Which ending do you usually go for and why?

[peadar1987]

The thing I should point out is that there is nothing in the Independent Vegas ending about democracy being restored. In the Mohave its probably not a good idea for at least a generation: a modern democracy requires extensive infrastructure and mass education to work. Otherwise, political consciousness grows faster than services can be be provided.

 

About NCR: if they follow in Lincoln's footsteps and restore the union by any any all necessary means, they are right to do so, just as he was. The use of force is rarely illegitimate, its many times the only legitimacy. But NCR offers a lot more than just brute force, more than any Courier, even one with the secrets of the Big MT.

 

As for Caesar's Legion, you're absolutely right. For those in the Legion. But the Legion isn't a state, its an army with a territory. The Legion is Caesar's personal slave army. Those civilians spared in the initial conquests are safer than in NCR, and treated better than those under any faction except NCR. Mostly its benign neglect, but sometimes that's all that's needed. Mind you, this does not apply for tribals, but for townfolk. Caesar probably sees them as too big a collective to process anyway, and more to the point, townfolk and settlers are American Romaoi and lack that all encompassing might makes right attitude that makes tribals into good Legionaries.

 

The independent ending finishes with you as the hero of the Mojave, with control over an army of robots. What happens then is up to you. If you want to rule over them as a dictator, or leave them to their own devices like Mr House, that's up to you, and how you'd imagine your story arc continuing after the events of Hoover Dam. I'd immediately start laying the foundations for democracy, putting in place a constitution etc. I would stand for election, but I wouldn't become a despot.

 

The NCR have no right at all to the Mojave. Zero. None. They are not the United States, they are a collection of people who emerged from fallout shelters and have taken on that mantle. They have no more right to rule over the continental US than the Enclave, and considerably less than the people who have been living there outside of their control for the intervening 150 years or so. The Mojave is no threat to the NCR, they are not at war with them, they have the right to decide their own future, be that as a part of the NCR or not. If you think that the use of force is rarely illegitimate, then you and I view the world completely differently. And as for restoring the Union, would you argue that Turkey has the right to use force to restore the Ottoman Empire? Would it be justified for Vladimir Putin to send the tanks into Ukraine? Germany to expand east to reclaim East Prussia?

 

As for the legion, I agree with you, I think the legion deserves some bad press, but isn't the ultimate evil some people paint it to be. Sure, it's not the NCR, but compare it to the Capital Wasteland, and it's paradise

[charwo]

In this world, the strong do what they will, the weak endure what they must. This is an iron law. What one has a right to is what one can claim from all takers. The problem with the theme park version of this truth is that coalition building, diplomacy, and not being more of a dick than necessary is required to hold in stability. But, the right to the Mohave is the one who claims it. The Courier has just as much of 'a right' to the Mohave as anyone else, provided they can claim it. What I'm saying is that all parties concerned are better off under NCR than anything else. If the NCR can't hold Nevada, it doesn't deserve it.

 

As a larger problem in Fallout is that it confuses, constantly war and madness. I mean, the series is right, war, war never changes, but war is that shitty bleeding you see done with raiders, slavers, BOS, Legion and NCR. War IS man's curse, but its a curse we can live with. The thing we call nuclear war is madness; nihilistic, omnicidal crap. In Ulysses at Lonesome Road, we get the closest we ever see to Chairman Cheng in October 2077. Megalomaniac butt hurt, the pettiness of one man determined to play sore loser to everyone's sorrow. See, there's the difference: in wars people die, but in the people endure. And what I've been saying is that 'the people' in this case, America, still survive. Eden was right in Fallout 3 about that, and if he hadn't learned his values at the feet of Nazi fools, he and the Enclave would have been the heroes of Fallout 3. Course, they wouldn't have acted at all like they did in the game.

 

I'd love to to support the Enclave, if they ever got their heads out of their asses. Why? Well, for the same reason I'm for the NCR: institutional ambition and institutional values. The Enclave, much like the Catholic Church of the Middle Ages, believes in a lot of very good things, but then pervert everything they ostensibly believe in in the name of necessity and propriety. The Enclave just needs a Martin Luther to make people in the Clave to actually think about what they mouth and what they actually do and realize they're hypocrites. The problem is that this needs to happen BEFORE their next power play.

 

NCR needs less, they just need a kick in the ass and some investigative journalism. When you mouth Old World (American) values, you must actually live them or be held to account. The Enclave didn't, but only because of the nuclear war. If World War III had ended conventionally, there would have been some serious DeNazification going on, probably after turning America into Syria for a couple of years. Still worth it though.

