I do not think the factions in fallout new vegas are morally grey actually

TheHouseAlwaysWins

Look, Ma! Two Heads!
I would say they're just more fleshed out as entities in the gameworld.

The two good routes are the NCR and Independent. The two bad routes are Mr House and the Legion

The NCR isn't perfect but that doesn't mean they're neutral or bad. The NCR apologizes and feels shame actually over the mistakes they make like Bitter Springs, as with any large entity they are prone to corruption but the positives outweigh the negatives geneally.

The Independent ending has some negative effect for groups like the Followers of the Apocalypse but so actually in the long run it allows the region to develop its own indepedent culture and strength.

The legion on the other hand are the most evil faction in the entire game of Fallout New Vegas. The Legion regularly does atrocities to random people or just to people who were on the wrong side like the NCR. Caesar is a guy who has no remorse to any of his followers and sees them as disposable tools where his entire strategy is just to herd them and throw them at the enemy. The legion are also hypocrites where they complain about people having bad morals but regularly use subversion to destroy their enemies and act like a barbarian organization. Caesar's entire speech is just an armchair philosophy of "the end justifies the means" or something

I also think Mr House is bad because he is the manifestation of stagnation. He is pretty extremely arrogant. Ya you can colonize other stars because you built a theme park for the NCR.
 
NCR - Uses democracy because they believe each citizen deserves to be free but it's filled with corruption where the rich take advantage of the poor. Not to mention no qualms about killing people to take their land. Please tell me how this isn't morally grey.

The NCR also throw soldiers constantly at enemies (look at the battlie in Helios), even if they are ill-equipped (which most actually are) or don't have much combat experience. Feels like you're forgetting important information to make the NCR seem better than they actually are.

Legion - Builds their code that every person in the Legion should live and die for Caesar and everyone is a tool for the faction, even Legate Lanius. He also believes that all the squabbling between factions just leads to pointless war that will just end up killing everyone. So he thinks that he should assimilate every faction into their ranks, wether they like it or not, because he thinks everyone are just barbaric assholes (he's not wrong) who constantly kill each other.

He thinks everyone will eventually adopt this mentality that every person is for the Legion only and believes this will remove complacency and lazyness. Hence why he hates democracy because he thinks it breeds these types of behaviour (and again, he's not wrong, look at the NCR).

House - Wants to build an utopia where it will lead humanity to a better future. He also runs simulations to predict future events and this is one of the reasons why he's trying to do this.

Independent - I actually think this one is terrible. Ever since the bombs fell, countless people have been killing each other for literal centuries, some of the times for petty things. I can only see New Vegas become a place for anarchy where nobody rules and everyone just keep killing each other. Then someone will just come up and try to take it for themselves because humans always end up creating groups where they share the same ideals. New Vegas will never be independent.


I have a feeling you didn't paid attention to half of what they said.
 
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NCR - Uses democracy because they believe each citizen deserves to be free but it's filled with corruption where the rich take advantage of the poor. Not to mention no qualms about killing people to take their land. Please tell me how this isn't morally grey.

I would say the NCR overall leans more to good than gray in specific. As I have said they have problems but the majority of people in the NCR are benevolent or at least don't want to cause harm to other characters. The NCR usually uses democracy to gain control of areas actually and the only exceptions to this are their dealing with house and Bitter Springs the latter of which they are ashamed of.

Legion - Builds their code that every person in the Legion should live and die for Caesar and everyone is a tool for the faction, even Legate Lanius. He also believes that all the squabbling between factions just leads to pointless war that will just end up killing everyone. So he thinks that he should assimilate every faction into their ranks, wether they like it or not, because he thinks everyone are just barbaric assholes (he's not wrong) who constantly kill each other.

He thinks everyone will eventually adopt this mentality that every person is for the Legion only and believes this will remove complacency and lazyness. Hence why he hates democracy because he thinks it breeds these types of behaviour (and again, he's not wrong, look at the NCR).

You're basically saying the legion treats their own like disposable cattle/tools and that's grey instead of evil or something? The NCR gives its citizens safety without being a police state that treats an entire gender as pack mules and constantly does atrocities.

