trying to recreate a society that already failed in a world it defined, and arguably has no chance in an entirely different environment.
The legion are evil by our standards, of course, they're intended to be. But they're still a valid choice, and their inclusion in the world of New Vegas (aside from lore reasons) is just that, a choice. The player, as the courier, has the ability to shape the Mojave thru their actions. And being a role-playing game, there are many different options from which to choose. Being evil is just as valid as being good. There are four "endings" IIRC, the Legion was just one of those.
I will admit I didn't side with them on either of the two playthrus I've had, just as I've not yet sided with the Stormcloaks in either of my Skyrim playthrus. But I've played other games as evil and it can be entertaining. I set off the bomb in Megaton on one FO3 playthru. It's an opportunity to see the a game from a different perspective. I've done Mass Effect as both paragon, renegade, male and female. I've done KotOR 1 & 2 light and dark, Jade Empire both ways, Alpha Protocol as a merciless Thorton and many other games too. I enjoy being able to choose and get different results from my actions...the best games are the ones that make the differences meaningful.
I think FNV does it quite well, as despite that the Legion are evil, they have a valid philosophy worth considering. None of the Mojave factions are righteous and each choice has consequences.
I will admit I didn't side with them on either of the two playthrus I've had, just as I've not yet sided with the Stormcloaks in either of my Skyrim playthrus. But I've played other games as evil and it can be entertaining. I set off the bomb in Megaton on one FO3 playthru. It's an opportunity to see the a game from a different perspective. I've done Mass Effect as both paragon, renegade, male and female. I've done KotOR 1 & 2 light and dark, Jade Empire both ways, Alpha Protocol as a merciless Thorton and many other games too. I enjoy being able to choose and get different results from my actions...the best games are the ones that make the differences meaningful.
I think FNV does it quite well, as despite that the Legion are evil, they have a valid philosophy worth considering. None of the Mojave factions are righteous and each choice has consequences.
The sad thing about New Vegas is that neither the NCR or Legion can hold the Mojave due to the tunnelers from the divide in lonesome road.
Well although most sane people would find the actions of the legion as utterly morally reprehensible (me included) there is some logic in the actions of the legion,
For one they are the only faction actively trying to deal with the rampant mutation, they also have a staunch rejection of all drugs and alcohols that is the ruin of so many citizens in the NCR, as for the technology thing, the legion have a standard of technology that everyone can fully understand and manufacture, this is in countenance to NCR who either use found weapons which are obviously a finite resource, or are manufactured... but wait NCR don't have the Tech to manufacture there weapons, instead it lies to the gun runners and van-graffs who have monopolized the market and unfortunatly there is little the NCR can do to stop these monopoly's.
Additionally the NCR have grown to a point where corruption and bloated bureaucracy makes there actions slow and unweildy, couple that with the fact that the NCR military is riddled with incompetence at high ranks, none of these the legion have to deal with, officially Legionnaires are ranked purely due to combat experience meaning that in actuality as a fighting unit the legion are better organised then there technologically superior NCR.
Having said that i could never bring myself to side with the legion, just it's a little more grey if you think about it!
For one they are the only faction actively trying to deal with the rampant mutation, they also have a staunch rejection of all drugs and alcohols that is the ruin of so many citizens in the NCR, as for the technology thing, the legion have a standard of technology that everyone can fully understand and manufacture, this is in countenance to NCR who either use found weapons which are obviously a finite resource, or are manufactured... but wait NCR don't have the Tech to manufacture there weapons, instead it lies to the gun runners and van-graffs who have monopolized the market and unfortunatly there is little the NCR can do to stop these monopoly's.
Additionally the NCR have grown to a point where corruption and bloated bureaucracy makes there actions slow and unweildy, couple that with the fact that the NCR military is riddled with incompetence at high ranks, none of these the legion have to deal with, officially Legionnaires are ranked purely due to combat experience meaning that in actuality as a fighting unit the legion are better organised then there technologically superior NCR.
Having said that i could never bring myself to side with the legion, just it's a little more grey if you think about it!
personally I entered their camp on a "diplomacy mission" to talk the the leader (can't remember who now) and then got shot at. So my diplomacy mission turned into a 1 man (lvl 13) ethnic cleansing of the whole place. Didn't even break a sweat until I got to the leader and his bodyguards. One lucky grenade later and they were no more. My reward? that jackass in the checkered coat. I was about to let him live but then he insulted me and reminded me of the setup on the strip. So I pulled out my revolver and executed him in satisfyingly bloody revenge.
