Quote Originally Posted by Laddy View Post
Face it, Psychotic. You're just one of those guys that just entered High School Government and decided to pick the most outlandish and irredeemable political system just so when sane-minded people object to your outrageous "stance", you can up and call them hypocrites living in a hopelessly and irreparably flawed society, making yourself feel more important.
Ad hominem.
And you know what? I can say this as a citizen in the NCR and not be crucified.
Incorrect. Legion forces crucify NCR citizens all the time.
Hell, I can personally tell Kimball to suck it and not have anyone really bat an eye.
Why don't you try murdering him and see if anyone bats an eye? I mean, there may be no dogpiling but there'll be a smurf ton of face shooting.
NCR has committed some terrible atrocities, many unforgivable.
Yup.
As power-hungry and imperialist as they are, NCR is a society that can have its corrupt leaders
Yes.
Caesar's Legion may not be hypocritical
Correct!
NCR is flawed. Very much so, no one is arguing that. NCR has ulterior motives, no one is arguing that either.
They are indeed terrible, well spoken Laddy.

Every crime committed by NCR is something could either be avoided or punished by the population. In the end, that's what democracy is. Caesar's Legion is not like that.
Well, it kind of is. Legion citizens suffer a smurfton less crime. In fact, NONE AT ALL! What an outcome!
You shut up and bend over for Caesar, o r you're punished. There is an established social order that is never, ever infringed upon.
So, uh... let's say there's a group of people called the Fate Barns. And they don't want to have the NCR on their land. So they have a choice of shutting up and bending over to the NCR, or not doing so. And let's say they do not do so... they don't get punished.... WITH A MASSAAAAAACRRRRRRRRREEEEEEEEEEEE?
The Legion is a society of absolutism and stagnancy. That is oppression.
Well given the rate at which it's growing it's hardly stagnant...


Joshua Sawyer:

What Caesar gave to those tribes was order, discipline, an end to internecine tribal violence (eventually), common language, and a common culture that was not rooted in any of their parent cultures.

He says that when the Legion dominates NCR, it will be akin to the rise of the Roman Empire following the republic. The Legion will become, if not a "peace" force, a domestic army instead of a roving war band, and the NCR's corruption will be swept away along with the government.

Arcade isn't exaggerating when he suggests that Caesar views the Colorado River as his Rubicon. e: It's true that Caesar doesn't say anything explicitly about the role of women, but Caesar's view of women is different from most of the legionaries. As I wrote above, the Legion is at war, and he views the use of women for military purposes as a bad strategic choice when he could be using them to create more legionaries.

In Caesar's view, NCR's problems have to do with the corruption of its government and what he sees as inherent flaws in NCR's republican system. All of the strategies he uses to assemble the Legion and march on NCR are means to an end, not social end goals themselves.

Caesar sees NCR as Rome and his role in reforming it as Julius Caesar's role in reforming the republic (by turning it into a dictatorship). When Julius Caesar crossed the Rubicon and returned to Rome, his legion didn't rape and enslave their way through the city. However, rape and enslavement were common in outer territories of the Roman Empire and were regularly used as tools of intimidation and labor.


oh and

The additional Legion locations would have had more traveling non-Legion residents of Legion territories. The Fort and Cottonwood Cove made sense as heavy military outposts where the vast majority of the population consisted of soldiers and slaves. The other locations would have had more "civilians". It's not accurate to think of them as citizens of the Legion (the Legion is purely military), but as non-tribal people who live in areas under Legion control.

While Caesar intentionally enslaves NCR and Mojave residents in the war zone, most of the enslavement that happens in the east happens to tribals. As Raul indicates, there are non-tribal communities that came under Legion control a long time ago. The additional locations would have shown what life is like for those people.

The general tone would have been what you would expect from life under a stable military dictatorship facing no internal resistance: the majority of people enjoy safe and productive lives (more than they had prior to the Legion's arrival) but have no freedoms, rights, or say in what happens in their communities. Water and power flow consistently, food is adequate, travel is safe, and occasionally someone steps afoul of a legionary and gets his or her head cut off. If the Legion tells someone to do something, they only ask once -- even if that means an entire community has to pick up and move fifty miles away. Corruption within the Legion is rare and Caesar deals with it harshly (even by Legion standards).

In short, residents of Legion territories aren't really citizens and they aren't slaves, but they're also not free. People who keep their mouths shut, go about their business, and nod at the rare requests the Legion makes of them -- they can live very well. Many of them don't care at all that they don't have a say in what happens around them (mostly because they felt they never had a say in it before the Legion came, anyway).

for good measure

In Caesar's mind, this California Empire would have the infrastructure, knowledge, technology, and some culture from the NCR with the discipline, integrity, efficiency, and security of the Legion.

but no

good vs evil

and FREEEEEEDOM!!!! (hint: Freedom to get smurfing murdered by Fiends/Raiders/Powder Gangers/Corrupt NCR Troops/Feral Ghouls/Super Mutants and all the other things the NCR are too weak to deal with)

because democracy is way more important than living in peace and stability. AMURRRRCA says so. Hell let's ask what the peoples of Afghanistan and Iraq think about that! i mean hey ho I may live in a war torn trouthole and poverty and in constant fear of my life, but on the plus side I can call the our troutty leaders who got me into this troutty situation dorks! AHHRRRRRRRR HAAAAAAAAA ANERRRRRICAAAA COME ON AGAIN TO SAVE THE MOTHERsmurfING DAY YEAH

and all that

NOW WRITE ABOUT MR HOUSE JEEZ LOUISE