Future of the NCR

A real reset button for the West Coast would be to have a Legion victory, but then have Caesar die shortly afterwards, causing the Legion to split apart into multiple warring factions. In this scenario, everybody loses - the NCR is beaten back to their territory, House is taken out of commission, the Legion itself ceases to exist. We'd be left with a dangerous world of all against all, showing that war.....war never changes.

:P
 
I'm not much of a fan of NCR, but I wouldn't like to see them fall back to Shady Sands level. And I'd also prefer to see the next Fallout set in Alaska or Florida, or at least just anywhere else other than California or DC. Unfortunately the collapse of NCR is not that implausible, Beth already screwed up one empire for the sake of the plot - Skyrim, anyone?
 
One vote against nuking but the suggestion that the NCR does not expand beyond the Mojave because of internal problems.

I like a lot of Avellone's ideas but I am against resetting the clock. Civilization eventually rebuilds and wiping it out again seems like a grimdark setting.
Instead future Fallout games should take places in states or regions that have not been used in a game yet.
 
The Dutch Ghost said:
One vote against nuking but the suggestion that the NCR does not expand beyond the Mojave because of internal problems.

I like a lot of Avellone's ideas but I am against resetting the clock. Civilization eventually rebuilds and wiping it out again seems like a grimdark setting.
Instead future Fallout games should take places in states or regions that have not been used in a game yet.
Click to expand...

Likewise. While NCR definitely shouldn't become a big hegemonic power, just erasing it seems silly. It's got a good place in the lore, full of ambiguity and untold stories. It's certainly much better at this than the stupid Legion. A reset button seems so... comic book-ish. Like, statu quo is nice and all to ground a series, but it's not the only thing that should matter.

As for ''damaging'' the post-apocalyptic atmosphere, honestly, at some point the series has to move on a bit. The USA can't stay a ruined wasteland forever, I mean one of the biggest criticisms levied at Fallout 3 here and elsewhere was how it just didn't feel like 200 years had passed. Unless they make the next game in the past, I just don't see how you could make sense of a world that doesn't like anyone has lived there for hundreds of years after the bombs fell.
 
With regards to the NCR I think that we'll find more and more that your interaction with them will reflect the rise of modern nation state(in some ways a parallel to Manifest Destiny, but driving east instead).

Now though some of the writing of the NCR with reference to New Vegas it had already become a bit of an allegory to the modern situation of a superpower, so it's only fitting that with regards to that bent in particular we'll continue to see it rise, prosper, and in a sense rebuild the once shattered wasteland.
 
I like the Idea of the NCR just getting too big and collapsing inwards. Maybe not nukes, but corruption, politics, riots, more politics, uprising, failure of said uprising, fall of the NCR.
 
Last edited:
Yeah, I would agree. politics, crime, perhaps a plague or two... it'd be a lot more fun than "Nuke falls, Everyone Dies". We should also explore the history of the NCR- maybe the dirty politics or crime rings in the big cities. That'd be a fun setting for a videogame.

Personally I'd love to see the spore problem from Vault 22 come and bite the NCR in the ass. Imagine the Boneyard covered in vibrant green ferns and vines crawling from skyscraper to skyscraper. It'd be a great "Science!" moment and still be apocalyptic- but this time it's not fire but grass. Breath of fresh air, right?
 
The whole NCR failing from politics and being set there would also draw it out of the 50's setting and possibly make it more cyberpunk-ish.
 
TheChosen1 said:
The whole NCR failing from politics and being set there would also draw it out of the 50's setting and possibly make it more cyberpunk-ish.
Click to expand...

Though Fallout never truly was in the 50's so to speak(really only Bethesda's mockery of Fallout turned it into that), instead it was a future in which retro futurism was the visual flair, however it was not supposed to be wholly based around a 50's theme for everything.
 
RetroAmerica wins the cupie. Fallout's had a healthy dose of 80s punk-future flair since day one, so much so that it's probably fair to say that it was a more prominent element of the theme than the retro bits. Almost every bit of the setting that came after the bombs was influenced more by Mad Max or A Boy And His Dog (or Wasteland) than it was Leave It To Beaver. The 50s traces were always there to serve more as contrast elements and framing and to add distinctiveness to the wasteland.
 
