Thread 724098881

>"Caesar's" Legion
>ideology is closer to the violent ultra-reactionarism of Sulla than the reform-minded views of Marius that Caesar actually subscribed to

What did Edward Sallow mean by this?

>>724098881 (OP)
He just took the name and aesthetic. He is basically The King but more power hungry and narcissistic.

>>724098881 (OP)
the entire point of Caesar's legion is that it is a sort of superficial recreation of Rome from the perspective of a guy reading history books 2300 years after the fact

>>724098881 (OP)
>>724099420
The entire point of Caesar's Legion is that its a legion, not a state. It is an occupying force. There is no governance, state building, citizenry, taxes, nothing. It is fueled entirely off of looting. Caesar wants to conquer Vegas and make it his Rome, and then he will create an actual stable state. He says this to you.

>>724099614
They're a slightly more organized roving mob of bandits. They have no state backing, no families to support, no home to go back to.

>>724098881 (OP)
He doesn't see himself as conservative, he wants to take down NCR, which he sees as a sort of oligarchic order of Republican Rome and then also reform the Legion.

>>724098881 (OP)
The Faction would have been a lot better if it was just a naturally forming coalition of Arizona/Utah tribals underneath a despot operating under more conventional limitations of that form of Governance.

The whole Roman Larping aspect and the overbearing focus on Edward makes them feel really unoriginal and contrived when compared to the NCR and Brotherhood who feel pretty organic in regards to their origin, what keeps them going, and what limitations and flaws they've run into.

I could buy the cult of personality thing more if they had Lanius leading the Legion and cut Caesar entirely.

>>724099938
That's literally what I said. Thanks for the summary, Anon.

>>724099354

How fucked are they?

>>724099614
the legion is directly analogous to a group like ISIS, which did actually govern and maintain order over their territory, it is not "being entirely fueled off looting". It's a major point of world building that there is extensive trading networks within the legion and the slave based economy is not just random "looting" anarchy

>>724100572
I didn't say it was anarchy, or that the Legion doesn't rule you fucking retard. The Legion has no citizenry, no state. The people that aren't slaves are subjects that are largely ignored by the Legion. And yes, they are fueled entirely by looting. That's why they conquered a dozen or so tribes after the first battle, to gather resources for the second. Their domestic production is extremely limited. No factories, no large scale farms, nothing.

>>724100572
Not him but.

https://fallout.fandom.com/wiki/Caesar%27s_Legion#cite_note-25
>"Edward Sallow created Caesar's Legion as an imitation of the Roman Legion, but without any of the Roman society that supported the Roman Legion. I've written this before, but there are no optimates, no populares, no plebes, no equestrians, no patricians, no senate, no Rome. There's no right to private property (within the Legion itself). There's no civil law. There aren't even the ceremonial trappings of Roman society. Legates don't receive triumphs following a victory. No one in the Legion retires to a villa in Sedona.
It's essentially a Roman legion with only the very top commander having any connection to the "source" culture, the rest being indoctrinated conscripts from cultures that were honestly less well-developed than anything in Gaul. Gauls are pretty sophisticated compared to the 80+ tribes. Gauls could read the Latin or Greek alphabets (Gallic language, obviously), had extensive permanent settlements, roads, calendars, mines, and a whole load of poo poo that groups like the Blackfoots never had.
>What Caesar gave to those tribes was order, discipline, an end to internecine tribal violence (eventually), common language, and a common culture that was not rooted in any of their parent cultures. The price was extreme brutality, an enormous loss of life and individual culture, the complete dissolution of anything resembling a traditional family, and the indoctrination of fascist values.
>Caesar's Legion isn't the Roman Empire or the Roman Republic. It isn't even the Roman Legion. It's a slave army with trappings of foreign-conscripted Roman legionaries during the late empire. All military, no civilian, and with none of the supporting civilian culture."

