The women of Caesar's Legion shouldn't have all been slaves

[RNGsus]

Wait, I thought any choice but Mr House was evil.

Not evil, but stupid. Who would fight for somebody else and get disposed off on the first opportunity, like it happend with the previous commander. Or in the best case getting a small monetary compensation for the "honorable" service by putting your life in danger.
Serving Mr House and later disposing him off was the only logical course of action. As some roman maniac, who liked beeing surranded by fatty healthy looking sleek heads that sleep at night than by lean and hungry man, said: "I would rather be first in a village than second in Rome."
F:NV would have been an other game if you could take over the Legion or become a dictator of the NCR. Then perhaps most people here would choose the Legion or at least seriously think about it (your own slaves, booze and guns).

My only complete plays were Mr House or bumping him off. We were the only two people in wasteland with any sense. (Benny's idea, true, but he was unlucky.)

 

[Trashos]

t doesn't seem very realistic that any women would want to be involved, by choice, in a society which considers them to be breeding machines that must be made available to whatever man wants them.

Well, I have asked for evidence that this is what's going on, and I have been given none. I am waiting patiently. I have not seen it or remember it myself (but then again, I am not a Legion player).

Then we can discuss if such a strategy even makes sense for the Legion or if there are any such historic precedents. Without ever having seriously thought about it, my view was that the Legion was getting the soldiers they needed from the tribes they conquered. Now Roguey here and Josh (in Tumblr) are saying that Caesar's plan about women is that they should give him as many soldiers as possible in... 15+ years. I don't know, I am not sure that it sounds like a logical plan or that the Legion actually needed such a plan.

However, I am all open ears to hear how this argument is supported in-game and historically.

In short, you are taking it for granted that this the Legion's plan, while I am asking "Is this really the Legion's plan?" and "Why did this have to be the Legion's plan?".

 

[Egosphere]

You're misunderstanding life expectancy.

Child mortality rate drives down life expectancy, but that doesn't mean most people would literally live into their early/mid 20s. The result was that lots of people die young, but if they survive they live an expected life, even if it's just into their 50s or 60s.

Yes, but Rome had obligatory military service for men that suppressed their life expectancy even further. Only ~45% survived to finish it. What I was getting at was the differential in life expectancy, even though, as you've stated, child mortality was the great equalizer.

Edit: also the slave population didn't live nearly as long. They made up a sizeable % Rome

 

[Drakortha]

Speaking of Legion and NV (and women), I've been working on a new movie the past week that includes all 3.



It's largely incomplete (full video will be 6+ minutes long) but as you can see women can totally be warriors (or assassins) for the Legion. Just needs some imagination..

 

[Endemic]

Yes, but Rome had obligatory military service for men that suppressed their life expectancy even further. Only ~45% survived to finish it.

That's why it took the Legion literal years to recover from the first assault on the Dam (Joshua Graham was punished for that failure).

Edward Sallow as Caesar isn't oblivious to the fact his faction isn't the same as the Rome we know.

He then goes on to compare himself to the historical Caesar:

It wouldn't take much for a Legion quest to involve escorting merchant caravan and then violently butchering any raiders that try to plunder them. After you brutally interrogate them for their camp locations of course. Follow this up with a counter-raid on their camp and slaughtering to the last man and that's Legion's efficiency explained.

You wouldn't need this quest to take place in Mojave. Legion officers can teleport you to 'somewhere in the east' for you to help with the war efforts. NCR quests, in contrast, should involve double-dealing officers who aren't paid enough and try to make do by accepting bribes from raiders or skims caps off shipments with 'administrative fees' and such. There's your contrast.

I agree, I would have liked to see more quests like that on the Legion route. There are corrupt and deeply flawed individuals in the NCR (Colonel Moore for example), but there are also enough "good" people within it that Caesar's opinion is suspect. The Courier can intervene to fix a lot of NCR problems in the Mojave, but the same doesn't apply for Caesar's Legion.

 

[overly excitable young man]

Imagine having the gall to be a perfectly healthy and fertile woman after a nuclear apocalypse, the Legion was not only right but also morally superior to them with every consecutive rape, the women trying to hide their previous reproductive capacity from the world, selfishly and without remorse

Isn't that just Fury Road?

 

[overly excitable young man]

Rape is not the best thing in the world!
Women are mammals too!

 

[Mark Richard]

While both the NCR and Caesar's Legion are at a similar stage of expansion and face the same make-or-break crisis in New Vegas, only the NCR have two previous games of backstory. We witnessed the NCR's conception (and even had a hand in it), and its rise to power in Fallout 1 & 2. Caesar's Legion had one game to distinguish themselves and most of the related content was cut due to time constraints. It's tricky to make any strong argument one way or the other as we're left trying to piece together the writers' intentions from games media interviews. Maybe Caesar's Legion really are supposed to be as unequivocally bad as they appear in-game. An Obsidian Fallout sequel held deep within Legion-occupied territory would've presented an opportunity to show them in a more nuanced light.

 

[Roguey]

Well, I have asked for evidence that this is what's going on, and I have been given none. I am waiting patiently. I have not seen it or remember it myself (but then again, I am not a Legion player).

Boone talking about his wife:

Yeah. What they do to women... that's worse than death. There was no choice in what I did.

Canyon Runner at Cottonwood Cove:

It's a weak bunch, to be honest. I'd rather have extra currency to buy supplies or better captures off traders.

There's a boy, too old to be trained as a Legionary. Normally they have to die, but he's too frail to make trouble.

The old woman's dried up, but she could keep house or do gardening - if she can learn to keep her mouth shut.

The girl's the only one of real value, young enough to breed, not hideous to look at. What's your offer for the lot?

Then we can discuss if such a strategy even makes sense for the Legion or if there are any such historic precedents. Without ever having seriously thought about it, my view was that the Legion was getting the soldiers they needed from the tribes they conquered. Now Roguey here and Josh (in Tumblr) are saying that Caesar's plan about women is that they should give him as many soldiers as possible in... 15+ years. I don't know, I am not sure that it sounds like a logical plan or that the Legion actually needed such a plan.

What happens to the Boomers if you ignore them on the Legion path:

The Boomers defended themselves against many attacks from the Legion, but they eventually fell to the Legion's superior numbers. The Legion enslaved the Boomers and erased any memory of their existence from the wasteland.

The Legion wins battles by overwhelming their opponents through superior numbers, for that you need a lot of people.

 

[laclongquan]

I said before, and I repeat here

As long as you have a snazzy uniform and some highminded platitude (even if lies), you can always rely on suckers to defend your atrocities.

Caesar's Legion is just a most obvious example of it in game.

 

[Nerevar]

People thought the Legion was evil? They seemed like the good guys compared to the NCR, can't think of a single redeeming quality about the NCR.

 

[overly excitable young man]

Some people would even kill their own brother for their sick rome fetish.

 

[laclongquan]

People thought the Legion was evil? They seemed like the good guys compared to the NCR, can't think of a single redeeming quality about the NCR.

NCR has very rare case of famine? Population explosion to the point so much of them pour into the desert that is setting of FNV?

 

[Trashos]

Roguey,

There are three main issues:

1) The Legion are presented in the game as rapists. Josh and you are saying that there was actually a logical plan behind the rapes. The first issue is: Is the logical plan behind the rapes presented WITHIN the game? Because if it isn't, then the Legion were left to look like mere rapists and whatever plan is only in Josh's head.

2) Now let's assume the first issue does not exist. WHY is this the Legion's plan? History (and Roman history too) is full of desperate expansive wars, when have we seen someone try to enlarge their army through rape? Is Caesar copying someone or is he innovating?

3) Now let's assume that the two issues above do not exist, and that enlarging an army through rape actually makes practical sense. Out of all the possible plans for Caesar, why was the rape plan CHOSEN by the narrative designers? He is not the first one who is having an expansive war and needs numbers, there must be other plans too.

 

[Twiglard]

Obsidian tried to portray their main factions as the grey and the greyish evil. I don't really know why they do that instead of straightup having grey vs grey.

Also, why do I have to shoot up House just to let BOS live. FFS.

 

[abnaxus]

Frumentarius.

 

[overly excitable young man]

The things you actually see in the game show the legion just as another raider gang larping as legionaires.
So i don't think that the whole rape stuff doesn't make sense.
If we would see their society it would be another matter.

 

[vota DC]

Frumentarius.

Legion could employ older women for that, they would do a great job because nobody would suspect them. The problem could be travel between wild places, ncr land or even worse Independent lands aren't that patrolled.

 

[overly excitable young man]

Was Manson just a Frumentarius?

 

[AW8]

No Legion character references "a wife back home" in non-Legion runs. All it would take is one of the Legion characters to say such a thing, but there is none of it.

Since they're an army of slaves used to wage constant war, marriage would be a completely nonsensical thing for Legionnaires. At most, they're ordered to knock up some female slaves every once in a while before they're sent back into the field.

That's not how it works. There are men happy being Legionaries. We meet several in the game. We meet no women who are happy being with the Legion.

Of course the Legionnaires are happy, they've been brainwashed since birth to worship Caesar and know no other life.

I have discussed previously that the apparent misogynism portrayed in the game has nothing to do with the core Legion system, it was totally unnecessary, bad world building, not roman-like, an inconsistent gameplay device when the PC is female, and I believe it was done on purpose to undermine Caesar's system. Very disappointing moment in a favorite game with otherwise impressive world building.

