Fallout: New Vegas

Ten intelligence Courier, that sounds like the sort of thing you'd be expected to do. Gain computer access and look for instructions. Even a smart man like House would need notes in case he forgot something.

Well, that's the Courier. If Caesar had access to someone like the Courier, he wouldn't need the Courier. And there ain't nobody like the Courier. Other than possibly the Lone Wanderer, Chosen One, Vault Dweller, and maybe the Sole Survivor, I never finished Fallout 4.

All Fallout P Cs are the same in that they can be anything at all. So any one of those could potentially help here, if not for that pesky time-period issue.

I just saw Dark Knight Rises for the first time and I want to do Independent now just so I can imagine my Courier saying "I give it back to you... The People." That pause is everything, though. You need that pause to properly convey the contempt.

If I want to continue further on the NCR route in this playthrough I'm currently doing I'm going to have to go and see that horrible bitch Cassy Moore in Hoover Dam. And in the best traditions of the toddler throwing stuff out the pram and having a tantrum "I DON WANNA DO THAT!" I can't stand the bloodthirsty meddling rat bastard. The only thing that ever appealed to me about Sawyer's Mod is that in the mod, her Karma gets set to Very Evil, which is what she is.

Why oh why can't I just keep working for Hsu or even Crocker? Why are all the end-gameish missions gated off behind her? It sucks.

Mind you, to please one of my hookers in the mod I'm currently doing - "Coito Ergo Sum" if you're at all interested - I'm planning on letting the Legion assassinate the NCR president, as she wants both him and Sallow murdalized as revenge for her former boyfriend being killed by the Legion, and her only getting some form of death benefits by being forced into sex with his skeevy boss, and I've absolutely no problems in seeing both of those swines bleed. But it will probably screw with getting a good ending with the NCR.

Really? She's just a petty asshole, but it's not like she plans to enslave or slaughter the entire population of the Mojave or place the entire place under her shriveled autocratic thumb. Evil might be accurate, but very evil is kind of an exaggeration. Also, I'd still rather work with her than House or Caesar.

I mean, she's not a good person, but I'm pretty sure she doesn't even make the top ten of worst people in Vegas, even after you write off the entire Legion.

Also, still not the worst miskarmaing of a Fallout character - mass murderer Roy Phillips is legitimately very evil and the game has the gall to give the unrepentant shitlord very good karma.

edited 13th May '17 7:36:05 PM by Balmung

If you're curious, there are a few quotes from Sawyer here justifying the change. I think it is just a change to straight Evil, though. My personal opinion is that Very Evil, if character karma is going to be a thing, should generally be reversed for larger-than-life evil characters like Burke or Cooke-Cooke.

Roy Phillips is hilariously mistyped. In that case, I'm pretty sure it's just set up so that the PC gets negative karma for killing him in the quest, but he'll even agree to help nuke Megaton, which really should put him on Tenpenny's level at least.

edited 13th May '17 7:48:29 PM by Lavaeolus

What exactly is so evil and petty about wanting to take down a street gang and a terrorist group?

edited 13th May '17 8:01:45 PM by Nikkolas

I wouldn't call the Kings a street gang since they do largely seem to be acting for good and helping out people (Clean water and assholes not-withstanding) and who is the terrorist gang?

The Brotherhood. I'm echoing House's view of them since it was the smartest thing he ever said:

Even though we can make them not be a ter-

I just remembered we have access to the Fourth Wall. They do not. Of course they'll be seen as a terrorist group to the characters.

Meanwhile we players know that by getting them to ally with the NCR they'll drop their insane techno-hording and actually patrol trade routes.

'Terrorist' as a term gets thrown around a lot, and not appropriate here, I think. The NCR's the one who encroached on the Brotherhood's turf, here. The Brotherhood have been reduced to outlaws and high-powered bandits at this point, and I'm not going to defend what they do to the Followers and various other innocents who suffer as a direct result of their fanaticism, but terrorist is still the wrong word.

...On the other hand. The Brotherhood's mandate of hoarding all technology and preventing else from getting their hands on it has lost all meaning, at this point— in the first game, it made sense not to let powerful weapons fall into the hands of primitive farmers, raiders who'd drugged themselves into psychosis, and mutants who were already dangerous enough. But the NCR (and House) are actually rebuilding the old world, they probably stand the best chance of doing it, and if not them, who? The Brotherhood's dogma has lost all coherence. The whole point was to keep the technology safe because the world needed time to recover from the Great War. Well, guess what? Time's gone by, and the world is recovering.

edited 13th May '17 8:28:27 PM by Unsung

Aren't they making similar arguments about Boston in Fallout 4?