Caesar is a human being not a god. He isn't above anything and is in no place to treat people the way he does generally.

House - Wants to build an utopia where it will lead humanity to a better future. He also runs simulations to predict future events and this is one of the reasons why he's trying to do this.

Oh, Mr House's visions of a utopian humanity semi-controlled by him is just his arrogance showing. So in the long run not much changed actually under him because all he's really interested in is keeping Vegas intact at all costs. He tells you about how he wants to send colony ships to the stars and rebuild humanity but he's not capable of that kind of thing at all. It was the NCR that rebuilt the dam actually. All House did was rebuild a few casinos and give suits to tribals and told them to act like various vegas groups pre-war so in essence all House really did post-war was make a barely functional theme park where the tribals don't even follow their contracts and that's a big difference actually from traveling to different systems of stars.

The fact he ruins simulations doesn't matter really because simulations aren't right 100%

Independent - I actually think this one is terrible. Even since the bombs fell, countless people have been killing each other for literal centuries, some of the times for petty things. I can only see New Vegas become a place for anarchy where nobody rules and everyone just keep killing each other. Then someone will just come up and try to take it for themselves because humans always end up creating groups where they share the same ideals. New Vegas will never be independent.

Thinking about it I would say independent is neutral but the game based on what I've seen seems to point toward it as the default actually or something.


I have a feeling you didn't paid attention to half of what they said.

I have over 100 hours in Fallout New Vegas please don't insult me for thinking I didn't pay attention to it.

I also believe in looking at their whole character to see what they would really do actually.
 
They are so black\white, that almost nobody agree if this faction or that faction is bad.

I think the boomers are one of the worst while many people think they are good. I am ambivalent about House and Benny. I wouldn't want the NCR in my backyard if i was living in the post-apocalyptic Mojave, but the alternatives CAN be worse. I think Caesar is an hypocrite, but part of his ideology makes sense. Factions like the BOS and the khans, while not 100% good, still get sympathy considering how they were handled by the NCR. Those factions can be grey as foils to each other.
 
I would say the NCR overall leans more to good than gray in specific. As I have said they have problems but the majority of people in the NCR are benevolent or at least don't want to cause harm to other characters. The NCR usually uses democracy to gain control of areas actually and the only exceptions to this are their dealing with house and Bitter Springs the latter of which they are ashamed of.



You're basically saying the legion treats their own like disposable cattle/tools and that's grey instead of evil or something? The NCR gives its citizens safety without being a police state that treats an entire gender as pack mules and constantly does atrocities.

Caesar is a human being not a god. He isn't above anything and is in no place to treat people the way he does generally.



Oh, Mr House's visions of a utopian humanity semi-controlled by him is just his arrogance showing. So in the long run not much changed actually under him because all he's really interested in is keeping Vegas intact at all costs. He tells you about how he wants to send colony ships to the stars and rebuild humanity but he's not capable of that kind of thing at all. It was the NCR that rebuilt the dam actually. All House did was rebuild a few casinos and give suits to tribals and told them to act like various vegas groups pre-war so in essence all House really did post-war was make a barely functional theme park where the tribals don't even follow their contracts and that's a big difference actually from traveling to different systems of stars.

The fact he ruins simulations doesn't matter really because simulations aren't right 100%



Thinking about it I would say independent is neutral but the game based on what I've seen seems to point toward it as the default actually or something.




I have over 100 hours in Fallout New Vegas please don't insult me for thinking I didn't pay attention to it.

I also believe in looking at their whole character to see what they would really do actually.



House was unable to do much up to this point because he lacked the item which essentially starts the game - the Platinum Chip.
He has it now, and he has a huge and technogically advanced robot army. Combine that with his immense knowledge of pre-War tech and science and you have a man who can, and could, be the most important figure in post-War history.

He has flaws, that is certain. He would never let anybody else be on top except for himself. He is brutal and merciless and cares little for anything that could stand on his way.
Is he a "good" person? That is a very problematic question and the answer varies depending on which system of morality are we trying to place him in.

But without getting overly complicated, I'd say he is the "ends justifies the means" taken to the extreme. In this case, his goal is betterment of the status of human race and his own, with him on top. Selfish, arrogant, tyrannic...and very much possible. Not a utopia, but not a dystopia and a lot more stable and better future than what Mojave (and US and the rest of the world) is right now.

