Is it just me or did the Enclave in Fallout 3 seem to be way more evil than Caesar's Legion?

I mean yeah, Caesar is a tough dude and all but seriously, the Mojave is going to take crap from a bunch of brutes in football gear?
And CL isn't even really as evil as they seem to be, sure they execute people in terrible ways but, for some reason they don't seem that bad, they let a complete stranger blast up in their ranks just because they can go into a tunnel and shoot some generators, or because they have the Platinum Chip?
Like with the Enclave, not only did they look intimidating, but they don't just let some wastelander from a vault join them and start surpassing everyone for doing practically nothing. The Enclave has energy weapons, Power Amour (the best) and helicopters, they even have a huge where they can literally decide the fate of multiple large, important settlements with the touch of a button, as long as timing is correct with the satellite.
One more foot note is, Caesar's Legion is trying to purify the wasteland, in Caesar's image. Eden tried to poison the CW on purpose, to rid of anyone who isn't Enclave.



Also one little question, where can I get my face changed in NV... Like Pinkerton in F3?

Eh, does it matter whether they're "more evil"? They're two different factions, with different philosophies and methods. That's really all there is to it.

That's the idea. One of the tenets of the Fallout universe is that, like in real life, things aren't painted in black and white. The Enclave isn't necessarily evil, they just have motivations that conflict with the survival instincts of certain factions and individuals. I was actually kinda confused by the portrayal of the Enclave in Fallout 3, because the soldiers and scientists were portrayed as being pretty evil while the top-level leadership was more pragmatic-with-scary-views than evil, which IMO is the more correct portrayal of the Enclave.

Caesar's Legion is a very appropriate faction for a Fallout game IMO, as they're a faction with believable origins following an old-world ideal with the intention of filling the power vacuum and establishing a society that meets certain standards. They're not evil either, despite their views on slavery and general brutality, they just have ideas about the direction they think society should go in that conflict with the Western pre-war culture that most of the post-war world seems to be trying to emulate.

I didn't think the Enclave was evil at all, but I try not to view things in those terms anyways. If you look at something through your enemy's perspective it might not seem so evil.

CL strip their women of absolutely all rights and treat them as cattle. They enslave, exterminate and in best cases decimate everything they touch. Torment of one form or another seems like the sole entertainment of the legion. I think enclave look like a bunch of boy scouts compare to the legion.

The enclave will kill you in a very quick and efficient way, the only time you'll be tortured is if you have something they want, which is fairly rare. If you are a part of the enclave you are treaded with respect regardless of your gender. A new recruit in the enclave army can expect decent training and great gear and odds are he wont be thrown into a meat grinder unless there is no better way.

I see where you're coming from, and I think this is the one thing that Fallout 3 got wrong. The Enclave are supposed to be totalitarian idealists, but in Fallout 3 it was a bit too blatant that you were supposed to hate them.

I think they should have been more like the way NCR is in New Vegas, but a bit more forceful.

Caesar's Legion, on the other hand.. those guys are supposed to be heartless. It's obvious that they represent unbridled selfish opportunism. Every faction in the Fallout world is vying for power, but only the Legion is willing to sacrifice so much to gain it. The other factions at least care a little bit about what happens to their people. The Legion? Not so much.

The Enclave are spreading Fascism for the sake of a utopia. The Legion are simply spreading for the sake of domination.

The difference may be minor in the grand scheme of things, but the motivation behind it is key. This is the point that I think Fallout 3 failed to capture, and is probably the only thing I dislike about that game.

What I like about the Legion is that they're meant to represent, for the first time, a purely evil force in the Fallout world.

That's my take on it.

But CL, brutal and primitive as they may be, are in many ways a better society than the NCR. They go to greater lengths to protect their citizens, follow a staunch moral code, and seem to have noble intentions despite their hellish actions.
Remember how Cassidy points out that they've completely abolished all raiders in their lands, and that it's the safest place in the wasteland for a trader that's on their side?

And don't forget Caesar's Hegelian dialectics... He seems to acknowledge the terrible brutality of his legion as a necessary evil to achieve an ultimately greater, safe, unified society.
It's kind of crazy, but there IS a logic to it. They aren't pure evil.
They're evil with a purpose. Or at least, that's my interpretation.

Well, I see how they wanted to make it not so blatant that CL is evil, but in F3 the Enclave was obviously portrayed as evil, even though I would agree with their cause. They motive they caught with Caesar and The Enclave was, doing wrong, for the right reasons.

It should be noted that even demonstrably and unambiguously evil people generally don't view themselves as evil - they'll usually have some sort of rationalization for why they're actually doing something good (or at the very least, not doing anything wrong). If I look at a garden-variety murderous psychopath, my first thought isn't "Well, the only problem was that his motivations conflicted with the survival instincts of his victims" - it's more along the lines of "Yeah, this guy is evil".

As for the Legion - sure, they might not seem that evil if we ignore the slavery, mass murder and torture... but those things are fairly definitive parts of what the faction is. And since each of those things is unambiguously evil - I'd say there's no shades of grey here. They're evil, period.

This is very true and I agree with it...