In Boston they might actually be terrorists, I don't know. I haven't beaten the game, but they seem to have regained some of their former vigor, which suggests some kind of shift, and I got the distinct impression talking to Maxson the first time that he wasn't really that nice a guy.

edited 13th May '17 8:36:57 PM by Unsung

Personally, I have no issue with Col. Moore's stance on the Kings. The Kings, especially under the command of the de facto leader of the gang are basically street thugs and the actual head of the Kings won't do shit unless he owes you an unrefusable favor. The King is a weak and ineffectual leader who gives Pacer far too much authority to go around making everything worse while the King lazes about in his little theater, ignoring the serious problems around him.

I actually cannot recall any member of the Kings doing community service, though I can recall many instances of them (okay, like half of the time, it's Pacer, but fuck Pacer so much) doing the opposite.

Also, I don't care much for their taste in music.

The Kings do reward you for getting high approval in Freeside, and the Followers usually speak highly of them except in regards to the water situation. And the very fact that the Kings are willing to solve the problem diplomatically (when it becomes clear to the King that Pacer started the mess and the NCR aren't just being imperialists) proves they're not just a bunch of street thugs. Freeside lacks the resources and logistics to create a functioning police force (House's robots don't help them. And he is a dictator.), the Kings are the best they have. And the NCR cannot come in there, destroy them, and claim they are bringing democracy to the Mojave. Because then it is clear they care more about NCR citizens in territory that does not belong to the NCR.

Moore is not willing to engage diplomatically at all with the factions of the Mojave, and you cannot call the NCR a democratic nation ruled by justice and law while having their leaders engage in that behavior. If the NCR wants to have any right, morally speaking, to be in the Mojave, then those leaders must be removed. And if they are not, and continue to expand, then they are also nothing more than thugs; just ones with more people and bigger guns. Not the Legion, obviously, but pretty damn close to the Brotherhood.

Edit: In addition, the Brotherhood and Khans are tribal groups. They're not a bunch of people hanging out. They have children, elderly, and non-combatants. If you want to say destroying them is necessary to prevent greater tragedy, go ahead. Though destroying the Brotherhood is unnecessary in NCR endings (and even counterproductive), and the Khans can leave with the Followers of the Apocalypse as their allies (hinting they'd probably raid less and sell less drugs). But I see destroying them unnecessarily as being closer to petty revenge and murder in some cases.

Destroying these groups is unnecessary, and is actually counterproductive. The Brotherhood and Kings can help the NCR.

edited 14th May '17 12:16:40 AM by SilentColossus

I will admit that I was slightly wrong - if you go to Hsu, there is, in fact, a diplomatic solution that doesn't involve the King owing you a super-special unrefusable favor.

I however, remain entirely unsympathetic to the Kings because Friendly Neighborhood Gangsters are still fundamentally gangsters. At the very least, they offer really shady "protection" services and extort certain people for water.

That they can be redeemed doesn't make me like their current state. From my perspective, both removal + replacement with actual law enforcement and alliance (contingent upon the expulsion of Pacer) are both improvements on the Freeside status quo.

Though I admit that my perceptions may be colored by my dislike of the two highest-ranking Kings. The King takes no initiative to keep his group in line, and Pacer only takes initiative to fuck everything up. You've got a pair of anarchists, the former of which is basically the decent kind, save for being a Horrible Judge of Character, and the latter of which is the kind who basically wants anarchy so he can profit from it as a king, taking from the weak and enriching himself.

Also, their gimmick is lame.

---

Why do people like sending the Khans away with the Followers to make an empire of their own? Why is Khanate imperialism so much more acceptable than NCR imperialism? Yes, they make fewer drugs after that (though I consider any continued production unacceptable), but they're still a violent warrior culture only barely better than the more common raider rabble that nobody every declares What Measure Is a Mook? over, and I would hesitate to wish them upon even the worst of neighbors. At the very best, they're basically doing exactly the same thing everyone gets in a huff about the NCR doing (you know, forcing their will, culture, and rule over native peoples), and at worst, they're basically Legion-lite (Kill Em All and repopulate their lands with your own).

