Fallout: New Vegas

If they're going to claim that House is worse than a bunch of rapist slavers...

House never reneges on a deal, but you can't really argue with him or convince him otherwise. You can barter for more money but that's because House understands commerce and how to get people working, a few extra caps? What's that?

But when he sets his mind to a task he wants that task done, the pieces be damned. He's spent so much time as this immortal autocrat with a robot army he forgets that people don't move as mindless pawns, or alternatively he does know, he just doesn't care and wants them to do so anyways.

The Courier's Wildcard ending is great because people are free to determine their own path, but unfortunately that also means nobody's there to make sure that the social contract is upheld. A society works with law and order, a social contract to ensure stipulations such as "Don't take my stuff" are adhered to, the Securitrons won't leave Vegas because why would they?

The Wildcard ending to me is the most truly neutral ending, no gods, no kings, only man with all his flaws.

Don't get me wrong the NCR are a imperialist army, but considering they at least have a history and a system in place to deal with their president they are one of the better options because they were built over years to be a functioning government. Shame that a Government is inherently prone to corruption.

Caesar's flaws extend beyond just the slavery and rape, the flaws in his Legion are that they are based around Rome at it's fall. Caesar wipes away tribal identity in order to subsume them into the Legion, but as the Legion is not that old, the tribal identities aren't non existent anymore, thus when Caesar dies and the power vacuum is left, the tribes will revolt.

House is the darkest of greys, he's a autocrat with great visions for humanity, a future beyond Earth on worlds rich with resources, and he's rewarding. But his route involves stamping out a lot and doing what he says without question.

I wouldn't go that far by any means, but One Nation Under Copyright is a godawful dystopia and fundamentally within such a regime, everyone exists for little reason beyond the profit they can bring their bosses. If allowed to continue unchecked, House will make more "Vault 21s", debtor's prisons, and no doubt more. Housetopia is a far more boring, banal dystopia than the Legion, but I wouldn't want to live there, much as I would never want to live in Morgan Industries.

As for the Wild Card ending, I don't seem to recall it being significantly more chaotic than the NCR ending. Ultimately, most people aren't hugely interested in taking your shit or killing you for no good reason.

Edited by Balmung on Feb 19th 2019 at 8:15:06 AM

Honestly, one thing that has frustrated me ever since I played NV was how people just completely ignore the ending slides and make up their own shit. The idea Wild Card will be war of all against all is not backed up by the game, it's just how some players feel it should be. Same for "the real NCR" swooping in in the event of a Legion victory with their armies of tanks and millions of men in power armor and other fantasies that invalidate the game.

And yeah, I recently was talking about how I prefeer Brave New World to 1984 and I wondered why it is seldom used to scaremonger unlike 1984. The reasons are many but the big consistent one I was given when asking people is that 1984 is just the perfect picture of a totalitarian hellhole where misery is constant and everywhere. Brave New World offers a society where people are "happy." A lot of them are treated very well. House is BNW, promising material gains and comfort while Caesar is authoritarianism in its more transparently brutal form. But they're both awful and the former is just good at deceiving you into thinking it's not.

Edited by Nikkolas on Feb 19th 2019 at 6:24:37 AM

I'd agree with that. House's dystopia is one with gilded cage elements, but you'd still have the "Omegas" at the bottom.

It works from a species survival trait but not an individualist one.

The con to it is that the Wild Card ending is just a maintenance of the status quo of just after the bombs - tribals, allowing the beasts of the wasteland to emerge again. More death by lack of infrastructure and security.

Now, that's what Avellone wanted in a way - a status quo of perpetual Man Vs The world, rather than a restructuring of the social order.

Wild card without securitrons is basically Boston from F4. A relatively intact city with power, but no structure or anything beyond a few blocks. The choices come down to the level each player is willing to sacrifice in return for "comfort" or "stability".

Arguably, Caesars is one of the MOST stable... in the short term - as Raul and a few other NP Cs comment, Legion territory is Raider free and safe for merchants and civilians... as long as you're male (Or a priestess, apparently)

House's is the LONG term stability, but as Nikkolas says probably a seductive and austere one. You can interpret that from the vibe in the Lucky 21 - cold, wind whistling through the penthouse, near abject silence.

The NCR is the compromise - no 100% certainty, people in the Mojave buckling under the taxation of a distant power. And with corruption endemic.

I can see the appeal of the Wild Card - it is frontier spirit, independence, self determination. It is also vulnerable, considering the nature of the Fallout world and the factions. Wild Card having killed off the Powder Gangers,secured the Boomers, killed the Brotherhood and sent the Khans away / killed them; cleared the Raider vault 3 of the Fiends, then the area is... marginally safer. And as long as the legion is decapitated (LITERALLY) it's more likely to fall to infighting among the various generals, similar to how Rome fractured.

