At least he has a goal, a solution instead of fighting about little [censored] like the others.

I'm back, and this time with the well-rested perk!


Let me rephrase this a little bit:

I'm not saying that I hate democracy, that I think it is a worthless form of government, or that it was the sole cause of all problems in the Fallout Universe, but I am saying that it has some major problems (as does any form of government), and that many of those problems contributed to the breakdown of the prewar United States. Democracy, like many forms of government, has its pros and cons, so here are the cons that I see: inefficiency, stupidity of the public, and a high potential for corruption (not limited to democracy of course, but the point is that democracy doesn't eliminate this). In our world, I quite like democracy as a form of government, but in the Fallout world, I think it turned out to be somewhat of a failure because of the cons that I mentioned above. It definitely wasn't the cause of the Great War, but it definitely fell apart as soon as the resource crisis started, and that is because democracies are fragile systems when it comes to times of crisis.

When there's a huge problem that a democracy has to deal with, it doesn't deal very well imo, and it often turns into something other than a democracy in order to deal with it. It's interesting that Martyr brings up Pearl Harbor, because what happened to the US during WWII? I seem to remember learning that there was a lot of propaganda to control the public, FDR serving four terms as president, and the US converting almost all of its industrial power to supporting the war effort. That isn't very democratic, but the US got a lot of stuff done during WWII, didn't it? The same thing happened to the prewar US in the Fallout Universe. As soon as the resource crisis started, the US started to do less democratic things, in fact the whole idea of a "free" public led government seemed to fall apart. Lets look at what happened to the US before the Great War: (keep in mind that I'm not claiming that democracy caused these things, I'm just showing how democracy definitely failed in a time of crisis)

• The US used its military superiority to annex Canada.
  
• When Canadian's rioted, they were shot on sight by the US military.
  
• The US government allowed scientists to do hideous experiments on US citizens these include: Big MT's experiments on political enemies, Big MT's experiments with the Sierra Madre, and the FEV program.
  
• From the Fallout Timline on the wiki: February 11, 2069: By order of the U.S. government, all Patriot's Cookbook magazines are banned and incinerated. However, many magazines still remained in circulation.
  
• From the Fallout Timeline on the wiki: January 22, 2077: The first domestic use of power armor within the United States for crowd and quarantine control. Units originally serving in China and the Anchorage Front Line find themselves fighting Americans at home. Food riots increase, andmany civilians are killed. Several soldiers defect from the military both in Canada and the United States. They are captured, and are sent to military prisons.
  
• From the Fallout Timeline on the wiki: August, 2076: Food and energy riots begin in major cities throughout the United States. Military units begin to be deployed in cities within the United States to contain rioters, and many temporary prisons are constructed. A state of emergency is declared, and martial law soon follows.

It's obvious that the US was no longer a democracy at the time of the Great War. Why? Because an inefficient, public led form of government doesn't work when the public hits the panic button. Now who holds the nation together and keeps order? The government does. Through use of military force and fear. Not a very democratic system, but it is a system that is able to make big decisions quickly without having to worry about public opinion for the next election, see?

Another problem with democracy is that it is fundamentally based on the popular opinion of a large group of people, many of whom are unintelligent and easily persuaded and manipulated. So who really becomes the leader of a democratic nation? Usually the politician who is best at using language and propaganda to manipulate and persuade the stupid majority, which leaves a hell of a lot of room for corruption.This applies to the NCR, and, although we don't know for sure, it likely applied to the prewar US.

Now onto the NCR. While I believe that democracy as it was in the prewar US was a failed system, that's only my opinion, and if NCR supporters provide an excellent argument as to why a US mimicking political system in the postwar world is great, then please do so, I might be persuaded. My problem with the in-game NCR is that they didn't even think about anything, they just blindly copied the prewar system in the name of "rebuilding." You don't hear anyone in the NCR questioning anything, you don't hear anyone thinking about why it's a good idea to revive a democratic government similar in structure to the prewar US, you only see NCR propaganda posters and hear how the NCR "has its problems but it's still a great country and I support what they do!" That annoys me. The blind following of prewar ideals without really looking at why they should follow them.

I think it's dangerous that a nation revives Old World ideals and follows them without really adapting them at all to the New World. If the NCR would just think for a second and back up its following of the prewar system and maybe even adapt it a little bit to fit with the New World, then I would respect them a lot more. For now, it seems they are content to build a nation without really understanding why they building it, so like I said earlier, the NCR is a nation based in ignorance and stupidity. Throw in a crisis like the Legion potentially conquering the Mojave, Vegas draining the NCR's economy, and maybe even a few nukes landing within their borders (end of Lonesome Road), and you have the NCR failing rather quickly, likely dissolving into warring city states led by absolute leaders. This failure would be due to both the fragility of and subsequent breakdown of their democratic government as well as the NCR public turning against the government and blaming the failure on them. The latter reason is derived from the NCR public's stupidity and lack of thought, since, in a democracy, it is the public that holds the power in government, and so it is there fault for not thinking about who they elected and what government they put in charge of their nation in the first place.

It is heavily implied in a lot of endings that the NCR will collapse after the events of New Vegas, so I'm not just spewing baseless speculation here, but I am giving my opinion of why and how the NCR will fail, so if you simply don't agree with that, then there is little point in arguing. We probably just hold differing viewpoints of politics in general, and I respect that.

