Fallout: Silk Road (Crimson Caravan in Boston)

[Deleted5831571User]

Silk Road was over 4k miles while the US is 2k miles across. This can open up so much for FO4 it's unreal, if Caesar won....

I don't know if this is the place to suggest, hire or ask someone to make it, but I have an awesome idea for a mod.

One of the biggest complaints I've heard with FO4 is the lack of lore and story diversity, which leads to a lack of immersion and a sense of being let down by the story writers of Bethesda. I thought it would be amazing to have the Crimson Caravan show up and little trade areas could start to pop up between major towns or as parts of your settlements with NPCs saying who they are and maybe a little about some town they passed through.

The voice actors could reference other places between New Vegas and DC that have been seriously neglected by the writers. It wouldn't have to be a full disclosure of an area or cities situation, but it could tell someone's perspective of traversing the harsh plains or dealing with bandits/crazy radiated s#*!,kinda like Silk Road. You could literally call it Fallout: Silk Road. Brilliant!

Hypothetically, it would only be possible if Caesar's Legion would have won. Hear me out...

The NCR would have been significantly weaker after their president was assassinated and their entire eastern front collapses. This would have caused the protection provided by NCR territorial occupation to become much more unstable. The CC would still exist though. And you better believe they'd want to keep things going.

Sure some pockets of the NCR could resist, by without relief or supplies they'd likely die from starvation or exposure or abandon their posts outside of their major strongholds. They aren't all trained to be Rangers. Caesar's Legion, on the other hand, is very much trained to be survivalists.

It's noted that traders prefer Caesar's territories because it's free of banditry and safer than NCR territory for travel. This would seem like an opportunity for the administration of the CC to broker a deal with the Legion post-New Vegas. If not for their survival as a company than the potential to expand trade to territories further east would seem very important to both the CC and the Empire Caesar is trying to create.

If the plot of that major character in FO4 you see looking out a window at the Golden Gate Bridge is any indication there is knowledge of both Coastal lines and a means to get there. There was even that bar scene along the way as well.

You're absolutely right that it's logistically impossible, but IMO, only with the NCR. Their supply lines wouldn't be able to handle the logistics of manning all that open area with their command center being so far away, dealing with other tribes along the way would become detrimental because of their code of laws and diplomacy would become a nightmare. Communication across this wide of an area would hamstring a lot of their forward operations.

It's not impossible with Caesar's Legion for 3 reasons.

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  They are way more nomadic and versatile as an army by design. They operate autonomously as Legions at the command of their leader who answers to Caesar. This mirrored the true Roman custom of conquering territory "for the good of the Republic", but in this case there's no Senate to sanction the operations. It seems like Caesar heads a lot of his campaigns, but doesn't need to do all of them.

  
  
  
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  Their ruthlessness would be an extremely beneficial factor because, like the conquering societies, they would absorb other tribes. This would keep slavery up to be used as labor and cannon fodder and keep their higher ranking infantries casualties low in battle. Also feeding the tribes would be a problem for the NCR the Legion would resolve by just killing them.

  
  
  
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  There would potentially be plenty of cities to scour for supplies along the way and little to no opposition from their western front. They really wouldn't have much opposition on their eastern Front except for the pocket cities the BoS is in and a Deathclaw or two. Even then, there wouldn't be much concentrated "resistance" until the East Coast.

  
  
  

Since they've clearly shown that they are accustomed to and thriving in conflict zones, I doubt the CC wouldn't look for some way to work something out with Caesar if they saw Mr House AND the NCR fall. They would probably even be commissioned with assisting sieges and troops with supplies or food in exchange for protection to trading in their conquered territory.

They would be interested in growth as a company, but also probably forced as a federalized entity of the Legion.

[sj12]

I second this, great idea and well written!

[FluffThorrent]

This is a very interesting topic that has also been discussed elsewhere (hence why I'm writing here - this video is really interesting and got me looking for more discussion). As to your theories, I think you could be missing something which would save a lot of headache: the historical Silk Road wasn't held by any one nation or power. It stretched all the way from Rome to Hong Kong, Samarkand to Mombasa. It would frequently adjust to war and conflict and had several routes over both land and sea.

 

If you want the mod to specifically incorporate the Crimson Caravan company, that works with or without the Legion, even the NCR. The Hub - representing centralized trade - was already present and had formed its own pseudo-city state before Shady Sands rose to prominence. Given enough manpower and time to create settlement networks, even a northern route through the Salt Lake region to Dakota could be formed, avoiding both nations (but might run into others...).

As the video also hints (as is my own belief), Bethesda must have had something of a "Jet Road" in their lore design, explaining why we see Jet and bottlecaps in use in DC and Boston when the series has only portrayed separate US coasts, with no game connecting them.

Edited May 16, 2017 by FluffThorrent