As far as his space colonization plan goes...well, if a cult of ghouls can make it to the moon, I don't think the most capable and resourceful individual in the post-War world could do worse.

House is quite possibly the best option in the long term. Independent is complete anarchy and return to the darker times, Legion by itself is orderly but pretty horrible, while NCR is very much a type of country which brought us the Great War. Both the Bear and the Bull are bloated carcasses which don't yet realise they are dead.


House is the salvation of humanity built upon the mountain of corpses in a sea of blood. Which, on the other hand, is not much different than the other choices.

All are pretty bad on their own right and all have some bright spots. If that is not grey I don't know what is.
 
I would say the NCR overall leans more to good than gray in specific. As I have said they have problems but the majority of people in the NCR are benevolent or at least don't want to cause harm to other characters. The NCR usually uses democracy to gain control of areas actually and the only exceptions to this are their dealing with house and Bitter Springs the latter of which they are ashamed of.
Doesn't change the fact that a lot of the higher ups are corrupt and control the masses. A few good people in the NCR doesn't make the whole faction more in line with good. Specially when they order the killing of innocents.

You're basically saying the legion treats their own like disposable cattle/tools and that's grey instead of evil or something? The NCR gives its citizens safety without being a police state that treats an entire gender as pack mules and constantly does atrocities.

Caesar is a human being not a god. He isn't above anything and is in no place to treat people the way he does generally.
He gives everyone a purpose and a place in the Legion. Everyone has an use for the greater good. He believes when everyone is under his leadership, pointless wars and killing no longer happens. Also, let's not pretend that a lot of the tribes assimilated weren't raging assholes that constantly murder innocent people. You make it sound like the Legion just kills innocent people.

This is the faction that i think they went a little too far. I would put it in between grey and black. Caesar clearly wants the betterment of humanity, he just uses very extreme measures to reach said goal.

Are you also gonna tell me that the Roman Empire was completely evil just because they enslaved their defeated foes? Heck, Caesar doesn't even consider himself a Caesar, he thinks he's the chief of a barbaric horde. He believes taking over New Vegas will give him a capital and make him a true Caesar.

Not all women are used to carry heavy stuff, a lot of them are used for breeding and healing. Enslavement is pretty much a necessary evil to impose the Legion rules to prevent corruption and lazyness. Freedom like in the NCR leads to a lot of corruption and complacency, things Caesar hates.


If you read my edit, the NCR also does the same by throwing ill-equipped soldiers at enemies until they win. That's how NCR won a lot of their fights. So pretty hypocritical of you to criticize the Legion for doing so, when the NCR does the same.

The fact he ruins simulations doesn't matter really because simulations aren't right 100%
Given the fact that he was able to predict the bombs falling through a simulation and thus come up with a plan to defend New Vegas against them (hence why New Vegas isn't so destroyed because House destroyed several of the bombs), it doesn't surprise me that he relies so much in the simulations.

Atomkilla pretty much explained the rest, so i'm not gonna repeat the same thing.

Thinking about it I would say independent is neutral but the game based on what I've seen seems to point toward it as the default actually or something.
It will be pure anarchy. Have you seen what happened in the 200 years up to New Vegas? Countless killing, total chaos with an handful of factions trying to bring some order. When you have something like New Vegas where several groups of people want it, this just spells disaster in the long run and even in the short run.

I have over 100 hours in Fallout New Vegas please don't insult me for thinking I didn't pay attention to it.
Some of the claims you make just leads me to believe you missed several details.
 
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I don't see much value in ideological spectrums. Good/evil is too simplistic. Right/wrong is also needed to understand morality. What is evil is not always wrong. As evil can necessitate a lesser evil. That means evil can be right. As for goodness, we know that good intentions aren't enough. Good results also require the right means. Which as we've just established isn't always through good. It's also possible for good means to be wrong. E.g feeding a starving person...too much food and their stomach explodes.

