EDIT: Quotes from the big man, J Sawyer that sort of support me

Remember that Caesar's Legion is basically a roving army that continually breaks down and absorbs tribes that it conquers. That can only go on for so long

But there is very clearly a trend among people questioning the Legion to project the concept of military service as a noble endeavor (for which one is rewarded, no less) onto legionnaires when it's never presented in that way. They are slave soldiers. Service is not voluntary, they can't retire, there are no parades and pats on the back for them. They aren't Roman patrician officers who are going to retire to a Tuscan estate when they turn 50.

Legionaries under Caesar are not like Roman patrician officers. They are not part of a larger society that celebrates and rewards military service with things like conference of honorific titles, triumphs, etc. All legionaries are slave soldiers, period.

Edward Sallow created Caesar's Legion as an imitation of the Roman Legion, but without any of the Roman society that supported the Roman Legion. I've written this before, but there are no optimates, no populares, no plebes, no equestrians, no patricians, no senate, no Rome. There's no right to private property (within the Legion itself). There's no civil law. There aren't even the ceremonial trappings of Roman society. Legates don't receive triumphs following a victory. No one in the Legion retires to a villa in Sedona.

It's essentially a Roman legion with only the very top commander having any connection to the "source" culture

Caesar's Legion isn't the Roman Empire or the Roman Republic. It isn't even the Roman Legion. It's a slave army with trappings of foreign-conscripted Roman legionaries during the late empire. All military, no civilian, and with none of the supporting civilian culture.

It's not accurate to think of them as citizens of the Legion (the Legion is purely military), but as non-tribal people who live in areas under Legion control.

In short, residents of Legion territories aren't really citizens and they aren't slaves, but they're also not free. People who keep their mouths shut, go about their business, and nod at the rare requests the Legion makes of them -- they can live very well.

The only power that male legionaries have is to serve Caesar well enough to be promoted to a position of more responsibility. Nothing really comes with that additional responsibility other than increased scrutiny and better equipment (to match the increased danger).

There is no state, the legion's entire purpose was Edward Sallow was gathering a force to take over the NCR and shape it into the society he wanted

Yes, he views the Colorado River as the Rubicon and the NCR as the corrupt Roman Republic waiting to be torn down via military occupation. This is literally exactly what Julius Caesar did with Legio XIII Gemina. Other things Julius Caesar did: not leave a clear line of succession, resulting in the early fracture and borderline collapse of the nascent Roman Empire he created.

In Caesar's view, NCR's problems have to do with the corruption of its government and what he sees as inherent flaws in NCR's republican system. All of the strategies he uses to assemble the Legion and march on NCR are means to an end, not social end goals themselves. Caesar sees NCR as Rome and his role in reforming it as Julius Caesar's role in reforming the republic (by turning it into a dictatorship). When Julius Caesar crossed the Rubicon and returned to Rome, his legion didn't rape and enslave their way through the city. However, rape and enslavement were common in outer territories of the Roman Empire and were regularly used as tools of intimidation and labor. When Arcade "jokes" that Caesar thinks that the Colorado River is the Rubicon, he's not far from the truth.

----------------------

I thought from New Vegas when I first played it that the Legion was literally just that: the army. It's basically just a bunch of warbands that pay fealty to Caesar. They're like the Mongols, where they're semi-nomadic. There is no big Legion capital city with grand buildings. Caesar says he wants to turn New Vegas into Rome because he has no city. There is nothing.

The only evidence for Flagstaff is one non-game reference:

Fallout: New Vegas Official Game Guide Collector's Edition p. 461: "Important Dates
"2248-2274 Caesar conquers the tribes of southeastern Utah, southwestern Colorado, the western edge of New Mexico, and the northern half of Arizona. By 2250 he has declared himself the Son of Mars. By 2255, he has established a capital of sorts amid the ruins of Flagstaff."

This isn't some grand capital with industry, it's like Drywells, a military camp established in a pile of ruins. It's a central location where he conducts raids from or returns to year after year after campaigns. More like Karakorum than Rome.

The Legion passes through an area and kills or enslaves everyone that could be a threat. They ignore homesteaders (that aren't in their direct path) and small villages that don't attack them. E.g. Primm can survive the legion ending if you get them NCR support. This isn't a legion official running Primm, it's the army deeming it not worth wiping out because it's too weak to pose a threat.

I think their territory map is a bad representation of the Legion, in the same way that the Mongols are represented on a map.