Yamu said:
RetroAmerica wins the cupie. Fallout's had a healthy dose of 80s punk-future flair since day one, so much so that it's probably fair to say that it was a more prominent element of the theme than the retro bits. Almost every bit of the setting that came after the bombs was influenced more by Mad Max or A Boy And His Dog (or Wasteland) than it was Leave It To Beaver. The 50s traces were always there to serve more as contrast elements and framing and to add distinctiveness to the wasteland.
Click to expand...
As well as provide a vehicle for the dark humor to use. A Perk or Trait which has the sole purpose to disturbingly scale the violence to unbelievable levels being described by such a cheery and retro-styled face like the Vault Boy adds a dimension of humorous morbidity to the game. Clearly the architecture was heavily influenced by 50s-styled retro future, but not the culture. The survivors that populated the Wasteland didn't have a spec of 50s America personality, nor fashion, nor habits, nor colloquialisms, that was just a mistake of Bethesda's to extend the influence from architecture and technology to culture and people.
 
SnapSlav said:
Clearly the architecture was heavily influenced by 50s-styled retro future, but not the culture.
Click to expand...

What? There's plenty of evidence the culture was at least somewhat retro, and no evidence explicitly against it- in Fallout 1 or 2. Does the opening video with "Maybe" not exist? Do the various pre-war advertisements littered around not exist? Marketers and musicians don't make products to an audience with a different sense of fashion or culture than them. Vault Suits and certain other design choices would imply that the fashion of common America was also retro-futuristic.

You can't really blame Bethesda for taking a direction with something that was never clearly defined, and especially to assume like that.
 
I think he was talking about the post-war environment, i.e. the (Iplay/Black Isle) wasteland is replete with the physical leavings of pre-war society, but outside of the canned reductionist facsimile found in the vaults, pre-war culture seems to bear absolutely no residual influence on the surviving communities except for where it has actively (and poorly) been upheld by groups like tribals or the BOS. Bethesda's wasteland differs very clearly in tone from Black Isle's (and even MicroForte's/14 Degrees East's) in that they decided that not just the bones of pre-war society, but the phantom of its culture, was still going to be around.

I do think that the demarcation in the originals was clear and hard to miss, so they wouldn't have needed a codified "Creating Fallout" manual as much as just putting in a playthrough or two of the games if they were seeking to hew closely to what had already been established, but that was their call to make (even if I would hardly be the first to argue for some of their choices if asked). Perhaps the (even) greater sense of civic pride present in the pre-war population of the capitol manifested itself in a desperate clinging to the glories of old, the way dark-age peons would have paid lip service to old Rome as their venerable heritage and retained what of its customs they could even as they struggled through their short, hardscrabble lives in the shadows of its ruins.

(Yeah, I'm aware that almost everything any would-be bar trivia history buff would have you believe about the "Dark Ages" is completely wrong, but you get me.)
 
Last edited:
Hyddan92 said:
The NCR might go fascist.
Click to expand...

The NCR is a parody of the worst aspects of American government and society- expansionism, economic imperialism, uncontrolled capitalism, vicious consumerism, and militarism. NCR history has many parallels with American history. That being said, America will never "go fascist". America is oppressive in far different ways than blunt totalitarianism. Just look at a history of American relations with Cuba to see how exactly we exert our influence: not through direct military takeover, but economic siege, capitalism, indirect military takeover, propaganda, and backing the right cronies. Sound a little bit how the NCR tried to deal with House?

The NCR's a potential enemy because they're a nation of expansionists, unregulated capitalists, and military hardheads who are more than willing to force their way- but all about the rights and liberties of the people at the same time. Hell, whenever the American left tries to call the validity of a 200-year old text into question, millions of american citizens stage protests, afraid their rights are slowly being degraded and it'll be 1984 in no time. The USA's a different kind of beast than the likes of the USSR and Hitler.

(Yeah, I'm aware that almost everything any would-be bar trivia history buff would have you believe about the "Dark Ages" is completely wrong, but you get me.)
Click to expand...

Please, that comparison hurt me. Deeply.
 
First time poster.

Well what i see and hope with the future of the ncr is this. It would be a House ending with the NCR finally stopped and checked and having to pay for electricity and water. Also Lanius is talked outta his battle and goes back to the Legion controled lands and sets to buffing up their hold on the land. With a winning but a loss at Hoover Dam and with the Legion still active but placing atm, im hoping for civil war in the NCR. The people finally having enough and rebelling and new factions forming. Would be interesting to see what the NCR government becomes and more interesting than imho of simply being nuked. Would go well with evolution because both the ncr and legion would have to put on the brakes and instead of running forward, would have to backtrack and really establish themselves into that area they control instead of simply going thru taking it and moving on. Oppertunities for both sides to change into something else. No wiping of the slate but oppertunities for both factions to have a chance to adapt and change or be broken.
 