The one and only reason to join the Legion, the way I see things, is if you see your Courier being a secretly power-hungry schmoe who finally stumbles onto a way to make it big if he's willing to step over a few corpses.
The same way the only reason you'd want to join the Stormcloaks is if you're playing a xenophobic Nord. In both cases, it's more a what-if situation than anything concrete. I'd compare it to blowing up Megaton in Fallout 3, as your character has to be severely emotionally and morally bankrupt to consider it.
For all of Obsidian's work to create a more nuanced take on the Fallout-verse à la Bethesda, going Legion still honestly feels like you're playing as the secret lovechild of Hitler and Ceaucescu, with a side order of Pol Pot and Kim Jong-Un.
The same way the only reason you'd want to join the Stormcloaks is if you're playing a xenophobic Nord. In both cases, it's more a what-if situation than anything concrete. I'd compare it to blowing up Megaton in Fallout 3, as your character has to be severely emotionally and morally bankrupt to consider it.
For all of Obsidian's work to create a more nuanced take on the Fallout-verse à la Bethesda, going Legion still honestly feels like you're playing as the secret lovechild of Hitler and Ceaucescu, with a side order of Pol Pot and Kim Jong-Un.
Because Fallout New Vegas is awesome that's why.
The option exists to join the legion for those want to role play as a bad guy. The majority of people who play videogames are conditioned to play the part of a hero, so that's why there aren't too many serious examples of people genuinely joining the legion, because our inbred hero instincts prevent us from doing so.
The option exists to join the legion for those want to role play as a bad guy. The majority of people who play videogames are conditioned to play the part of a hero, so that's why there aren't too many serious examples of people genuinely joining the legion, because our inbred hero instincts prevent us from doing so.
This post really confuses me.Talvrae said:
Corporatism is short hand for a form of socialism that fosters several private corporations with government policies and then taxes them in order to provide social services for the middle class and to ensure the supremacy of the aforementioned corporations. House doesn't have any interest in any of that.
What exactly is the connection between the Legion and Conservatism? Did I miss the part where Caesar started talking about how great limited government is, or where the mostly homosexual legion somehow hates gay marriage?
How is the NCR socialist? It's a country ruled by giant capitalist cattle barons holding politicians in their pockets. Do you consider the United States to be a socialist country? Because the NCR is pound for pound the exact same thing with the exact same policies as the US.
What does taking over a city state with a robotic army have to do with Libertarianism? Are all new countries automatically libertarian?
the battle between the legion and the NCR is like the battles between the athenians and the spartans. They both do atrocious things in combat but have different values. We're seeing an area that the NCR considers secured after a hardfought battle against the Legion, but as far as the legion is concerned, this is a scout far ahead of their mainforce, at least until the end when Caesar brings his full faculties to bear in the second war for the Hoover Dam. We only see travesties and horrible things from the legion because the legion in the mojave are the terrorist wing of the Legion's forces, meant to have the enemy army pissing themselves before the big battle. We see only the sliver of a small part of the greatness of Caesar's Legion in the game.. the rest of the Areas settled by Caesar run just as smoothly as the NCR cities, maybe smoother. It's perhaps a little orwellian, but they're fed in a world that doesn't need to feed them.
When you talk to Caesar, once you break past his hard "fuck you with a rake" exterior, you can see exactly what he's trying to do, but also see where he failed in his logic, at least with concerns to decency. It's sort of like Andrew Ryan's Rapture is more disturbing because in a lot of ways, the initial spark that drove its creation were good. That's how I feel about Caesar's Legion. I don't think the game really did them justice because it wasn't set up to focus on them.
In other similar "not properly established in game", Benny is actually quite an insane survivalist.. it's easy to forget sometimes that the Families of the Las Vegas strip are a relatively new thing and not long ago the families were all just roving tribes living off the land. It's mentioned, but in the end, it's easier to just see them the way they want to be seen.
When you talk to Caesar, once you break past his hard "fuck you with a rake" exterior, you can see exactly what he's trying to do, but also see where he failed in his logic, at least with concerns to decency. It's sort of like Andrew Ryan's Rapture is more disturbing because in a lot of ways, the initial spark that drove its creation were good. That's how I feel about Caesar's Legion. I don't think the game really did them justice because it wasn't set up to focus on them.