There is no good outcome for the Khans because their beast outcome is someone else's misfortune (but I guess it's okay because we never meet anyone from Wyoming), and even if they leave, I would be highly skeptical of their ability to resist poking the bear yet again, just as the original Khans did to the proto-NCR, the New Khans did to the young NCR, and the Great Khans did when the NCR entered the Mojave.

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And like the other two gangs/tribes, whilst an alliance with the NCR is the best outcome, I would argue that, much as the Mojave, at least under NCR rule, would be better off without the Kings or Khans than dealing with their current forms, it would also be better off without the BOS at all than it would be with letting them just stick around.

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TL;DR version: Whilst, yes, diplomacy can produce the best results, even forcible removal of all three factions is better than letting their current toxic forms persist.

edited 14th May '17 2:05:32 AM by Balmung

Define "gangster" in this context. There was no form of government or law enforcement before the NCR arrived, and much like the Kings are only concerned with their own citizens. Indeed, it is mentioned (assuming they survive) the Kings make Freeside relatively safe even if the NCR is kicked out of the Mojave.

And do they extort people for protection? Aside from some working as bodyguards, which is not really the same thing. And while they do charge for water, that is a byproduct of their conflict with the NCR. And they're no worse than the water merchants.

I largely agree with what you say on the Khans, but I'd place them as being well above the Legion. Since they're working with the Followers, there is probably a greater focus on helping people (as much as an empire really can) and bringing order.

And I appreciate how the Great Khans give some personality to the "raider" tribes. Aside from the Jackals and Vipers, who seem a bit last minute (and there is only like 15 of them who do not respawn), the Khans actually have individual people among them. There are the Fiends, but they're closer to a traditional raider gang than the Khans, who are closer to actually being a tribe. The Fiends can only exist as a group that goes around pillaging and doing drugs, while the Khans can actually formulate policy.

(You know, I'd have liked a quest dealing with the Khan's trade relationship with the Fiends.)

Contrast this to the relatively faceless raiders of Fallout 3 and 4, who at best, get background story on computers and notes. And I'm left wondering where they keep coming from.

edited 14th May '17 2:38:12 AM by SilentColossus

I think the point of sparing the Khans is that they have women and children. Non-combatants. Go ahead and talk to Boone and his veteran buddy in Novac about Bitter Springs. That was basically the same thing as wiping them out here . . . and it scarred those two for life. So, go ahead, justify killing them off as better for everyone else. Doesn't change the fact that wiping out the tribe involves war crimes. I don't think anyone actually advocates leaving them in their current state. They just advocate going for diplomacy and trying to fix the situation.

Sure, FOR NOW there's still drug production. Who besides Bethesda can say what kind of long-term impact the Followers will have on the Khans? Given a generation they might clean up their act. With Followers around to teach the Khans' children, you might see the Wyoming Khans create a state worthy of inclusion in the NCR when they get there. Because, let's face it, unless they implode in the meantime, the NCR is going to continue to expand. Unless they find other empires out there that can stop them dead (I honestly don't think even the Midwest Brotherhood could totally do that, though of all the Brotherhoods I maintain they are the best) the NCR is pretty much going to go through Manifest Destiny over the course of a few generations.

From what we see, the Khans aren't really much more violent than any other tribe or town which has to survive out in the Wastes, and like many tribes, they're misled by Caesar into believing the Legion is more honourable than it is.

The Khans of FNV have grown up a lot since the original Fallout. They're more of a Proud Warrior Race to the Legion's Horde, and with the Followers' influence, they have a chance (though only a chance) at recovering old-world knowledge and values which differ from the NCR's path of becoming pretty mch exactly the same as the pre-War US, and apparently just as corrupt. It seems like the Khans' new empire comes more out of colonizing Wyoming and the Great Plains, which from the sound of things are mostly empty, as opposed to subjugating them, and in a country as big as the US, there's certainly room to spread out without actually conquering the people you meet along the way.

I don't know if the Khans' hypothetical empire would be so much better than the NCR, but giving them the chance to try is definitely better than exterminating them all, especially with the mediating influence of the Followers. In the same way, drugs can be a terrible thing in the Wastes, you only need to look at the Fiends to see it— but having the knowledge and skill to create sophisticated chems out of a tiny little trailer with a two-person team? There are a lot of chems which could benefit a lot of people if that old world chemistry know-how could be reclaimed.