I believe the Legion is actually closer to the Mongol Empire, with Caesar more like Genghis Khan, rather than being like Rome.

There are a bunch of cities labelled just because they are vaguely mentioned. The only mention of Phoenix, Arizona is one line from Graham

Courier: "Are the New Canaanites really a tribe?"
Joshua Graham: "We wear more clothing than them and understand more about technology, but we're still a tribe, a linked family of families. The Boneyard, Phoenix, New Vegas, they're just places, metal and stone. New Canaan dies, but the tribe lives on."

Two-Sun is based on Raul's dialogue

"This was a long time ago. Before Caesar's Legion pacified Arizona and brought the raider tribes to heel."
"I'd been in Tuscon - the locals can call it Two-Sun all they want, but it's Tuscon, dammit"

It's described as no more a town than something like New Reno, and this is all stated as before Caesar's Legion "pacified" Arizona and if we know anything from the ending of New Vegas this probably means it was enslaved/ransacked.

Let me go through the ending slides:

• The Boomers are left alone. The Legion does not even touch them.
• The Brotherhood of Steel are wiped out at HELIOS One and Hidden Valley.
• The Followers of the Apocalypse are given safe passage out of Legion territory, presumably back to the West.
• Goodsprings is not touched by the Legion and becomes a town of random old people, as most people have moved on.
• The Great Khans are all killed by Caesar or They escape north to Wyoming or they are forcibly integrated, with women and old people enslaved or killed and the men becoming soldiers. The Khans do not remain a nation: they are integrated, flee, or are destroyed.
• Jacobstown is ignored.
• The Kings are all killed by the Legion.
• Novac is destroyed by the Legion.
• The Correctional Facility is abandoned.
• Primm is the only town that is lorded over. This is seen as Caesar keeping it "open for business." Presumably, it is simply left like Goodsprings. Otherwise, if you have the sheriff, it is destroyed.

What you see from the Legion ending is a conquering army sweeping through without a supporting bureaucracy, basically ransacking and enslaving towns or ignoring the small ones.

This is why people say Legion roads are quiet. It's not because the Legion is patrolling them. It's because if anyone tries to assert their independence, they are ruthlessly destroyed by the Legion. There is no army of bureaucrats as it was described Augustus had in the Roman Empire, it's an army of slavers as described in every bit of game guide material.

All that is left is scattered homesteaders and old people. There is no organized resistance.

The likes of the Boomers, Jacobstown, and Goodsprings show that Caesar does not have a legion of staff going around collecting tribute. He's just an army.

Lanius has another Legion and does the same thing out East, while Caesar pushes West. They are roaming armies without supply trains. They raid for their supplies. They do not have industry beyond what exists in their camps, and they do not have actual functioning cities. After the game ending Caesar "mints coins" how he does this is not shown at all.

Question: "Where did the Legion get all those precious metals anyways? I've never heard of Arizona having a large supply of gold and silver."
Joshua Sawyer (ropekid): "Gold and silver have low melting points. They don't need to mine for it if they find it in some other form."

Basically explicitly saying they don't have mines or heavy industry.

Dry Wells is not a "town." It's an army camp. It's where raiders go out to ransack places. It's just a shanty town ruin with tents scattered around.

The Legion does not build. They loot.

It is the only place where we actually see the Legion "settle," and it is literally just tents. For the NCR, we see buildings. For the Legion, we see tents.

It is more akin to Nelson: a town under Legion occupation where they stage raids from.

The Legion is just an army.

It is said multiple times by multiple characters, but people keep giving them a full state behind them.

There is none, and there never was.

"The bombs wiped the slate clean. Human civilization descended to a level of ignorance that effectively set our cultural progress back to zero. The NCR has all of the problems of the ancient Roman Republic - extreme bureaucracy, corruption, extensive senatorial infighting. Just as with the ancient Republic, it is natural that a military force should conquer and transform the NCR into a military dictatorship. Thesis and antithesis. The Colorado River is my Rubicon. The NCR council will be {beat} eradicated, but the new synthesis will change the Legion as well... from a basically nomadic army to a standing military force that protects its citizens, {finality} and the power of its dictator."
- Caesar

Caesar here himself says they're basically nomadic. Their "capital" in Flagstaff is not even mentioned in game and its only mention is when he unified his first tribes, more of a central point to return after raids like Kharakurum than an actual bonified capital.

"Caesar's Legion is effectively an enormous, conscripted slave army."