The main problem i have with your argument is that your talking about how bad pre war U.S was (which i agree with most of what you said) and then saying because the NCR adopted the same government system it is doomed to fail. The NCR didn't copy all aspects of the pre war united states it adopted that form of government which it thought was best. Also i completely agree that politicians manipulate the public to get what they want, but at least in America and NCR we don't have to believe what they say and have access to knowledge that can go against them, so it's literally impossible for a politician to say something false in propaganda or an election without taking all kinds of political heat. And most propaganda during world war 2 was to persuade people to buy war bonds and support the soldiers in some way, just like how in New Vegas a lot of it is to either get locals to like NCR or to bring up troop moral. You also mentioned about how governments become more powerful in times of crisis and they accomplish a lot, well i for one agree with having a strong federal government, thats probably why the NCR has no term limits too. I think Cesar said something about how the NCR was like a monarchy because of Tandi, and then if you say she was elected each time, he will argue you by saying "she was too popular so the council didn't oppose her" well, thats a good thing isn't it, if a leader comes along that people love so much they want them in office for 52 years, but Jona Tibet only served 4 because she was unpopular and started a war. The NCR didn't really just blindly pick democracy either, they were inspired by the deeds of the vault dweller and decided democracy was the best form of government. The NCR didn't have to adapt to the new world that came after the nuclear war, they remade it. It changed from being a collection of towns, tribes, and raider bands, to a united country with government, law, and an army. Look i know how there are all the problems with greed and corruption, but if you look in the mojave wasteland the best traders and the most wealthy and happy people are from NCR.

It didn't fall apart as soon as the resource crisis started and democracies are not inherently fragile. It's incredibly naive to believe that countries and their success or failure are somehow defined solely or even most importantly by their system of government.


Yes during WWII the USA limited some freedoms. It also committed some abuses. But at no point did it cease being democratic. You seem to think every time a democracy limits freedom or does something bad democracy has failed. That's just not even remotely true. On the contrary WWII is a shining example of how democracies can weather crises superbly. Nations like the USA and Britain sensibly placed limits on their traditional freedoms and governance in order to respond to a crisis more effectively. These are perfect examples of democracies responding well to a crisis when by your logic both should have been inefficient, easily manipulated by public opinion, and highly corrupt. Yet they weren't. They effectively managed a war effort, held their own against and significantly contributed to the defeat of a collection of autocratic nations almost all of which ultimately performed worse than these two "fragile" democracies.


Again these are all regrettable actions but how do they prove democracy failed? No one is arguing democracies are perfect. No one is arguing democracies are inherently good. No one is arguing that democracies can never commit abuses or fail to live up to their ideals. But the fact is these are examples of the US government, which by your logic should be fragile and inefficient responding effectively to a crisis to the point where it was able to maintain order at home in the face of massive challenges while simultaneously conducting a successful war against China. This is not evidence of a government that has failed. The US government did not fail up until the point when they were nuked off the face of the Earth due to a crisis entirely beyond their control. No form of government could've avoided the Resource Wars because they were not brought on by anything political but by unavoidable competition over increasingly limited resources. This is just a fact.


That is not obvious at all. The government you are referring to was elected by the people and as far we know continued to be elected by the people up to practically the end of the world. The inefficient, public led form of government that defeated China and almost resolved the resource crisis through development of fusion power while limiting civil disorder at home in the face of incredible challenges. You seem to think maintaining law and order in the face of riots brought on by the giant resource crisis that is outside the government's control is anti-democratic. I'm not sure why.


As opposed to rule based around the popular opinion of a single man who will totally never be unintelligent, irrational, or otherwise incapable right? Or a small group with similar faults or maybe who just place their own personal interests ahead of a nation? That's never happened before. Again, all governments have an incredible potential for corruption. There is a reason nations like Turkmenistan are incredibly corrupt and nations like the USA far less so. It is not due to form of government.


For starters there is no evidence that the NCR blindly copied the pre-war USA. We don't know nearly enough about the founding of the NCR but while they definitely have shades of the USA they are not an exact replica and there is no evidence that what they did take they took blindly anymore than Caesar blindly took inspiration from ancient Rome for his merry band of slaving, murdering rapists. Much like Caesar the NCR probably copied parts of the USA because it was a political system they supported, were familiar with and thought would fuction effectively. And it did. The NCR has been around for almost a century, has rebuilt California to a standard of living unheard of in the rest of the Wasteland and remains the most stable and prosperous nation in the Fallout universe by a massive margin. It's a corrupt, highly flawed state that often fails to live up to its ideals but it has ideals that it still sometimes remembers as demonstrated by their treatment of Freeside. It recognizes basic concepts like the rights of individuals, not least of which is the right of a citizen to be able to participate in their government that are just as admirable in the Fallout universe as they are in ours. It is miles ahead of the Legion in every respect, and ahead of House as far as I'm concerned although that is a much closer and more subjective debate which largely depends on your preferences.


You seem to be ignoring the fact that regardless of whether they blindly copied Old World ideals (and again we have no idea that the NCR isn't substantially different from the pre-War USA) the NCR works. It's worked longer and with more success than anyone else in the Fallout universe. You can't just pretend that it isn't true because it's too close to a pre-war nation for you and therefore must not be able to work in the post-war world, um, because that just can't be right all evidence to the contrary notwithstanding. Yes I would imagine if the NCR got nuked it would fall apart. Of course I would imagine if the Legion got nuked it would fall apart too. Same for House, independent Vegas etc. Generally nuclear war is pretty bad for every nation not just those inefficient democracies. And your argument is pretty nuts since in a democracy if you turn against the government you just vote a new one in. The failures of a president will generally not cause the entire country or political system to collapse. House even points this out in the game when he notes that if Kimball survives and the NCR is driven out of the Mojave the public will place the blame on his administration and its imperialist policies and just kick him out of his office. The country doesn't fall apart.


In what ending is it implied, heavily or otherwise that the NCR will collapse after the events of New Vegas? I've never encountered this and I've done a full playthrough with every faction.

I simply disagree with you there, on both points to some extent. I think the democratic United States in the Fallout Universe was fragile, but that doesn't mean that I believe every single democracy based nation in the real world is inherently fragile.


Uh...the success or failure of a country is based on a lot of factors, but one of the biggest factors is whether or not they can establish a system of government that does not fail. If the people of a nation cannot establish a successful system of government, that nation will likely come to a point where the large majority of people are poor, oppressed, and ready to revolt against the government. If they do revolt, then that nation will be in extreme economic instability, so yeah, failure in system of government can definitely lead to some major failings with a nation. If you think it is so naive, then please enlighten me.


