Yes, they are
Minor:
Goodsprings: It’s a small town, they don’t matter in the grand scheme of things.
Primm: same as above
Powder Gangers: Just a criminal organization. Beyond the Vault 19 ones (which seek revenge on the NCR, but don’t really have any goals), they only seek to maintain their hold over the Western Mojave and it’s a matter of time before a pissed off larger group wiped them out.
Brotherhood of Steel: A successor organization of the United States Army, focused on hoarding advanced technology out of a belief they’re inherently better than the society left standing. Isolationist, militaristic and very stagnant. There’s probably not a single good ending for the Mojave where they’re left existing.
Novac: Another case of small town, small influence. Except that they’re also near the front, so would be wiped out easily by the Legion.
Bright Brotherhood: A generic cult, which doesn’t have much appeal outside of the ghoul population.
Great Khans: A communal-living nomadic society, haunted by its roots as a criminal gang and being a victim of NCR war crimes. The ending where they leave the Mojave is interesting, because they’re said to work together explicitly with the Followers of the Apocalypse, but we’re likely never going to see what this would lead to because we’re not going to see a non-Bethesda non-mobile-shovelware Fallout game again, and especially not one set in Wyoming.
Boomers: A somewhat brainwormed isolationist community. Their enthusiastic usage of heavy artillery and the bomber from lake Mead makes them unpredictable.
Followers of the Apocalypse: A mostly humanitarian organization influenced by some left wing thought, such as community organizing and opposition to the profit motive. However, they’re a big tent organization with very decentralized structures so you have their members acting in diverse political ways. The man later known as Caesar and Joshua Graham were both members, and so is for example Bert Gunnarsson (from the Aerotech Refugee Camp) who ignored the FotA severing ties with the NCR Government to work with them anyway, or Tom Anderson who instead sabotaged the local NCR by stealing water supplies, and so is also Emily Ortal (who helped out Benny). Others, like Julie Farkas, meanwhile are more passive.
The Kings are a local gang, if more benevolent than the average.
The Omertas are scum.
The Chairmen are pretty passive political actors, except for the man, the legend, Benny. He’s a bozo and a dollar store Indipendent!Courier, but I love him.
The White Gloves are the Bourgeois of the future.
The Jacobstown mutants are a small community that wants to be left alone.
Major:
The NCR is a modern liberal state. That is, corrupt to the core, driven by bourgeois interests, led by Bozos, sustained by imperialism and on the verge of environmental collapse.
The Legion is “first as tragedy, then as farce” - Mussolini Edition.
Mr. House is a less clownish Elon Musk. He thinks he knows how to solve the problems of the world. So while he’s dreaming of sending people to space colonies within a century, he’s perfectly happy that his “lol let’s rebuild the Strip” displaced out lots of people into Freeside, turning it into a crime-filled slum.
Indipendent Vegas is left up to the players’ Interpretation + what happens to the other factions, really.
I can’t run New Vegas without my runs inevitably going Independent because it’s the least fucked option as far as I can tell
The brights aren’t a generic cult, their promised land is quite real. It’s not in space or anything, it’s just an irradiated area IIRC near california, though still close enough since some return to help Novac if you fight the Legion.
tbh I personally wouldn’t consider this a hot take as every faction has their own cons to siding with them, I wished there was another option
There is another option: Your own faction (siding with Yes Man). :P
I didn’t really like the independent option but chose it anyways because siding with NCR, House, Legion all felt trash(at least for me)
I didn’t really like the fact that the Followers got screwed over even though they were just helping people
Some of those downfalls are bugs or just not written as well as they could have been, IMO. There is no reason why the followers fall apart because you alone took over. That one always kinda felt like the bug in 2 with resolving the issue between Gecko and Vault City. Even if you do it perfectly, the ending cards don’t reflect it properly.
I had a helluva time getting what I felt is the best outcome with the Khan’s, too, because of weird script/logic bullshittery. So when it just doesn’t work mechanically, I just overwrite it with my headcanon intentions. lol
Another hot take the legion is a parody of the NCR, both recreate a government from the past that cannot survive the challenges of the post-nuclear world
Caesar literally says he based the Legion on ancient Rome because it’s as far away as possible from the NCR society, which he grew up in and despised.
