The NCR model isn't a pro. The NCR model is what caused the Fallout universe to occur in the first place.
And the ideas of democracy has nothing to do with being inefficient and ineffectual. The NCR is democratic in name only. Its like how everyone says china is communist(including the chinese government themselves), but theyre only communist in name only. Theyre actually a capitalistic republic, mired in bureaucracy. Most of the people in China are well-intentioned folk, but the government is wholly corrupt. Sound familiar?

It dosen't feel all that moraly grey to me to be honest. The NCR seems to operate much like a real government would, they may not be squeaky clean but they appear to be doing the best job the can realisticly do in world of lawlessness, the fact they have to recruit gangers and violent people is simply a byproduct of them trying to fight against murderers and violent people. If you go an recruit all your nice people they get slaughtered. The fact some of their recruits turn rogue or abuse their positions within the NCR is no different to how some people in real life abuse their positions in the militrary and government.


To me a moraly grey descision would be similar to the Witcher, two factions you can side with, the human racists that opress and persicute none humans including [censored], imprisonment, confiscation of wealth and a biased justice system or the terrorist none humans that murder humans including children in the name of freedom. Now thats what I call a moraly grey decision because if you want to do good neither of those factions appear to be flying the "good guy" emblem.

I never get good and bad Karma for killing anything. I always get good Karma. I try to get my Karma to neutral but it just doesn't happen, only time I get BAD Karma is when I steal something. Not sure if it's a bug or what.

The NCR is just as corrupt. Unless the people give them money they make up excuses that they can't protect them because they don't have the man power, and bla bla bla. Not to mention the NCR being just as ruthless as the Legion when it comes to ROE, at Bitter Springs the NCR slaughtered fleeing women and children of the Great Khans and it's exactly why the Khans hate the NCR so bitterly.

Every faction has it's up and down sides. Legion has a code of ethics as well you just have to listen to what they talk about and speak to their major players. They want to reunite all the tribes and eliminate the "cultures" that divides everyone and come under one banner, so that mankind won't repeat the same mistakes that lead to the Great War.

It just depends on the eye of the beholder I guess. If I could I would side with the Khans, kicking everyones ass out of Nevada and reuniting the tribes.

You forgot an independent Yes-man/Courier New Vegas Das Regal.

Whats ironic is one of the Great Kahn endings set themselves up to be the complete opposite of the NCR. What I mean is, the NCR started off as a small community full of good people, turned into a nation, and then became a bunch of expansionistic thieves. The Kahns started off as a bunch of raiders, turned into Tribals, and one of the endings has them merging with the Followers of the Apocalypse(the only true morally "good" faction in the FO universe) and forming their own empire in the northwest.

-HEAVY SPOILERS BELOW-

No, I don't agree. To be honest, the Enclave seems a lot closer to the NCR in New Vegas than to Caesar's legion. Caesar's legion is pretty obviously evil, but they do make a point of establishing that the areas under Legion rule are safer and more secure, though at a severe cost to quality of life and freedom. The Enclave wasn't obviously evil at all, to be honest. The 'evil' in the east coast Enclave was Eden, and Eden and his goals were entirely unknown to everyone in the Enclave but Colonel Autumn.. who disagreed with Eden and had ambitions to use the purifier to get people of the wasteland to flock to the Enclave as the new government. Does that sound familiar?

Yeah, the NCR did the same thing with Hoover Dam and Helios One, booting the brotherhood on the ass and taking something that didn't belong to them for themselves for the good of the people as a whole. So if any faction in New Vegas is going to be compared to the eastern Enclave, it's them. In my view the 'best' good guy choice is siding with Mr. House, because he's obviously extremely effective at almost everything he sets his mind to doing and has the progress of humanity as a whole as his primary objective. I know a lot of people disagree with me on that, but that's the entire point of having a morally grey game.

The ncr is like britain during empire building days.. doomed to stumble simply because you cant expand forever and the more you expand the more costly you are to maintain.

The legion is doomed for the same reason rome fell.. it depends on a VERY good leader and someone to enslave. You dont get all that many of either.

House is fine because he actualy knows exactly how to get what he wants and is smart enough to only want what he can actualy manage.

Bos is doomed because no one likes people who hide nifty toys and EVERYONE likes to hunt people with realy nifty toys.

The great khans are doomed because there is no way to fund the massive amounts of mustache wax needed to keep them operational;/

Totally false, that phrase has been used to support more tyranny's than any other. The Germans voted in the National Socialist Party when they had their democracy... going to argue that that is freedom? The Russian people continuously voted for 'communism' in shame elections, hell North Koreans do the same now. A vote most certainly does not mean you are free by any stretch of the imagination.