Wumbology said:
SnapSlav said:
Clearly the architecture was heavily influenced by 50s-styled retro future, but not the culture. [He omits the following:] The survivors that populated the Wasteland didn't have a spec of 50s America personality, nor fashion, nor habits, nor colloquialisms, that was just a mistake of Bethesda's to extend the influence from architecture and technology to culture and people.
Click to expand...
What? There's plenty of evidence the culture was at least somewhat retro, and no evidence explicitly against it- in Fallout 1 or 2. Does the opening video with "Maybe" not exist? Do the various pre-war advertisements littered around not exist? Marketers and musicians don't make products to an audience with a different sense of fashion or culture than them. Vault Suits and certain other design choices would imply that the fashion of common America was also retro-futuristic.

You can't really blame Bethesda for taking a direction with something that was never clearly defined, and especially to assume like that.
Click to expand...
Yamu said:
I think he was talking about the post-war environment, i.e. the (Iplay/Black Isle) wasteland is replete with the physical leavings of pre-war society, but outside of the canned reductionist facsimile found in the vaults, pre-war culture seems to bear absolutely no residual influence on the surviving communities except for where it has actively (and poorly) been upheld by groups like tribals or the BOS. Bethesda's wasteland differs very clearly in tone from Black Isle's (and even MicroForte's/14 Degrees East's) in that they decided that not just the bones of pre-war society, but the phantom of its culture, was still going to be around.

I do think that the demarcation in the originals was clear and hard to miss, so they wouldn't have needed a codified "Creating Fallout" manual as much as just putting in a playthrough or two of the games if they were seeking to hew closely to what had already been established, but that was their call to make (even if I would hardly be the first to argue for some of their choices if asked). Perhaps the (even) greater sense of civic pride present in the pre-war population of the capitol manifested itself in a desperate clinging to the glories of old, the way dark-age peons would have paid lip service to old Rome as their venerable heritage and retained what of its customs they could even as they struggled through their short, hardscrabble lives in the shadows of its ruins.

(Yeah, I'm aware that almost everything any would-be bar trivia history buff would have you believe about the "Dark Ages" is completely wrong, but you get me.)
Click to expand...
Indeed, that's exactly what I meant, Yamu. But I guess clarification WAS necessary, since I didn't clarify on my own what I meant by that statement in the immediately following sentence, right? XD

It goes without saying that I seem to be under fire from the dude for whatever reason, his other critiques elsewhere equally on par with this one in terms of validity. I'm not sure what to make of someone taking my response out of context and missing a point illustrated by the very next sentence and using that to color me wrong- much less their habitual repetition of that behavior -but the repeat offenses leads me to think he's just got some sort of weird grudge. His latest jab was just a distortion of your comment here about misconceptions of the Dark Ages, so I can't even give his argument points for originality! ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

The recurring theme I've noticed (apart from that I must be wrong) is generally some shade of misanthropism mingled with a potently cynical anti-American sentiment. Not that the latter is strictly a bad thing (in healthy doses), but clinging so closely to the former all the way is just obsessive and narrow-minded. I dunno, singular minds, limited perspective...

Anyway, back to assessing the future of the NCR... Also welcome, RedneckDevil. =)
 
...you're cool. Do two responses to your posts (one of which was in a thread I started) seriously mean I must be attacking you? Do you suffer from paranoia? A refusal to be proven wrong? (I kid, I kid. But you are being needlessly rude.) I'm not misanthropic, and I have no idea where you came up with that. That aside-

to argue my case, you referred to architecture.
Given that no Fallout game portrays retro-futuristic architecture that isn't from before the war (excluding maybe like Vault City's council building or the Cathedral), I assumed you were talking about pre-war people/culture not being retrofuturistic. I was wrong, yeah, but semantically speaking you didn't really define what you were talking about this the following sentence, instead going on to a new subject entirely. My bad? Does it matter? While you were talking about post-war survivors not inheriting the culture of the pre-war world, I'd argue that still, given that NCR fashion (judging by their soldiers and the NCR Strip-goers we see) is distinctly retro. New Vegas' surroundings, too, has its old-western flare.

Bringing old culture into the new world isn't a mistake per se. Bethesda handled it clumsily, but there are other opportunities to do it... right.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top