Fallout : Flagstaff (Mod Concept)

[Gasman6669]

So out of nowhere while thinking about The Frontier, a concept for my own Fallout "expansion"/quest mod came to my mind, one regarding the capitol of Caesar's Legion. This is not a mod request, neither is it an "announcement" of some sorts, just an idea I've been making up in my head for the past few days I wished to share to see, whether people would even like such a setting. Who knows, maybe I will bother trying to pick up GECK or maybe someone will decide to put this into physical form.

The idea of this mod is to give Caesar's Legion justice, but without straight up rewriting them or turning them "progressive" like they did in The Frontier. You're supposed to be witness the civilian life of Legion and why many people would trade away their freedom and rights for a dictatorship that protects them and leaves them mostly alone (as described by JSawyer). It would take place in Flagstaff and it's surrounding areas. Flagstaff being almost half the map, constructed out of adobe sand stone and massive walls (it's supposed to give you an OG fallout - esque aesthetic with a Shady Sand like look), and the rest being an empty wasteland alongside some lesser towns. A big focus of this faction would be characters ; I've done some thinking and realized, that honestly outside of companions (which are bare boned), NPCs are never seen as proper characters, but just as quest givers (at least from my perspective). You never feel connected or become friends with these NPCs or in general never get too close with them like in other RPGs (such as Cyberpunk, Witcher, and other RPGs). This mod would focus on having those "little moments" with NPCs that make you go "Wow, I want to sit with this guy forever and just chill with him."

The mod takes place right before the 2nd battle of Hoover Dam, the last quest before the ending of the game gets delayed, forcing a rather "cold war esque phase" between the NCR and Legion, waiting for the other to act first (which is the Legion anyways). Depending on the side you take, NCR/House/Independent or Legion, you get a complete different story line in the mod which takes you to Flagstaff.

The Legion Route

Playing as the Legion, you're getting told that the Courier has done all he could before the battle, - and that the only thing that remains is to wait for Lanius' Legion to fully arrive. However there was trouble brewing within Legion's borders, - slaves beginning to rise up and vassals beginning to break their allegiance en masse. With only a single centurae remaining in Flagstaff, the Legion is threatened to be eaten from inside out. Caesar, not able to spare a single centurae to go back to Flagstaff, instead hires the Courier to aid in extinguishing what he believes is an NCR funded and caused rebellion. He also calls it a "reward" to the Courier for being of service to the Legion, allowing them to witness "Civilization" in it's beauty.

 

As the Courier arrives, they can tell it is completely different to the Mojave Wasteland. - The lands were safe to travel through with no creatures such as super mutants or raider gangs in sight. They can also tell, that the people are mostly content and embrace slavery as a casual and every - day thing. Ther aren't too many Legion forces, most of them being deployed deeper within Flagstaff and used as guards of the capitol. - Towns and the desert are patrolled and protected by their own soldiers and militias. These militias are loyal to Legion, are funded and supported by Legion, - however are not officially part of their army. The Courier has to work tightly with the Centurion and Optio(Second in Command), who were left in charge of protecting Flagstaff while Caesar's Legion was pushing into the Mojave. The focus of this route will be to get to know the Legion better, to get to know the characters - how and why they think the way they do. Again, the whole purpose of this route is not to justify slavery, dictatorship or to rewrite the Legion into "the good guys", it's an attempt at making the player think from the perspective of someone who lived in the apocalypse, who would be willing to accept that these things may be neccessary for the bigger picture.

 

The Rebel Route

The Rebel Route would begin with you getting approached by a completely "new" group, that the Courier hasn't met before. A group of former Desert Rangers, that refused to join up with the NCR or deserted due to Lee Olivers incompetence as a leader. They offer you the opportunity to help them in crippling and sabotaging the Legion from within in hopes to weaken them during the battle of Hoover Dam, - or straight up force the Legion to retreat, even if they happen to win the second battle. The Courier would have to smuggle himself in as slave by sneaking into a Legion camp that was preparing slaves to get shipped to Arizona (Inspired after The Pitt, obviously). There, the Courier would view Flagstaff from the perspective as a slave before getting in contact with Desert Rangers that managed to infiltrate Flagstaff and cause disarray and rebel uprisings throughout Arizona. You would notice, how most the slaves and Desert Rangers are female, as most male slaves were being force conscripted or dead. Afterwards, the Courier would have to spent most their time in Flagstaff trying to "expose" the monstrosities and terrorism to the population, aswell as try to motivate and organize tribal slaves into resisting and fighting back.

I've got plenty of more stuff planned, but for now I'll stop here. Feel free to tell me why it's bad/sucks or whatever.

[madmongo]

I am already working on a mod that would include Flagstaff. My vision isn't quite the same as yours though.