>>724098881 (OP)
>wear furry suits and skirts
>have gay sex
>larp as romans
literal fucking gr*ypers

>>724099420
Talking to Arcade I'm inclined to believe that Caesar just cherry picked what he wanted out of those old books and discarded the rest building exactly what he wanted like lego blocks and glued it all together with a Roman aesthetic. They probably have a decent collection of books if they can casually quote and read Latin. Caesar also calls the original mission he was sent on to learn tribal languages a "fucking waste of time" and the other Followers in the expedition disagreed with his plan to teach the tribals warfare. He was basically a /his/ chud surrounded by reddit and hijacked the mission when shit went south.

protecting trade routes=civilization
everyone else kept fucking it up

>>724098881 (OP)
>Legion is an underbaked faction
Nah really?

>>724099614
You didn’t play the game or are a delusional NCR fanboy who ignores information presented in-game to downplay the achievements of a fictional faction you have personal idealogical disparities against. I think the Legion’s focus on over-idolizing the state as a solution to humanity’s problems is extremely hubristic and naively utopian in the long run but claiming they don’t have a current economy or governance is nonsensical when their hierarchy and economic system is clearly laid out to the player. The Legion is a highly militarized autocracy where a majority of their needed labor is preformed by slaves. Their currency is backed by and minted from gold, they enforce and protect trading caravans, and laws established by their ruling Caesar are enforced and carried out in any territory under their jurisdiction.

>>724101072
All of Arizona is their citizenry.

Why is a literal Aphex Twin ambient track their theme?

>>724098881 (OP)
sulla was a jobber

>>724098881 (OP)
Its not that deep. He took the model of the Roman military and applied his own logic to it.

>>724101709
> Caesar just cherry picked what he wanted out of those old books and discarded the rest building exactly what he wanted like lego blocks and glued it all together with a Roman aesthetic
That's more or less what Caesar tells you and he doesn't even try to hide that fact, he picks Rome as a general model because it had proven to be an effective monoculture for assimilation of minor tribes in the past, but he isn't trying to do a 1-for-1 LARP of Rome. Alot of Legion haters assume that it is supposed to be an identical copy of Rome, then assume that actually Caesar is dumb because "this isn't an identical copy of Rome".

>>724098881 (OP)
I have finished New Vegas like 10 times, and every single time I have gone with The Legion ending. I have never gotten any other ending.

>>724101072
>no citizenry, no state
>no factories, no large scale farms, nothing
you are conflating the war camp seen in the game, which relies on looting and trade, with the Arizona territory of the legion, which is established as being relatively civilized and orderly from multiple sources in the game

>>724098881 (OP)
>FECES AND ANTIFECES. THE COLONADO SHITTER IS MY PORTA-JOHN. THE NPR COUNCIL WILL BE ESCATICATED BUT THE POO SYNTHESIS WILL CHANGE THE PEEGION AS WELL

>>724104420
Yes, it's orderly dumbass. Doesn't mean there is a citizen base or a state.
>"Edward Sallow created Caesar's Legion as an imitation of the Roman Legion, but without any of the Roman society that supported the Roman Legion. I've written this before, but there are no optimates, no populares, no plebes, no equestrians, no patricians, no senate, no Rome. There's no right to private property (within the Legion itself). There's no civil law. There aren't even the ceremonial trappings of Roman society. Legates don't receive triumphs following a victory. No one in the Legion retires to a villa in Sedona.

>>724098881 (OP)
>what's with the roman larp?
>it's just a brand I use to have these tribal niggers rally under the same flag
>retarded redditor: ackshually that's not hegelian dialectics

>>724104735
It's actually hilarious that people take the "akshually that's not Hegelian dialectics" meme image seriously

Any real fan of NV will acknowledge that the Legion is the worst part of the entire game, not necessarily because of le politics but because they clearly had to rush it in in favor of everything else

>>724098881 (OP)
First of all, Ed's grasp of history being spotty sort of makes sense when you take into account that he didn't have any formal education and all of the knowledge he had was gathered piecemeal from whatever surviving texts he could find after 200 years of neglect.