On a more minor level— the Kings provide protection for Freeside. The impression I get is that they charge a water fee to travellers passing through Freeside to the Strip (and there are a lot of them, usually loaded up with cash), but they pour most of the caps they make back into the community, who are not charged. Like Megaton, if your reputation with Freeside is high enough, the Kings are the ones giving back to you. They might be a gang, but it's more like Robin Hood's outlaws than a bunch of Mad Max-style raiders.

The NCR doesn't seem like they'd be as good for the current inhabitants of Vegas. There are definitely worse options, but the NCR just doesn't seem to care about the actual people in the same way. Peace isn't that hard to make, and I'd be more inclined to put the burden and blame on the NCR when it comes to escalating the situation. They're a bigger and theoretically smarter than a bunch of kids playing Elvis, or some tribals who at this point are just trying not to get pushed any further out California. The responsibility is on them.

The Brotherhood is just being obstinate, but I still would prefer not to wipe them out if at all possible.

edited 14th May '17 9:27:39 PM by Unsung

There is a quest that lets you deliver drugs from Diane of the Great Khans to Vault 3 and that evil fuck Motor Runner, with the option to continue doing so as long as you want to let that evil fuck Motor Runner live, so you have to delay killing the evil fuck for the NCR bounty that Hsu pays you for bringing him that evil fuck Motor Runner's helmet until later in the game.

It's the dead-eyed monotone delivery of the way that that evil fuck Motor Runner describes killing the Vault 3 vault dwellers which makes it inevitable in every game I play that that evil fuck Motor Runner dies at my hand.

Did I mention that Motor Runner was an evil fuck?

BTW, on the possible wiping out of the Kings and the Great Khans? I tend not to do so. I really hate the idea of broadening and widening the NCR's genocidal programme in the Mojave. I couldn't stop it in California because that's all done now, and out-of-game, but there's no way in hell I'm not stopping it in the shadow of the Lucky 38 tower.

And yes I said genocidal programme. For the NCR seem hell bent on repeating the mistakes, shall we say, of every American government right up to the parting of the ways between universes that stopped the Fallout verse getting transistors and us getting fusion power plants. Chief of which was the near annihilation of every native tribe in the land that white Americans now live on.

I mean the Khans even get put on a reservation if you get them to sign a treaty with the NCR, which the latter promptly breaks. I vaguely recall them wanting to teach tribal cultures NCR values, whether the tribes want it or not, but I can't seem to find a source.

That pretty much screams historical parallels.

I'm confused why you don't just shoot Motor-Runner immediately. There's no reason to complete the quest you mentioned when you could instead keep the chems out of everyone's hands and get rid of the shitstain that is Motor-Runner.

But I guess you needed a few extra caps even though you get so many as to make even the gold bars worthless.

And were I to rule the Lucky 38, I wouldn't be so likely to suffer a bunch of chem-slinging raiders (with an established history of violently defying Vegas authority no less!). But hey, I'm sure they have something positive to contribute, or even a willingness to let those who do, do so without getting robbed. Put them in a reservation, kill them, let them become the bane of Wyoming, I don't care, just get them out of the Mojave.

Also, I'd care more about the historical parallels if the Khans weren't massive asshole victims.

edited 14th May '17 9:02:54 PM by Balmung

Caps, XP, and faction points. That's why I did the Jack and Diane quests for the Great Khans. I'm a tart, I'll work for anyone. Even the NCR. Though I always do Three-Card Bounty as soon as possible because Lily, Driver Nephi and Cook-Cook are just oxygen thieves of the highest order.

And the operative word in the phrase "Asshole Victim" isn't "Asshole". It's "Victim". You're welcome.

FYI, if you want a really good break down in how badly the "Native Americans" (a phrase that the people referred to by it really hate, by the way, since they're thousands of years older as a culture than white Americans are) have been treated by the US government and their entertainment arm in Hollywood, then you'd not be better served than to watch Rich Hall's documentary, "Inventing the Indian" - because it deals in detail with pretty much every shitty act done to those people since the ideas of both "America" and "the savage Indian" were first dreamt up.

No one's advocating keeping them around the Mojave. Ship them north where there's barely anyone, with Followers in tow, and let them create their own nation with a moderating influence to it. In the future when the NCR has a less imperialist political staff, they can see about peacefully dealing with the New Khanate.