Malkut

Not from chems, no.

The Legion does a lot for the Wasteland, which pales in comparison to what the Legion does to the Wasteland (and virtually everyone in it). The only thing separating the Legion from the Fiends is discipline.

Some of them probably have. We don't get to see everything in the lore, just the parts that can fit into a game. I doubt an organization the size of the NCR could get by for 100 years on purely scavenged things. But for the most part, I imagine scavenging old things is easier and more efficient than building new things, especially in small settlements without many people or much technical aptitude.

Most people are too concerned with the day-to-day struggle for survival to consider industry. Designing and maintaining an iron mine/recycling center, steel mill, and a manufacturing plant to work with their product would require technological know-how, enough resources to keep non-food producing workers alive, and the strength to protect them from predators . . . human or otherwise. Beyond the Brotherhood of Steel (who are unwilling), there aren't that many people with all of those elements available. They might do it on the small-scale to construct bunkers, though. The exception is the Pitt, which operates a pre-war steel mill with massive reserves of disposable slave labor.

The endings seem to imply differently. House's regime isn't as repressive as Caesar's, but he's no saintly benevolent despot.

It's true that not all the water is contaminated, but the Mojave is still a desert, so there wasn't all that much to begin with. At least, not in regions lacking irrigation, a deep well, or direct access to the Colorado. Whereas the Capital Wasteland had an abundance of water, but it was all contaminated and undrinkable.

The government is actually built on the idea of minimizing the impact of human nature on human society, so that everyone doesn't have to be fine for things to function. This is why one of the first things the NCR borrowed was the concept of checks and balances. Again, it's not perfect. No society composed of imperfect humans will ever be perfect, but, it's as close as we can reasonably expect to get. Mr. House doesn't seem to realize that saving humanity and controlling it are two different things. Generally happens to people with a messiah complex. He will make humanity reliant on him, meaning it's screwed if it ever loses him. Humanity needs to rely on itself.

For all their advantages, the Enclave has accomplished nothing. Their plan for the future is pants-on-head stupid. They tried to steal my dead parent's legacy. They want to kill everyone I've met since leaving the Vault because racism. They're the same people who blew up the world with their shoddy leadership in the first place. I can see why people might support the Enclave, because if they were sane, they could do a lot of good. They're not sane, though. Lyon's Brotherhood has fought a two decade long war against Super Mutants. They have the relative goodwill of Rivet City, the largest settlement, and enough martial might to deal with Val 87, Paradise Falls, and Evergreen Mills. I think their leader's daughter (and future heir) kind of likes me. Why, with a little bit of guidance, they might actually make the Capital Wasteland be not the worst place in existence anymore.

I imagine it has to do with the scarcity of clean, non-radioactive water. That's why people in the Vaults are clean.

Aside from lacking any comprehension of his own limitations, Mister House suffers from the same flaw as Caesar. Namely, he thinks that he alone can save humanity from the post-nuclear nightmare they created. He can't. Nobody can. No single person is going to come along and sweep away the Wasteland and the past 200 years with some scheme involving robots. If someone did manage to force order, it would be that person's order, and it'd vanish the second they did. Caeser has the same issue. He is not Julius Caesar, no matter what his people think. He's an egomaniac cosplaying as him. What he's built isn't an empire, it's a legion, an army, and it's founded on nothing more than stolen ideas and his own personal charisma. Without Caesar, it's nothing but a band of well-organized raiders. Humanity itself has to learn from it's mistakes, come back from the brink, form stable societies, advance technologically, and reclaim the planet on it's own. The NCR is a democratic nation that evolved organically, sustained itself for a century, and has organized itself well enough to gather wealth and expand it's influence. That's far more likely to produce results than either other faction.

I didn't really mean negative as in evil, just . . . not positive. My point was that there was originally more to the Brotherhood than: 1) Dig a hole 2) Fill it with laser rifles 3) Live there forever The Fallout 3 Brotherhood of Steel have all the same flaws as they had in the original game. They're arrogant, they send you into a radioactive hellhole alone, they don't make any effort to distinguish between Underworld and Feral ghouls during firefights, and there is definitely a dark past with the Pitt. These points just aren't played up in the story.

While far from perfect, the Brotherhood of Steel were generally a benevolent organization in Fallout. They had an attitude towards outsiders, but they weren't isolationist xenophobes. They fought a war against the Vipers and engaged in trade with the Hub. In the original ending, they emerged to help rebuild society with their technology. I assume that's no longer canon, but it's very interesting. I don't really recall them being too deeply in decline in Fallout 2. It's more like they are afraid. I always assumed from what they said that they knew about the Enclave being more advanced than they are, and were staying in their bunkers until the crisis passed, or the Enclave made it's move. You just didn't get the opportunity to interact with them very much. I think the Fallout 3 Brotherhood are actually pretty close to the ones in the original game. They are still arrogant towards outsiders, they still horde technology, they still fight mutants and raiders and the Enclave, and they still send outsiders into radioactive hellholes to accomplish dangerous missions before they accept them into the Brotherhood. Our dearly departed Initiate Reddin just wasn't a Vault-Dweller. :sad: The only difference is that Fallout 3 emphasized the positive aspects of the organization, and Van Buren/New Vegas the negative. I fail to see why both can't be correct.

The NCR. Because, a democracy (however incompetent) is still infinitely preferable to a dictatorship (however efficient).