Now you may say that I picked lopsided examples, ok certainly I grant you that but lets look at so called 'free' democracies today. In the United States gays continuously have their rights voted away by the majority... the 'peoples will', business owners and doctors continuously have their rights voted away both here in the US and in countries abroad for the 'greater good' which is never reached there is always just 'one more sacrifice' that needs to be heaped on some minority by the votes of 'the people'. 'The People' can be (and generally are) just as tyrannical as any dictator, and whats worse is they have a sense of legitimacy and moral righteousness that no one gives a dictator.



Really? Lets ignore the fact that your second argument basically negates your first (after all if 'the people' can change the system why would they ever want to leave?) I'm sure the sharecroppers being forced to work the land like serfs within the NCR can just waltz out whenever they wish. I'm sure the conscripts can just leave whenever they get a notion to do so. And in reality the same holds true.. passports, visa's, etc. They keep up with you because you are theirs and you are part of their income racket.

Except for the fact that the US government is in violation of so many of the 'central beliefs' of its supreme source of law (the Constitution), that the very individuals that founded it would probably start a second revolution. And (if I'm wrong and this is explained in one of the first two games please, please correct me) we don't even know that the NCR was based on the exact same principles as the original US government, but a later and completely unsustainable form of that government seems to me to make it very unsustainable.



Except that it is only the position that 'taxes are not slavery' is the one which is relativistic. You aren't arguing the principle, you are simply saying 'because its not all the money you are making and only some it isn't slavery', that is relativism because you are judging withing degrees and not based on principle. In principle taxes are slavery because the government is stating 'your wealth is not your own, we own your labour (which is all you are) and we are deciding how much you get to keep, especially so on a 'graduated' scale since it targets a -specific- minority from which to take even more.

The democracy of the NCR doesn't impose its moral belief? Sharecroppers because small farms aren't producing enough food, aiding big brahmin ranchers in taking over the smaller farms so that they are 'more efficient' and produce more for the Republic.

The Republic is the Legion, just the smiley faced and innefecient version.

Granted, I haven't played from a CL angle, so I've never talked to a CL advocate (as they're always trying to shoot me), but I think the difference is that the NCR are basically a government which had an admirable agenda but becomes blinded to the little people in favor of an imaginary ideal, while CL is often described as a bunch of slavers with uniforms. I'm sure I've heard them be referred to as rapists (maybe by Cass?), and forcing you to pay taxes is far more preferable to forcing you to have six. From what I've heard, their ideologies are demented at best - that bit in Nipton was a joke and it's clear that people are with them out of fear of what they would do if they didn't - whereas the NCR do want to protect, even if they are a bit rubbish at it sometimes.
However I do think that other aspects of the game offer a decent morally grey area - Cass's sidequest and the Crimson Caravans are the first to come to mind here, but I know I've come across other examples.
I haven't got to the end of the game yet, but I think that the NCR and CL are trying to resurrect postwar societies (albeit from different eras), which will most likely fail as life postwar is significantly different - that's why I think my money's on House

The NCR is nothing like human beings can relate to at current -- no government has (yet) existed in a post-apocalyptic wasteland as literally the sole source of organized government in the known world. The occasional bout of bureaucratic incompetence is a laughable fault compared to the alternative.

I doubt the rest of the world has been sitting on its ass while the people of the post apocalyptic America are reforming a gorvernment. Just because we don't hear about Europe, Asia, Africa etc dosen't mean they arn't doing the same things.

The Legion are pretty black. Caesar is a follower of the Utopia justifies the means school.
But the NCR aren't against getting their hands dirty. Look at what they start asking you to do at endgame.
House too. He's aspiring towards good things for humanity. But he's just as dirty handed as the NCR. Even more forceful in a couple of ways.

Europe collapsed earlier due to the resource wars. (They were nuked as well.) Ditto Africa and South America, IIRC. Asia would have bore the brunt of the US nuclear response, so they're probably in as least as bad shape as the US is, and probably worse.

I see you skipped my post. Being a black female, you can't compare slavery. It's like comparing the holocaust and black slavery. You can't. So stop downplaying one form for another. They are both evil.

I'm not sure if this has been said or not (I'm too lazy to read through all nine pages of previous comments), but perhaps the moral gray area is the fact that as a character you don't have to choose the "good" faction, but can complete the game as one of the "bad guys"...

Well, again, I'm going to need to say that our current system is a mockery of the original intended system. Now as far as I can tell, from what I've gleaned from the NCR page at the Fallout wiki site (not entirely sure about the complete validity of the article), the NCR is a throwback to the original United States. You know... The Constitutional Republic United States.

Here: http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/NCR



Perhaps you are misunderstanding. I said taxes are not slavery. The only way you can say that is by redefining the word slavery. Slavery is the state of being under the control of another person. Taxes do not do that. Yes, you can redefine it to suit your needs, but it would most definitely be a stretch.