 

My mod is a bit ambitious (probably a bit too ambitious), but the end goal is to be able to go east all the way to Flagstaff, southwest to the Hub and maybe Necropolis, and north up to New Reno, Vault City, and that general area. I will probably release a first pass of the mod once I get the Arizona side of things done, just so that people can play either for or against the Legion all the way to Flagstaff.

 

Currently, I have four worldspaces on the eastern side of things, three of which are laid out, one of which has no work at all done to it. The first worldspace starts just beyond Hoover Dam and follows 93 down from the dam towards Kingman. This is a big long area that doesn't have much in it (hey, this is Arizona), and it's mostly the supply line for the Legion on the way to Hoover Dam. There are some raiders that are off the beaten path that the Legion hasn't gotten to yet. If you are pro-Legion, there are some things to clear out along the road to protect the supply lines (plus the aforementioned raiders). If you are anti-Legion, you get to take out some Legion troops guarding a few supply caches along the road.

 

The second worldspace has Kingman on the northeast corner, and CalNavAri on the northwest corner. Kingman is a town that has been conquered by the Legion, so it fits the lore that you mention. Life for civilians is actually a lot better than it was before the Legion came along. The town has fresh water, working electricity, and all of the raiders have been completely eliminated from the area. There is a prison nearby that has been converted into a Legion slave camp (it's my mod equivalent of the real life Kingman prison), and of course this being Fallout I took the Griffith natural gas power plant and put a nuke plant in its place. Also one of the pre-war buildings in Kingman is now a slave market, and the Super Duper Mart is being used to house Legion troops since if you look at a map, Kingman is a pretty strategic location. so the Legion needed someplace to house a bunch of troops. The Colorado River goes down the middle of this worldspace, with Legion camps on the east side and NCR camps on the west side. The area ends on the south end around Needles, CA. I put a Corvega testing area where the real-world Chrysler proving grounds are located, and there are some other raiders and super-mutants in areas outside of Legion control.

 

The third worldspace is basically I-40 between Kingman and Flagstaff, with Route 66 branching off in a big arc around the north side of the worldspace (can't skip famous Rt 66). There's not a lot in this worldspace, but I really wanted to convey just how desolate Arizona is. I have the basic settlements laid out for Seligman, Ash Fork, and Williams, but I'm still working on exactly how I am going to flush them out. I will probably put walls around them due to their history of raider attacks. The Legion may have eliminated the raiders but that's not going to make the townsfolk dismantle the walls. Along Rt 66 there is a slave farm in Peach Springs that provides food for Legion troops. I am working on a Grognak theme park along Rt 64 where the real-life Flintstones park is located.

 

The fourth worldspace is Flagstaff and Camp Navajo. The big military battle will be at Camp Navajo, since the Legion would be certain to use the pre-war national guard camp as a military base, unless it was nuked. I haven't done anything at all with this worldspace yet, but I'm definitely not thinking of a Shady Sands copy. For one thing, Shady Sands was built in the middle of nowhere, so creating all new sandcrete buildings made a lot of sense. Flagstaff is a pre-war ruin. Caesar has some weird romantic notions about his version of what he thinks ancient Rome was like, and I'm thinking maybe of somehow trying to layer that on top of an old pre-war ruined city. I dunno. Still gotta think about that one. Plus I'm working on this alone and I only have time to create so many building models. I'd like to turn the University of Arizona football stadium into some sort of Colosseum type thing with gladiator fights, slaves fighting and killing each other, and violent criminal executions. We'll see if I have the time to make that happen.

 

This is just me working alone though, so who knows when this will ever come out. But I am working on it.

 

If anyone wants to contribute to this mod, let me know.

 

If you are pro-Legion, eventually this mod will let you take the fight all the way to Shady Sands. I'm just focusing on Arizona right now though, so the first pass of this mod will not include this. A later expansion to the mod will add the Hub, Shady Sands, and other NCR areas.

 

A third expansion would allow the player to go north to New Reno. I might end up making that a completely separate mod though. The reason to keep it all as one mod is so that I can make a Mojave Express quest where you basically have to travel all over the freaking place to deliver mail and packages. We'll see what happens though.

 

If you follow the NCR quest line, someone from the NCR will approach you after Hoover Dam and you'll be given a quest to dismantle the rest of the Legion, piece by piece. You'll start along the Colorado River, taking out Legion camps on the east side of the river. There will be a big battle at Kingman. As a side quest (which you can skip) you can free the slave camp at Kingman Prison. From there, you'll push down I-40, taking out Legion troops in various settlements (Seligman, Ash Fork, etc) and freeing those settlements, though you might be surprised to find that the locals aren't necessarily all that happy about being freed. After all, life kinda sucked before the Legion came along. Eventually you'll get to the big battle at Camp Navajo, and possibly another battle to take out some sort of symbolic throne in Flagstaff itself.

 

If you follow the House or Independent quest lines, it's the same basic thing, except a group of Arizona refugees will give you the quest instead of a representative from the NCR.

 

I like some of your ideas, and may incorporate them into my own mod, if you don't mind.

Edited February 5, 2021 by madmongo

[ashtonlp101]

Good to hear I'm not the only one working on a long-winded, overly ambitious project haha! I also like the concepts in this project pitch. Was working on a project I'd lost in a hard drive crash taking place in a Legion dominated region. At the time I was reading a translation of the Gallic wars by Julius Caesar himself and I think I got a little too Roman, but I think that can be a good thing? I feel like the Fort found in NV is a nod to Romans being notoriously good at building forts within mere days, so it'd be cool to see huge Legion forts in the area, watch towers and all. Also thought it was interesting that current and former Legion characters like Ulysses and Vulpes are actually capable scouts, unlike the classic Romans who were notoriously bad at scouting - almost to the point of being a meme of sorts in ancient times. It would also be interesting to see some sort of poltiical upheaval back in Flagstaff, maybe some people are sick of the dicatorship and see Caesar for who he is and would rather start a Republic instead. So seeing more aspects of ancient Rome would be awesome to see in Legion territory. I wish you both luck on your projects!

Edited February 6, 2021 by ashtonlp101

[Gasman6669]

 

 

I am already working on a mod that would include Flagstaff. My vision isn't quite the same as yours though.

 

My mod is a bit ambitious (probably a bit too ambitious), but the end goal is to be able to go east all the way to Flagstaff, southwest to the Hub and maybe Necropolis, and north up to New Reno, Vault City, and that general area. I will probably release a first pass of the mod once I get the Arizona side of things done, just so that people can play either for or against the Legion all the way to Flagstaff.

 

Currently, I have four worldspaces on the eastern side of things, three of which are laid out, one of which has no work at all done to it. The first worldspace starts just beyond Hoover Dam and follows 93 down from the dam towards Kingman. This is a big long area that doesn't have much in it (hey, this is Arizona), and it's mostly the supply line for the Legion on the way to Hoover Dam. There are some raiders that are off the beaten path that the Legion hasn't gotten to yet. If you are pro-Legion, there are some things to clear out along the road to protect the supply lines (plus the aforementioned raiders). If you are anti-Legion, you get to take out some Legion troops guarding a few supply caches along the road.

 

The second worldspace has Kingman on the northeast corner, and CalNavAri on the northwest corner. Kingman is a town that has been conquered by the Legion, so it fits the lore that you mention. Life for civilians is actually a lot better than it was before the Legion came along. The town has fresh water, working electricity, and all of the raiders have been completely eliminated from the area. There is a prison nearby that has been converted into a Legion slave camp (it's my mod equivalent of the real life Kingman prison), and of course this being Fallout I took the Griffith natural gas power plant and put a nuke plant in its place. Also one of the pre-war buildings in Kingman is now a slave market, and the Super Duper Mart is being used to house Legion troops since if you look at a map, Kingman is a pretty strategic location. so the Legion needed someplace to house a bunch of troops. The Colorado River goes down the middle of this worldspace, with Legion camps on the east side and NCR camps on the west side. The area ends on the south end around Needles, CA. I put a Corvega testing area where the real-world Chrysler proving grounds are located, and there are some other raiders and super-mutants in areas outside of Legion control.

 

The third worldspace is basically I-40 between Kingman and Flagstaff, with Route 66 branching off in a big arc around the north side of the worldspace (can't skip famous Rt 66). There's not a lot in this worldspace, but I really wanted to convey just how desolate Arizona is. I have the basic settlements laid out for Seligman, Ash Fork, and Williams, but I'm still working on exactly how I am going to flush them out. I will probably put walls around them due to their history of raider attacks. The Legion may have eliminated the raiders but that's not going to make the townsfolk dismantle the walls. Along Rt 66 there is a slave farm in Peach Springs that provides food for Legion troops. I am working on a Grognak theme park along Rt 64 where the real-life Flintstones park is located.

 

The fourth worldspace is Flagstaff and Camp Navajo. The big military battle will be at Camp Navajo, since the Legion would be certain to use the pre-war national guard camp as a military base, unless it was nuked. I haven't done anything at all with this worldspace yet, but I'm definitely not thinking of a Shady Sands copy. For one thing, Shady Sands was built in the middle of nowhere, so creating all new sandcrete buildings made a lot of sense. Flagstaff is a pre-war ruin. Caesar has some weird romantic notions about his version of what he thinks ancient Rome was like, and I'm thinking maybe of somehow trying to layer that on top of an old pre-war ruined city. I dunno. Still gotta think about that one. Plus I'm working on this alone and I only have time to create so many building models. I'd like to turn the University of Arizona football stadium into some sort of Colosseum type thing with gladiator fights, slaves fighting and killing each other, and violent criminal executions. We'll see if I have the time to make that happen.