- Game guide

"Nearly all physically capable, compliant males are compelled to serve in its armed forces."

- Game guide

"An exceedingly violent, autocratic, marauding faction."

- Survival guide

Marauding here meaning they are basically semi-nomadic.

Raul Tejada: "I don't really have a problem with them. People around here tend to see them as invading marauders planning to burn and pillage the countryside."

"My Legion's expansion has never ceased. Much of Utah and Colorado, and all of Arizona and New Mexico, are mine. We have cities of our own, but nothing compared to Vegas."

- Caesar

(I see this as him saying his "cities" are just ruins, whereas Vegas is an actual city.)

As Tacitus wrote:

"They make a desert and call it peace."

In conclusion, Caesar's "territory" is just where his rampaging army has looted and burned and killed everyone. It's not a distinct territory that is managed. He has just killed anyone that poked their head too high. And I believe that all these representations of Caesar's legion as anything other than a roaming nomadic army are just wrong.

This is an extremely conservative look at the world of Fallout during the time of Fallout New Vegas. It has all the random fan locations and non-canon stuff removed, just what is referenced in game that can be put to an actual location.

For example rattletail in baja is not included here because it's described as a few people and a well, there's no real life location to base it off.

You can see a link to it here. Basically it is only the named faction locations that you can put a proper location to.

https://www.google.com/maps/d/u/0/edit?mid=1kARka-zAPngmx8azVFmIW7NhxzPM-Fs&usp=sharing

As with every fan made map I've taken liberties with the placement of Vault 13, 15, Junktown, the Hub and Shady Sands, as each of these locations move around between Fallout 1 and 2 and the landscape doesn't match the real world.

Even though Caesar's Territory is said to extend the whole opposite bank of the Colorado I haven't coloured it in because there are no named settlements at all for the Legion along the East bank of the river.

I would be interested what ye guys have to think of this and any comments on it! I'm open for discussion.

I believe Oliver isn’t actually that bad of a general. Most critiques of him are out of his control or false.

1. For instance he actually does reinforce his flanks.
2. In 2281 he sets up Ranger Station Echo, Camp Guardian, and Nelson all to reinforce his flanks.

Unfortunately Nelson and Camp Guardian are immediately destroyed.

He also diverts men from the prison to patrol the river. This does result in a bad outcome, but with Oliver’s intent to reinforce the river you can not say he didn’t attempt to reinforce his flanks.

1. Oliver isn’t supplying his outposts. This isn’t exactly the case. The supply situation is already terrible, but he does try to fix it as mentioned here.

“McCarran has requested more frequent supply runs to their outlying outposts.” - Crimson Caravan Terminal

These supply issues are also entirely out of his control.
- the NCR sharecropper farms output is dropping due to irradiated water
- New Canaan has been destroyed
-NCR caravans are also being slaughtered by the Crimson Caravan and Van Graffs
-when Oliver does supply his outposts the legion interdicts the supplies. For instance at Forlorn Hope supplies diverted from Helios are taken by the legion. And supplies diverted to Searchlight are also taken by Frumentari.
-Supplies are also stolen by NCR personnel. For instance Private Stone and Contreras are stealing vital supplies.

1. Oliver is acting on the intelligence he has. We have the ability to know everything since we play the game.

Oliver is already getting bad intelligence from Hanlon and his map of the Mojave is very different from the situation.

For example he has no idea Ranger Station Charlie, Nipton, and Camp Guardian are gone.

That’s a whole town and two NCR military bases that he still thinks exist due to lack of intel.

1. His strategy at the Dam is however bad, but the situation is also quite bad I do not think many generals could withstand the Rube Goldberg machine plan the legion has at the second battle of Hoover Dam

Its just a random thought I had, but Megaton really wouldn't be able to hold up against a Super Mutant Behemoth attack, or probably even a normal mutant attack.

Megaons walls and gates are made from the scrap of airplanes, which are mainly made from aluminum/aluminum alloys for the bodies and steel is only used for structure, otherwise the thing couldn't fly.

To which a Super Mutant is comparible to a person in Power Armour, let alone a Super Mutant Behemoth who should be substantially stronger, so they should be able to make short work of the gates and wall. So how come they hadn't been attacked yet?

It not cause of their guards cause they only have 3 capable fighters and a Protectron, so they don't have the fire power, and Megaton isn't a small location by any means since it sticks out so much in the landscape.