When I said "democracy" I was being to vague. I was specifically talking about the ideals of the prewar democratic United States, you know, freedom and stuff. So we saw those ideals take a hit during a crisis. Why? Because they don't work when there are major problems that need to be dealt with. And if you somehow interpreted that I was suggesting that autocratic nations are better than democracies? Well, then you misinterpreted something. If you read the first post I made in this thread, you will see how I criticize Mr. House and his autocratic plans. Oh, and as for why the autocracies performed worse? Your argument there is baseless since their loss was a direct result of every other world power uniting in order to destroy them. Nations with much larger armies simply overwhelmed them on multiple fronts (fortunately).

And as side note, when you said democratic governments are easily manipulated by public opinion, keep in mind that public opinion is also easily manipulated by the government/politicians.


When I said "democracy" I was being to vague. I was specifically talking about the ideals of the prewar democratic United States, you know, freedom and stuff. Democracies are supposed to be where the public is in control of the government, right? When the public is being gunned down by the military whenever they try to have their voice heard, well, it seems that they don't have control anymore. Thus, no more democracy.

Now to what I marked as bold in the quote above: That's the point, that the US had to completely change its ideology and its form of government (IMO there is enough evidence to say that this wasn't really a democracy anymore, see above paragraph) in order to deal with the crisis at hand. Thus, democracy was rather weak and fragile in that particular situation. I'M NOT CRITICIZING DEMOCRACY ALONE! In a situation like the resource wars, most governments would be fragile to some degree, democracy is just the weakest imo when it comes to maintaining order over the nation.


When was I saying that Totalitarian systems are superior? I'm simply criticizing the democratic system, which you seem to think is by far the best for the Mojave. I disagree, so I listed some problems that I see with democracy. How did that imply that I was yelling, "Totalitarianism FTW!!!!" as I typed my response?


Are you sure you've done a Legion play-through? Like a full play-through where you actually let Caesar explain everything? Its really interesting, and while I still don't agree with Caesar, I respect the nation he created far more than I respect the NCR.

Here's how Caesar did not blindly follow Roman ideals:


There is plenty of evidence to suggest that the NCR is politically and economically very similar to the prewar US. Hell, I think they're supposed to be a satire of the United States, and if you don't see that, well, then we just see things differently.

The NCR works for now, sure, but it isn't doing too well by the time of New Vegas, and as to how it has worked longer than anyone else, remember that much of that time was under Tandi, who was effectively more like a monarch than the president of a democratic nation.


Implied by Ulysses.
Implied by Caesar.
Implied to some extent by Chief Hanlon.
Marcus talks about how the NCR's habit of "rolling over people" could lead to its collapse.
If the Legion wins, and Caesar is still alive, what do you think is eventually going to happen to the NCR?

It may not get mentioned specifically in any ending slides, but intelligent characters who have anolyzed the different factions (Ulysses) and other intelligent characters that have lived in the NCR and seen its faults (Caesar) have given sound reasons as to why the NCR might collapse after the events of New Vegas. Also, keep in mind that Ulysses expresses a lot of the opinions of Chris Avellone, who helped write a lot of the game, so there are implications in the game, they just aren't obvious sometimes.

Edit: This is responding to Wasteland Liberator too, you had a lot of the same points as Okie, so rather than write the same argument twice I decided to only quote and respond to one of you.

Ok, i'm having trouble understanding why you keep bringing up what happened to pre war U.S. they are different nations with the same form of government, i understand that they are similar but they are in two VERY different settings. I understand what you're saying when you talk about how in a crisis a democracy will often take away some freedoms, but what you fail to mention is that when they take away those freedoms they actually put laws through congress and they have to be approved. I guess the main thing is that in a democracy sometimes freedoms are removed if approved by elected officials and in a totalitarian society the people never actually had those freedoms. And the NCR didn't copy everything from the U.S. like your saying. That would literally be impossible since they live in a nuclear wasteland, but the most important difference is that they don't have shadowy branches of government that allowed most of the bad things in the U.S. to happen. What the NCR did copy was democracy, rule of law, and freedoms. Also Cesar's Legion is much more likely to fall then NCR. Cesar is smart yes, but he lies to his people and manipulates them much more than any democracy, and it will fall much more violently then the NCR because of all the lies and manipulation.

Okay glad we cleared that up.


You're not getting me. Obviously a country needs to establish a successful government to function. My point is that after a functioning government has been established, when that government fails, it is not necessarily due to the form of government chosen. For instance France in WWII didn't lose the will to fight because it was a democracy it collapsed in large part because the country was polarized so deeply between Left and Right, a divide going back centuries that the will to defend the nation largely evaporated in the face of such a severe crisis. When Petain established an authoritarian regime that divide didn't suddenly disappear since France was no longer a democracy. It persisted weakening his regime in turn. Britain and the USA did not suffer from such a problem so these nations had a much easier time maintaining the war effort even though they were also being democratic.


If a government fails every time it departs from its ideals then no government on Earth has ever succeeded. The simple truth is the USA didn't cease to be a democracy during WWII. If putting limitations on freedom during exceptional circumstances=failure of democracy to you then I don't know what else to say. Yes the Axis powers were overwhelmed largely by numbers. But that doesn't change the fact that many autocratic nations like say Italy, or Romania, or Hungary, or even Japan in many respects had serious troubles with their war efforts that nations like the USA and Britain didn't have. Others like Germany performed exceptionally. Again the reason is that types of government were not really the most important factor in determining the fragility or inefficiency of a nation.


They weren't gunning down the public whenever they tried to protest. They were suppressing riots directly tied to the energy and resource crisis. Were they going too far? Yes. But again this doesn't suddenly mean democracy has failed simply because the government isn't living up to its ideals. No government ever does that constantly.