 

This is just me working alone though, so who knows when this will ever come out. But I am working on it.

 

If anyone wants to contribute to this mod, let me know.

 

If you are pro-Legion, eventually this mod will let you take the fight all the way to Shady Sands. I'm just focusing on Arizona right now though, so the first pass of this mod will not include this. A later expansion to the mod will add the Hub, Shady Sands, and other NCR areas.

 

A third expansion would allow the player to go north to New Reno. I might end up making that a completely separate mod though. The reason to keep it all as one mod is so that I can make a Mojave Express quest where you basically have to travel all over the freaking place to deliver mail and packages. We'll see what happens though.

 

If you follow the NCR quest line, someone from the NCR will approach you after Hoover Dam and you'll be given a quest to dismantle the rest of the Legion, piece by piece. You'll start along the Colorado River, taking out Legion camps on the east side of the river. There will be a big battle at Kingman. As a side quest (which you can skip) you can free the slave camp at Kingman Prison. From there, you'll push down I-40, taking out Legion troops in various settlements (Seligman, Ash Fork, etc) and freeing those settlements, though you might be surprised to find that the locals aren't necessarily all that happy about being freed. After all, life kinda sucked before the Legion came along. Eventually you'll get to the big battle at Camp Navajo, and possibly another battle to take out some sort of symbolic throne in Flagstaff itself.

 

If you follow the House or Independent quest lines, it's the same basic thing, except a group of Arizona refugees will give you the quest instead of a representative from the NCR.

 

I like some of your ideas, and may incorporate them into my own mod, if you don't mind.

 

Not gonna lie, this definitely sounds cool, personally I'd suggest you focus on doing only Arizona though, as trying to add Shady Sands, New Reno etc. might be too much work at once.

 

Also sure, if you wish to take some ideas - I don't mind. I'll gladly pitch you in some more if you'd like. I am not an experienced modder (In fact, I've never modded before), so I doubt I'd be of any help script-wise, however I'd love to help with writing or at least provide some ideas.

[OhNoUgh]

I really like this idea- I hope the Frontier has not set major mod projects back and am looking forward to other projects of similar scale with optimism that ambitious teams can still pull off cool collaborative projects that rival paid DLC. Especially the idea of the legion story being bleak with slavery and little freedoms (even the soldiers and men of legion are disposable tools with not time for their own identity). Yet objectively a safer wasteland with less crime and corruption than NCR territory. It would be interesting to put this into view for both storylines as to add doubt to people fighting the legion cause the base game doesn't really have any way of conveying Caesar's vision and his nation beyond how it runs in a few militaria camps. I heard once that Interplay was planning a questline of uniting the tribes against the legion in their version of fallout 4 to follow Van Buren- was that your inspiration? If not you should check out some of the stuff in those design docs for Van Buren cause there's possibly some good source material or at least ideas to remix.

Pitch: For the rangers - an NPC somewhere codenamed or vilified by the legion as 'Spartacus' just to add some fall of Rome flavor. Alternatively the flagstaff tribals in resistance storyline call the player 'Spartacus' towards the end of the quest.

Edited February 13, 2021 by OhNoUgh

[madmongo]

FYI, here is part of Kingman (no NPCs yet)

https://www.nexusmods.com/newvegas/images/120258

[Gasman6669]

I really like this idea- I hope the Frontier has not set major mod projects back and am looking forward to other projects of similar scale with optimism that ambitious teams can still pull off cool collaborative projects that rival paid DLC. Especially the idea of the legion story being bleak with slavery and little freedoms (even the soldiers and men of legion are disposable tools with not time for their own identity). Yet objectively a safer wasteland with less crime and corruption than NCR territory. It would be interesting to put this into view for both storylines as to add doubt to people fighting the legion cause the base game doesn't really have any way of conveying Caesar's vision and his nation beyond how it runs in a few militaria camps. I heard once that Interplay was planning a questline of uniting the tribes against the legion in their version of fallout 4 to follow Van Buren- was that your inspiration? If not you should check out some of the stuff in those design docs for Van Buren cause there's possibly some good source material or at least ideas to remix.

 

Pitch: For the rangers - an NPC somewhere codenamed or vilified by the legion as 'Spartacus' just to add some fall of Rome flavor. Alternatively the flagstaff tribals in resistance storyline call the player 'Spartacus' towards the end of the quest.

Actually no, it wasn't inspired of Van Buren. I don't know too much about it, except that it was supposed to be Fallout 3 before Bethesda bought the rights?

 

Thanks I'll check it out.