If you were born into a world that looked like this one, with the bones of your dead
countrymen still lying in their beds, you might have grown up just a little obsessed
with history.
The terrible story that led to all this.
As a person who grew up in a harsh and radioactive wasteland, you would probably spend most of
your waking hours wrestling with questions like, "How did this happen?
Will this catastrophe happen again, and if so, can it be avoided".
It was in trying to answer these questions that led to the birth of perhaps one of cruelest
tribes to ever be featured in a Fallout game.
This tribe is evil; however, they are one of the biggest factions in post-war America,
and what they represent stretches well beyond just the one game they make an appearance
in.
If the ultimate goal of Fallout is survival in an unforgiving wasteland, then Caesar has
been playing that game at a much higher dimension than most people give him credit for.
If you thought the Legion was just a post-apocalyptic parody of the Roman Empire...
I'm afraid you haven't been paying attention.
Caesar was born about 150 years after the Great War destroyed civilization in Fallout’s
timeline.
Society might have been sent back to the stone ages, but by the time Caesar enters the scene,
the United States has started to bounce back in the form of the New California Republic,
a democratic faction that dominates most of the West Coast.
Born under the unassuming name “Edward Sallow”, from the very start, Caesar has a rough go at life.
Even as a protected citizen under the NCR, he loses his father at a very very young age;
killed by raiders.
This is important, because it becomes the single greatest event in the life of a man
who would later grow up to terrorize the wasteland in his own right.
After the death of his father, Edward's mother is forced to seek protection with the Followers.
The Followers are perhaps the most benevolent faction in the wasteland.
Above all, they want to make sure the mistakes of the Great War are never repeated.
What we're going to learn is that Edward Sallow never stopped being a Follower.
As a matter of fact, in a sort of sick twist, Caesar might be the epitome of what a Follower
can become once their keystone doctrine is taken to its logical conclusion.
When we meet him for the first time in Fallout New Vegas, it becomes very clear that this
man, surrounded by his animal skins and tribals, is actually a towering intellect.
If you get to talk to him for long he'll try to justify the actions of him and his Legion by referencing
philosophical ideas that can be found in the books he's read.
And since Fallout's historical timeline is just our historical timeline, these books
he's referencing are real.
They're these books to be exact.
All written by German authors, the topics of these books give us a really unique insight
into the mind of a Caesar.
The ideology and philosophy, the driving force behind Caesar’s Legion
and their ultimate goal in the wasteland can be found in these pre-War books.
So how does a Follower become the Leader of the cruelest tribe in the wasteland, and how
will that ultimately be a good thing for America?
Well, to answer both those questions we have to look at Caesar's favorite author, or at
least the author he seems to reference the most.
The 18th century German philosopher, Georg Hegel.
[Caesar Audio Clip] "If there's anything Iearned as a Follower of the Apocalypse, it's that
there's a lot of good information in old books."
Hegel, for those who aren't familiar, is credited as one of the greatest systematic thinkers
in the history of western culture, a great choice if you're trying to rebuilt civilization
from the ground up.
Hegel was a master historian.
He left his mark on philosophy by studying the past, and studying the past is very important,
especially if your world was recently destroyed by a nuclear war, and you're desperately clawing
for answers.
Looking at Hegel it's plain to see exactly how much the Legion owes its existence to
this philosopher of the old world.
In his books, Hegel encourages his students to “mine” history like one would mine
for gold.
Every civilization that existed throughout the ages could be looked at as a grand human experiment, and every experiment
teaches you an important lesson.
The Romans could teach you how to conquer and assimilate.
The Americans could teach you what happens when your technology outpaces your morals.
To be a Hegelian historian means salvaging from the past these important lessons.
And Caesar might be the greatest Hegelian historian in the wasteland.
Yes, I know, Caesar crucifies people.
Enslaves them.
He makes his men fight with spears, and is willing to let them die by the thousands because
he doesn’t want his Legion to use technology like their soft and doughy enemies do.
Caesar, is a monster.
But like the best of them, this monster does what he does, because he has clear purpose
and principals.
Caesar wants to eradicate cultural identity in the wasteland, because in his well-read
mind, bickering people in a diverse and divided world is what led to the apocalypse.