I'm pointing out that all systems of government can end up in the hands of morons. You're attempting to claim a weakness inherent to democracy that's going to exist to one degree or another in all forms of government.


Yes I have. The point I was making is that Caesar, despite his group being heavily influenced by Rome did not blindly copy Roman ideals. He took what he wanted and thought would work. So why do you, and others, assume that because the NCR was heavily influenced by America it blindly copied the pre-war USA? I mean do you really think the founders of the NCR just picked up a copy of the US Constitution they found lying around and went with that? The NCR probably took what it liked and thought would work too and we have no evidence to suggest they're a mirror image of the pre-war USA.


They're very clearly a satire of our USA and our entanglement in a certain foreign war. They don't seem as similar to the nightmare that was the pre-war USA as people would like. And whether they are or not, as I've said, whatever they are, it works and it's not nearly as bad as the alternatives. Not as well as it should or could but it works.


Yes that's what Caesar says. Clearly he has no agenda and has not convinced himself of the superiority of his cause long ago. If you actually examine the evidence beyond the fact that Tandi was reelected a lot there's no indication she was a dictator or monarch. The NCR has a working Congress in Fallout 2 with more than sufficient influence to halt the President. Three of the four endings in Fallout 2 have Tandi lose her office; two via democratic process. Clearly a monarch.


Ulysses is a lunatic. Caesar's arguments are nonsense that he just expects people to accept because he can misinterpret Hegel. Hanlon knows the NCR is on the wrong course and thinks its position in the Mojave is disastrous but I don't recall him ever implying the NCR is in danger of collapsing. Marcus is right if the NCR continues to roll over people it could be in trouble but that doesn't mean imminent collapse and he says much the same about the Legion. I mean if you think all the factions are doomed that's cool but earlier you ranked the Legion much higher than the NCR which makes no sense. If the Legion wins and Caesar is still alive I expect it will attempt to invade the NCR proper and promptly get its ass kicked once the people and politicians back in the NCR are forced to take notice instead of fighting a half-assed containing action in a foreign land.


Why do we assume Ulysses is such an intelligent seer who can predict the future? Because he traveled around a lot? Because he's obsessed with symbolism? Much like Caesar Ulysses never proves anything he says. We're just supposed to accept what they say at face value and ignore all the evidence to the contrary. There's no actual evidence in game that the NCR is in the slightest danger of collapse.

Now considering that any faction can be rationalized and being that I'm a Caesar's Legion supporter, I'll try to address this as unbiased as possible, being a former Mr. House supporter.

Who is Mr. House? He's the CEO of Robco and probably one of the richest men in Pre-War times. He's a man with hundreds of thousands of resources at his disposal. However, he's the embodiment of "Head stuck in the clouds." House is a man who's able to run trillions of bits of data at one time and only cares about the future of HIS Vegas, not the people.

Old World Blues is a word used in the Wasteland to denote being so stuck in the past and in the present that you can't see the future. Mr. House is truly stuck in the past and his dreams of exploring the stars. He talks about the future but that future is just the product of number crunching.

In today's terminology, Mr. House is the 1%. He does not care about the people as individuals. He cares about the survival of humanity, who showed that they are perfectly capable of surviving through their own means, whether it be towns or NCR or Legion.

Old World concepts are dead. Plain and simple. Mr. House is in one corner who wants a capitalistic government with a despot leader. What's stopping House from abusing his power to expand his agenda once the Courier is gone? Nothing. Mr. House isn't immortal but his lifespan will vastly outlive any of his advisers...which brings the issue of successors.

What will happen to New Vegas once House dies? It'll crumble. Not because there's no leader. Anybody can become a leader by assuming control of any human army. The Securitron army: Only House can control it. He can give temporary authority to the Courier, as seen in the Battle for Hoover Dam. However, only Mr. House can allocate that authority and only the Securitrons can protect New Vegas under Mr. House's rule...unless he's willing to create a human army.

My view on Mr. House is plain and simple: Considering all human ideals descend into chaos, I'd much rather go with Yes Man, who can shape the Mojave in a way that's befitting what the people require or Caesar, who creates a vast super organism that can deal with literally any threat and any comers until the organism evolves further and further until it dies.

Mr. House views democratic values as one of the factors of the Great War. Fine, I can give him that. But with democracy comes capitalism and with a capitalism centric government with a despot as a ruler can provide incredibly wild results.

Summary: In conclusion, Mr. House is stuck in the past. He's definitely better than the corrupt NCR but with a new world comes a time to rethink the values that were used by the old world. The New World deserves something new.

I have to reread and critically anolyze this article yall have argued and honestly I really hate all the endings, due to wanting a happy ending... but....

How can anyone agree that a House, Courier, or any Legion led government be successful. Actually scratch that... Every government fails into the same traps and is expedited by lack of resources, innovation, and stressful environments. The blessing behind or what is behind the NCR is the ability to police and replace those in power, even if the scale of power is skewed. It is then that the people are responsible to balance the power without persecution. If the government presses the people, then it is no longer a democracy and the people either replace the government for anew or leave.

If you are looking for similarities in the "Evil" of annexation from NCR, the Civil War, the North annexed back the South after the end of the war. Was that evil?

The lack of helping fellow communities, it is a testament of today’s burning topic... how much government should intervene in daily life.

The problem I see with NCR is their drive for resources and power... It is doom to repeat problems of the past on their track. But you every country needs resources. So when is enough? I think they need to realign goals to a better, less reliant future... just like ours need to before it is too late. But pride, contentment, laziness, and ignorance are hard to overcome from the people.

But to rank NCR lower than Caesar and House is folly... you cannot police their polices. It is their rule. Worse problem from Caesar is to remove innovation, individual rights, and missing two branches of culture. Plus eventually, to stay a slave is not a human nature. I am surprised people watched love ones be slaughtered and enslaved were so willing to serve. Doubt it is perfect. Plus War machines always stop when there is nothing left to conquer.

A Courier led world would be perfect if he was the coming of a head figure of [Blank] religion.