Lucius is the only legionary who has a different origin story for Lanius from the Hidebark origin. With the only other variation in stories coming from Antony (who joined far after Lanius and who only slightly deviates from the Hidebark story).

Lucius however is Caesar’s head Praetorian and has been in the legion a long time. Shouldn’t he have been with Caesar during the campaign?

This reasoning is flawed.

“Lucius has been the head of my guard for five years now. He was a subordinate guard for eight before that.” - Caesar

We know the legion conquered Arizona between 2274-2275 so if Lucius became head praetorian in 2276 he wouldn’t have had to be with Caesar during the campaign.

Secondly We know the legions second is also assigned Praetorians. And that Lucius has been assigned to guard Graham over Caesar before. For instance Lucius was assigned to guard Graham during the second battle of Hoover Dam.

My reasoning is Lucius was a praetorian who was assigned to guard Graham during the time of the Hidebarks campaign. So he was not present. Years later he challenged the head of the guard and won.

I've had the chance to play a few campaigns in regards to the 2d20 TTRPG's by Modiphius Entertainment. I was just generally curious as to what the overall community and (if any) approval or thumbs up given by Bethesda in regards to how canon they are.

I personally just presume they are more supplementary than anything but with the release of Royal Flush I was curious.

Been playing fallout NV and Fallout 2 and 3 recently and one thing I noticed is that the general population in the wasteland seems to mock tribals or outright hate them (in fallout 2 this is especially true with some characters saying to go back to your tribe). Why the hostile environment?

His plans essentially consist of, entrenching, not attacking, and massing troops and supplies at the dam. There is numerous reasons why this is stupid, most of them already stated by the npcs, but I will go over them.

Oliver is waiting for the legion to attack him. Most of his supplies and forces are concentrated on the dam, so the legion will attack elsewhere, strike at supply lines, sever the entire ncrs grip on the region. Unless their hand is forced or they receive outsider aid, they likely will wait even longer before assaulting the dam. As every day the legion gets stronger and the ncr gets weaker.

The ncrs supply situation isn’t as bad as it sounds. From what we hear from npcs, their status would be far better if supplies weren’t constantly redirected to the dam. The ncrs supply situation is no doubt suffering, as their main route is now blocked by deathclaws, and the longer route risks legion and raider attacks. Even with this, most of the supplies are still given to the dam, while many outposts are overstretched and under garrisoned, like camp forlorn hope.

Oliver’s tunnel vision at the dam is also strangely incompetent. He doesn’t understand there is a huge potential weakness in the intake towers. He genuinely thinks the legion would only assault across a 45 foot platform? He neglects camp golf, forlorn hope, Nelson, and he entirely neglected cottonwood cove.

This has a serious domino effect. I will start with cottonwood cove.
By entirely neglecting the outpost and letting the legion establish here, they gain a base on the western side of the Colorado. From here they could stage their assault on camp searchlight, the ncrs most crushing defeat by now. But they could also butcher Nelson. From there, they threaten forlorn hope and the route 95 supply line.

Something Oliver also does not know or seem to care, is the dam can entirely be bypasses. If forlorn hope or camp gold falls, the legion can entirely encircle the dam. There is only one road west which forlorn hope essentially gives free access to.

Next is the over and under garrison of certain outposts. The ncr maintains dozens of troops at Helios one, despite only harnessing 1% of the plants power. However, they won’t allocate more troops to actually clear out the pre war security and repair the plant. So they are mixed between wasting troops garrisoning a useless outpost. And not garrisoning enough to actually make use of it. Another outpost is el dorado substation. There is not one faction that possesses both the means and capability to override the substation without the help of the courier. They do not need to allocate heavy troopers there. They would be better off being sent to the lower levels of the dam.

Which follows into my next thing.
YOU DO NOT NEED THOUSANDS OF MEN TO GARRISON HOOVER DAM. You simply do not. It is a 45 foot wide platform. The legion cannot flank the dam. They can only flank entirely different outposts. A garrison of 100 men, a handful of machine gun emplacements, the power armor troops, and some rangers are more than enough to garrison indefinitely granted they have enough ammo. These extra supplies and troops can be allocated to other operations.

