Per the beginning of the game Vegas lies directly on the path north to New Canaan as well as east into the lands held by the Legion. Now whether or not one sides with the Legion -there is trade back and forth from the east(the traders which trade with and through the Legion) which filters through the Mojave and then back to the west and vice versa. It’s why you see many of the folk within the Mojave accepting Legion scrip as well as NCR.
Part of the trade that sustains Vegas comes from NCR. Part of. No, the Mojave won’t sustain Vegas entirely, just as in turn the NCR isn’t able to sustain itself with its current internal strife. It’s become more aggressive, more expansionist for that reason.
And of course Vegas isn’t Reno. It sets between the NCR and further expansion east and north as well as resources it wants. Reno is a dive. It’s a collective of junkies, criminals, and drug pushers within a ruined city. So are parts of Vegas, admittedly, but even so, Reno’s well within NCR’s borders and so subject to the same internal pressures as the rest of the NCR. And that’s what’s more than a bit off with it.
Vegas is on the front lines, or near enough as to come to no difference. This comes to a time -fictional though it is- when caravans and troop movements are still run largely on foot. Rather than having to rotate troops back to Reno for leave they keep them near where they’re needed most. If for that reasoning alone Vegas is far from unnecessary. Reno’s much farther off.
House’s ambitions lay beyond simple trade. He’s selling ideas, and Vegas is one of them. The strip is kept exclusive, for that exclusivity is what keeps it desirable. For everyone other, there is Westside, Freeside, and Northside.
Now, should he open the strip proper- allow it to become overpopulated- ridden with crime and disease, shot up and defaced after the fashion of Reno? Should he, then much of what he’d squired away for over two hundred years, the mystique that had kept Vegas worthwhile for those willing and able to pay their way with a caravan, and then to pass within the strip would come to naught.
The notion that casinos, and gambling, and entertainment would count for so much might seem laughable to you or I from our perspectives. Yet viewed from that of someone living within the setting, tell of a place where you have all those things, not within the slums of Reno, but where much of what was the old world is preserved? Such that it lights the sky for miles around? In many ways that’s near to priceless- it’s the stuff of dreams. Whether or not those dreams hold true for those who make the journey is another matter. It’s enough that it calls so many of them to it, war or no. And none of the cattle barons, none of the weapons merchants, none of the entertainers, nor the movements such as the Children of the Apocalypse wish to squander whatever opportunities might come from those dreams. To that end I haven’t misunderstood, I simply have a differing opinion from you.
And no, removing the Legion doesn’t necessarily rectify NCR’s failings. NCR is a corrupt, top-heavy, power filled with good, bad, and ordinary folk as any widespread nation is. Yet it’s that centralised seat of governance, the rotten core which ensures that the wider it expands the further corrupt, the further out of touch, and further detached from the truths of human sufferings the NCR’s government, and by extension, its folk, become.
Folk to the heart of NCR, those without relatives serving, see the fight for the dam as a drain on the Republic and nothing more. They go about their lives and wonder why levies have risen, why goods cost more, why they haven’t been given victory, and why they haven’t seen the water, food, or electrics they were promised for supporting their politicians’ calls for war and the eventual annexation of the territory. They toil, and play, and live and wonder why it isn’t it over yet. In that way, even the best of nations, with the best of folk living within them are parties to evils unknown committed in their names.
NCR isn’t unquestionably the best option for the Mojave as it hasn’t necessarily got the region’s folk, including those who’ve emigrated there from the west, at heart. There are good souls, yes, troopers on the ground who see life to the Mojave for what it is and who strive to make a difference, but they are individuals whose voices largely go unheard. You have to ask yourself – is NCR simply a conqueror with a different sales pitch, or is it truly pursuing engagement for the well of the region? There’s a difference. It’s slight, yet it’s there even so. And it matters.
As to your question of trade route towns- For our world, the route was there from what was old Mexico; through Texas – west to California and then North toward Utah. Vegas was an oasis - due to the natural springs found near it. Locations such as the Mormon fort and Good springs lie to the heart of that route. The beginnings for Vegas the gambling hub ironically came with American annexation, and later the coming of the railroads and the highways. Gambling itself came about toward the end of the prohibition era when it was legalised. The rest was a combination of that continued prosperity, proximity to the –depression/post-depression public works building of Hoover dam, and later the burgeoning Atomics projects near it. But with those come and gone, gambling, entertainment, and tourism reasserted themselves as its greatest attractions. Beyond that you come to the fifties and early sixties where Fallout’s and our timeline diverge.
So again to the assertions of what’s ‘of value’ within the strip- I’ve answered that above. Beyond that we’ll simply have to agree to disagree.
For the other stuff, the trouble with saying the folk to the east are simply murderous is that they’re murderers, yes, but in partly the same fashion which NCR is murderous should you deny them something they want. I don’t espouse the Legion’s methods/culture –culling the old, the infirm, and it’s stances toward women and children, but whether to the long run or the short run, the ends given from both factions are the same should you cross or slight them. NCR takes a bit more care in hiding what it’s done, and showing shame should it come caught out- as it was to Bitter Springs; one of the few redeeming aspects of politics within the Republic. Though it owes that more to the collective conscience of the populace and the cynicism of its governors.
As to House’s rotten plan -courier willing, he finds the chip even so, doesn’t he? For the Legion, assuming the courier never intervenes on its behalf, they set no better off than the NCR. Caesar’s ‘empire,’ much more so than the Republic or even House’s new Vegas, is held together by force of personality- Caesar’s charisma and wisdom- such as it is. Assuming he perishes from his condition, the Legion then slowly collapses of its own weight. Lanius is a brute, but without the knowledge, charisma, or tact with which Caesar forged his empire, he doesn’t have much of a future. His legionnaires will fear him, yes, but never so much revere him. His days are limited to what time he has before he’s either too old, too slow, or he’s slain one too many of his own men for not measuring up. And once he’s taken his knife(knives) to the back and ended you have naught but the same cycle of infighting and assassination which helped to tear old Rome apart.
To your four examples, I answered some of those with my reply to Brothernone. As to any of them prospering -no more than they might have under other regimes. What more it’s stated within the game they come to prospering in spite of the NCR. Good springs, and Primm got nothing but levied. Nipton was left for burned. Novac seems an aberration as it was indeed sacked -even though my character scoured Cottonwood Cove and all the lands which laid between them of Legion. Jacobstown was nearly -or fully owing to how the courier sorted it- destroyed by the instigation of a band of mercenaries with NCR connections.
The heart of this back and forth to me, as was said above- is that there is no ideal solution. None of the three factions- House, Caesar, or NCR are innocent or necessarily better than the others. And even declaring for yourself/Yesman has its own peculiar worries. Each choice has its darker and lighter sides and it comes down to what the individual –the courier/player is willing to accept. To the true world would I side with the Legion? Of course no! Yet within the setting of the game, from the character’s unique perspective, the decision isn’t so cut and clean. To my mind that feeling of ambiguity was exceptionally well done within the core of New Vegas. It’s why I chose to offer my differing opinions.
Now, that said, should either of you wish to continue beating your chests to assert which of *your* true world moralities and economics are the soundest, and which in-game decisions are unequivocally so based on such? Should it make you feel any better, have on then. I don’t give a toss.
For Devil-
So it was. Guilty for the oversight, and for that nit I stand before you corrected. Thanks to you for pointing it out.