In other similar "not properly established in game", Benny is actually quite an insane survivalist.. it's easy to forget sometimes that the Families of the Las Vegas strip are a relatively new thing and not long ago the families were all just roving tribes living off the land. It's mentioned, but in the end, it's easier to just see them the way they want to be seen.
I know how you feel. I felt more like that when I played Skyrim. I played a High-Elf and never had the opportunity to join or help the Thalmor. Also, it appears that while Khajiits are banned from cities, the player character (even if not considered dragonborn yet), somehow gets a free pass.Ryan Minns said:
Legion said:
Oh, i agree but i didn't know that when i joined the imperials. From the first few minutes of the game all i could tell about the war was that it was Romans vs Vikings. So i went with the Romans. After traveling to both Windhelm and Solitute it became clear i made the right choice.Souplex said:
*slow clap*Mycroft Holmes said:
Great post, I must say. And yes, I mostly agree, except your point about the slaves. Although we only see military slaves in the game, they are wretched, underfed, tortured people who are worked to death. Sure, you can argue that it was the same with the Romans as well, they had mine-slaves and agricultural slaves as well who had very short life-expectancies, but unlike the Romans, the Legion doesn't actually appear to have any other kinds of slaves.
Remember, as you have stated yourself, the Legion is not exactly the Roman Empire, they don't have the sophisticated system of citizenship. They are more like Gengis Khan's horde that expands quickly and is all about conquest and plunder. Such a society has no use for trained slaves and tutors/helpers/house servants.
Also, not having raiders in Arizona is not a testament of the Legion creating order, it's just a side effect. There are no raiders because the killed and/or absorbed all the raiders while they conquered. The raiders still there, they are just called Caesar's Legion now.
Aside of these points, I really enjoyed your point of view. It is really refreshing to read something that shows you something from a different angle.
The only good reasons I can think of is that they give you a legitimate excuse to wipe out the Brotherhood of Steel (as if you needed one) and you don't have to fight Lanius at the end. In terms of outcomes or ideology, I'm NCR first, House second, Yes Man third and Legion aren't even in the same ballpark.
Also regarding the companion thing, not only is Boone anti-Legion, but simply having him as a party member will render every one of them hostile regardless of previous affiliation. Considering how useful Boone is if you get him early on, it makes even more sense that players would be disinclined toward the Legion.
Also regarding the companion thing, not only is Boone anti-Legion, but simply having him as a party member will render every one of them hostile regardless of previous affiliation. Considering how useful Boone is if you get him early on, it makes even more sense that players would be disinclined toward the Legion.
Technically Chinggis outlawed slavery. Also Mongolians never even developed a word for 'slave,' they just use a word for prisoner instead. Later on Kublai brought back a form of debt slavery, like indentured servitude, under the Yuan Dynasty. In which peasants could pay off their debts to Kublai by agreeing to serve him for free(or more often have their children do it.)GabeZhul said:
Also the expansion of the original Mongolian Empire was over the course of 100 years. And a long time after that under the various splinter factions like the Golden Horde and the Yuan Dynasty. I'm not sure I'd call that quick. In fact the Mongolians were known for their patience in battle, preferring to harass indirectly for months if not years before fighting directly. They weren't overly obsessed with plunder either, and would pretty much ditch their loot right away if it was proving burdensome at all.
They also had a pretty big use for those "tutors/helpers/house servants." While the horde would for the most part continue along after a few years waiting to replenish numbers and secure their new lands, they would still leave garrison forces as well as Mongolian magistrates and leaders. They were very interested both in learning as well as being able to effectively govern. As such the Mongolian leadership would often utilize scholars to teach them the new languages of conquered peoples.
They were also very interested in the knowledge their conquered people had and they would often use or recruit conquered engineers and other such scientists to their causes. The recurve bows that signaled the true dawning of their power were created by the Chinese. They were masters of siege warfare using, often Chinese engineers, to construct or teach their engineers in the construction of siege weapons. Despite being plains people they also upon conquering China quickly constructed fleets and became able seamen(which is where Japan's Divine Winds came into play.) I mean this is the empire that popularized the concept of paper currency. I would hardly say they were simply conquerors and plunderers.
They really weren't much like FNV Caesar's Legion; beyond the fact that they originally came from a nomadic force of warriors.
Sure, but they are also no longer actually raiding. Or at least they are no longer raiding Arizona. Also I wouldn't say it was a side effect. It was definitely part of Caesar's intentions.GabeZhul said: