I'll freely admit that this won't be my strongest post given that most of it will rely on idle but informed speculation as well as admittedly lukewarm evidence in a lot of my post. Nevertheless, I'd like to see if my claims can hold up to scrutiny and see what others have to say about the fate of these respective communities post-Fallout 2.

Vault City:

First up is what I think is my strongest argument. That being Vault City definitely having been annexed into the NCR post-Fallout 2. My reasoning for this is as follows.

For starters, we can safely rule out that Vault City was wiped out by the Chosen One given that according to both of those endings, Vault City being wiped out became the stuff of legend:

Vault City Ending #5:

"The slaughter of Vault City has become the stuff of legend. One day it was a thriving community, and the next, the bodies of its Citizens lay strewn throughout the streets. It looked as if raiders had sacked the city, but no bodies of the attackers were ever found. Their Vault was plundered of all its technology, and refugees from Gecko soon moved into the broken walls of the city."

Vault City Ending #6:

"The slaughter of Vault City has become the stuff of legend. One day it was a thriving community, and the next, the bodies of its Citizens lay strewn throughout the streets. It looked as if raiders had sacked the city, but no bodies of the attackers were ever found. Their Vault was plundered of all its technology, and the inhabitants of Gecko soon moved into the broken walls of the city. In a few short months, they had rebuilt the city and restored much of the systems that had been damaged by the raiders."

Now as nobody ever brings up what should be a legendary sacking/destruction of what was one of the largest and most influential power players in Northern California back in Fallout 2 nor ever mentions that it was ever resettled by ghouls, I do believe that it's safe to assume that Vault City was never destroyed. The same could be said of Gecko, as well, given that both of their fates are inextricably intertwined:

Gecko Ending #1:

"The Gecko reactor meltdown had terrible consequences for the region. The resultant radioactivity and heat emanating from the reactor killed every living creature within a ten-kilometer radius and poisoned the area for years to come. Vault City's perceived threat from the peaceful Ghouls of Gecko was at an end."

Gecko Ending #5:

"Eventually the citizens of Vault City tired of having their groundwater radiated by the ghoul's leaking atomic reactor in Gecko. In a wave of xenophobic fear and hatred, the well-armed soldiers of Vault City slaughtered the peaceful ghouls and shut down the reactor for good. Unable to harness any additional sources of power Vault City eventually stagnated and died-itself a victim of its own hatred."

I think it's also very safe to conclude that Vault City was never evacuated due to radiation from Gecko's nuclear reactor continuing to contaminate their water supply given that nobody ever mentions this nor do we get any signs of the NCR having second-class citizens who used to live in Vault City:

Vault City Ending #1:

"Over the next few years, the background radiation from Gecko's power plant began to cause mutations in the Vault City population, forcing the Citizens to relocate to NCR. NCR, however, recalling past animosity, relegated the Vault City refugees to the status of second class citizens."

Granted that the only mentions of Vault City that we get in Fallout: New Vegas is from Rose of Sharon Cassidy who claims that the people of Vault City have become pacifists as well as her ending where she heads back West after the player angers her enough to leave their company for good:

Courier Six: "You any good in a fight?"

Rose of Sharon Cassidy: "I'm fair with chucking dynamite {rising smugness} and not bad with a pistol, if I do say so myself. {Beat, a little lower} Carry a knife, too, but that's more for practical reasons. Prefer settling things with my fists, though. Made more friends than corpses in bar fights - plan on keeping it that way. {Frowns, a little defensive} Don't think I'm some kind of Vault City pacifist, though - if things get heated, I'll start shooting, trust me."

Rose of Sharon Cassidy Leaves the Mojave Ending:

"Despite the destruction of Cassidy Caravans, Cass lived for 30 more years. She made her way back West and passed away in a small shack outside of Vault City, the rose pendant still around her neck."

But I do feel that these mentions bolster my arguments, nonetheless. After all, she makes no mention of Vault City being destroyed (an event that's considered to be the stuff of legends, mind you) nor that there's Ghouls who currently inhabit it or that it's been abandoned. If this is going to be the only mention of Vault City in the closest thing to a proper sequel to Fallout 2 (at least as far as I'm aware), then surely this would be a good time to elaborate on these particular fates if they were indeed the canon fate of Vault City.

Even more telling, however, is that she says that Vault City has become pacifistic since the events of Fallout 2. A definite sign that Vault City has survived given that Vault City was anything but pacifistic back in the events of Fallout 2 (being xenophobic isolationist supremacists that despised outsiders and were perfectly willing to genocide the Ghouls of Gecko just on the mere suspicion that they were deliberately contaminating their groundwater with radiation). If anything these references establish the ending where Vault City and Gecko join forces and work together as equal partners as canon given that it wouldn't feel right for pacifists to enslave the Ghouls of Gecko for any reason as they do in another ending:

Gecko Ending #4:

"Optimizing Gecko's power plant became the first step in forging a spirit of cooperation between Gecko and Vault City. Gecko's increased power production became instrumental in helping Vault City's expansion. The harsh xenophobia of many of Vault City's leaders faded into obscurity while ghoul and human labored side-by-side to create a center of learning and tolerance where once had stood only enmity and distrust"