As much as I love the independent ending, eliminating the 'leviathon' that is government does not improve things. Realistically the option that has the least amount of unnecessary suffering and death is going to be the NCR. Corrupt yes, but with a partial democracy. Which puts it ahead of all the others: autocracy, totalitarian theocracy, and whatever municipal powers are left to fill the regional power void. So a basically a power vacuum that could be fille with any number of different things. I definitely headcanon establishing what I think would be an ideal democracy.

NCR is the right option. Not necessarily a morally good option though.

Independent is the 'complicit non-voter' option. So, to some that would seem like the good option. It could be the right option if wildcard means 'fill in the blank'.

House is a wrong option. Autocracy doesn't work, no matter how deified/narcissitic its leader is, and genius level engineering talents are irrelevant. If I want some spaceships I know who to call. And if his leadership is so damned fantastic then there's no reason he can't become a democratic leader, or just rely on voluntary membership in his club. At worst he has to contribute taxes to the infrastructure that he relies on.

Legion is an evil wrong option. Theocracy is bad. Totalitarianism is bad. Slavery is bad. There is no excuse for any of that shit. End of story.
 
I don't see much value in ideological spectrums. Good/evil is too simplistic. Right/wrong is also needed to understand morality. What is evil is not always wrong. As evil can necessitate a lesser evil. That means evil can be right. As for goodness, we know that good intentions aren't enough. Good results also require the right means. Which as we've just established isn't always through good. It's also possible for good means to be wrong. E.g feeding a starving person...too much food and their stomach explodes.

As much as I love the independent ending, eliminating the 'leviathon' that is government does not improve things. Realistically the option that has the least amount of unnecessary suffering and death is going to be the NCR. Corrupt yes, but with a partial democracy. Which puts it ahead of all the others: autocracy, totalitarian theocracy, and whatever municipal powers are left to fill the regional power void. So a basically a power vacuum that could be fille with any number of different things. I definitely headcanon establishing what I think would be an ideal democracy.

NCR is the right option. Not necessarily a morally good option though.

Independent is the 'complicit non-voter' option. So, to some that would seem like the good option. It could be the right option if wildcard means 'fill in the blank'.

House is a wrong option. Autocracy doesn't work, no matter how deified/narcissitic its leader is, and genius level engineering talents are irrelevant. If I want some spaceships I know who to call. And if his leadership is so damned fantastic then there's no reason he can't become a democratic leader, or just rely on voluntary membership in his club. At worst he has to contribute taxes to the infrastructure that he relies on.

Legion is an evil wrong option. Theocracy is bad. Totalitarianism is bad. Slavery is bad. There is no excuse for any of that shit. End of story.


Brother, you're talking in absolutes.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enantiodromia
 
This is what I mean by absolutes. I am not trying to pick on you or discredit your argument here.

Nope. Nothing I said precluded degrees of good, evil, right, or wrong. I also specifically used the phrase "lesser evil".


NCR is the right option. Not necessarily a morally good option though.


House is a wrong option. Autocracy doesn't work, no matter how deified/narcissitic its leader is, and genius level engineering talents are irrelevant.

Legion is an evil wrong option. Theocracy is bad. Totalitarianism is bad. Slavery is bad. There is no excuse for any of that shit. End of story.


Also, I'm not sure what your link is supposed to bring to the discussion.


Specifically:


'Enantiodromia is a principle that the superabundance of any phenomenon inevitably leads to its opposite. It is similar to the principle of equilibrium in the natural world, in that any extreme is opposed by the system in order to restore balance.'

Which, in my humble opinion, brings a very interesting take on the discussion, actually. Especially in contrast with 'Caesar is evil.' To elaborate a bit more--Enantiodromia is a principle of evolution in that sense that Caesar's legion would evolve into something else as time progresses--specifically, it's opposite, should it come to power. Same goes with every other option, though with House there probably will be the most resistance.
 

The current state of the legion is one of a group of raiders who do atrocities in the name of Caesar

As Marcus says its a bunch of tribes held together by glue and when Caesar dies the legion will dissolve into a bunch of smaller countries.

So the current state of the legion doesn't really have anything redeemable about it.
 
Didn't make a pro-legion argument.