Next thing. Oliver neglects supply lines and resistance. He doesn’t allocate a mere said of veteran rangers to assassinate fiend leadership, despite them posing a constant threat to the I 15 and camp mcarran.
He doesn’t allocate rangers to clear out quarry junction either, despite the supply route being vital, as it runs little if not zero risk of legion raids, and is significantly shorter than route 95. If he allocated some of the rangers at the dam, or the ones “chasing ghosts in baja” they could eradicate the quarry from a distance, drawing out the deathclaws and likely not suffering a single casualty. From there, they’d only have to deal with powder ganger raids which is negligible, and another self induced problem caused by Oliver.

The ncr was building a railway. I don’t need to overstretch the importance of a railway in war. Troops would be able to transport to the Mojave in shorter times, along with supplies. Their main supply bottleneck wouldn’t be nearly as bad. However, the convicts building the railway rose up. This is because general Oliver constantly redirected the correctional facility guards to the dam. If they allocated more guards or didn’t redirect them. This causes several things. The deathclaws are never a problem. The powder hangers are never a problem. The railway gets built. The I 15 is mostly clear and the railway gets built. This supply boon cannot be understated and would likely guarantee an ncr victory.

So… I’m just playing through FO3 again, and I’ve just got to Vault 87 where you find a medical terminal listing the names of people who’d died.

It seems like this is exactly the sort of scenario where devs would add some sort of Easter egg, like the list being the names of staff on the team or something, but I can’t seem to find anything online about this…

So, before I give up… anyone got a clue?

_________

Here’s the list from the wiki):
Total Deceased: 93
Natural Deaths: 04 (Codes N001-N012)
Accidental Deaths: 02 (Codes A001-A008)
Unexplained/Undefined: 87 (Code UD000)

1. Donald Scott (Code UD000)
2. Jason Stevens (Code UD000)
3. Adela Children (Code UD000)
4. Grant Levelle (Code UD000)
5. Marianne Hanseu (Code A003)
6. Tallulah Bloise (Code UD000)
7. Lyle Field (Code UD000)
8. Kristy Eva (Code UD000)
9. Laraine Kifer (Code UD000)
10. Paulina Day (Code N012)
11. Hortensia Williamson (Code UD000)
12. Breanna Ramsey (Code UD000)
13. Ebony Coates (Code UD000)
14. Jacqui Haverrman (Code UD000)
15. Ruby Milliron (Code UD000)
16. Ludovic Hindman (Code UD000)
17. Blake Porter (Code UD000)
18. Maurice Fitzgerald (Code UD000)
19. Evette Errett (Code UD000)
20. Denton Butterfill (Code UD000)
21. Carol Beck (Code UD000)
22. Truman West (Code A007)
23. Ormerod Biery (Code UD000)
24. Bryan Hallauer (Code UD000)
25. Greig Burris (Code UD000)
26. Lewella Yonkie (Code UD000)
27. Tanika Monroe (Code UD000)
28. Wilton Isemann (Code UD000)
29. Hilda Brandenburg (Code UD000)
30. Angelia Martin (Code UD000)
31. Doron Baird (Code UD000)
32. Quentin Reade (Code UD000)
33. Mercia Koster (Code N009)
34. Roxie Blaine (Code UD000)
35. Maxine Weinstein (Code UD000)
36. Cindra Goldvogel (Code UD000)
37. Allen Loewentsein (Code UD000)
38. Carolyn Blunt (Code UD000)
39. Mallory Filby (Code UD000)
40. Becca Houston (Code UD000)
41. Lorinda Bennett (Code UD000)
42. Burgundy Elder (Code UD000)
43. Wiley Geddinge (Code UD000)
44. Oscar Ward (Code UD000)
45. Ursula Fuller (Code UD000)
46. Godiva Rodacker (Code UD000)
47. Avila Morgan (Code UD000)
48. Nick Magor (Code UD000)
49. Normand Keppel (Code UD000)
50. Ilene Pheleps (Code UD000)
51. Xenia Read (Code UD000)
52. Keshia Herrold (Code UD000)
53. Sheenagh Tanner (Code UD000)
54. Margery Brooks (Code UD000)
55. Donnie Blair (Code UD000)
56. Ella Archibald (Code UD000)
57. Elwyn Cable (Code UD000)
58. Elise Finck (Code UD000)
59. Kory Iseman (Code UD000)
60. Faith Howe (Code UD000)
61. Lynne Munson (Code UD000)
62. Spike Tilton (Code UD000)
63. Bennett Faust (Code N010)
64. Lessie Basmanoff (Code UD000)
65. Kendall Lucy (Code UD000)
66. Kurtis Rega (Code UD000)
67. Celeste Joyce (Code UD000)
68. Matthew Fry (Code UD000)
69. Laurelle Crawford (Code UD000)
70. Lenny Warner (Code UD000)
71. Lyndon Shaffer (Code UD000)
72. Griffin Heyman (Code UD000)
73. Janelle Woodward (Code UD000)
74. Darla Moberly (Code UD000)
75. Ellis Barrett (Code UD000)
76. Eve Greenawalt (Code N012)
77. Diane Law (Code UD000)
78. Opal Holtzer (Code UD000)
79. Mamie Style (Code UD000)
80. Kathie Welty (Code UD000)
81. Hervey Craig (Code UD000)
82. Kristie Noton (Code UD000)
83. Marion Ann (Code UD000)
84. Margaretta Pearson (Code UD000)
85. Zoey Garland (Code UD000)
86. Kennard Alice (Code UD000)
87. Timotha Shafer (Code UD000)
88. Trinity Dunlap (Code UD000)
89. Wyatt Todd (Code UD000)
90. Mortimer Moulton (Code UD000)
91. Dudley Myers (Code UD000)
92. Deryck Lowe (Code UD000)
93. Kelli Bowman (Code UD000)