Also, with a defeat the NCR would look inward, as it's already overstretched... but it would become the next greater threat in the future, most likely; more so than the Legion as it's mechanised and (Without the legion to oppose it and drain manpower) could probably roll over NV quite easily in the future. ESPECIALLY if, as above, you've cleared out the other main pockets of resistance.

One shouldn't let one's hatred of House's technocracy or the NCR's imperialism and corruption or the Independent Ending's anarchy cause them to lose sight of just how awful the Legion is compared to all of those.

The Legion are a bunch of expansionist rapists and slavers wholly subservient to Caesar's cult of personality. There are zero redeeming qualities. Even that short-term security is just that — short-term. Even in-game there's a tacit understanding among everyone that the Legion is not sustainable and will fall apart when they no longer have anything to conquer.

The Legion are one of the worst factions introduced in Fallout that isn't the Enclave.

Edited by M84 on Feb 20th 2019 at 1:37:32 AM

With the Independent ending, there's quite a few issues with it. Oxhorn did a good video on its problems: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CNfKIDwX5kg

Among its issues: As Oliver points out, it's not necessarily possible for the Courier to build a nation. The plan is rather similar to House's, except without House. Also, Oxhorn argues that Yes Man can't be trusted.

Nothing really supports the notion that Yes Man would doublecross you. I believe that fact was confirmed by the devs, too, that the "assertiveness protocols" are there to make him more reliable or something among these lines. At best he would outgrow his programming, but considering that it's Benny who reprogrammed him, I wonder how much outgrowing would there be to begin with.

Incidentally, where did Benny learn to hack robots?

He seduced a Follower of the Apocalypse into reprogramming Yes Man for him.

Just pointing out two things:

"I'm so sick of the fact his grand promises and technology makes people think he's less evil than Caesar. Put cannibals in suits at gunpoint to make them play pretend mobsters and now you are an enlightened despot instead of a fucking lunatic." Enlightened despot *is* better than fucking lunatic.

"You cannot build prosperity under a dictatorship." Lee Kuan Yew disagrees with you.

Anyone who thinks they are an "enlightened despot" is themself a lunatic.

Also, not building a nation is literally the point of Wild Card. It's a rejection of control by states, not an attempt to Start My Own.

I'm no doe-eyed believer in how freedom is great and perfect and authoritarianism is evil and inefficient. I know about Yew and I like him as well as other more authoritarian politicians and philosophers just as I read libertarians and like them.

I personally oppose House on several grounds but I put forward the simplest and most agreeable argument against him: namely that he's a garbage human being and a madman and putting the immortal lunatic in charge of the fate of humanity is the stupidest decision in New Vegas.

Edited by Nikkolas on Feb 19th 2019 at 12:57:20 PM

Probably the second stupidest, after a female courier sides with the Legion.

If you subscribe to House being a garbage human being, of course. If you don't accept that premise then it's entirely dependent on your subjective politics.

Some societies require an authoritarian element; many developing groups need defined leadership and not committees. When they have matured and expanded that single-person leadership is either too slow or vulnerable to mistakes, that's when you switch to group leaders and representation.

It's why the Military is not lead by committee and fails when it is. But also why the military shouldn't run wider things - that leadership is good for tactical or very narrowly defined setups and objectives.

House's rulership would only cover things as long as he was interested in it or it suited his purpose - so being a "peon" within that society would probably be the worst. And probably more unpredictable as you are at the whim of someone who sees you as a cog. Although a "good" aligned courier seems to have a net positive impact on House.

As documented some pages ago, you turned out to be a fervent supporter of Caesar's Legion, so you so vehemently rejecting House on the grounds of him being a terrible human being strikes me as incredibly hilarious.

Fair enough. My clearest memory is of his playthrough of both 3 and NV a while back, which was rather unashamedly pro-Legion. (and pro-Enclave in 3)

Edited by FergardStratoavis on Feb 19th 2019 at 10:28:00 AM

While I'm still writing an argument with Nikkolas (he's mostly addressing my arguments), it should be stated he doesn't like the Legion. He thinks Yes Man is the best option (and to be fair, I think it's one of the better options even if I think the NCR is better than it). He does seem to think Legion is the worst faction.

Edited by Protagonist506 on Feb 19th 2019 at 1:30:06 AM

@Nikkolas: The lines between "good", "neutral", and "evil" are somewhat arbitrary. You can say that the NCR is neutral, House is evil, and Legion is very evil-but I'd argue such a position is not functionally much different than calling the NCR good, House neutral, and the Legion evil.

But to further argue the point, in my opinion the two biggest problems plaguing the Fallout Universe are technological stagnation and anarchy. House, at the very least, seems to recognize this and wants fix both these problems. In this context, he strikes me as a misguided anti-villain. Even his cynical attitude toward democracy feels pretty sympathetic to me, especially since he has no real desire to do much with his power. I do-strongly-disagree with it, mind you, I just can sympathize with it given what he's been through.

By contrast, the Legion is outright evil in part because they want to keep humanity stagnant and I highly question their ability to keep people secure either. They themselves pretty much are raiders.

