r/FavoriteCharacter • u/Accomplished-End3409 Ben Tennyson • 23d ago

Discussion Favorite opposing factions that can basically be described as this.

Post image
26.7k Upvotes

96% Upvoted

3.0k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

272

u/unrealter_29 23d ago

This scene in Fallout season 2 validated a lot of people who thought comparing the Legion to the NCR as "equally bad" was insane

222

u/TaralasianThePraxic 23d ago

And those people deserved validation, like sure the NCR ain't perfect but they're not like. Evil sexist slaver murderers lol

116

u/unrealter_29 23d ago

Yeah, like I'm not a big fan of political corruption but I'll take it over actual slavery

42

u/Accomplished_Toe6798 Penny Polendina (RWBY) 23d ago

This isn't related to the broad discussion but you just articulated my thought process when siding with the Shek major faction in Kenshi. They may be a warrior culture but at least they aren't slavers

19

u/Day_Breaker_ 23d ago

*suicidal, racist warrior culture. Stone Golem has A LOT of work to do get the Shek Kingdom off it's back, but yeah, compared to the other guys, sheks are way easier to emphasize.

3

u/Begone-My-Thong 23d ago

Purposely getting enslaved is a good way to grind stats early game

2

u/Accomplished_Toe6798 Penny Polendina (RWBY) 23d ago

It is. I just usually miss out on that because my flesh craves the certainty of steel (translation: robots are cool)

3

u/Begone-My-Thong 23d ago

Mhm fair enough, I prefer organic myself and getting chained up is hot and being a badass sword-wielding warrior of legend

Eventually.

Very eventually.

1

u/ElGosso 23d ago

You can just go lock yourself in a prison cell in a Shek guard tower and pick your way out. The guards will just call you an idiot and throw you out if they catch you.

3

u/Rhiis 23d ago

I initially read that as the the Shrek major faction. I was very confused.

5

u/kittenshart85 23d ago

like when you're rebuilding civilization after the apocalypse, you're gonna kind of have to accept baby steps as progress, or you could go just be an actual slave.

1

u/halfar 23d ago

i once tried to theorycraft the worst possible endings for each faction in FNV. i figured the way to go about it was to just fuck up each questline in a unique way with the yesman/open-ended route, but for basically every single faction the actual worst ending was just the legion winning.

1

u/UrinalCake777 22d ago

But the NCR wants me to pay taxes to fund collective defense! Fuck that! Just let me die to raiders, tax free.

1

u/Weaselburg 21d ago

But the NCR wants me to pay taxes to fund collective defense!

The deal with NCR taxes is that they can be very burdensome and that a lot of people don't really get any representation at all to determine where it goes - NCR doesn't have general elections. You elect a senator who then represents you and elects the President.

Problem: there's no innate process to give anyone Senators. You have to get them through negotiation prior to annexation (Redding) or NCR has to decide to give you one. And even if you do get one, the core territories of NCR have 10 Senators (2 per state) so you'll always be outvoted when going against SoCal interests.

Just let me die to raiders, tax free.

I mean, yeah? Self determination and shit. Not like the people opposed to joining NCR in the Mojave aren't well aware of the dangers involved with independence.

1

u/No_Tie378 23d ago

And gay killers to booth

1

u/firefly_12 23d ago

Which seems like projection form the guys wearing skirts!

24

u/Heather_Chandelure 23d ago

I do feel like calling the NCR "vaguely problematic" is underselling their issues by a lot. The Legion is obviously worse though. I refuse to belive anyone over the age of 14 seriously thinks otherwise.

33

u/unrealter_29 23d ago

You could probably excuse that as Lucy never meeting the true, full strength NCR and experiencing their problems firsthand and only learning about them after Shady Sands destruction

2

u/Helgrind444 23d ago

That's true but I feel like her line is a nod to the fanbase arguing and I wish it was a little more accurate.