Second of all, Julius wasn't the only roman ruler ever referred to as "Caesar", and while Ed definitely made some direct references to Julius Caesar's conquests, I believe he was more focused on Ancient Rome in the broad sense. Its structure, its ethics, its adaptation and its brutal expansion. I'm no history major or anything but I believe over the course of Rome's history there were a whooole lot of Caesars and Ed was simply inheriting the title.

Third of all, I think he wasn't super locked into the idea of being the "perfect proper Roman" or whatever. I think he just wanted a theme to form his own unique system around. The costumes and titles and rituals were more like flashy branding that drew people's attention. Like a cult.

>>724100365
>Ceasar ending is canon
Uhhhh.... based?

>>724100365
I like what they did with the Legion uniforms. Still not watching, but that's nice at least.

>>724104553
That its not authentic to actual Rome does not mean they are not ruling over people and land through different mechanisms. Autistically obsessing over the exact definitions of terms is ignoring the original claim, that Caesars legion is just some especially effective gang of looters, which it clearly isn't.

>>724104248
>because it had proven to be an effective monoculture for assimilation of minor tribes in the past
Just gonna ignore the fact it took the Romans like 300 years to fully assimilate the other Italian City State to the point they consistently held loyalty to the idea of Rome and not the interest of their individual City.

Really 1900s American Cities had a fair more impressive ability to assimilate foreign cultures and even that had periods of violence.

>>724099614
>>724099938
Right, he was just a warlord with a catchy gimmick. Not much different from Lord Humungus or any other post-apoc setting bandit lord you can think of. He was just really good at it. Shame about the cancer, really.

>>724106046
>Caesar isn't trying to do a 1-for-1 recreation of Rome, he's just using Roman culture as a template
>"it took Rome 300 years to fully assimilate other cities!"

>>724106045
>they are not ruling over people
Again, never said this. The fact that you keep being this retarded shows me you're not worth talking to. GTFO.
>>724106440
It's less about a catchy gimmick and his ambitions, really. Actual warlords in NV such as Motor-Runner have no real aspirations beyond ruling over Vegas. Caesar wants to create a great, multi-generational empire that will live on far beyond him.

>>724101521
>the complete dissolution of anything resembling a traditional family, and the indoctrination of fascist values.

B-But Fascism is supposed to be BASED AND TRAD

You ever open up a thread and read a few posts on autopilot but then you snap back and ur like wait I don't care about this shit

>>724106994
Occasionally, though I'd never waste my time to then pointlessly reply to announce my feelings.

>>724106775
You just said he chose the template because it facilitated cultural assimilation but the Romans were never that good at Cultural assimilation in the sense of assimilating foreign cultures into thinking of themselves as Romans. They just stole ideas from them.

>>724107314
you would

>>724106907
you are mentally unhinged and deeply emotionally invested in reframing the legion as something its not.
Are you an amazon shill trying to manipulate public opinion when you wreck the lore in the new season?

>>724107323
Ehh. Rome at its height was pretty good at expanding its influence and Romanizing its neighbors. To the point where several major, dominant states throughout history have scrambled be recognized as the successor to Rome's legacy

>>724107323
I would say given that most of Western history has been dominated by Rome LARPs, Rome did a pretty effective job of setting itself as the baseline monoculture for the West after integrating its constituents. And as mentioned, Caesar isn't perfectly replicating Rome. Rome assimilated the other cities on the peninsula by slowly cooperating with them, tempering their demands, and making Roman citizenship into an appealing prospect. Caesar assimilates tribes by murdering everyone old enough to fight back, enslaving and traumatizing the survivors, and beating the kids down until they are little more than slave-soldiers themselves. There's a clear difference in their approach to assimilation, and as a result there is a clear difference in the span of time assimilation will require. Pretty much any critique related to "Caesar isn't perfectly replicating Rome" or "Rome didn't do this well" implicitly rests on the idea that Caesar is doing a perfect replication when he makes it pretty clear that isn't how he's operating.

