The Shi?

[SirDanest]

Did Obsidian forget about the Shi? From what I remember, they were incredibly advanced; working t51b power armor, vertibird plans, a vine that could eliminate radiation, hi-tech weapons manufacture, advanced combat armor, a jet antidote, and a computer that could make accurate predictions about the future.

Even if the NCR was having internal troubles, the Shi would be deeply threatened by Caesar's plans, I have no doubt. On that note, the gun-runners might have even felt Caesar's wrath considering his pretend-hostility to really advanced tech. How long would the machete-wielding primitives at Cottonwood survive against a fleet of power armored troops, hi-tech weapons, and vertibirds? It would be trivial to defeat them. I have a feeling the NCR should have been more advanced than what we were seeing, unless they were suffering far, far more than corruption and taxes and economic depression; many strong countries have corruption and taxes... sometimes a war even spurs an economy with more war manufacturing jobs.

I wonder what happened? So far I haven't found an answer when googling.

[madmongo]

The Shi are based in San Francisco, and their reach doesn't extend as far east as the Mojave. They have their own issues like fighting against the NCR and the Hubologists. The Shi probably don't care much about Caesar since they have the entire NCR between themselves and the Legion.

 

The NCR suffers quite a bit from focusing too much on expansion and not enough on infrastructure. That's why you see a lot of NPCs in-game complaining about heavy taxation and complaining about how "Kimball's War" is draining the NCR. The NCR is also running into problems with further expansion in other directions, like towards New Reno. They've basically over-extended themselves and are having trouble maintaining the empire they have, and rather than focusing on fixing things internally, Kimball keeps focusing instead on pushing eastward.

[SirDanest]

Sounds plausible. But if the Shi really are mass producing vertibirds and have power armor and hi-tech weapons, ... well, the ncr is having trouble with a sword-armed, glorified raider gang cosplaying (badly) as Romans.

A fleet of high-flying vertibirds dropping bombs on shady sands and the NCR would become the New Shi Empire. It would be a short war. Although the wikis are short on info as to the exact nature of the relationship between the Shi and NCR.

I'd wager the Shi are neither helping nor directly warring against the NCR (based on the fact that the Legion and the NCR exist), but if Caesar (or Lanius) did invade deep into California, he'd be in for a rude surprise.

[madmongo]

The NCR is huge. It also possesses reasonably high levels of technology and weapons. Not as good as the Shi, but not bad. However, its soldiers are poorly trained and poorly disciplined. NCR training is basically "here's your gun, point that end at the enemy, good luck."

 

The Legion is also huge. Its soldiers use much more primitive weapons. Legion soldiers though are much better trained, are much more experienced, and are more aggressive. They also operate under Caesar's doctrine of Total War. This is why the NCR is having such difficulty defeating this group of cosplaying psuedo-Romans. It's a battle of inferior soldiers wielding better weapons against better soldiers wielding inferior weapons.

 

I might be misunderstanding the lore, but I don't think the Shi are mass producing vertibirds. They are producing some vertibirds and weapons, but not on a huge scale. They do have very advanced technology, but they are small in numbers. This is why their influence doesn't extend far beyond San Francisco and why you don't hear anything about them in the Mojave. They are powerful, but they are tiny.

 

If there were a battle of Shady Sands, I agree that the Shi would win, but I don't think that it would be a short battle. The NCR has some vertibirds of their own and also has power armor and some high tech weapons. I do think the Shi's superior technology would win, but that wouldn't win the war, for the same reason that in real life the British didn't defeat the U.S. in the war of 1812 just because they marched up to Washington DC and burned down the city. Just taking the capital isn't enough. The Shi would win Shady Sands, but then they would face endless waves of NCR troops. The NCR's troops would be poorly trained and, compared to the Shi, they would be poorly armed, but they would overwhelm the Shi in the same way that they overwhelmed the technically superior Brotherhood of Steel and what was left of the Enclave. It's the old Soviet military philosophy. If you can't overwhelm them with superior technology, overwhelm them with numerical superiority instead.

