Wulfstand
Prophet
- Joined
- Jul 13, 2009
- Messages
- 2,209
I've been blasting through the Fallout series over the past few weeks (F1, 2 and now New Vegas), and despite the fact that I hate the game's engine, I've grown to really like New Vegas' story and characters. By the time I reached the Lonesome Road (which I think is the best of the 4 dlcs, both story and gameplay wise, despite the on-rails nature of both of them), I got pretty immersed into the whole game and started to accept it as a good sequel to the first two games, a diamond in the rough.
But enough about that, let's talk about what we think is the best ending for the Mojave. It's what caught my attention the most throughout the game. Fallout New Vegas is probably the most "political" game in the series. Politics is what drives the main storyline of the game. As expected, when it comes to politics, most people will have their own individual interpretation as to what should and should not happen to the Mojave, and that's what should make the thread interesting. I'll go first.
Initially I was thinking on joining the NCR, which I imagine is what happened to most people during their introductory hours of the game. The NCR were the only familiar group I could recognize in NV's setting, after having finished the first two games. Tandi's bears grew big enough to engulf most of the West, and now I could help "fight the good fight" against a large group of slavers, gathered under the banner of a ruthless leader. Nipton especially was an interesting setup, as once you've seen what the Legion does with its inhabitants, it makes even less sense for the player to actually want to side with the way the Legion is depicted in that town: an army of extreme ideological terrorists, raising a whole city to the ground based solely on the way they chose to behave. That having been said, and to make a long story short, after catching up on the sum of the faults within the NCR, I lost interest in ultimately siding with them for the battle at Hoover Dam.
An interesting point that swayed me in other directions was this quick conversation that you get to have with Caesar. I don't know much about Hegelian dialectics. He's arguably one of the most difficult philosophers within the whole Canon, from what I've read. This post mentions that J.E. Sawyer specifically wanted to add in the Hegelian explanation for Caesar's reasoning. In any case, that conversation made me understand the political conflict easier. What I gathered, was that neither the NCR, neither the Legion were the right answers, they simply acted as thesis and antithesis. Later on, Ulysses tells you of the same idea, in his final audio-log. A corrupt democracy against a harsh, totalitarian autocracy. Both would eventually see their demise: the Legion would fall in disarray once Caesar died, whereas the NCR would lose states due to insufficient troops and incompetent governance. Caesar(/Sawyer)'s resulting synthesis out of the conflict over Vegas could only be either House, or Yes-Man. I might just be heavily internalizing it.
To cut to the chase, I think that ultimately the best ending is for you to side with Mr. House. Yes-Man is a risky bet that requires the player to pay close attention to a lot of the side-quests, and even then the results might vary. House is the safe bet.
Something that I've read around the internet and I wholeheartedly agree with is how the developers didn't have either enough time or budget (or both) to more amply develop Caesar's Legion. You only get to see the Legion's war-fort and none of the communities that live under it. Ulysses tells you that Caesar's Legion does a much better job at taking care of its public than the NCR does, an opinion that is echoed by a few traveling merchants that you get to meet. Of course, the Legion's harsh conquering tactics would fit a post-post-apocalyptic Wasteland that's striving to rebuild its society (while still being filled to the brim with either murdering bandits or mutated monsters) way better than it would our own world. But with what little we get I feel like the average modern player, after Nipton, will just see them as an ISIS correlative and keep it at that. Most of your followers won't agree with your siding with Caesar. Arcade Gannon even kills himself if you sell him to Caesar as a slave, despite being the latter's personal favorite talk-buddy. Then again, Cassidy's daughter ends up spewing a bastardized quote from Fitzgerald as her dying words if you decide to side with House, which I guess should be the developers' way of saying that you should probably side with Yes-Man and rule the Mojave yourself instead?
But enough about that, let's talk about what we think is the best ending for the Mojave. It's what caught my attention the most throughout the game. Fallout New Vegas is probably the most "political" game in the series. Politics is what drives the main storyline of the game. As expected, when it comes to politics, most people will have their own individual interpretation as to what should and should not happen to the Mojave, and that's what should make the thread interesting. I'll go first.
Initially I was thinking on joining the NCR, which I imagine is what happened to most people during their introductory hours of the game. The NCR were the only familiar group I could recognize in NV's setting, after having finished the first two games. Tandi's bears grew big enough to engulf most of the West, and now I could help "fight the good fight" against a large group of slavers, gathered under the banner of a ruthless leader. Nipton especially was an interesting setup, as once you've seen what the Legion does with its inhabitants, it makes even less sense for the player to actually want to side with the way the Legion is depicted in that town: an army of extreme ideological terrorists, raising a whole city to the ground based solely on the way they chose to behave. That having been said, and to make a long story short, after catching up on the sum of the faults within the NCR, I lost interest in ultimately siding with them for the battle at Hoover Dam.
An interesting point that swayed me in other directions was this quick conversation that you get to have with Caesar. I don't know much about Hegelian dialectics. He's arguably one of the most difficult philosophers within the whole Canon, from what I've read. This post mentions that J.E. Sawyer specifically wanted to add in the Hegelian explanation for Caesar's reasoning. In any case, that conversation made me understand the political conflict easier. What I gathered, was that neither the NCR, neither the Legion were the right answers, they simply acted as thesis and antithesis. Later on, Ulysses tells you of the same idea, in his final audio-log. A corrupt democracy against a harsh, totalitarian autocracy. Both would eventually see their demise: the Legion would fall in disarray once Caesar died, whereas the NCR would lose states due to insufficient troops and incompetent governance. Caesar(/Sawyer)'s resulting synthesis out of the conflict over Vegas could only be either House, or Yes-Man. I might just be heavily internalizing it.
To cut to the chase, I think that ultimately the best ending is for you to side with Mr. House. Yes-Man is a risky bet that requires the player to pay close attention to a lot of the side-quests, and even then the results might vary. House is the safe bet.
Something that I've read around the internet and I wholeheartedly agree with is how the developers didn't have either enough time or budget (or both) to more amply develop Caesar's Legion. You only get to see the Legion's war-fort and none of the communities that live under it. Ulysses tells you that Caesar's Legion does a much better job at taking care of its public than the NCR does, an opinion that is echoed by a few traveling merchants that you get to meet. Of course, the Legion's harsh conquering tactics would fit a post-post-apocalyptic Wasteland that's striving to rebuild its society (while still being filled to the brim with either murdering bandits or mutated monsters) way better than it would our own world. But with what little we get I feel like the average modern player, after Nipton, will just see them as an ISIS correlative and keep it at that. Most of your followers won't agree with your siding with Caesar. Arcade Gannon even kills himself if you sell him to Caesar as a slave, despite being the latter's personal favorite talk-buddy. Then again, Cassidy's daughter ends up spewing a bastardized quote from Fitzgerald as her dying words if you decide to side with House, which I guess should be the developers' way of saying that you should probably side with Yes-Man and rule the Mojave yourself instead?
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NCR 