His is not a progressive critique, but the Legion being a parody of the NCR is intentional.
Yes, it is something very explicit in the text, but I don’t see many people not bringing this argument
Yes, but the devs are clearly biased. The NCR which represents the US is portrayed in too much of a positive light. Their imperialism is presented in a distorted way and many times as something benign. The biggest downside of the NCR that we hear people complaining is “taxes”, this gives me “taxation is theft” vibes. Meanwhile the Legion is just god awful, the more you find out about them, the worse they get. There’s just not any competition between them. One is good the other is evil. The NCR is the West and the Legion is the East, which means West = Good and East = Bad.
This is just unnecessary fascist propaganda drilled into the game. The East is represented as a bunch of barbarians who are coming to destroy western civilization. The Legion even employs tactics of throwing bodies at the enemy without regards for their lives, which is something Russia has been accused of doing in the Ukrainian war. And of course, the Legion’s system is so horrible, so atrocious, that no one could possibly want to live in it. This is how communism is portrayed to Western masses. A system so horrible, that anything is preferable to it. So the barbaric pedophilic eastern hordes represent communism, and the minor flawed republic represents liberal democracy. This is a disgusting level of bias.
As a side note, the Arcade companion quest is just a bunch of fascist apologia. The quest tries too hard, to humanize a bunch of psychopathic fascist ex-military. But hey, at least they’re not the
CommunistsLegion, am I right?Excluding the independent ending, I think there’s a case to be made for Mr. House. Not that I’m a fan of him, he’s an embellished version of Elon Musk. But House represents the national bourgeoise while the Legion and NCR don’t. House seems to be focused mainly on Vegas, while he has no love for Freeside, at least places like Goodsprings, Primm, Novac will be left alone. But it’s hard to argue with so much bias in the game.
The NCR has way more problems than the taxation, which a lot of NPCs complain (hey, like IRL conservatives). Chief Hanlon’s conversation implies that the NCR is exhausting its natural resources from overuse, draining water from lakes etc. in the service of agrarian capital, with the profit motive being the driving force behind capitalist development there - at least according to a followers’ critique and they sustain themselves through imperialism - which is why Chief Hanlon wants the NCR to take an L in the Mojave, to discourage the country from overextension. Thomas Hildern of the OSI (who is willing to use dangerous technology and steal credits from the people working under him) implies that the NCR is heading towards famine from low soil fertility (the reason for the Vault 22 side quest). It could be interpreted (and probably was intended) as a malthusian critique, but the metabolic rift inherent to capitalist agricultural production is also playing a huge role in it.
To read orientalism from the Legion is a bit of a stretch. Even chuds are very very unlikely to use the metaphor of Ancient Rome as the evil orient or as communist, ergo this take is rare to see even somewhere like r/newvegasmemes.
There’s a case to be made that the Arcade companion quest is apologetic towards the Enclave troopers, yes. The only one among them who opposes just outright siding with the Legion in the battle is Arcade himself.
The House ending explicitly does NOT leave these communities alone. If the Kings aren’t incited to fight against the NCR, he’ll send the securitrons to kill them. If the NCR takes over Primm, he imposes a special heavy tax on the town just for the hell of it. For all his pretenses of being an enlightened impartial benevolent dictator, he’s sure petty like Elon Musk.
Overall, the devs do have a bias. Somewhere between a libertarian and a socdem one, I think.
I know the NCR has plenty of problems, but the one that seems to come up the most is taxes.
Sorry but the West vs East trope is just to much to ignore, if the NCR is the US which it clearly is, then the Legion is either the USSR or China. There’s just no other option.
Well I never said House was a good guy, it’s just that the NCR is way to benevolent in comparison. I think it’s not balanced.