Yes, there is a problem with some writers going too far with the misogyny angle making Legionnaires come off as undisciplined jocks. I think Sawyer even agreed with this when replying to a Tumblr question.
There is also the well-known problem of the game being slightly overscoped for the development period, which caused them to cut the planned non-frontier Legion areas which would have showed safe towns where men and women live their lives without being disturbed by their strange guardians.

But you keep refering to the Legion as soldiers and not slaves, which is simply wrong. A soldier may be conscripted into an army for a time, but the idea isn't that he or she will stay a soldier for the rest of their life.
A Legionnaire on the other hand, and let's make it clear that the Legion only consists of men, is chosen for the Legion at a young age. No one joins by choice. And no one quits the Legion, the only way out is death. Why?
Because the Legion is entirely made up of slaves. Beginning to end, Caesar owns them.

Female slaves in Legion territory are mostly used for breeding, but there are other uses. In the Fort you meet Siri who because of her previous medical training works as a healer, and Ranger Stella who due to her prowess at killing works as a gladiator.
None of these are happy about their lot in life because they are recent captures, but there should logically be women who've been raised since childhood to worship Caesar and would be happy to spread their legs for his cause. I don't think any are in the game though - again, the Legion was a victim of overscoping/not negotiating for a longer development time.

But while slavery is practiced in Caesar's territories and his army is entirely made up of them, there are free people living there as well (remember that Caesar controls four gigantic states). As the game doesn't take place there, I think the only one we meet is Dale Barton who hails from Arizona. He paints Legion territory as very safe, and that's how it logically should be for its subjects, allies and non-aligned visitors like the Courier (male or female).
The Legion are not savages. They are clearly the most disciplined faction in the entire game, and follows orders without question. If they're ordered to protect visitors they will do so until their last breath. If higher-ups believe visitors are NCR spies and order their Legionnaires to gangrape, enslave and crucify them, they will follow that order without blinking. They are extreme, and behave more like machines than men. A military officer's dream.

 

[Roguey]

Roguey,

There are three main issues:

1) The Legion are presented in the game as rapists. Josh and you are saying that there was actually a logical plan behind the rapes. The first issue is: Is the logical plan behind the rapes presented WITHIN the game? Because if it isn't, then the Legion were left to look like mere rapists and whatever plan is only in Josh's head.

2) Now let's assume the first issue does not exist. WHY is this the Legion's plan? History (and Roman history too) is full of desperate expansive wars, when have we seen someone try to enlarge their army through rape? Is Caesar copying someone or is he innovating?

3) Now let's assume that the two issues above do not exist, and that enlarging an army through rape actually makes practical sense. Out of all the possible plans for Caesar, why was the rape plan CHOSEN by the narrative designers? He is not the first one who is having an expansive war and needs numbers, there must be other plans too.

It's not explicitly stated, so one must infer it. It was certainly an oversight of Gonzalez for there to not be an option to ask Caesar about this aspect of the Legion. There's historical precedent, sure though as far as I can tell no one's been as autistic enough to state this as an explicit goal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forced_marriage#In_armed_conflict Caesar is basically Josh thinking "If I were freed from the constraints of morality, what would I do to achieve my goals to conquer an untamed wasteland?"

 

[Latro]

Caesar is basically Josh thinking "If I were freed from the constraints of morality, what would I do to achieve my goals to conquer an untamed wasteland?"

he'd want to do that with or without morality, i think

 

[The_Mask]

The Legion are not savages. They are clearly the most disciplined faction in the entire game, and follows orders without question.

I agree with your post, except there are sentences like "strong as a house" or "the house always wins", House's secret weapon is in a bunker, NCR HQ is in a military base, or House lives in a tower - meanwhile the Legion is pretty much all tents.

I think the Legion was drawn to be in the image of its creator: strong, disciplined, ruthless, cunning, but (in the end) brittle.

This is just a theory though. I might be wrong.

 

[aweigh]

Legion seems to be having fun here

 

[The Brazilian Slaughter]

>durr Ceasar is who holds it all together
>the Legate is a mindless brute who can't lead shit
>it'll all turn to shit

>meet Lanius
>an even more striking presence than Edward
>commands double the authority
yeah, nah, the Legion will be alright

Lanius is too extreme tho. Its like he has a flowchart for solving all his problems, and they all lead to "Ultra-Violence". Dude can't do anything without murdering fuckloads of people.

"If I were freed from the constraints of morality, what would I do to achieve my goals to conquer an untamed wasteland?"

Create a faction of Transhuman Technophiliac Monarchical Naval Eugenists?