>>724107314
Understandable we all have different brains

>>724101521
This quote never sit right with me as multiple things seen within the game contradicts it.
Legionaries are seen carrying currency in the game. If they aren't allowed to own things, then why is there a need for them to have money? And we're not talking to the civilians who are subjects to the rule of the Legion, I'm talking about the soldiers described here.
And if officers are allowed to have their own wives (pic related), then how come there is talk of "complete dissolution of anything resembling a traditional family"?
Wouldn't all women slaves being used as breeding stock, with higher ranking legionaries having priority to access them, make more sense?
Seems counter productive to allow such practice if what the quote is saying is true.

>>724107696
Well that's because they were at their height and essentially the uncontested super power. Being part of Rome at that point meant Law and Order. The scramble to be recognized as the successor had less to do with being Roman (outside of name) and more to be with being recognized as the regional Hegemon and all the wealth and prestige that proffered. Barbarians trying to get into the Empire didn't really do so with the desire of abandoning their way of life so much as being safe from the Huns.

But early Rome, at a point where it would be analogous with what the Legion is, didn't really have that. In fact it avoided broad assimilation because, to get your people to venture out and fight and die, conquest better come with perks. For it's vassals the perk was "Rome won't kill us and we'll get some loot". For Roman Citizens it was about fat stacks of war booty. Which the Legion seemingly spreads around very little unless you're at least a Centurion.

>>724108352
To me, the quote comes off more as "his Rome LARP doesn't have the elements that actually made Rome, like the class struggle between plebs and patricians, the rising equestrian class, the Senate and the cursus honorum." Essentially, the Legion isn't Rome, it's a horde wearing the trappings of Rome because it looks good. The conditions and institutions that made Rome aren't actually present. You also get this reflected in the NCR, trying to be the pre-War US but not actually having any of the institutions that made the US, it's an oligarchic junta wearing the outfit of a pre-War democracy because it looks good.

>>724107854
Dude the other Italian City States had to rebel against and Fight Rome to be granted Citizenship for it's perks. They weren't coaxed into it they had to take it by force for the sake of it's benefits which they felt they were getting robbed out of as the Romans grew in power. The Romans resisted others assimilating into the actual polity to the degree it had to be forced upon them through violence.

What mostly rubs me wrong about Caesar's legion assimilation isn't the Roman facepaint it's just that it's laughably stupid and wasteful and doesn't really reflect the consolidation of tribal powers. Which in contrast with the fairly simple and straightforward formation of all the other factions and city states in Fallout can make the Legion stick out as overly convoluted.

>>724098881 (OP)
"Caesar" was supposed to be a title like it was in the imperial times.
Also I'm bored, which mod list should I download for New Vegas this weekend? I'm lazy too so im using wabbajack this time.

>>724099420
>>724099354
>>724099614
The entire point of Caesar’s Legion is to be the big meanie fascists in the Antifa propaganda game that is Troonout Neo Vagina and that’s it!

>>724110220
Mazinger never said that

>>724101521

Caesar's Legion is basically what any RETVRN movement like Neo-Nazism would degenerate into if taken to its logical extreme. Mindless fetishization of the military and totalitarian aesthetics of that society without any of the civic culture that actually held it up. Leading to either the complete hollowing out of that culture to the point of becoming a self-parody or collapsing entirely.

>>724110813
So Troon Vegays is the Antifa propaganda game then? Thanks for proving Chadthesda badasses right again

>>724109857
I mean the rapid centralization of power isn't unprecedented in Fallout's setting, the Master was able to rapidly build both a subversive cult and a supermutant army within a few decades because his opposition was so diffuse and chaotic. Even House was able to crack enough skulls together to get a tribal army large enough to act as a speedbump for the NCR. Mulching through a huge population of tribals while ruthlessly removing anything that isn't effective is something that can work within the setting, although I agree the... what like 50 year timespan (?) to do it is questionable. Ideally both Honest Hearts and Lonesome Road would have cleared up alot of the details about how the Legion properly operates, but that kind of got lost in the sauce of those character driven DLCs

House is an asshole and a nut case. NCR is run by impotent morons and the Legion are a bunch of degenerate psychos. At least with House, he let's you hang out and do whatever.