Edit: I remembered that Marcus says, the Legion will fail because “Muh human nature”. Ring any bells?
something Russia has been accused of doing in the Ukrainian war.not only them and in this particular war, they also accuse soviet union to human wave the nazis away, which is funny because for a long time the red army was undermanned and undergunned still put up a fight, and this kinda of shit has even been drilled on former soviet countries. also they say the same shit about china, that their only strategy in the war in korea was send waves of people. and the same things about the mongols, they refer as horde meaning the lack the white man intelligence to form complex command structures and just run over with a ton of people. the list goes on and on, and it is always east countries
Yeah it’s orientalism, to give the impression that only the West knows precious value of a human life. Meanwhile the Asians are seen as just hordes of insects that can be obliterated by any means even nuclear. It’s no coincidence the western masses are so bloodthirsty.
Damn, even the Followers of the Apocalypse? Y’know, the only actually leftist faction in the game?
They’re really just a humanitarian org. Post apocalyptic Doctors Without Borders. The only real radical thing about them is that they do seem to try and help communities build up infrastructures to help themselves, which makes them more based than real world humanitarian orgs, but they have no ability nor desire to actually organize people to affect large scale political change and advance society.
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I forgot about them bc it’s been a long time since I last played FNV. When I say “all factions” I mean the big 4, I.e NCR, Caesar’s Legion, Mr. House, and Yes Man
you should’ve said “all major factions” then, to avoid confusion; since “all factions” include even minor factions like the followers of the apocalypse.
Thx for the advice, I’ll edit the title
Is it really that hot of a take? I thought the devs were pretty blatant about it
It’s pretty much guaranteed that Josh Saywer has said this online or in like a GDC presentation.
Its been so long since i played New vegas but i do remember the super mutant faction that lives in a mountain(?) leaving a good impression on me.
what about the one in jacobstown
yea they were pretty cool
Jacobstown is the successor of Broken Hills from Fallout 2. It was probably one of the first mixed Super Mutant/Human communities, dependent on Uranium mining.
It was marked by heavy racial tensions, and it dissolved after the Uranium ran out.
i don’t think so, the only humans present in jacobstown are the doctor and his assistant, and he is trying to do one good thing to redeem himself befofe dying, that is to cure night kins schizophrenia, not exactly experimenting living together of integrate suoer mutants back into society
No, I mean Broken Hills from Fallout 2. The only human in Jacobstown is Dr. Henry (who’s a NPC in the NCR capital in Fallout 2), the assistant is a ghoul. Marcus is also the mayor of both settlements.
Broken Hills was a mixed community, while Jacobstown is a Super Mutant refuge more or less.
Not that this is ever going to happen but how sick would it be if Caesar found a book collection of Communist works instead of Hegel.
Just imagine: the game is initially set up the same way, you are told that the legion (they would have another name ofc but I currently can’t come up with anything) is about to take Hoover Dam and that the NCR is barely hanging on. It is heavily implied that the Legion are the baddies but once you leave Goodsprings things get weird.
You can see at every corner that the NCR sucks and the more you learn about the Legion the more you realise they are actually good. All the while NCR personal is telling you again and again how evil the Legion is without the actual players perception ever reflecting that.
There would be so much potential to criticise western propaganda and hypocrisy regarding AES countries. And I think the best part would be that it would fly completely over the head of the average gamer/liberal.
NCR isn’t perfect, but it’s the most realistically “good” choice. They essentially operate like modern western governments, providing security and economic stability. Do they use questionable methods? You bet. Are they going to murder you or enslave you? Probably not. And that’s miles ahead of literally every other faction in the game.
I’d rather let the Mojave become dust than let it fall into the hands of neoliberalism /hj
Which brand of post apocalyptic authoritarian are you? Tech hoarding Luddite or Roman Legionaries cosplayer?
The NCR is therefore the least bad of the 4 imo
Fully voiced tankie faction mod when?
(I hope I’m being affectionate with the usage there)
now, lets talk about how poorly written is the BoS under bethesda developed fallouts
Fuck looks like it’s time to play New Vegas again
True. So you may as well go with the ones that have the cool uniforms. Ave Caesar!