 

The issue with even a good Courier is his purported strength: he's a hero. What he's not is an administrator. What he lacks is an institution behind him, particularly a functioning bureaucracy. Or a human intelligence network, a constabulary force that actually polices versus shoting anyone who overtly makes trouble. It lacks a currency based on real value and internally controlled, to say nothing of a banking system There are a lot of things Securitrons cannot do. House wasn't just quasi libertine because of ideology, his state apparatus is too small to manage anything beyond the Strip, and even with the army in hand, he wouldn't have the luxury of just dealing with the problems of a rich suburb. And he was a genius of human relations and scientific management. We see this kind of thing happen all the time in the African bush: charismatic leader takes power, and screws everything up in a matter of months before they lack the management systems and expertise to make a go of things. This happened in the USSR during the 1917 Revolution. NCR has this. Caesar has this. House interestingly doesn't have this outside of the families, and thus Vegas is more feudal than the Legion.

 

NCR is a fully functioning state, with all realities and no pie in the sky possibilities. It's the proven system, and it has the scars and ambiguities to prove it.

[peadar1987]

In this world, the strong do what they will, the weak endure what they must. This is an iron law. What one has a right to is what one can claim from all takers. The problem with the theme park version of this truth is that coalition building, diplomacy, and not being more of a dick than necessary is required to hold in stability. But, the right to the Mohave is the one who claims it. The Courier has just as much of 'a right' to the Mohave as anyone else, provided they can claim it. What I'm saying is that all parties concerned are better off under NCR than anything else. If the NCR can't hold Nevada, it doesn't deserve it.

 

As a larger problem in Fallout is that it confuses, constantly war and madness. I mean, the series is right, war, war never changes, but war is that shitty bleeding you see done with raiders, slavers, BOS, Legion and NCR. War IS man's curse, but its a curse we can live with. The thing we call nuclear war is madness; nihilistic, omnicidal crap. In Ulysses at Lonesome Road, we get the closest we ever see to Chairman Cheng in October 2077. Megalomaniac butt hurt, the pettiness of one man determined to play sore loser to everyone's sorrow. See, there's the difference: in wars people die, but in the people endure. And what I've been saying is that 'the people' in this case, America, still survive. Eden was right in Fallout 3 about that, and if he hadn't learned his values at the feet of Nazi fools, he and the Enclave would have been the heroes of Fallout 3. Course, they wouldn't have acted at all like they did in the game.

 

I'd love to to support the Enclave, if they ever got their heads out of their asses. Why? Well, for the same reason I'm for the NCR: institutional ambition and institutional values. The Enclave, much like the Catholic Church of the Middle Ages, believes in a lot of very good things, but then pervert everything they ostensibly believe in in the name of necessity and propriety. The Enclave just needs a Martin Luther to make people in the Clave to actually think about what they mouth and what they actually do and realize they're hypocrites. The problem is that this needs to happen BEFORE their next power play.

 

NCR needs less, they just need a kick in the ass and some investigative journalism. When you mouth Old World (American) values, you must actually live them or be held to account. The Enclave didn't, but only because of the nuclear war. If World War III had ended conventionally, there would have been some serious DeNazification going on, probably after turning America into Syria for a couple of years. Still worth it though.

 

The issue with even a good Courier is his purported strength: he's a hero. What he's not is an administrator. What he lacks is an institution behind him, particularly a functioning bureaucracy. Or a human intelligence network, a constabulary force that actually polices versus shoting anyone who overtly makes trouble. It lacks a currency based on real value and internally controlled, to say nothing of a banking system There are a lot of things Securitrons cannot do. House wasn't just quasi libertine because of ideology, his state apparatus is too small to manage anything beyond the Strip, and even with the army in hand, he wouldn't have the luxury of just dealing with the problems of a rich suburb. And he was a genius of human relations and scientific management. We see this kind of thing happen all the time in the African bush: charismatic leader takes power, and screws everything up in a matter of months before they lack the management systems and expertise to make a go of things. This happened in the USSR during the 1917 Revolution. NCR has this. Caesar has this. House interestingly doesn't have this outside of the families, and thus Vegas is more feudal than the Legion.

 

NCR is a fully functioning state, with all realities and no pie in the sky possibilities. It's the proven system, and it has the scars and ambiguities to prove it.

 

-That's where we fundamentally disagree. I don't, and never will, believe that might makes right, in a post-apocalyptic world or otherwise.