>>724111128
The Master was an insane and partially psychic amalgamation of like four people leading an army of mutants he personally created and enthralled to his will. That's hardly comparable to what is supposed to be a more conventional human civilization like the NCR.

House, despite being a super genius, very explicitly has barely any control over the Families without a Lieutenant like Benny or the Courier and from a cultural basis hasn't done anything to meaningfully reform them from the savages they original were even though he has them dressed and talking like a Vegas mobster.

I personally think the Legion is simply founded on a flawed concept with Swallow as the Leader and forcing the Roman aesthetic on them. If they had expanded on the Tribal aesthetic seen in Fallout 2 and coupled it with a more conventional Tribal Rise to Power, the whole ordeal would be much more cohesive and the Legion would hold some water as a potential faction the player would choose instead of a meme. They're trying to do Colonel Kurtz on a much larger scale but their execution is just not good and focuses too much on Caesar's "Vision" and not enough on the Tribals as a force in their own right.

>>724105626
What if you merged Fallout with Xenogears?

>>724112038
>They're trying to do Colonel Kurtz on a much larger scale but their execution is just not good and focuses too much on Caesar's "Vision" and not enough on the Tribals as a force in their own right.
Yeah I agree with this, I think that was one of the things they were trying to fix up in Lonesome Road, Ulysses even says something along the lines of "the Legion is something that has grown beyond Caesar", but it's held back by the DLC focusing mostly on Ulysses as a character. I think the idea of a radical assimilator faction that has gradually changed as its ranks swell is interesting, it's also coincidentally one of the reasons why I like Lanius as a character even though he literally only shows up for the last 10 minutes of the game. The Legion being a thing so foreign that even Caesar doesn't understand it because he grew up in the West, operating as an organization that is "social darwinism" on steroids and doesn't really place much stock in the whole "thesis-antithesis-synthesis" shit Caesar talks about.

>>724098881 (OP)
>retard calls himself "Caesar"
>decides he’s restoring civilization
>builds nothing
>enslaves everyone
>recruits an army of larpers
>doesn't speak latin
>“Ave, true to Caesar”
bro you’re literally the barbarian again

>>724106032
they look like shit
>>724100365
lucy, the ghoul and maximus will all escape unharmed from the legion camp all while they make quips about how problematic and misogynistic they are, and vault-tec will nuke them by the end of the season

The same reason real-life fascists make Roman statues their profile picture as if it wasn't a huge multicultural empire. They don't know or care what the Romans were really like, they just want a cool aesthetic for the bad shit they were going to do anyway.

>>724114138
So Troonout Neo Vagina IS Antifa propaganda then

>>724114138
Purposefully misunderstanding where the Roman salute comes from is a nice touch.

>>724099354
>>724100365
I sincerely hope that the canon ending of New Vegas is the House ending.
Sure he is a dictator, but remember, NCR is basically on the verge of collapse, Legion is a raider gang in Roman costumes, and we often forget that securitrons like Yes Man are weak to pulse grenades so there needs to be a human at the helm of New Vegas.

Basically: kick the NCR and Legion out of the Mohave that they had no business being at in the first place.

>>724112439
Grahf showing up at the Battle of Hoover Dam when the tide begins to turn against the Legion.

>>724112038
That's because tribals are fucking boring and lame and retarded. Same reason why when everyone thinks of Honest Hearts they don't think of the retarded tribals, they just think of Joshua Graham. Fuck tribals, fuck their aesthetic and their stories, Sallow had it 200% correct: Crush them, erase their cultures, and build them into something else.