Though, to be honest, I am not all that much against them... since we're talking about the legion, that is. They are morally-greyer in my book than evil/good, right/wrong, functional/dysfunctional, ect. Same with the rest of the factions.

Still would pull the trigger if they come knocking on my post-apocalyptic door, don't you worry about that.

PS: Marcus' opinion is just that--an opinion. Long-lived as he may be we don't know for sure whether they will crumble. That is in essence what I argue for.
 
This is what I mean by absolutes. I am not trying to pick on you or discredit your argument here.


I said a good, bad, and wrong option which is not indicative of an absolute. I stated 'the right option' in this context, as in 'if provided these options, this one would be the right choice', or 'with respect to these options, this is the only one that is a right option and is therefore the right option'.
I don't really see any reason to take Enantiodromia seriously tbh. Jung was wacky at times.
 
Morals vastly depend on your point of view. You were probably born and raised in a modern western democracy and of course that's the reason the NCR seems the most sympathetic to you. But as others have pointed out, they have several shadows of grayness.

Regarding the Legion, ethics have been a matter of debate in the West for centuries in philosophy. For instance, a Relativist (very popular philosophy around the time fascism arose) would tell you that there is no absolute moral and, as a result, leaders must act as the time requires - therefore in a world such as that of Fallout, the Legion is completely justified. Lastly sacrifice for the State isn't something new: true Romans considered shameful not being engaged in politics. In the Legion it's mandatory to fight. Really, if you looked at ancient civilizations some aspects of their cultures would puzzle you.

PS don't forget that the Legion wasn't flashed enough in the game.
 
Factions in new vegas are actuallyreally grey, just because you dont agree with them doesn't make them evil. I agree with legion in a lot of points, andI honestly think Mr House is a great choice, not a evil guy like you described .
 
I'd say that the factions are grey but on varying degrees with some becoming closer to black or white. For me, the NCR, House and Independent are morally grey (the NCR being a slight shade lighter to me but only slight) while the Legion leans towards black more.

I would say the NCR overall leans more to good than gray in specific. As I have said they have problems but the majority of people in the NCR are benevolent or at least don't want to cause harm to other characters. The NCR usually uses democracy to gain control of areas actually and the only exceptions to this are their dealing with house and Bitter Springs the latter of which they are ashamed of.
Unfortunately for all of that majority, it is the higher-ups like Oliver, Moore and Kimball that decide how the NCR goes and for the most part, the NCR are turning into a nation dedicated to uncontrolled expansionism that does not care about the costs for expansionism
(Tandi was the one using democracy for controlled expansionism while Kimball is the opposite). Plus in areas they control, they do enforce taxes that can be problematic for the locals even if they benefit the locals.

The Independent ending has some negative effect for groups like the Followers of the Apocalypse but so actually in the long run it allows the region to develop its own indepedent culture and strength.
The downside is the time taken to make that nation. To unify all those disparate factions into one nation will be a long struggle that will come at the cost of lives and resources. Probably some cultures and unique strengths could be lost in that process. There will growing pains for sure.
 

I said a good, bad, and wrong option which is not indicative of an absolute. I stated 'the right option' in this context, as in 'if provided these options, this one would be the right choice', or 'with respect to these options, this is the only one that is a right option and is therefore the right option'.
I don't really see any reason to take Enantiodromia seriously tbh. Jung was wacky at times.

Hmm.... ok, I get the first point.

As far as Jung goes, yes, he was exploring themes that would make... some other people cringe. But I don't think it's enough of a reason to discredit his principle. For instance, look at Islam. At it's height it helped create the most progressive empire of it's time. Today they are blowing each other up during their sacred month. It's thing like that that make me consider Enantiodromia. And why I like looking at the NV faction with that pair of glasses.
 
Hmm.... ok, I get the first point.

As far as Jung goes, yes, he was exploring themes that would make... some other people cringe. But I don't think it's enough of a reason to discredit his principle. For instance, look at Islam. At it's height it helped create the most progressive empire of it's time. Today they are blowing each other up during their sacred month. It's thing like that that make me consider Enantiodromia. And why I like looking at the NV faction with that pair of glasses.
New Vegas is not like fallout 3 where most of the things are black and white, It makes sense to look at lot of things with those glasses.
 
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