No I have not played a legion side character but I just cannot see myself agreeing that it is the right course to survive.
Oh… and as far as morality, pretty sure greed is immoral in most cultures. So even after working 65 hours in the last 5 days I am pretty proud of that point 8). I will read the arguments later and see the discussion in more detail.

I hate to really nit pick people's arguments since I usually like to look at the whole picture, however, this statment is wrong. Technology brings order and creates ease. It requires thoughts and experiments to be compiled... not really chaos. Then again, I see learning as forward thinking and not "agaisnt the machine." And the American dream or "ideals" isn't chaos.

I think we all need to just agree on the pros and cons. I agree that the NCR has many problems both in its government and in its society, but i support them because they bring "civilization" with things like trading companies, patrols, and general safety, they provide a chance to do more than just "survive," I think their main problem is the greed and corruption plus the fact that they overextend themselves and have an imperialistic president. The Legion has obvious cons like slavery brutality and doesn't seem like a very nice place, but their roads are very safe and they have a very structured society granted you have to pay for that with your freedom, but for some people that's worth it (note: i don't think slave life in the legion is too bad since they feed you, you are safe and in exchange you just have to work for the legion, although i'd still prefer freedom). House on the other hand has a very strong vision for vegas and truely does care for the future of mankind, but he doesn't care very much about the day to day well being of his people. Indy is open to interpretation so i won't go into it. All of them will fall but which one will help the most in the long term future and the short term current times, cuz none can do both.

Ah, I see. I think we may have misunderstood one another. I was using 'self-government' as synonymous with 'democratic participation' (as in, the Mojave ruled by the people of the Mojave, not the Courier), but I realise that it can be taken another way. The way I envision the 'ideal' Indie ending is one where the Mojave unites into a republic under the Courier, who uses his/her position of power and universal acclaim to slowly get them into the habit of democratic government. (Because democratic culture must be slowly fostered.)

I have rushed through a Legion playthrough, but I've also listened to all of Caesar's dialogue and read all the Legion ending slides on the wiki, so I feel like I have a decent understanding of Caesar's philosophy and point of view. I'm not one of the rabid NCR jingoists, I can see the good aspects of Legion rule. I just think the cons vasly outweigh the pros. Since this isn't a NCR vs Legion thread, I think we'll just have to agree to disagree - since my ranking of the endings go like:
1) NCR
2) House
3) Independent (Yes Man)
4) Legion,
it's clear that our political and philosophical leanings are pretty much completely opposite.


EDIT: Okay, just read beyond your reply to my post. Awesome discussion going on. Okie seems to have it covered, so I'll just chip in with one of my favourite quotes here - "Democracy is the worst system of government except for all the rest." I'll be the first to admit that democracy is flawed, but really, imo it's the least crappy of a number of bad options.

I've seen this sentiment expressed a few times, in-game and by forum members. It's always presented as something self-evident, but why? Sure, some Old World concepts led to the Great War, but other Old World concepts led to humanity surviving and rebuilding too.

Hey guys what's going on in this thr-
Oh shi wtf-

I agree all this talk about America failing and the NCR will fail too because it is based of America. Well, the whole world failed and America was the most successful nation, it developed new energy sources (fusion cells) that could sustain the world's energy needs, it made power armor and new cars, and it was winning the war. Sure a lot of bad stuff went on but things were very chaotic because the world had literally run out of resources, and people were concerned so the government had to keep the peace in some way, sure it was a little too drastic sometimes but thats just the way all governments are most times.

oops messed something up, ignore this post

You make a good point there. Some problems can run so deep that it doesn't matter which form of government the people establish, there will inevitably be conflict among the various groups of people, and the conflicts that arise could destabilize the government. Very nice, I didn't think of that.


I'm not saying that the government failed when it departed from its ideals, my point was that the necessity for the U.S. to contradict its own ideals showed some frailty in those ideals. I do, however, believe that the fact that the U.S. had a fairly noble set of ideals was far better than what the totalitarian axis powers had, even if the U.S. had to stray from them in order to wage total war against its enemies.

I suppose that is nothing more than an inherent weakness of any nation that has a set of ideals involving freedom and individual rights though, because think about a totalitarian police state -- the "ideals" are whatever the regime in power says they are, and the individual had better not defy them if he/she values his/her life. In a military sense, that makes a totalitarian nation far stronger than democratic nation that places value in individual freedom, (assuming all other factors -- industrialization, population, technology, et cetera -- are all equal) as long as the democratic nation stays in line with its ideals. The U.S. during WWII was still a democracy, sure, I'm not going to dispute that, but some American ideals were definitely altered in order for the U.S. to wage war more effectively.

And yes, I completely agree with you that if am autocratic totalitarian nation comes up with a terrible and ineffective leader (Mussolini) than it will fail far more quickly than any democratic nation would. That is a huge potential weakness for autocratic totalitarianism, and it is really a weakness that will almost certainly lead to that government failing completely in a relatively short amount of time. However, if the nation's autocratic leader is intelligent, a good tactician, and good at inspiring the majority of the people in his/her nation, than that nation can be extremely successful militarily, and, although it is less likely, extremely successful in the long term economically. All of this while still abolishing many individual freedoms and rights, which I'm not saying is a good thing at all, but still, the autocratic system can be very effective, at least from a military and economic standpoint, as long as the leader has the traits mentioned above (and more of course, but I don't need to list everything to make the point).

This is part of the reason why I respect the Legion. I believe that Caesar has created a very efficient and powerful autocratic and totalitarian nation. I think it will collapse as soon as Caesar dies, but it is still amazing what Edward Sallow managed to create, and I don't want to see it die before it has a chance to settle down a little bit. When the Legion conquers Vegas, I assume that they will focus less on war and more on improving life in Legion territory, which would be Caesar's idea of the Legion's "synthesis." So while life would still be brutal for a while, I think Legion civilian life would be something completely different than the military life that we witness in the game. There is evidence to support that civilian life in the Legion is quite good, Dale Barton seems like a pretty happy trader, and he seems to speak highly of civilian life in the Legion. So I think the Legion is a little bit misunderstood due to the fact that we only see the Legion's military life style. I hope that clears up why I rank the Legion above the NCR, it is due to both the respect I have for what Caesar has created and because I believe in the "synthesis" to some extent, at least in that Legion civilian life is already pretty good and that it will only improve once the Legion controls New Vegas.