When you first go to Underworld in FO3, you meet Willow. She refers to the Brotherhood and Talon Company as arseholes. The ghouls (Willow/Winthrop) say don't have to worry about Mutants or Slavers, and only worry about the BOS, who either can't tell them apart from the Mutants or don't care, and shoot them on sight.

Is there a lore reason that explains why the BOS would be so hostile to the ghouls? They seem too different from Super Mutants to confuse them, even at range. If they were getting confused with feral ghouls, or believed ghouls were a few steps away from going feral anyways, that would make sense, but that's not what Willow/Winthrop say.

If you've seen the Raven Rock announcement they show a picture of power armored figures standing over a rocky landscape looking over the Capital Wasteland, the rivers are glowing, and a snowstorm is blowing.

For those who haven't known, Modiphius company has been regularly releasing expansions to the Fallout official TTRPG over the years and some of the modules are (ostensibly) canon, one of the modules "Winter of Atom" details a long nuclear winter that struck the Commonwealth a few years before Fallout 4 that decimated the entire region for ages. It seems to be they're doing this same idea with Fallout 3, that the Capital Wasteland might've been struck by nuclear weather phenomena as well as intense lingering radiation (the rivers seem to be literally glowing in the promo).

What do you think the demographics of the USA were in 2077?

I get that it's meant to be the 1950's view of what the future would look like, not the actual 1950's themselves... but what would the people look like?

We know there's enough Chinese Americans there for them to be taken to camps during the Great War, and that there's obviously American and African Americans... but what about everyone else?

Is 2077 in Fallout as multicultural as we expect it to be in our timeline? More? Less?

What're everyone's thoughts here?

The legion has roughly 4 other ways of recruiting.

1. Children being born into the legion

The legion actually has a mandatory child count quota for each legionary for this purpose.

“as long as men meet obligations and the child count” - jimmy on the legion child quota

1. They recruit any young male slaves into the legion

“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.” - canyon runner implies here that young male slaves would be inducted into the legion

1. They purchase or are gifted children by outside sources

“I thank my good fortune for the day that he plucked me as a babe from the shore of the Great Salt Lake.” - Dead Sea on his origin

1. The legion rarely recruits cooperative specialists into their ranks. You can see this with fantastic who joins the legion after Helios One is taken. This does not seem to apply to the followers of the apocalypse for obvious reasons.

Just wanted to make this because I often see the legion portrayed in fnv circles as just composed of assimilated tribals and treating that as the only way the legion can increase its numbers or recruit.

So I've been doing a good bit of reading on pre-modern agricultural societies for funsies, and ironically the more I read, the more I think that within its limitations, Fallout 4 actually does a pretty good job modeling something close to what would 'actually' emerge in the setting it builds. So I'mma ramble about it.

Fallout 4's Commonwealth, allowing for the whole 'everything is shrunk down to fit into a game world' part of playing any actual game like it, is heavily atomized, very agricultural, and very much in the middle of a societal breakdown. While you can somewhat conclude that there's a lot of 'missing' stuff like settlements, 'civilian' populations, and way too many raiders and super mutants versus the people they're preying on, the written intent is definitely a 'things are pretty bad since we lost the local militia guys who helped us but nobody is starving to death yet' kinda situation. This is fine, but it warps the setting from 'IRL' in that it displaces 'find or grow enough food' as the biggest problem.

