200 years after the bombs dropped all across the world in the Great War, creating the treacherous
world of Fallout as we know it, a battle between two nationstates was taking place on the border
of Arizona and Nevada--on the famous Hoover Dam: Caesar’s Legion, carrying the banner
of the Bull, crashed into the unprepared New California Republic who had taken up residency
there. Caught with their pants down and with no hope of fortifying the landmark and strategic
resource, the NCR retreated southwest to the town of Boulder City. Their victory and the
Dam in hand, the Legion pursued them under the leadership of the Malpais Legate, hoping
to turn their assured victory into a crushing, demoralizing defeat that would send the NCR
running west back to California. What they didn’t take into account is that, while
NRC sharpshooters bought time by slowing the Legion down, General Lee Oliver of the NCR
prepared a trap for the Legion.
When the Legion arrived in Boulder City, the trap was sprung, and tons of C4 erupted around
the main offensive force of the Legion, smashing their assault and breaking the organization
of those who were left. The regrouped NCR plunged into the ruined city and crashed into
the scattered remains of Caesar’s army and cut them to pieces. The Legion was routed,
and the NCR retook control the Hoover Dam, the only land route over the colorado river,
and it would be over 4 years until the Legion would have a chance of taking the Dam again.
This is where we start Fallout: New Vegas, as a single courier thrust into the spotlight
of events outside of their control. The tensions between the Legion and the NCR are reaching
a boiling point in the year 2281, and you, the player, are apparently the only person
who can decide its fate. Each army is one man short of winning the Battle for Hoover
Dam, and that person is you, the Human Atom Bomb.
Anyway. The course of the game takes place, and at its climax you can choose to help the
Legion or the NCR, and as an aside you or Mr. House can establish New Vegas as an independent
nation state of its own in control of the dam. In either case, the Battle for the Dam
must happen, and it must have a victor.
Too bad it doesn’t matter who wins.
Let me explain.
Throughout all of Fallout: New Vegas, you’re one person going through the trials and tribulations
that one person goes through. The entire game is framed around the importance of the Hoover
dam, and the game ends when the battle’s over. It’s the primary conflict of the title,
and with its resolution, the game ends, and you breathe a sigh of relief and feel accomplished.
The battle feels huge to you, and it should, since, you know, the fate of the battle weighs
entirely on your shoulders. But in reality? The Hoover Dam is nothing.
Well, that’s not quite true. It’s definitely something. It’s a symbol, and a legitimate
strategic resource that provides electricity and controls land access across the colorado
river basin, one of the few ways to cross from Arizona into Nevada, and vice-versa,
and the immediate control over Eastern Nevada and Western Arizona hinges on who controls
that Dam.
But it doesn’t matter, in the end, because, while the Dam and the battle to control it
is strategically significant and takes great sacrifice, preparation, and devotion of resources
to acquire, it is, ultimately, just one, small piece of a very, very large puzzle that, when
put together, comprises the entire southwestern United States, upon which the war for the
soul of humanity is fought, of which there can be only one person who wins. And if you look close
enough, you realize that the victor is obvious.
With the crushing defeat of the Legion at the hands of the New California Republic during
the first battle for the Hoover Dam, Caesar learned the hard way that the NCR wasn’t
a foe he could take out in a straightforward battle, and his tactics, executed by Legate
Lanius and Vulpes Inculta, embodied a new strategy: disruption of morale and guerilla
warfare. When you have a strong enemy, you strike them where they’re weak with what
you can, maximising their casualties and emotional distress while minimizing your own, disorienting
and even decapitating their leadership, and forcing your large enemy to divide their forces.
All of these things are tactics that the Legion executes with aplomb, with its multiple established
fronts at Nelson and Cottonwood Cove, and its campaigns of terrorism at Camp Searchlight,
Ranger Station Charlie, Nipton, the attempted assassination of President Kimball, and its
excursions into the Long 15 before the creation of The Divide--all of which were specifically
designed to target the weak points of a much larger enemy, exploiting their vulnerabilities,
confusing their generals, and spreading them out so that they are less threatening.
Say what you will about the morals and ethics of the Legion, in the time leading up to the
the second battle of Hoover Dam, their tactics and wartime acumen are second to none.
The NCR, by contrast, is stretched thin--the Mojave is the wild frontier of their territory,
and they have a weak grasp, at best, over the area. They’re demoralized, understaffed,
and far from their home. Most troops in the area have no sense of purpose, and are stressed
by the possibility of waking up any day to a surprise attack from the Legion. Their outlook
is grim, and even more grim should the courier side with the Legion and facilitate the death
of President Kimball, but even if Kimball survives, that doesn’t mean much. The Legion
is at their throats, banging down their door, and support for Kimball is waning. While his
war hawkish leadership philosophy was what originally won him the support of NCR, his
dogged pursuit of claiming the Mojave is wearing both his men on the ground and his support
back home thin. The continuation of Kimball’s presidency hinges on securing the Mojave,
and even if he does, it’s not clear that the benefits will become obvious soon enough
to keep him from being voted out, if he isn’t killed in the events of New Vegas.