I disagree with you there, as I see this type of riot suppression as an insight into the desperation of both the government and the people in the U.S. in the years directly preceding Great War. I am assuming that the U.S. no longer held elections at this point, although there are no facts to support it, there aren't any facts to say that there were elections during this time either, so I think we'll just have to disagree here due to the lack of facts on both sides.


I think we just misunderstood each other there, sorry if I came across as rude in my post, but I just wanted to clarify that I'm not advocating totalitarianism as a good form of government. It has its strengths and weaknesses, as does democracy, but in our world at least, I find it to be quite terrible, and certainly worse than democracy. That being said, the situation in the Mojave is in many ways far different from a lot of political situations in our world today, so I believe that different things apply, one of them being that I do not find a democracy based system to be appropriate.

What I am saying is weakness inherent to democracy is that it is run by majority vote, and the majority of people (in my pessimistic opinion at least) are easily manipulated and unintelligent. That means that elections turn into corruption festivals, where the politician with the best lies, the best propaganda, and the best speeches is likely to win. It's better than totalitarianism though, because at least the leader is changed every few years and (in most large democracies) there are separate branches of government that provide checks and balances, but there are still some fundamental flaws unique to democracy.

So:
applies for my view of systems of government in our world. The Mojave, however, is a different situation in which I believe that there are other, better alternatives to the democracy brought in by the NCR.


The main thing for me is that no one from the NCR (that we see in game) ever offers a well thought out explanation as to why NCR rule is best for the people of the Mojave. They seem to have an attitude of, "well it's capitalist democracy, no explanation needed" since that's really what you hear from people. They all say something along the lines of, "the NCR has its faults but its based on good principles and most of its citizens are pretty happy, so..." and then leave it at that. So my question is, why then does that have to extend over to the Mojave? Maybe everyone isn't going to be happy that their lives are now going to include paying taxes to support something that they could care less about, especially when they see that the NCR Mojave campaign's main goal is essentially. "Annex Vegas to help the NCR economy, acquire new territory for NCR settlers, and take Hoover Dam so that electrical power can be used in NCR territory."

Sounds a lot like the Legion to me. Conquer the Mojave out of national interest. The only difference being that Caesar believes that by taking over the Mojave, he is actually helping its people, he believes that by making them part of the Legion, he is saving them. Do I think he's right? Hell no. But it is still more noble and respectable (imo) than the NCR's reasoning which is basically, "Yeah, this whole Mojave thing is out of self-interest, but we're bringing democracy here, so that justifies it, right?" - Paraphrasing various NCR soldiers/supporters

Oh, and I think I mentioned this before, but both House and Caesar state their philosophies quite clearly, while no one (that we see at least) state's the NCR's philosophy clearly and provides sound reasons for why it is best for the Mojave. So while there isn't evidence that no one in the NCR thinks with depth about what their nation is doing, there isn't any evidence that anyone does either, while the other two factions clearly articulate their reasoning for why their plan is best. I perceived that as the writers' attempt to show that the NCR does suffer from a lack of philosophers, although we could just be perceiving that area of things differently. I should point out though that my theory gives some credibility to Ulysses, who is supposed to be a character representing Chris Avellone's views iirc.


Again, it seems that we simply disagree there. I think that both House and my idea of how the Indy ending should go are better alternatives, but again, I think that is due to our differing political opinions.


Okay, you got me there, Caesar is obviously a bias source of information, but it still stands that she was president for 52 years, and while it the system of government was technically democratic, it functioned more as a totalitarian system due to the senate not daring to oppose Tandi. I'm not saying she was some terrible oppressive dictator, but Caesar does have a point in that the NCR government functioned more like a totalitarian system during Tandi's rule. The good thing of course was that the democratic element acted to balance Tandi's power, so there is an example of democracy showing its strong points.

I had to split this into two posts, there were too many quote tags for the forum to accept it as a single post.


I don't know that Caesar really "misinterpreted" Hegal, but he certainly twisted (or if I wanted to be euphemistic, adapted) Hegal's theories in order to put reason behind his opposition of the NCR. It does make sense to some degree, I mean the thesis is the NCR itself: its government, idealogies, et cetera; and then the antithesis is the Legion -- something Edward Sallow created as a reaction to the NCR; the synthesis, well, that's open to interpretation. I already stated my theory on what the synthesis would be, but that's where it gets a little bit fuzzy, then again, we don't get a chance to witness the synthesis in game, so again, it's open to interpretation.

On the other things you mentioned, well, I think we just disagree on those. But you did mention that I think all factions are doomed, which to some extent is true since I believe there are fundamental flaws with each faction, but, at least in the fallout universe, I'm not so pessimistic and cynical that I will declare, "humans are so fundamentally flawed that any government they create will be flawed, so why bother trying." (so no, I'm not completely like Benjamin in Animal Farm ) I do have what I consider to be the "best" system for the Mojave, and it involves the independent route. I'm not going to type it now, since I've already spent a lot of time on this post, but I will post it if you like.


See my idea about Chris Avellone. Other than that, yeah, Ulysses only backup for his opinions are his personal experience, which I suppose you don't consider to be adequate, so I probably won't convince you with that argument.


Ah, now it makes more sense. I took self-government to mean something different, although this post outlines more of my qualms with democracy, so that should cover my response to why I don't believe that your ideal independent ending would work very well. I do, however, believe that democracy imposed by the Courier would be much better than the NCR's imposition of democracy since the NCR's version is, as I have explained above, motivated more by national interest than by the interests of the people of the Mojave.