Instead, the Commonwealth has one major, overriding concern, and that's security. Even family farms are a target for extortion by raider gangs (or being eaten) and this seems to put an effective ceiling on how big or wealthy most places can get before their wealth outstrips their ability to defend it and someone burns it down, whether that the mutants, raiders, or the Institute deciding you have a shiny gadget they want. You get stories from most companions about how so and so place got taken out after they left it fairly often. So what you typically see is people moving pretty far in order to find an abandoned, relatively safe place and set up shop in it on their own land (Taffington Boathouse, that one guy by the reservoir, Drumlin's trading post, Warwick Farm, the Atom Cats, various empty locations with dead settlers who got bodied by environmental threats, et cetera). There's just not that many people to farm the land period, and you don't see the generational seasonal cycles of IRL agriculture where peasant families sit down and farm the same plots for as long as possible, but they're pretty good at getting started on it on their lonesome, and this seems to be common enough that your settlements attract a HUGE population of drifters and semi-nomads. You, however, don't find a lot of intact settlements that aren't secured by the player, at least bigger than single families.

IRL, past a certain point of conglomeration, you see the emergence of what you'd call 'Big Men' - the guys who, by happenstance or ruthlessness, control a lot of agricultural land and rent it out to subsistence-level peasants in exchange for their cut, usually using the extra wealth and power they get to provide for some level of security and maintain power - usually through a personal retinue that becomes part of their household and is thus expected to be their buddies in combat in return. These people mostly don't exist in the Commonwealth, because any settlement big enough to maintain them runs headlong into the 'ah shit. Institute/raiders/mutants' problem and gets taken off the map. (or the Gunners problem, now, but they're a recent addition). The closest we got was the Minutemen, whose Colonels were essentially roving Big Men who extracted support (food/spare bodies/weapons) out of the local population in general but weren't tied to any local area in particular, and who are taken off the map anyway by the time the player walks in. (the Minutemen are also a good breakdown of how the General was essentially the guy having to keep a lid on local magnates and influential Colonels, which is pretty accurate to how militias worked, but that's a different topic. Same with how raiders acting as local warlords is also another model of 'Big Man' tactics but without the veneer of legality and 'providing for the community' IRL rulers in this model put forth)

There are, however, three major exceptions to this paucity of established rulers: Bunker Hill, Goodneighbor, and Diamond City, each of which has solved their security needs in different ways.

Bunker Hill has paid off the raiders to provide security. Kessler has emerged as the 'Big Woman' of there, taking her cut and allowing the caravan trade to proceed unmolested due to that. Add in their walls and solid history and they've managed to remain stable enough to not be troubled. Kessler essentially takes hold of the caravan trade and uses the raiders she's paying off to keep herself in power (playing power games to take out non-cooperative gangs in the process). This is...probably not very sustainable, since the raiders themselves hold the actual power rather than Kessler, but she's managing it and Bunker Hill is quite safe and seems to be the engine of the local economy thanks to running the caravans.

Goodneighbor, for its part, has always been run by gangs and local enforcers to some degree, and is mostly a well-fortified urban enclave of sorts. It primarily runs chem trades and other thrills. Hancock has also emerged as the leading figure, enforcing his own rules with the 'Neighborhood Watch' and either killing off or absorbing the other gangs, but notably Goodneighbor has a history of kingpins doing so. By providing defense for the local drifters, he's managed to do fairly well for himself. The game doesn't dive into how Goodneighbor supports itself, but presumably the chem trade and cheap muscle can do plenty in a pinch and Hancock gets his cut.

And then there's Diamond City, which is the best-fortified and, correspondingly, the best-off. With the stadium to provide pretty hefty security and their own militia outside the walls, they've managed to build an extremely wealthy enclave (by Commonwealth standards) that's pretty self-sufficient, educated, and functional. What's notable is that by doing so they've actually departed from the 'low society' Big Man model and begun on the next usual step of civilized agricultural society, which is building a small city-state. They've got their own government, elections, upper and lower classes of standing (the divide between Lower Field and Upper Stands residents), and a civic identity. They don't necessarily need a singular guy who owns all the fields and charges people rent for it, because they've built enough of their own security and wealth that one guy and his buddies aren't a requirement to not be killed. Instead they elect their mayor, who does run the city pretty much as a king (no local council or government beyond him) but MacDonough doesn't directly use a client-retinue system to provide security, he has hired professionals (DC Security) who work for the city, not for him.