 

The Shi in Fallout 2 were reclusive. FNV don't really say what's going on with the Shi at that time FNV takes place, so the lore is a bit silent there, unfortunately. The NCR wants to expand and take over everything, which puts them at odds with the Shi who want to remain independent. Kellogg's comments about the Shi in Fallout 4 make me think that the Shi are taking a more aggressive stance in protecting their territory, which puts them in conflict with the NCR, but maybe not. The more I think about it, the more I tend to agree with you. The Shi are neither aiding the NCR nor are they fighting against them. The Shi wouldn't dare to attack the NCR since the NCR is so large and has such a huge military. The NCR probably wouldn't dare attack the Shi because they are already fighting the Legion on one side, and the last thing they need with their over-extended infrastructure is a two front war to further drain their resources. Both the Shi and the NCR probably think that a war with the other would just be too costly.

 

I doubt that Caesar knows much about the Shi. The player in FNV gets to decide who wins in the Mojave, but I also tend to think that if Caesar ever makes it all the way to the western side of California, he is indeed in for a very rude surprise.

 

You are placing a lot of faith in the Shi's technical superiority. Keep this in mind. In the real world, in World War II, the Germans had much better technology than the Russians. The Germans had better tanks, better guns, better everything. Their soldiers were even better trained. But the Russians countered that by just sending wave after wave against the Germans, overwhelming them with troops and tanks and driving them back. I think the same thing would happen to the Shi if they attacked the NCR (or the Legion). The Shi is small. Despite their superior technology, they would get overwhelmed by the sheer size of the NCR's military. Or Caesar's army, if it came to that. The Shi's superior technology would make it a very painful war for anyone who dared to attack them though.

 

Another classic example of this is the U.S. Sherman tank vs. the German Tiger tank, again from WWII. The Tiger was superior in pretty much every measurable way. The Sherman couldn't penetrate the front armor of the Tiger at all. It was just too under-gunned. You could literally put a Sherman and a Tiger face to face and let the Sherman fire first while the Tiger just sat there, and it wouldn't matter. The only way a Sherman could take out a tiger was to sneak around behind it and shoot it in the backside where its armor was thinner. The Tiger, on the other hand, had no problem at all penetrating even the heaviest front armor of the Sherman. Give the Tiger one shot, and the Sherman is toast. And yet, despite having a hugely superior tank, the Germans were big losers on the battlefield. Why? It took on average four Shermans to take out a single Tiger (again, proof of the Tiger's superiority), but we were producing 10 Shermans for every 1 Tiger. The Tigers were just overwhelmed, and in the end their technical superiority didn't win on the battlefield. Numerical superiority won.

 

That's the problem that the Shi has. They have better weapons and better technology, but they are just too small. Put them up against someone big like the NCR or the Legion and they'll just get overwhelmed by sheer numbers.

 

That's my opinion of it, for what it's worth.

Edited March 19, 2018 by madmongo

[YanL]

I am quite sure that it is nowhere said that Frisco was annexed by the NCR. The Shi is probably still an independent faction (and Vault City too, if you ask me). That´s why NCR has almost no vertibirds, only those left over from Navarro. It is also impossible to bombard what you do not see. Some things have to be disregarded, or else there would be no game.

 

Here´s another example: why Caesar did not poison the Colorado River? They would have killed the entire NCR in Mojave.

Edited March 19, 2018 by YanL

[SirDanest]

I have a strong desire to see the best of California... Shady Sands, Vault City, the Shi. I'd love to have been able to compare them to Vegas. Vault city and Shady sands in Fallout 2 had pretty, intact roads, green grass, green trees, and buildings that weren't made of crumbling ruins or garbage. But they lacked the grandeur and flash of Vegas. It would have been interesting to be able to directly compare NCR and House's cities before I made the choice. :)

[YanL]

yes, it would be cool but thanks to Zenimax, we will never have another Fallout by Obsidian. And I doubt that Bethesda wanted to set any future game in California. Which I think is a smart move btw Edited March 20, 2018 by YanL

[LonesomeCoyote]

Fallout: New California will be released relatively soon (previously Project Brazil if you didn't know.) Hopefully we'll get to explore at least some of California, though I doubt we'll be able to go all the way from Arroyo to Nercropolis.

[SirDanest]

Fallout: New California will be released relatively soon (previously Project Brazil if you didn't know.) Hopefully we'll get to explore at least some of California, though I doubt we'll be able to go all the way from Arroyo to Nercropolis.

It's not going to visit any known NCR locations, just a new NCR town and Raider town as the main locations apparently. But there's still a lot of content in those areas from the sound of it.