Yes, I think that's what it boils down to to some extent, but I to be honest I really enjoy having these debates since they open my eyes to new ways of thinking that I never really saw before. The way I have developed all of my opinions is essentially this: I research things, I look at how the world is working now, I observe the successes and failures of different things throughout history, I read political satires and other works of literature, and then I build a theory of the positives and negatives of any given "thing." Nowhere in there are my opinions challenged by others who have gone through a similar thought process (or much of any thought process), so my opinions never grow or transform. But here, I get to discuss things with intelligent, obviously educated people (whose educations are probably far beyond my own) whose opinions I respect enough to where I can learn from them. So while it might boil down to, "we disagree," I still learn a lot from these discussions. It also makes me think about how well-written the Fallout games are (minus 3 and PoS) since they can inspire complex political discussions like this one.

Which gets me thinking....remember those Mojave conventions? Would any of you guys be interested in taking a role in another convention if I were to start a new one?

. . . .

Also, this post should cover my response to other people's posts as well, not just Okie's and Tranquillus'. As with my last post, I don't want to repeat myself by responding in the same way to a bunch of different people.

I don't know, I think you're misrepresenting the case here. Sure, there's an element of self-interest, but at least some of the NCR really does believe that the NCR is ultimately good for the people of the Mojave. Boone is one. You can disagree with their view that democracy is a worthy thing in and of itself, but representing the NCR as purely self-interested is wrong.

House and Caesar are leaders of their own factions though. The whole deal with the NCR is that there isn't one such leader you can talk to - though you can kind of deduce Kimball's philosophy without talking to him, he also quite clearly does not represent the NCR, and you'll find a bunch of NCR characters telling you or implying bits and pieces of what it means to be in the NCR that amounts to the same thing. (Cass comes to mind.) I always assumed that the reason there was no similar character on the NCR side is that we're supposed to extrapolate our real-world familiarity with the modern West's particular brand of democratic humanism onto the NCR. A Fallout: New Vegas that is made in a society with a House-style overlord would probably be more explicit about the NCR's political philosophy and less so about House's.

Alternatively I could also co-opt one of the more persuasive arguments for the Legion and say that since the NCR is a frontier zone, you can't reasonably expect to find political philosophers hanging around.

Speaking of the 'frontier zone' argument..

We're explicitly told, though, that everyone in the Legion (which I assume encompasses all Caesar's subjects, not just the military arm we see) is a slave of Caesar's Legion. There's enough indications that this slavery is closer to the antiquity/medieval Muslim style of slavery than the Atlantic kind, since some of them do clearly own property and are able to engage in trade (thinking about Canyon-Runner). But they're a Luddite civilization. Advanced medicine is closed to them so I think it's fair to assume that infant mortality rates are at pre-industrial levels (i.e. hideously high) and if you have a physically deformed child, that child's as good as dead too. It also means they don't have rights of even the most basic kind, since they are the property of Caesar. You may argue that this isn't be a big deal under the current Caesar, but he is dying, and his second-in-command Lanius is a brutal psychopath.

Another thing that makes it difficult for me to take the Legion seriously as a good choice is its misogyny. Cass and others make it amply clear that there is no place for women as active members of Legion society. I've seen the argument made that it's not misogyny because Caesar exploits everyone equally. It's always astounding to me that Legion supporters consider this a point in their favour. It's better because life svcks for everyone instead of only half of them?


Definitely! It's always awesome when there's a discussion like this, where there's a stark difference in opinion but everybody is level-headed and articulate.

I just love how discussions on here are real debates rather than the rants on "other" forums.

Oh yeah, and House:
Trying to rebuild the old world, is an idealist, best interests of humanity at heart, Democracy fails vs nuclear weapons, etc etc. I'll leave the thousand word replies to the rest of ya

I agree with the respect for Caesar since he's not some power hungry horrible person and truly cares for humanity, but similar to house he doesn't have a lot of love for his people. He has although done a great job of cleaning up raiders and such, but i think this is a perfect representation of "the ends justify the means" because how much the question is how much is that safety worth to you. As for civilian life i agree it's not as bad as it is made out to be, but your still enslaved. Btw Dale Barton is an independent trader, not a legion civilian. My comprehension of slavery in the legion would be you get a place to sleep, safety, food and water, and you just do work for the legion. For some thats a godsend but for others it's a living hell. So for someone who has a normal life and is the wasteland equivalent of "middle class" or "upper class" NCR is the obvious choice because they can afford the taxes and don't need what the legion provides. But for someone who is poor and starving it's a little more complicated because the NCR would probably provide some help and they may even be able to work their way up and get a job for a trading company or factory that comes out of the NCR, but that't not certain. I support the NCR because they provide an actual chance to live a life similar to what we have today, as opposed to a wasteland life. But i the main problem i see with the legion is that it will fall when Caesar is dead because there is really no one with his same intelligence or ideals that we know of in the legion, but im wondering if the legion falls will things just revert back to the way they were with raiders and violence or will legion territory be much more peaceful due to the obliteration of raiders.

Legion will not necceserally fall, but rather wage a civil war against eachother for power (well in theory) and Lanius (if not killed) will likely be leader.

Your right, i guess Caesar's death will only start it down a bad path.

I do believe that democracy in and of itself is a noble idea, but, from what I interpreted at least, it seems to me that the NCR leadership's reasons for annexing the Mojave are almost purely self interested. Sure some of the NCR's citizens believe that they are doing good for the Mojave, but that doesn't change the real reasons of why the NCR is annexing Vegas because those idealistic citizens are not really making the decisions (they elect the leaders, but again, that's really just a "who can manipulate public opinion the best" competition, so the leaders can still do things that the public disagrees with during their term).


That's a good point, although you would think that someone in the NCR would care enough to explain why their annexing of Vegas is a good thing for the people of the Mojave beyond, "democracy, amirite?"