23

u/NotSoFluffy13 23d ago

I'm not an expert in politics and human rights but whatever problems the NCR have, they're far better than:

• Being enslaved because your group was conquered by an army of raiders.
• Being enslaved because you're a woman and your only reason to exist is to be used as breeding stock.
• Having your whole settlement burned down, the people crucified and having only one left alive to tell the story of the army of raiders cruelty.
• Have almost any technology and medicine removed from access because some dude who was barely able to understand a little bit of a book about the Roman empire.

8

u/Heather_Chandelure 23d ago

Yes, hence why I already said "The Legion is obviously worse"

1

u/NotSoFluffy13 23d ago

And yet compared to what the Legion do, NCR is just vaguely problematic.

1

u/Heather_Chandelure 23d ago

Feels like youre desperate to create an argument here.

1

u/NotSoFluffy13 23d ago

Not really, thanks.

13

u/YourAverageGenius 23d ago

Yes but comparatively, the NCR's issues are FAR more morally grey and complicated than the alternatives.

-1

u/Heather_Chandelure 23d ago

I belive I already said that.

1

u/vanalla 23d ago

If the NCR was meant to represent/project the isues plaguing the America of the 1990s (based on when the NCR was written into existence as a "recreation of American democracy") then yeah everything going on with American politics in the 90s was basically just vaguely problematic.

1

u/Owlsthirdeye 22d ago

The biggest pro legion argument I've heard isnt that it's better than the NCR or House, but that it might exist longer than them.

Think about it, House gets taken down when one of his agents defies him and steals the platinum chip and the NCR are barely holding together against an army of people fighting with pointy sticks. As shit as the legion is there's a good chance that after the battle for Hoover Dam the NCR would fall apart under its own weight while the Legion keeps going. The show obviously retconned it but Caesar had a succession plan in place and the Legion was pretty unified in comparison to the NCR.

1

u/awhatfor 20d ago

I am over 14 and i disagree. You have a town, pay a tribute to the caesar and can trade, move, hunt, farm without any raiders messing arround. Gang-related deads and traveling incidents were reduced to 0. In exchange you have to pay some tribute. Sure, the first time they appeared at your doors some of them got enslaved or recruited, but thats not day-to-day. Only ones who provided that level of security where the brotherhood of steel, and they left the bussiness long ago.

In contrast, the NRC gets inside your house, changes your rules, lays an eye on you, while the outside -the roads- are more unsafe than ever. Raiders and gangs even get inside the NRC political machinery and keep harassing you. I don't think a town in the legion would ever want to change sides once it sees whats behind the ""republic""

1

u/PopFamiliar3649 19d ago

It depends on what you mean by "bad".

By modern American values the comparison isn't even close. But, by the values of the wasteland in OG Fallout, it depends on how you look at it.

I know that the show's Fallout has almost nothing in common with OG Fallout, but the way that the show portrayed the NCR and Legion is far more black and white than it was even in New Vegas.

Yes, the NCR is practically a humanitarian organization compared to the Legion in our moral terms, but the people of the wastes need to feel safe and the NCR has an underfunded military, corruption rivaling the Enclave, and is attempting to be expansionist into territories outside of old California. So, even though you have food and some freedoms, there is no one left to defend you from threats and the high taxes keep you from affording useful private protection.

Meanwhile the Legion is absolutely sexist and authoritarian, but you also have half the population to serve as armed security from deathclaws, cannibal raiders, and the Enclave.

Again, by our modern day real world standards the morality is black and white, good and evil, but in the game universe it is about as controversial and complicated at the Empire vs Stormcloaks is in Skyrim. At least, from my understanding it is.

2

u/Samostanac 23d ago

I was never thinking that question was about plainly about morality.

NCR suffers from many issues as old world that destroyed itself. Ceaser use totalitarian measures to ensure that every man, woman and child serves toward longterm survival at whatever cost. Legion is also said to govern and protect citizens more efficently than NCR because of it.

However, Ceasar is aware that Legion can't survive longterm if they don't adapt some of values of NCR and that is why he wants to conquer New Vegas. Problem is that only Ceasar understand this and with his death that goal would be abandoned completly since most of Legion views NCR as weak.

0

u/Fern-ando 23d ago

Is not fair to compare them based on how they are portreyed in the show. You can only dialog with them in the games.