I think its generally safe to say that your average Legionnaire is better then your average NCR trooper. A legionnaire trains from childhood for combat and those that can't take the training die. A large portion of the NCR military we see are conscripts taken from other walks of life and some of the worst case scenarios only got two weeks training while a Legionnaire is a career soldier with nothing else in life. I'd say that it isn't numbers that is the NCR's greatest military strength but its standardized equipment that allows a two week trained conscript to stand up to a Legionnaire in battle.
As rank advances a Legionnaire closes the gap on gear and access to firearms and on the NCR side of things they get access to better training that helps them stand on an equal footing to a Legionnaire.
It depends on whether or not the vertibirds in Long 15 were supposed to be operational or not before the nuke hits to show us if the NCR had more. I would like to put an asterisk on the vertibird's performance in Fallout 4. I think we can all agree if vertibirds were truly that lame where raiders with pipe pistols can reliably score kills on them no one would ever use them. If vertibirds are that weak then we need to discuss how the Brotherhood is either the greatest salvagers and mechanics of all time able to recreate their crashed vertibirds from thousands of flaming bits or they are capable of easily manufacturing an endless amount of them given their 90% catastrophic crash rates. They always blow up and yet they always have more.
About life in California, Jas Wilkins the mess hall proprietor of Sloan.
"Born and raised. Things back in California are better than they've ever been, according to my grandpa. The Raiders are mostly gone now and it's easy enough to get a job at one of the mills or farms. But now there's taxes and laws and other things. The NCR keeps things safe and orderly, but it's all very boring. So, I came out east towards the frontier."
I'm willing to take her word on it. I think the NCR is a safer place then it was 60 years ago when Caesar's dad died and gangs like the Khans, Jackals, and Vipers hadn't gotten the boot yet. Hanlon calls the brahmin baron's raiders small time which makes me think they are cattle rustlers more then anything and raider is a catch all term for outlaws, desperadoes, bandits, and neer-do-wells. Its still not as safe as Legion territory but that's to be expected since they don't kill every adult male they come across.
I think the Legion comes across as stronger then the NCR because they aren't as deeply fleshed out. We have so much exposure to the NCR and all its dirty laundry and logistics but only the surface level for the Legion. All we're told is the Legion is brutal but secure but never see it for ourselves or hear how the people there feel about it. We never get to see how the Legion is fed and clothed or the trials of securing their territory. I think if you flipped things and we spent the majority of the game in Legion territory and only saw the NCR in a giant military base they'd come off as a stronger force.
I also don't believe Caesar would suffer House to live. The greatest threat to Caesar and his Legion is a learned man capable of challenging the narrative that Caesar sells his people. House relies on robots and advanced medicine in contradiction to Legion values. He has shown himself capable of molding backwards tribals like Caesar did. He has a better claim to immortality and divinity then Caesar. Most importantly Caesar knows House will outlive him and is capable of undoing his work.
Standardized equipment? Are you kidding? To quote the smartest man in the NCR military:
Courier: "What about the troopers?"
Chief Hanlon: "You've seen it yourself. Some of them don't even have proper service rifles or armor. Our heavy infantry, power armor units, they're back in NCR territory protecting the interests of Brahmin barons against small-time raiders."
The NCR military is so stretched thin that it's practically facing the same situation as the Russian army in WW2: there's more people than standard rifles and equipment. In some playthroughs of New Vegas, especially on lower levels, I've even seen them fight against whole squads of Legion troops armed with mere pistols. Which of course, ends badly for the NCR troops. It also explains why everyone from Fiends and Powder Gangers to even low-ranking Legion troops manage to slaughter NCR troops by the bucketloads and even take camps like Nelson and the NCR Correctional Facility from them.
Meanwhile, you don't see this problem with the Legion troops. Not only does the Legion have superior numbers just like the NCR, (which explains why Legion officers decorate their armor with pieces of Brotherhood power armor) not only do they have superior training, but they also have standardized equipment as well. Regular Legion troops come equipped with service rifles and shotguns along with their machetes, explosives, and spears, while the higher-ranking Legion troops use high-caliber rifles and machine guns along with anti-materiel rifles and heavy melee weapons like thermic lances, super sledges, and power fists. My Courier nicked her first service rifle from a dead Legion recruit (which shows that even newbies in the Legion have guns) leftover from a firefight where NCR and Legion troops killed each other. So saying that the NCR has the equipment advantages show a stunning ignorance of the reality: Legion troops are well-armed and well-equipped with guns, from the mundane to the high-caliber. They just use machetes and spears as a backup in case guns jam, as the head of the Praetorian Guard explains:
Lucius: "Caesar has taught us that over-reliance on firearms can only weaken us in the long run. It's why we train heavily with our blades and our fists. Unlike an NCR trooper, a Legionary is always ready to fight regardless of the circumstance he finds himself in."
Why is it that you people attribute advantages to the NCR that they don't have in the actual game? Because they have more people back out west? The west ain't exactly secure either, pal. Otherwise, the Brahmin barons wouldn't need to pull power-armored soldiers from the front to protect their farms from small-time bandits. Everything from irradiated monsters, to raiders, and even the California Brotherhood of Steel are plaguing the NCR back home, which is why they can't afford to hit Caesar with full force, since the moment they try, the raiders and Brotherhood forces back in California get free reign to utterly screw over the NCR. I mean, fuck, if the NCR could protect its own, Edward Sallow would have never wound up with the Followers of the Apocalypse, and he'd never become Caesar. Yes: the NCR's worst adversary is practically a result of its own incompetence. It's the literal example of your own incompetence biting you in the ass.
Sallow was brought up to worship Tandi like any other good NCR boy, but after his dad got killed by raiders within the NCR territories and he wound up with the Followers, his blind obedience to the NCR faded away and he began to see the NCR as a corrupt bureaucracy similar to the late Roman Senate, so he resolved to overthrow the NCR just like the real Caesar did to the old Roman Senate. All those tribes and peoples he conquered with his Legion were just practice, they were beneath him. The NCR is the only foe he ideologically opposes. Why? Because it can't even keep its own people safe, much less run like a proper republic with civic virtue and honesty. Instead, it basically became the plaything of rich boy interests while its people are thrown like cannon fodder into a desert hellhole teeming with monsters and gangs that could eat them alive. All the while, its own people back out west are so unsafe, the very same rich boys who give the government their marching orders pull power-armored troops from the front to protect their interests from raiders.
I don't buy Jas Wilkins' story one bit. If it's just small time raiders, then the Brahmin barons would just pull low-rent trooper recruits or hire security to drive out the riffraff. The fact that they're pulling away power-armored troops suggests that these raiders ARE an actual danger, which meant that the Brahmin barons had to request power-armored troops to keep these raiders away. You don't send power-armored troops to scare small-time raiders, a local security force or trooper recruits can do that in their spare time. These raiders are enough of a threat that they target rich, powerful people, forcing said rich guys to pull the NCR equivalent of the Brotherhood of Steel Paladins away from the front to fight these raiders, which is why we encounter only ONE NCR trooper wearing genuine power armor: Colonel Royez, the man in charge of the Long 15 supply outpost. The rest of the NCR Heavy Troopers wear scavenged Brotherhood armor with its servos ripped out, making them nowhere near as effective as actual power-armored troops like the Brotherhood Paladins or Enclave soldiers.
If the rich people who have bribed your government to be their plaything are pulling tier-one assets like power-armored troops away from the front to protect their farms from local bandits, and disgruntled NCR citizens from Cass all the way to Caesar are whining about how the NCR doesn't even protect the little guy, what does that show for the NCR's inability to protect their people?
Instead of securing the west first, destroying all raider presence in California AND eradicating what's left of the California Brotherhood BEFORE moving east with full force, they were content to let problems back home fester as they moved on into the Mojave and ran headlong into the Legion. The result became obvious: they can't throw their full force at either problem, or else their enemies on one side will screw them over if they go fight the other at full strength. Which meant that at most, they can score minor victories, like forcing a few Brotherhood bunkers to self-destruct, or the victories at Helios One and the First Battle of Hoover Dam. But the former victory was won only through numbers, which we can assume meant that the NCR suffered heavy casualties fighting the Brotherhood, which shows a lack of tactical acumen. The latter was a tactical victory, but it didn't damage the Legion much, since the NCR even had to destroy one of their own cities just to defeat the Legion-again, that's not a victory one can be proud of, when your strategy entails blowing up your own city to give the enemy a minor defeat they can recover from rather easily.
By the time Benny shot the Courier in Goodsprings, the Legion has outsmarted and outfoxed the NCR at every turn, with Legion raiding parties freely crossing the Colorado and sacking towns like Nipton, while the NCR army is overstretched, under-supplied, and is facing mounting casualties against Legion forces and other threats. If the NCR actually protected their own people first before stepping one foot into the Mojave, not only would they be able to send larger units of power-armored troops there, but they'd be able to focus the full might of their army to the Mojave, crushing local gangs and the Legion rather easily.
I wasn't talking about Fallout 4 vertibirds. In New Vegas, a simple bomb is all that it takes to destroy Kimball's vertibird. In Fallout 3, vertibirds can easily be destroyed by small-arms fire. I remember playing that game and having no problems blowing them up every time the Enclave was dumb enough to land an assault party near my location, which usually ends with the assault team getting blown up alongside their bird. All the Legion would need to do to replicate that feat is aim some high-caliber guns at those birds and they'll pop like balloons. And it's not like they don't have those guns. I remember the Centurions even using anti-materiel rifles on Hoover Dam during the House ending. I was walking around, when suddenly, my Courier, who was wearing Enclave Power Armor, got killed by a single shot. Looking around, I found Centurions armed with anti-materiel rifles attacking me and my Enclave allies. High-caliber weapons like anti-materiel rifles, brush guns, and 12.7 SMGs can take down vertibirds, and Legion troops carry such weapons. So no, vertibirds aren't much of an advantage for the NCR outside of moving things from one place to another. And given that we don't see that many vertibirds flying around in the NCR's half of the Mojave, it doesn't seem that they have that many vertibirds to begin with.
Not really, no. The Legion has been fleshed out well by sources and dialogue. We hear from Raul how Arizona used to be a shithole, then the Legion cleaned it up. Dale Barton tells us how the Legion's trading lanes are so clear you don't even need guards while traveling Legion turf. Cass even talks about how raiders don't dare hit Legion caravans for fear of reprisal. In the NCR, raiders have such balls that they'll attack the farms and homes of rich Brahmin barons, forcing said barons to get the NCR to pull power-armored soldiers from the front to protect their interests. When it comes to the Legion? The raiders are too scared to even try hitting small-time caravans, let alone actual powerful people like Centurions. Sources indicate that the Legion's towns and communities are prosperous, so long as they obey Caesar, they're left alone.
If anything, the two men have many things in common. House would most likely appreciate having an effective, intelligent ally, and Caesar would also appreciate having an effective administrator whom he can use as an intellectual sparring partner. Besides, without the Platinum Chip, there's no way Caesar or anyone in the Legion is getting inside to disable House's life support or his machines, so a more likely approach is that both men would make a compromise with each other and fight the NCR together. Caesar also needs someone with advanced medicine because he's been getting headaches as his brain tumor gets worse, and House can provide medical help just as he did with the Three Families. So it would be to Caesar's benefit to recruit House. Outside of solving many of his problems, it can also save his life.
Generally I'm content to read all the fascinating analysis going on with the different games, but I gotta break in to highlight this. The vertibirds constantly falling from the Boston skies is one of the most immersion breaking things in Fallout 4. I'm constantly wondering where the hell they're getting all these aircraft, to say nothing of trained pilots (of course, given the failure rate, maybe the pilots aren't trained at all).
The Brotherhood could be producing more vertibirds from the scrap they salvaged while sticking idiot newbie pilots inside.
I honestly think most of the NCR would be pretty safe and stable. Places like Shady Sands, The Hub, Arroyo, New Reno, Redding, Vault City, are probably all relatively free of raiders with most of the outlaws being pushed to the frontier. Like the Enclave Remnants and other old gangs like the Jackals and Vipers.
But they do still have some criminals mostly because they don't take the insanely heavy handed approach the Legion does with everyone. Under the Legion the Powder Gangers would have all been executed, at least the NCR tried to "rehabilitate" them even if the primary interest was cheap as fuck labor.
And for all we know the Legion rules over a hostile populace that would backstab them if they thought they had a chance. The sort of brutality they employ usually instills a LOT of resentment in people. Rebellion just waiting to happen. I wouldn't be surprised to find out Caesar has had a few dozen attempts on his life from grudge bearing legionaries who watched their tribes conquered and members of their family killed.
Er, no. Raiders in the NCR have such balls that the rich people had to get the government to pull tier-one military assets like power-armored troopers from the front to protect their farms. How the fuck is that safe or stable? If the raiders already have enough daring to go after the rich, that's because picking on the poor is poor sport for them already.
That "rehabilitation" would have worked had the NCR not been stupid enough to give them dynamite. It wasn't the criminal system that was the problem, it was NCR incompetence, that was the problem.
Yeah, no. Again, if you read up on the Legion's lore, there's plenty of towns and cities in Legion turf that are safe, secure, peaceful, and prosperous. Caesar has brought safety, security, justice, and peace to many of these towns, and they're left alone to prosper in complete security so long as the taxes arrive on time and the Legion is obeyed. So no, most of these towns would probably be very loyal to the Legion considering they cleaned up the neighborhood (according to Raul, Arizona used to be thick with raiders before the Legion genocided them all) and provided them with safety to commence trade and keep on living in peace.
And no, most of the Legionaries taken from tribes are practically brainwashed to love Caesar. Even the man Caesar trusts to guard his life, Lucius, came from some tribe Caesar conquered, and Lucius saw that as Caesar uplifting them from savagery. Thinking that Legion troops would backstab Caesar over loyalties to their former tribes shows a stunning ignorance of New Vegas lore: most of the Legion comes from other tribes (only one Legionnaire from the game came from the Blackfoot tribe that was the foundation of the Legion) they are brainwashed to forget their old ways and see Caesar as their new leader, and both Caesar's top general and his chief of security came from conquered tribes. Caesar would be long dead before the events of New Vegas if his brainwashing of conquered tribes was ineffective.
Fallout 2 is similar, its post-apocalyptic but might as well be set in the 1890s, they dont even use caps in fallout 2, just cold hard cash.
Also people here wondering about how they would carry on from new vegas in a sequel are probably too young to remember the thousand pages of threads about that very subject when it came to New Reno. And look what they did there, its a bizare mix of 3 of the 4 endings. (Who controls New Reno? Well you fucked the Bishops daughter, also the wrights are still around and recently i brought some jet from the morrenos)
So based on that the dam ending will be just as bullshit. ("Who won the 2nd battle of hoover? No one really won even they guys that won it lost in the end")
House just by virtue of being essentially immortal will probably win. Robots are tough as shit to kill even pre-upgrade and youd have to essentially break in and hack a terminal and survive past multiple robots to kill him not something you can trust anyone outside a PC to accomplish. The legion has 50 years max before caesar kicks the bucket and he admits himself the whole place is fucked once he dies. The NCR is basically the legion 30 years after their caesar (tandi) dies, and is already on the verge of collapse anyway.
Personally id prefer to see a st.louis set fallout. Its pretty much the exhaust port of US logistics, so no matter when on the timeline, its of huge strategic importance to whatever civilization is trying to gain land on the other side of the mississippi.
Where do they get the cash? Is it NCR money?
The NCR ending is also strange for Fallout 2. From what we see in New Vegas, it seems to be a mixture of the endings where you got them to make a deal with Vault 15 and the one where Vice-President Carlson got killed. The NCR became a militaristic, expansionist power that many in the border towns resent, while people back home are getting resentful of the wasteful military spending in the Mojave. Granted, that suggests that the NCR became filled with Enclave personnel, but that doesn't make sense considering that the NCR in New Vegas hunts down Enclave remnants like the plague. Which is actually kinda sad. The Enclave remnants from Navarro openly joining the NCR would go a long way to explain how they became imperialistic AND how they could defeat the Brotherhood.
I remember the never-ending complaints of BoS fans who were angry that potato sack-wearing NCR troops were somehow able to beat the Brotherhood, but I also saw someone use New Vegas's console commands to pit an army of Enclave soldiers against Brotherhood Paladins, and the Enclave soldiers won most of the battles. Lore-wise, the Brotherhood losing to the NCR would have made more sense had the Enclave remnants at Navarro joined them. Suddenly, it's not that strange imagining Enclave soldiers helping the NCR forces massacre Brotherhood Paladins, since Enclave troops have armor and weapons that are far better than those of the Brotherhood. It would have also made the NCR more threatening to Legion players if NCR Heavy Troopers patrolling the Mojave wore Enclave power armor and were being led by an aging Arch Dornan, who at the time, would be a general within the NCR.
Imagine General Arch Dornan giving General Lee Oliver the trash-talking of his life before having Oliver thrown out from his post in the Mojave and replacing him as the general of the NCR forces there. Imagine him being the final boss against Legion players, surrounding them with an elite guard consisting of veteran Enclave troops who have slaughtered Brotherhood Paladins by the hundreds, all encased in Enclave power armor and sporting heavy energy weapons and plasma grenades. Heck, imagine him re-creating the experiment that made Frank Horrigan, or recruiting a friendly Super Mutant and slapping power armor and heavy weapons on him, and have that be part of the final boss fight for Legion players. One could also imagine him giving orders to NCR players and giving them the occasional complement if they do well, like if they wipe out the Mojave Brotherhood, or if they kill or drive away Legate Lanius. I can imagine many players would sign up with the NCR just to see old Dornan give them a complement.
It would also prop up the NCR's image as an American successor state more if they had a radio station like Enclave Radio which played patriotic tunes, and we see NCR soldiers in Vegas singing American military songs like "Over There".
It would also explain the NCR's blatant imperialism since once Enclave personnel get integrated into their government, they will see themselves as America's heirs and attempt to resurrect the US by putting the NCR on the path of Manifest Destiny: accepting the idea that everything between the Pacific and the Atlantic belongs to them. Which means that the Legion, New Vegas, and all those rinky-dink towns who resent NCR authority can stuff their complaints up their asses, since as far as the Enclave remnants within the NCR are concerned, America belongs to them, and that includes ALL of American territory.
Indeed, it seems that whoever wins Hoover Dam will forever be left to the pages of "nobody cares." I'd pick the House ending, just to be safe. Neither the Legion nor the NCR won on their terms, but it means you can still use House, the NCR, or the Legion for future stories in the Fallout universe.
It would be interesting to see St. Louis awash with irradiated monsters. I wonder which of the old factions will have an interest in it? The Brotherhood? The Enclave? Or some new players altogether? Time will tell.
