I said this once elsewhere i’ll say it again: The NCR is our best bet at Civilization. Sure they represent all the problems we live with now, but its an upgrade from meritocracy (Mr. House) and an order of magnitude from fascist might makes right (Legion). If you want a happy ending go play a Bethesda game.
Fallout TV Show spoilersDoesn’t fucking matter anymore because Shady Sands being obliterated pretty much ended the NCR
The issue with the NCR is that they are repeating Pre-War America’s descent into fascism and Imperialism. Them losing the Dam is better for them.
That leaves House and Independent. Between the two, House is a competent dictator, and Yes Man is an unstable gamble on a much better future. Neither are perfect, but seem better than NCR, and of course all 3 are better than Legion.
I would come in here and say you’re wrong, but out of both acknowledging that nobody agrees on what’s “right” in a Fallout game, and a sense of refreshment and calm from sleep; I feel like you are owed something most internet comments don’t get. A rationale.
A lot of my sentiment and feelings on Fallout’s setting is not really informed by the game, but by the other post-nuclear fiction I’ve consumed over my life. Most notably, the film Threads which impact on me comes before Fallout (I only started playing Fallout in its wake, as I started to absorb this genre of work after seeing a friend’s bootleg VHS). If Fallout is the sometimes bleak, but at least hopeful; Threads is just plain bleak. And there can be no confusion by the time its over, there is no sense of civilization coming back to save us. This was the resounding viewpoint of nuclear war sold to us from the 1980s onward: that to stop the inevitable, we had to believe that there would be nothing worth living for.
I feel like this conflict is why Fallout ended up being the way it is. Same with Mad Max, you have to provide some sense of life after the end to even have a story, and this changes how I perceive what’s best. Any kind of civilization seems like a step up from, well, worst case scenario. Sure, the NCR is as has been pointed out, the return of all the old world’s mistakes. But to a survivor who huddled into shelter watching the world end, a return to the status quo, as bad as it is, well that’s an upgrade right?
We’re probably far away on what we think is right for the Mojave Wasteland, and that’s Obsidian’s intent.
From a writing perspective, the NCR serves as a reflection of Pre-War America’s failings. They are rapidly expanding against the wishes of the Mojave. To the survivors in the Mojave, they are invasive and stealing domestic resources.
I understand respecting the NCR’s ideal, but the people of the Mojave don’t want it.
I wouldn’t say Mr House is meritocracy, he even admits to being an autocrat. I remember watching this great video on how Mr House is basically Singapore.
Mr House is the reality of anarchocapitalism. The corporate owners become a government, and the freedom they allow extends only when it is convenient for them, and their quest to sit on a larger and larger pile of money.
As you go deeper and deeper, you find out that perhaps that goal has other purposes, but those purposes turn out to be as insane as the people they claim to be against most of the time.
House’s endgoal was actually to build a rocket and leave Earth, btw. Fallout fans might recognize this goal as being the same as Vault Tec’s, aka the Enclave’s, aka the prewar American government and oligarchy.
Which House was a part of, as the owner of RobCo.
Don’t pay attention to how he shortened Robot, btw. That was just a convenient way to name it, and has no deeper meaning.
Is it better to starve for scraps in a dead world of dwindling resources or to strive to find a new one?
Realistically irl, it’s way easier to teraform a mostly fine planet with a working magneto sphere and liquid water as opposed to going to another planet where you’d have to do all that yourself, but sci-fi likes to pretend there are thousands of lush green worlds out in the endless black waiting to be colonized.
The larger issue would be the lack of easily available fuel to rebuild earth with, an issue only made infinitely harder by being light-years away from home and starting on a new dead rock instead of a mostly dead one.
The issue is that they didn’t have FTL and House was literally delusional lol (like Howard Hughes)
That or he was planning on hitching a ride with the Zetans, but that’s a deep deep lore dive that includes a lot of the phrase “according to datamined files” or “in this deleted content”
The actual Vault Tec program was designed to learn how to make a slow-drive generation ship and survive the trip, but there’s no indications he was gathering Vault data or actually making something on that scale.
On the other hand, it’s entirely possible he didn’t look for the data because it was sent directly to him.
shady sands was not even the capital of NCR at that point, they’re still kicking its just the shady sands area was fucking demolished. its like complaining the brotherhood of steel was destroyed because in new vegas theres only a small handful in a bunker
I agree that out of the existing factions they’re the best. We also get the choice of taking over ourselves though. The issue (and benefit) is this is undefined. If we assume our player character is good and shares our morals, I think they’re the best option. We can create our own government and take lessons from the NCR, The Legion, Mr House, and also the past.
In New Vegas the NCR is clearly failing. Theyre over-extended and their political system is falling apart. Going with them just leads to the same failure. The only good option is to hope whatever the player character does is good.
The NCR seems to represent the real world government and what is normal in reality. They have made missteps that have led to tragedy but overall, are still good and probably the best chance that world has to returning to how things were before the bombs fell.
The BOS are technofascists and the Legion are Luddite fascists. They have practically the same ideas for how they want to control the world, but have opposite ideals about technology.
The only faction worse than the previous two is the Enclave, which represent the fear of government; they embody every aspect of every anti-government conspiracy featured in pop culture. The shadow government; the illuminati; the men in black.
I want to mention the Institution, but they’re just so poorly written and can swing from Enclave-like evil to not being evil at all after the Sole Survivor takes over that I honestly just hope the show never bothers to mention them because they don’t fit as neatly into the world as the rest, which were created by better writers.
I agree. And with the institute I find it particularly frustrating because of what they could be: scientists and engineers unconstrained by obligations or laws. They shouldn’t be the enclave, they should be defending themselves by talking about the calculation of the risks, and how they produced these good things as well. They should be mostly kept in check by internal conflicts and a lack of desire to rule. When they’re enclave level boogeymen they aren’t as interesting.
Kinda makes sense that emulating prewar government will have the best chance of returning life to how it was before, but then again same thing lead to the war so probably not the best option eother5
The NCR is a direct metaphor for Westward Expansion era America, complete with democratic ideals and a reality of rampant corruption, conquest of territory and the genocide of the natives, and a brewing slavery/“sharecropping” crisis. They even have a belief equivalent to Manifest Destiny, as they consider themselves the rightful inheritors of America, sea to shining sea.
The only question is whether that means the Legion is their metaphorical Confederacy, if their Slaveholder Rebellion is coming, or if maybe it’s silly to take the metaphor any deeper.
I wouldn’t say the NCR is bad per se. They seem misguided, and there are definitely bad people in it, but most of them do seem to be trying to make the Mojave a better place.
I don’t buy the game trying to tell me Caesar’s justified, though. Traders saying “they keep the raiders at bay,” as if they’re not doing just as much raping and murdering as the raiders.
The only faction I actually like is the Followers of the Apocalypse. They seem like the only ones trying to make things better without serving their own agenda. It’s too bad you can’t do more for them.
The Legion are raiders. They are just what happens when a raider gang gets big enough, they become a state/kingdom/empire, and the smaller tribal identities are devoured and before you know you it you’re on the path to a larger national identity.
Yeah, sorry, I didn’t word that well. The game makes it clear that the legion is the bad guy, I just mean the NPCs who defend the legion don’t make a very good case
How could they? The Legion is a fascist slave army, and Caesar misunderstands Hegel and misues the Dialectic. The entire nation is built on a sham, which is obvious to the player, but systemically reinforced upon the NPCs. Thus, it is believable while being undoubtedly wrong.
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