So, in the war between the Legion and the NCR, the victor, at the end of the day, is
clear: it’s the New California Republic.
I mentioned earlier that the Hoover Dam is one piece of a large puzzle, a puzzle that
spans the entire southwestern United States. It’s the climax of the plot of Fallout:
New Vegas, but that’s just a snapshot, an instance in time of what is a years-long war
fought on multiple fronts across the entire Southwest. The Second Battle of Hoover dam
is where the story of Fallout: New Vegas ends, but it’s just the beginning of years and
years of dogged fighting across Arizona, Nevada, Utah, Oregon, and California.
And a lot can happen in a war that spans years. The Legion is able to press the advantage
in the Mojave because the NCR is overextended and demoralized, and in the event that they
win the Second Battle of the Hoover dam, it’s due to the ability to overwhelm the NCR by
cutting off their retreat and removing their biggest advantage from the table: their improved
technology.
However, the NCR isn’t staffed with incompetent military leaders, and the further west the
Legion pushes, the deeper and deeper into NCR territory they’re going to get, and
more and more of their advantages will multiply, and the more and more the Legion’s strengths
will wane.
Ultimately, the defeat of the Legion at the hands of the NCR becomes inevitable due to
three key factors:
1. Overexpansion 2. Inferior Technology
3. Bad Administration
The Legion is modelled after the Roman Empire, specifically under the leadership of Julius
Caesar. The most important aspect from the Roman Empire the Legion adopts is the incorporation
of conquered tribes into its military ranks and erasing their cultural identity. This
was most successfully done by the Roman Empire over generations, so that even people living
in fringe territories of the Roman Empire thought of themselves as Roman. Caesar’s
Legion, however, has been around for only a couple of decades, and most people in the
ranks still remember the tribes they came from. This places the cultural identity in
Jeopardy, especially since as the Legion travels further west, there are less and less independent
tribes to incorporate into their ranks, the territories they claim will become more difficult
to hold, and their forces will become spread out--effectively the exact same problem the
NCR had when it reached for the Mojave will become the Legion’s issue.
But perhaps more importantly, the NCR has technology, and isn’t afraid to use it.
Even bigger: they have the means of producing this technology. The NCR, while perhaps somewhat
inefficient at mobilizing due to its bureaucracy, corruption, and pesky “rights,” has thrived
in adoption the industrial innovation of the past, and unlike the Ludditical Legion, has
no qualms using guns, chems, and vertibirds. The Legion will use guns if they must, but
the eager adoption of this tech by the NCR means they are better trained in their use
and maintenance, and the production of these weapons fresh by organizations like the Gun
Runners means that they’ll never be in short supply. Adoption of wartime technology improves
unit efficiency and mobility, and the further west the Legion presses, the shorter the NCR
supply lines to the front line get. The further west they go, the harder they’ll get hit
in the nose.
But this could all be circumvented with clever tactics and time, which is the ultimate enemy
of the Legion: the ticking of the clock. You see, the Legion, under Caesar, doesn’t resemble
Rome at its height, as much as Edward Sallow would like to believe that it does. Rather,
it resembles Rome at its collapse: overextended by war and conquest, and forced by the desperation
of fighting a superior enemy into having people from different tribes and identities in its
ranks. This isn’t too important in the events of New Vegas, as the men are held together
by loyalty and fear to Caesar and their commanders, but some day, eventually, Caesar will die.
Either from the brain tumor in his head going untreated, from assassination, and accident,
or just the slow marching of time. The Wasteland is a rough place, and Caesar isn’t a spring
chicken. Eventually, he will die.
How long would it be that the disparate leaders of the Legion start to fight for control of
the empire like Roman generals did in the third and fourth centuries in our real world?
How long before the tribes that had existed merely years ago start to want to recover
their identities? Even if the fierce Lanius could keep the majority of the army under
his banner using fear, he’s a poor politician and has a complete disregard for lateral thinking.
There’s no leadership contingency in the Legion, and that is its biggest downfall,
and that is what keeps it from being a nation that will stand the test of time, and instead
relegates it into a glorified camp of raiders who like to play dress up. The NCR, even should
Kimball die or get deposed, is more than prepared to replace him--the weakness of its democratic
republic is inefficiency, but its strength is adaptability. You can cut off the head,
but two more will grow back, because its core identity isn’t tied to its leadership, rather
its leadership is dependent on the government’s principles.
They have contingencies, they have tactics, they have numbers, and they have technology.
They may not be the power that will rule the entire United States, but the NCR’s reign
over the American Southwest will remain unchallenged once Caesar dies, the Legion is fractured,
and becomes unable to form a cohesive front against eastward expansion. Because of bad
administrative planning and philosophical hangups the Legion is doomed. All the NCR
has to do is wait.