He wants to keep technology out of the hands of the common man, not only to maintain his
own power, but because history recently demonstrated that an over-reliance on technology is destructive
in the worst possible sense.
Over-reliance on tech is what led to the Resource Wars; what prompted the Great War.
[Caesar Audio Clip] "The NCR is a loose conglomerate of individuals looking out for themselves;
it's not built to last.
I'll destroy it because it's inevitable that it be destroyed.
If you’re looking at the world through Hegel’s lens, then the NCR is an experiment that has
played itself out before.
The NEW California Republic is really just the OLD United States, with all the strengths
and weaknesses of a democracy.
And in case you've forgotten, in Fallout’s timeline, democracies haven’t had
a great run as of late.
“If you want to see the fate of democracies, look out the windows.”
And looking out the windows is exactly that I did when I met Mr House for the first time.
The view is tragic.
The New California Republic thinks that rebuilding society means bringing back the principals
and political institutions of a Pre-War America, but if you think about this from the perspective
of any well-read person residing in the Fallout universe, this is crazy.
If the definition of insanity is “doing the same thing over and expecting different
results”, then yes, a really good argument could be made against the NCR and its current
mission.
I think that even Caesar himself wouldn't say that the New California Republic is inherently
evil, but their blind determination to bring back the ideologies of a recently failed state
is “questionable” at best.
This flies in the face of what a post-apocalyptic society should and would be concerned with.
Make no mistake, if you resided in a world like the one presented here, preventing something
like the Great War from ever happening again should rank very highly on your list of priorities.
And yes, you’d be right to say that Caesar’s methods are way too extreme, but if Caesar’s
Legion is an overcorrection to the Great War, then the NCR could most definitely be seen
as an under-correction.
If it’s true that history repeats itself, then the NCR is ultimately doomed.
But, isn’t Caesar’s Legion ultimately doomed too?
After all, in this game of post-apocalyptic Civ, Edward Sallow has chosen to play as the
Romans, and as we've highlighted before, when Caesar dies, this experiment of his ends,
and it likely ends very poorly, right?
Wrong.
The Legion’s mere presence in the wasteland is important, and win or lose, the fact that
this faction even exists in Fallout’s timeline, means that America might not be doomed after
all.
While Caesar might be the most well-read man in the Wasteland, he’s forgotten to heed
one of Hegel’s most important lessons.
Hegel warned that mankind tends to make progress by constantly jumping from one extreme to
another.
It's something that the wasteland itself is currently going through.
To demonstrate how this pendulum of progress works, let’s briefly look at a real-world
example from Hegel’s day.
The French Revolution.
During that period, an all-powerful monarchy abuses its power, and in response an all-angry
peasantry lops off their heads.
Anarchy ensues.
Eventually order is restored when the pendulum swings back to Napoleon, who in turn, promptly
abuses his power.
Only after the fall of Napoleon and many years of bloodshed does the pendulum find equilibrium
with a modern state, a more balanced government for the French people.
Hence, progress.
Like Napoleon, Caesar should and will fail, but not before swinging the pendulum, one
more time.
While the Legion is certainly a bad thing for those living in the wasteland at present,
its existence is vital if America is ever going to learn.
Caesar isn’t just some poorly dressed cosplayer trying to seize power, he’s presenting an
ideology to counter-balance the NCR’s ideology.
It's forcing mankind to look itself in the mirror, and start asking itself questions it hadn't
before.
Without Caesar, or someone like him, America is almost certainly doomed to repeat the mistakes
of the past.
So with that said, who stands at the center of this pendulum?
Who's the equilibrium?
The synthesis?
The solution?
Is it Mr House?
Is it the Courier?
Is it someone, or something else?
Let me know what you think.
What should a governing body look like in a world like the one presented in Fallout.
If your answer is simply the NCR, then I’d don’t think you’ve been listening.
If you liked this video, and the philosophy it explores, I would highly recommend checking
out the School of Life.
It’s a channel I personally watch a lot, and it proved very helpful when researching
this topic.
If you want to learn how to rebuild society in the event of nuclear war, here’s the
video about Georg Hegel.
I’ve been Josh, thanks for watching.