...but by this logic nearly every society in recorded history can be considered evil from someone's perspective. It all depends on where you're standing. :shrug:

By the way, what is "evil" except a label that a social group places on something they wish to demonize for one reason or another, eh? It's a subjective concept whose definition varies greatly from one social group to the next throughout history. On whose moral authority can something be judged as definitively "evil?"

I don't find CL as evil. In my opinion, they seem more "stable" than the NCR (which has an awful leadership and has many raider/gang problems). I don't agree with how willing they are to throw their fresh troops into the meat grinder instead of using effective and efficient tactics to win a battle or their willingness to randomly slaughter/enslave entire towns.

Evil can have some fairly simple practical definitions - for instance, mine is basically "Harms others without reasonable justification".

And my caveat is that the more appropriate comparison - for individuals as well as organizations and societies - is with contemporary individuals/organizations/societies. For example, Abraham Lincoln would almost certainly be an outrageously racist individual by today's standards, but in his own time he was a fairly progressive individual.

Similarly, the actual Romans weren't that much worse than most of their contemporaries - the same can't be said of the Legion, as just about every other group (except maybe the fiends) is demonstrably better than them. (And funnily enough, the original Romans were actually better than the Legion when it came to things like the treatment of women and slaves).

Exactly. As terrible as the legion is, if they were to win and become the dominant society, they would seem GREAT for the benefits they bring; and the NCR and Vegas would be "evil" for their depraved excesses, negligence towards common people, and extreme self-interest.



Better in SOME ways from certain perspectives.

If you're a merchant looking for a safe, stable society in which you can walk along the roads without being robbed, the Legion is clearly better than the NCR.

And if you're of the opinion that alcohol and drugs are evil, than CL is better in that respect as well.

Caesar's Legion was not meant to be a really evil faction, if you did any research before the game came out it said all the factions were supposed to be a shade of gray.

Are you sure about that? I mean I...

My ending they said

For all the good arguments that can be made for CL, they still enslave pretty much all women without exception.

The argument I've seen for that is that we've only seen their military force. We have no idea how Legion civilian society is run or how women are treated in it. Remember; the Legion spans a couple of states. They're not just one tiny boy scout fort.

I think you need to take another look:


There's really no shades of grey when it comes to this faction.

I just don't see why that would be their policy for military encampments only, I think if someone is going to do that kind of thing it is pretty much a general rule.

Not to mention the fact that they

You've got a point in that the dominant thought is the de facto norm, but philosophically, there's the question of subjective good vs. objective good.

For one thing, I don't see why you're putting NCR and Vegas in the same category there. NCR are obviously at odds with House, even though some of the "joes" are prone to excess.. the higher ups clearly have plans for the strip. Gambling and drinking clearly isn't part of their agenda. House, on the other hand, all he really cares about is his own power. He doesn't want to hurt anyone, but what he cares about most of all is his own privacy, which, as it happens, is only afforded to him by the greed of the commoners.

So, the way I see it, House (and therefore the strip as a whole) is kind of a non issue. He would rather the whole world went on without him, so long as he can remain where he is. His objective is to maintain the relative stability that already exists.

NCR is the US Army. The guys fighting the battles are only in it for the "good of the country" because it's what they believe a man should do. Fight for what's right, and all that jazz. I don't really need to elaborate on this, except to mention that it's also rooted in the idealistic 50s cold war mentality, where cynicism had not yet reared its head fully in American society. (There are jokes about it, sure.. but that's where the satire comes in. The jokes are for us to get, and not for the in game characters to comprehend.)

The Enclave is obviously the US government. Their primary tool is propaganda, and most of what everyone thinks and does is influenced by them in some way. They only flex their muscles, however, when their backs are against the wall, which really shouldn't be as easy a task as it was in Fallout 3. These are the people with no names. They believe in truth, but they feel like they're the only ones who are privileged enough to know what that truth is.

The Legion is the 1950s American fear. Call it Communism.. the Red Menace.. whatever. It's the bogeyman. Nowadays, it would be Al Qaeda. These guys are straight out of the bible. Death and destruction wherever they go. They have no king but Caesar. Even when he's dead, his will is law. There's no rhyme or reason. It's only because it is the will of Caesar that it is done. Ave.

it almost scares me that some people here think that a corrupt bureaucracy like NCR is as bad as a nation of r@ping murdering slavers.

Legion protects its citizens yeah, but who are the citizens? Women automatically don't qualify so that's a little more than 50%. Many men are forcibly drafted into the military where they are endlessly abused for the sake of training. For the minority that remains you have to consider that there is no modern medicine allowed which ruins it of the big portion of the remainder. We also haven't actually seen a legion town, we have no idea of what happens in Fallouts Arizona. The only positive thing we know about the Legion is that they kill Raiders (yeah they kill pretty much everything) and that they are good at protecting their supply lines.

Haha, I personally CERTAINLY think the Legion is awful. I'm just making the argument that they are not unambiguous evil.



I really, REALLY like the parallels you've drawn here. I hadn't considered the Legion as representing a 50's-style, biblical terror, but that fits them VERY well.

Given the enclaves extensive preparation for the great war, I've come to suspect they started it.