That's true too.


Oh, I agree completely with that last part. The Legion under Lanius' control would be awful, far worse than any other route imo. And yes, I agree that everyone in the Legion being a slave is a bad thing, even under Caesar, just because it destroys individualism in many ways.

Maybe I should rephrase that ranking of the factions that I did earlier because I was exaggerating a lot there. Here's a detailed version of how I rank the different possible endings of the game on a scale of 1 to 100 (1 being the best and 100 being the worst) that should clarify my view of the Legion:

1.) Independent Vegas (my personal setup for the government, I'll give details in a separate post because it will be quite lon)

6-7.) Indy Vegas (Mojave is turned into a Representative Democracy in which the Courier steps down and allows representatives from each settlement -- Novac, Goodsprings, Primm, Freeside, et cetera -- to share the power of the Securitron army and to share control of the Mojave economy. The Courier would act as Vegas' representative along with one representative from each of the Three Families. A Constitution would be written to clarify that each representative has an equal say in matters, but that Vegas, being the economic hub of the area, has 4 representatives). So it would kind of be the Mojave confederation.
See, I don't dislike democracy, but I do dislike the NCR's version in many ways, and I think that small scale democratic systems work better than large scale ones (the Mojave alone works better than the NCR + the Mojave since the former allows the people of the Mojave to make decisions for their needs alone while the latter forces them to work with the needs of the NCR, which are somewhat irrelevant to them, and the needs of the NCR will always outweigh their own needs due to the Mojave's citizens being a minority within the NCR)

17.) Indy Vegas (Courier mostly stays out of the Mojave's affairs and only uses the Securitrons to keep the NCR and Legion armies away, as well as to police the Strip -- including keeping the three families in check and keeping trade routes safe)

30.) Indy Vegas (Courier Nukes both the NCR and Legion, then takes control of the Mojave and makes the economy independent from the NCR's economy. The Courier establishes the Mojave as a Unitary State in which Vegas -- The Courier + the Three Families -- makes all economic decisions. The small settlements' purposes are to keep the roads and trade routes safe, and Vegas will fund them if needed so that they can carry out this task)

36.) Indy Vegas (Courier uses Securitrons to take authoritarian control of all of New Vegas, leaving the rest of the Mojave to fend for itself)

36.) Mr. House

56.) Indy Vegas (The Courier destroys the Securitron Army, nukes the NCR and Legion, wipes out the Three Families, wipes out the Fiends, wipes out the Brotherhood of Steel, and leaves the Mojave in a state of Anarchy)

60.) Legion (Caesar is still alive. He conquers the Mojave and declares Vegas his new Rome)

70.) NCR annexes the Mojave (in the case of the long term, the NCR will move up to rank 58)

85.) Indy Vegas (Courier destroys the Securitron Army and lets the Three Families control everything)

100.) Elijah's plan; Lanius takes control of the Legion after Caesar's death; Indy Vegas (Courier renames himself, "Big Brother," uses Securitrons to monitor and police everyone in the Mojave, constantly is at a state of war with either the NCR or the Legion, gives members of the Three Families special privileges over the common citizen, and turns the Mojave into an Oligarchical collectivist state in which the Courier and the leader of each of the Three Families has total economic and social control over the Mojave.)

That should clarify how I feel about the NCR and Legion. Everything starts to go down hill after number 25 or so, and both the Legion and NCR are very low on the scale. Now I know you're going to say, "Caesar's going to die eventually, and then Lanius is going to take his place, so wouldn't the Legion always be the worst?" In the long term, yes. The Legion will end up going to hell as soon as Lanius takes control, in fact I think the Legion will destroy itself after Lanius takes control, and then the Legion would be number 100. But in terms of the current Legion (led by Caesar) and its philosophy and goals, I still rank it above the NCR for the reasons I mentioned in other posts. So in the long term, I would take the NCR over the Legion, and in the short term I would take the Legion over the NCR, but if I had a choice (like I do in the game) then I would take neither.


Here's a quote from JE Sawyer when someone asked about why the Legion seems so misogynistic:


It offers hope that members of the Legion outside of the forward camps value women as equal to men, although as you said that's kind of like saying that Caesar exploits everyone equally, which is still a negative quality of the Legion imo.


Agreed. I hope discussions in college are like this (except with real world problems of course )



Well, another thing I like about the Legion is their elimination of a class system, but again, as you said, for some people Legion civilian life would be a living hell because of everyone being in an equal, slave-like class. The NCR's structure of government, however, can allow for the wealthy to manipulate the elected government officials, which makes it look more like an aristocracy than a democracy in some ways. This could make life in the NCR a living hell for those who want to live free from exploitation by the wealthy and powerful. So both the NCR and Legion have major failings in the class system department (the NCR allows for higher classes to have more power and the Legion just turns everyone into a slave in order to eliminate class systems) which contribute to their overall problems and failings as nations.

I think of it like this. In all societies the wealthy have power, that's just the way it is. The main thing with NCR and legion though is that people of the legion are manipulated much more (even the highest ranking ones), and have much less liberties, but in order to achieve power in the legion you have to prove yourself. Now i think the idea of promoting based on merit is great, but my main problem is what counts as "merit" in the legion (how many people you slaughter in battle). On the other hand in the NCR the people in power were either born into wealth, cheated their way there, or there are a few who worked hard. Although the corrupt rich people in the ncr don't manipulate to the extent of Caesar they still do bad things, but the thing i like is that if they get caught they get punished, while in the entire legion was built off of a lie.

That's true. Can't argue that the leaders of the NCR are mainly self-interested. But that's a feature, not a bug - part of the point of a democratic government is to funnel that self-interest so that it helps the people as a whole. For the common citizen and soldiers, it's not just about "democracy hurr durr", it's the belief of being part of a "civilizing" vanguard (to my mind, that's rule of law, basic human rights, modern medicine, capitalist economy). It's no more incoherent and vague than what House or Caesar puts out.