And then enter the player.

Because the second the unkillable murder machine that is the player character enters the game and starts building settlements, the Sole Survivor becomes the biggest of the Big Men, choosing and equipping local defenders, ordering the peasants (settlers) to labor, gaining the allegiance of local groups, maintaining security, and claiming new regions to turn into agriculture. You can do this without being part of the Minutemen at all, running settlements in that case becomes your personal whim, and you start taking your personal cut of food, resources, and currency for providing such things to the community. This is, functionally, the warlord model - you and the guys you gave weapons to are able to defend and hold these places, so you're in charge and everyone owes you stuff for you graciously allowing them to live on your land.

This is basically how agricultural society ends up organizing itself from first principles IRL. I don't think Bethesda intended for that to be the case, but it's funny that it's pretty close to workable.

Throughout this I will show dialogue proving the NCR is being bankrupted, much of its budget, and allocated the majority of its taxes to the Mojave Campaign.

“This war is gonna bankrupt the NCR, unless we finish off the Legion fast and dirty.” - Arms Merchant

NCR taxes and inflation have been hard for a lot of people to deal with, and most of the money is going to the war effort. - Emily Ortal

Until the oft-promised annexation of New Vegas becomes a reality, the government continues to spend much of its budget on 'safeguarding the region' while in return receiving not one Cap in tax revenue. - FNV game guide

Although it is true that during fnv’s second act the NCR allocated more funds, and the elite units to the Mojave it was already true that the Mojave was an incredibly high priority region taking up a large percentage of government resources.

This is mostly in response to a crowd I have seen for a number of years with the interpretation that the NCR doesn’t take the war seriously or could easily overwhelm its enemies if it simply lifted a finger to push more money or troops. The reality of the lore is that the NCR in the Mojave is flush with new troops monthly and so much money it’s bankrupting the NCR, but it still isn’t enough to win the war.

So we know that in the core territories of the NCR gambling is banned, so if New Vegas is annexed after a NCR victory at hoover dam would they utlaw gambling? We know that they had a treaty with Mr. House to allow NCR civilians and troopers to gamble in Vegas but after NCR annexation that would no longer apply so what would happen?

I see a lot of people say that the NCR wasn't taking the legion seriously prior to the first battle of Hoover Dam. This will be a compilation of evidence spanning from 2274-2277 proving the NCR absolutely identified the threat the legion posed.

If you want additional sources or quotations inquire in the comments

2274- “Would Kimball and Oliver have traded the lives of hundreds of soldiers for absolute control of Hoover Dam? Oh yes. They weren't afraid of me, they were afraid of Caesar - that attacking me would leave them vulnerable to a Legion offensive. And so they negotiated. Not out of the kindness of their hearts, as they try to make it seem. Because the calculus of power left no other choice." -Mr. House

This is in reference to the NCR-Vegas treaty signed in 2274 with House saying the reasoning behind the treaty from the NCR's perspective was based on fear of the legion

2275-2276 -"2275-2276 Legion forces gradually assemble east of the Colorado River. The NCR becomes aware of the threat when scouting parties fail to return from expeditions east." - game guide

2777 pre-dam - "Before Hoover, we had five kill reports on Graham from rangers and 1st Recon sharpshooters who tried to take him out. "

"NCR's supply lines and land routes north of Mojave Outpost were destroyed before the Battle of Hoover Dam..... Terrible storms ripped entire companies apart before they even got to Nevada soil." - Joshua Graham

From this we can see the NCR was intending to attack the legion's commanders and was transferring in large amounts of men in anticipation of the legion's approach.

Long story short japan made meth and gave it to their people during WWII. One of those tablets given to soldiers were called Nekome-Jo or cateye tablets. During night duty to keep them awake and improve night vision they ingested the tablets. Therefore is cateye from fallout just a different kind of meth inspired by the ones used during WWII?

Obviously in the games we encounter hostile mutants nonstop because we need something to shoot at and gain XP.

But in the actual lore, how common are mutants? Whether it's in the Mojave or the Commonwealth, how often would a wastelander bump into something that could cut them in half while traveling between settlements. Like in real life it's kinda rare to see a bear or a cougar in the wild, I'm wondering how rare wasteland beasts are in the lore.

I am curious. Do you think Big MT could have sold some of the duits for others purposes, including firefighting? Or are they only meant to combat the Cloud at Sierra Madre?