It seems however that the center of the arguement in favor of the Legion revolves around justifying their actions. This particular arguement being 'both the Legion and NCR have slaves'. The difference is that the NCR's "slavery" is simply them collecting taxes and having laws. The Legion's slavery is actual slavery (you know, the forced labor with no pay and no rights kind).



I'm puzzled by this honestly. The situation with the sharecroppers svcks, that's true. However the problem is bigger than what you're saying.

Besides, that isn't even a moral situation. The Legion imposes it's morals through punishment for things they see as wrong like drug use, prostitution, gambling, corruption, and opposing Caesar's will. The NCR if anything is free and open about letting people do what they want so long as it doesn't infringe on the rights of others. For instance, NCR troops can go to the New Vegas strip to have a good time... Do you thing Caesar would let his troops do that? The people living in Primm are a good example as well.

Edited: Changed my anology to make more sense.

Its not really morally grey. Legion is evil the only good thing Caesar is doing is unifying the wasteland. NCR is suppose to be good but they aren't they are a bunch of cowards who only care about their self interests. The Legion will fall apart when Caesar eventually dies.

The safe bet is to side with Mr. House as he is the lesser of all 3 evils.

Going back to the original intent of the post, I don't think that Obsidian ever intended for Caesar's Legion to be "morally ambiguous" or for NCR to be "potentially evil", thats just the stage Obsidian set to put us the player into morally ambiguous situations and force us to make decisions that have undesired consequences. Its the act of forcing the player to decide between two not-so-great outcomes, and from that they can certainly call it morally ambiguous in my view.

Currently after 100 hours into the game I have faced dozens of choices that were not clear cut to me trying to be a generally Good but overall neutral player. This morning for the first time in a video game I actually got stuck on the plot when (spoiler)



I agree 100% that the game itself is not very ambiguous at all - its very much to real life in terms of people and dialogue, and I find the game setting to be particularly well done as it feels like a Fallout game! But to say that there is only one outcome, that the is not ambiguous in this way, is madness. Unlike titles that Obsidian as done in the past (like Dungeon Siege 1), there are almost no end to the ways we can conclude this game and the choices we make.

Clear-cut game, ambiguous choices for the player = very good time!

Lesser my buttocks. At least with the NCR

Have you blown up the BoS yet? If not, then read here:

In the terms of the gameworld, the "good" option is universally for independence. No one wants the Legion around, at all; but a lot of people don't like the NCR either. They merely tolerate the NCR because the NCR isn't going around beheading and crucifying everyone that gets in their way. But folks'll tell ya, they don't much want either faction in control. They want the legion gone because they're evil and they want the NCR gone because they are pushy and are trying to change people's way of life through force.

But in terms of the real world as a person playing a game, the choice is up to the player. It actually gives you room to roleplay someone with a vested interest in something. Maybe you're a Mojave local and you like the way things were before the Legion and NCR arrived. You would fight for independence. Perhaps you're an NCR citizen and you can see that, while they are misguided at times, the NCR has the best intentions and the best hope of unifying the wasteland and bringing peace and prosperity to everyone. And you could also of course be a mindless follower of Caesar, blindly following orders thinking that your methods are the best at preserving the peace and not giving more power and control to a power hungry madman.

For anyone's who beaten the game multiple times, you can see that every side has it's own set of consequences. Even the NCR's ultimate good ending has some dikeish moves on their part, such as kicking the Followers of the Apocalypse out of Freeside.

No system of government, or more appropriately, of apportioning power and control, is perfect. All governments do things that their citizens don't know about, and there is always someone who may be required to act outside of the law to a greater or lesser extent. Sad, but true...and changing the laws to allow that adds an entirely new dimension to government authority.

The issue is ethics, and the philosophical side of morality. Ethics simply means doing what is right, not what is convenient, and avoiding the abuse of position

It simply depends on which perspective you use...if you look at it from a 'save the world for mankind' viewpoint, the NCR tries and the Legion fails.

Cool info, thanks.



I will try again, but my point is that the game put me in this situation based on my choices, and as such I have no good options anymore. This game (to me) is about 100 times more "morally ambiguous" than Fallout3 was, and I'm only half-way done with all of the locations and quests.

Its just ... awesome is the only word that comes to mind. I've never seen a game with this much dialogue or this complex a quest-line. It could be a record breaker in that way, if the logic behind a game's questing could be measured somehow..

The moral greyness is in choosing between NCR and Independance.

The Legion is there to satisfy gamers who just want to be evil.

If you REALLY want to see how morality plays a part in the Fallout universe, do Auld Lang Sang for Arcade Gannon. You have to talk to ex-Enclave members about their past.