I think the NCR is probably the best option. They've managed to address the problems of anarchy and technological stagnation and have not only succeeded, they've done so in a way that's about as humane as I think is realistic. They have their flaws, but they're the kinds of flaws that are to be expected. They are perhaps the most qualified organization to rebuild the Mojave.

With Yes Man, it solves neither problem, but it does prevent people from getting in the way of the Mojave solving those problems on their own. However, I think the realistic best case scenario for an independent Mojave is it eventually settling into a society rather similar to the NCR. In other words, it's not much better than the NCR just taking everything over.

Edited by Protagonist506 on Feb 19th 2019 at 1:51:03 AM

@Jerek Laz

Oh believe me I'm not here to talk about how we need direct democracy and action now and anything else is bad and must be avoided. That kind of talk gets old fast to me.

A good centralized leader is demonstrably a benefit to most groups. Even a figurehead as a symbol of a nation or people. But I dispute the idea that an IMMORTAL leader can ever be justified. House could be a perfectly decent person but god emperor for hundreds of years? No thanks. That's why you never go Control in ME 3 even if you have a Paragon Shep. No one being is entitled to that much power for what could be centuries.

But even if the Mojave State or Confederation or whatever does turn into something like teh NCR with time, that is their choice. Consent is always the difference maker. Evil things become at least neutral when you consent to them. I wouldn't even really oppose some Mojave Monarchy where the King became an actual King so long as it was supported by the people under his rule.

Thank you for the defense, by the way. I'll always like the Legion more than most because they appeal to me in a perverse way. I've talked about it in here before back when I played the game. I talked about how watching old propaganda videos of tanks and armies marching and stuff always got me feeling pumped. It's sort of like that. (Vulgar) displays of power and that sort of authoritarian charisma embodied by Caesar or TIM will always have a pull on me. But I don't think for a second they are good or right. They appeal to something I very much want to keep confined to video game land. But it's a part of me and I think it's a part of a lot of people. An innate desire to surrender to authority and let somebody else tell you what to do. And if that person has a cool voice-actor and leads a group with a cool theme, that helps.

That was a big problem with House. He's not very inspirational. He's not going to whip the masses into a frenzy. He's absolutely not that type of authoritarian and thus has no appeal to me.

Edited by Nikkolas on Feb 19th 2019 at 1:57:51 AM

If you had explained that years ago a lot of negative impressions of you would never have formed.

I tend to do Institute playthroughs in Fallout 4 for a similar reason (Evil Is Cool). Though to be fair I do consider them "Dark Grey" (they're definitely evil-even compared to Mr. House-though I do have some respect for them given their accomplishments).

Edited by Protagonist506 on Feb 19th 2019 at 2:14:37 AM

See that's the thing. If I would side with any grey/evil faction in FO 4 it be the Brotherhood for the same reason I like the Legion more than House. The whole...charismatic authority thing, the rhetoric and presentation, it's very visceral, designed to stir the hearts. (and turn off the mind) The Institute, going by what I saw in cutscenes with Father, is very much in line with House's impersonal "greater good." Because if you are dispassionate it means you are smarter or more scientific or something.

Put it this way - in Romanticism Versus Enlightenment (this is one of the more fascinating trope pages on here) I will pretty much always favor Romanticism. I'd prefer if it was romanticism of a noble sort of course but my personality is just drawn to that in general.

I never met the Railroad when I played and failed to beat FO 4 but they sound like they might be my jam.

Edited by Nikkolas on Feb 19th 2019 at 2:33:07 AM

The Railroad is one of the nicer factions in Fallout 4. They are rather hard to meet, though.

The Minutemen are one of the most moral factions in any Fallout game though, in my opinion.

Always found the argument against the wildcard ending weird. Because, as I said, it is how the NCR itself started and an independent city state centred around Vegas has a LOT going for it.

Well part of my defense of the NCR ending over it is that, if they're gonna turn out like the NCR, why not just have the literal NCR move in and help them get that way?

Starting like the NCR doesn't mean they'll end up as a bloated mess like the current NCR is.

But that's entirely headcanon, because we have no idea what happens in the independent ending beyond 'Vegas took their place as an independent power'. It's not perfect, of course, I'd like it a lot less if it was. Because then it'd just be a blatant golden ending.

Edited by deludedmusings on Feb 19th 2019 at 10:23:19 PM

Hm. You know, maybe the best long term solution would be for the Mojave to grow up as an NCR-equivalent, and then the two nations become trading partners and maybe even eventually a federation. One of the NCR's problems is that between its size and technological advantages, it doesn't really have anyone to compete with. They keep expanding their territory because there's no one who can stop them, and that leaves them overextended.

Likewise, any mention of the NCR's corruption is inevitably met with "at least they're better than the tiny tribes or the army of raiders." A neighboring nation might force them to excise their corruption to stay competitive.