 

-America doesn't exist in the Fallout universe more than the Ottoman Empire exists in ours. Turkey don't have a right to Bulgaria, Serbia or Macedonia, no matter how much military power they might have, and any "continuations" of the US have the right to any land that isn't already occupied by people who want nothing to do with them.

 

-On Comrade Cheng, it's never made clear in the Fallout canon how the Great War started. America could have launched the first nukes, it could have been triggered by a false alarm, it could have been a terrorist attack, or the North Koreans.

 

-I'd sort of agree with you about the Enclave as well. If you take out the genocidal tendencies, they hold the not-unjustifiable position that the best thing for the wasteland and the people in it is to rule from the top with extreme force. Desperate times, desperate measures and all that. However, the same disagreement comes up again. I don't think they have the right to force people to join them, at gunpoint if necessary.

 

-House didn't have much interest in pacifying the area around Vegas. If he had, he has more than enough money to hire an army of mercenaries to augment the securitron army, and do it easily. However, it suited him in the short term for the NCR to deal with the problems of the Fiends, the Great Khans, the Jackals, and the Vipers. In the House ending, it's pretty obvious that he starts this more or less instantly by rolling the Securitrons out into Freeside.

 

-The Mojave is more than capable of running itself as-is, with the trappings of a modern state spreading outwards over time. Goodsprings, Primm, and Novac are functioning communities, in spite of not being part of a state. Obviously there is room for improvement, but it will take time, and over a period of a few decades, it's just as easily achievable from Vegas as from Shady Sands. The region is very rich by post-apocalyptic terms, with water, power, valuable salvage, and a good base for industry. The Mojave could be a very prosperous state in a few years.

 

The independent path isn't perfect, but it's not as if NCR is the only way to go if the Mojave is to become a better place. To be honest, for the general populace, House is probably the worst outcome, as he doesn't particularly care if things are lawless and brutal outside his walls, so long as his own convoys can still get through. It does really depend exactly how bad things are in legion territory for civilians though, something that's never made clear. I like to imagine it's similar to things further west for the most part, with traders, farmers, and scavengers, except with military service for able-bodied men, and pretty severe punishments for not keeping your head down (counterbalanced by being far, far safer from bandits and wildlife)

[Thessalonaki]

(First forum post, woohoo.)

 

I agree with many of peadar's points (though I'm not sure about the independent ending; I honestly lean a bit toward House, but over all I'm undecided)
I think that, when we talk about "restoring America" in terms of Fallout, we really forget what the general theme of Fallout is. Think about it: what "central theme" does Fallout revolve around? It's simple-especially if you've played Dead Money or Lonesome Road, where they nearly outright state it: Let go of the past.

 

America no longer exists. Neither does the nation of China, probably, or any other of the Old World nations. It's dead, gone, nuked into oblivion. The restoration of America is not only an improbable goal, it's actually pretty imperialistic and arbitrary. The idea of "America" is gradually falling away into obscurity; simply put, nobody cares about it anymore. New nations are arising, being built- none of them perfect, but each with their own cultures and values, each with their own unique identity. The thing about NCR is, it's more like the USSR than the United States, minus the communism. It's extremely bureaucratic (literally everything about the NCR reeks of bureaucracy, even the military, just look at all their supply problems, look at Bitter Springs, which happened because of the commanders not really knowing what the hell was going on, if you listen to Boone) just like the USSR was. I may be mistaken, but I believe at one point it was implied that the NCR is now a one party state- which would fit what I've seen. They're just as imperialistic as Caesar's Legion, if without the slaves. It should also be noted the Brahmin Barons hold the real power in the NCR, not the people.

 

Ulysses was an extreme case, but he had a point: both of the nations were incompetent, unfit to rule. The Bear will eventually collapse under it's own weight, probably from civil war or rebellion. Caesar's Legion will die with Caesar; Lanius really isn't much of a ruler so much as a General, similar to the Courier's problem. His solution was kinda sorta super batshit insane, of course, but there was rationale behind it.

 

Anyway, my main point is: the concept of "America" in NV is inert, irrelevant. What matters is the New World: new nations. Let go, begin again.

 

 

[peadar1987]

I've been thinking about the House ending, and I've realised that I pretty much forgot about the Courier. Even if House doesn't care about the people of the Mojave, that doesn't mean the Courier doesn't. You're his right-hand man, and if you wanted to try and make life better for the people of the Mojave while he played with his robots and rockets, I doubt he'd mind

[Fistandilius]

I'm new to the fallout series. New Vegas is the first and only game I've played and I've done the Yes Man ending and the House ending as it's possible to do both with the same save. I think I would lean towards the Yes Man being the best "good" ending, with the NCR being the second even if I haven't played it yet.

 

For reasons everyone else stated, it's obvious the Legion isn't the way to go. I feel like the NCR (as someone else already said) is kind've like America today. There are a lot of good people there, but the leaders aren't necessarily the best and they've over reached. But I think the intention is basically there, not necessarily to be good, but to at least organize and keep order. My main issue with NCR in the game is that there is absolutely no reason for them to even attempt to occupy the strip except for pride.

 

Originally I went with House as he seemed to have a plan, and he kept saying it would be better for mankind. But as I started to go along with him, some of the things I had done bothered me.

 

I blew up an entire Brotherhood of Steel bunker... now these guys were ***holes to me. Not in the Skyrim, lets send you to the block because you were found near the enemy sort of way, but in a ok, we invited you here to look at your robot, but we're going to put a bomb collar on you anyways sort of way... But there were also some good people there. I keep thinking about that apprentice/intern who talked about how her mother was a knight and her father a scribe (or vice versus) and she was close to her choosing. She happened to be in the control room that day before I waited for nightfall to set the self destruct. Then I met Veronica after and traveled with her and found out they were her family and she knew they were wrong but she wanted to make things right with them. When she asked me to take her to the Hidden Valley (and obviously the quest wouldn't trigger) I kept thinking of how this would have really ended in a real life situation and she would have been devastated to find out that I destroyed everyone she had ever known or loved.

 

Then when he informed me that he intended to push out NCR and I had to hack their power sources and finally ended up killing their general (because of a stupid speech check, btw. I still can't get over a speech check on the final dialogue of the game) and that bugged me as well. I spent a lot of time doing missions for these people helping them with supplies, training their troops, eliminating fiends, etc. There are a lot of good people in the NCR. I had to rescue their president. I fought on their side. And then House made me betray them in the end for what? Despite the fact that the ending said that I was good for the people and I was able to keep Mr. House on path, I still feel like having him in power would be a less extreme version of letting the doctors out of the Big MT, where he didn't see people, he only saw players. As someone else in the thread mentioned... the guy is sealed in a box. He can't actually "live" in the world and yet he's trying to control it.

 

So in conclusion, I would go with the Independent ending first, NCR second, as I think they're are the lesser evil between House and NCR.

 

At least I know now where these Skyrim modders got the idea for these less than exciting slideshow endings.

Edited January 16, 2014 by Fistandilius

[koesir]

Hi, people. THis is my first post.

 

And based on my own game, I usually go to House route, then NCR route, never Yes Man (never tried), and for obvious reasons, I never support Caesar and his football uniform wearing, machete wielding troops. Oh and he proclaim himself as Son of Mars. whattajoke.

 

After saw many arguments and checking the wiki for possible endings, I went to Yes Man this time. It feels that New Vegas independence were the best one. Many towns and communities prosper without anyone telling them what to do. But, it was riot around Vegas after Battle of Hoover Dam, and if you don't kill/eradicate the evil karma minor faction in your game, or suggest the King to incite war vs NCR, New Vegas isn't independent in the good way, it will be more like hell.

 

And the biggest let down in Yes Man ending is, the Followers of Apocalypse are getting hard time to help the locals and Vegas in general is more chaotic. Only Freeside and The Strip that deemed safe (If you suggest the King to make a truce with NCR)

[reallancem]

im really suprised not allot chose Legion, they are like a badass combo of the VC and Rome

[Danny159]

im really suprised not allot chose Legion, they are like a badass combo of the VC and Rome

 

My female 1 intelligence unarmed character went for the Legion...

Thinking she could change them by showing them women can also fight... XD

[charwo]

I've never been interested in themes. And I'm a sworn enemy of genre. I'm only interested in logical consequences, and I've been told I'm a born deconstructor. Whether any states of the pre-war still exist is irrelevant: states are the extention of the ethnic groups that make them in their image. Israel did not exist for 2,000 years as any form of state, yet becasue the Jews survived, even in diaphora, Israel endured. Bulgaria has only existed as a state for 250 of the past 1,000 years, Poland as a state missed all of the 19th century.

 

One must take pains to never, ever confuse people (Volk or ethnic people), state, and government. Rome did not die in Western Europe when the Empire fell there. It did two or three centuries later when the Romans stopped being Romans and became Spaniards, Frenchmen and Italians.