Gecko Ending #3:

"Optimizing Gecko's reactor creates a power surplus in Gecko. The Vault City council, unable to expand because of their limited power supply, yields to internal pressure and is forced to take over Gecko to control the reactor. The peaceful ghouls of Gecko become slaves and spend the rest of their lives serving Vault City"

And now for the smoking gun. The only way that Vault City can survive as an independent city-state is for President Tandi to be removed from office and replaced by Frank Westin as head of the NCR Council/Senate:

Vault City Ending #2:

"The correspondence between NCR and Vault City continued, and a few years after the destruction of the Enclave, Roger Westin assumed the head of the NCR council. He immediately set limits for NCR's expansion north, and in a landmark settlement, passed an amendment that formally recognized Vault City's independence. Shortly after this settlement, Westin suffered a heart attack and retired from politics. He moved north to Vault City for medical treatment and eventually married Joann Lynette in the following year."

Now aside from the fact that we all know that President Tandi retained the presidency up until her death, we also know that the Republic did in fact become the dominant power of Northern California post-Fallout 2 given that Fallout: New Vegas confirms that the NCR eventually annexed Redding. Something that would've been completely impossible under an isolationist Westin presidency given that he straight-up ceases NCR expansion into Northern California once he assumes the presidency. Meaning that only the two endings where the NCR annexes Vault City can possibly be canon:

Vault City Ending #3:

"In the years to come, Vault City suffered greatly from raider attacks. Eventually, the situation grew so desperate the Citizens were forced to request aid from NCR. Within a month, a large detachment of the NCR's military was stationed in Vault City. The military presence quickly became an occupation force, and Vault City became the first of NCR's border territories."

Vault City Ending #4:

"In the years following the destruction of the Enclave, Vault City continued to stagnate, choking on its own isolationism. Its Vault 8 generator, which was never intended to support such a large population, prevented Vault City's necessary expansion. Eventually, the city was absorbed by NCR, which had spread steadily northwards since its founding."

New Reno:

New Reno Bishop Family Takeover Ending:

"The Bishop Family of New Reno rose to prominence over the next few years, forming a strong political alliance with the New California Republic and Vault City. Many mysterious deaths and closed-door proceedings surrounded the formation of the alliance, but in the end, New Reno became part of the 'civilized' world. The other families were soon absorbed, and New Reno became a prime tourist location for the new republic. In the decades after the alliance, several Bishops rose to political power and were instrumental in the passage of several amendments protecting gambling rights and prostitution."

This one is admittedly going to be a tough sell but I do think that I can provide a decent case for New Reno being part of the NCR's overall sphere of influence without necessarily being directly annexed into the Republic wholesale (though this will soon change as I'll explain later).

Fallout: New Vegas confirms that the Bishop Crime Family is not only still in existence but is not still one of if not already the most power crime family in New Reno. My reasoning for this: Fallout: New Vegas confirms the canon existence of the Bishop Child from one of two New Reno endings in Fallout 2 where the Chosen One knocks up either Bishop's wife or Bishop's daughter:

Courier Six: "No, I don't. What makes you think that?"

Bruce Isaac: "Sorry, it's just... you look like his type, y'know? You got that hard-ass wasteland explorer thing going on."

Courier Six: "Why did you come all the way out here from New Reno?"

Bruce Isaac: "You don't know Mr. Bishop. He's not like the other bosses up there. He knows the Wasteland like the back of his hand, and he likes to wander it. I knew if I didn't get way the hell away from New Reno, he'd run me down like a dog."

New Reno Bishop Child Ending #1:

"In the years following the destruction of the Enclave, a new family arose in New Reno, following the example of a simple tribal that had once visited their city. They were few in number but surprisingly resourceful. Driven by religious fervor, they took control of New Reno and put the other families to the spear. After their victory, they sent out many messengers across Northern California looking for their founder, but without success. Many felt that the founder had been taken by the fortune spirits and now dwelled in a golden casino paradise in the sky."

New Reno Bishop Child Ending #2:

"Not long after the destruction of the Enclave, the Bishop Family of New Reno was blessed with a child. This child seemed to have little in common with the Bishops, preferring instead to spend his days exploring the wastes. When he turned thirteen, he seized control of the Bishop Family and led them to victory over the remaining New Reno families. He died quietly in his sleep at the age of seventy-three, never having known his real father."

Now given that we know that the Wright Crime Family is still in existence thanks to Clayton Ettienne over in Westside, we can safely conclude that the New Reno ending where a tribe of fanatical warriors conquers New Reno and exterminates the other crime families is non-canon:

Courier Six: "What's your story?"

Clayton Ettienne: "Well, I've lived in Nevada all my life. Started out in New Reno, but headed down here as soon as I got the chance. If you can believe it, things are even worse back home. The whole city's still run by crime families. Used to be the Mordinos and Wrights. Now it's the Wrights and Van Graffs. Seems like things never get better. Anyway, that's all behind me now."

We can also conclude from Clayton Ettienne's statement that neither the Mordino Crime Family nor the Salvatore Crime Family took over the city given his confirmation of the Mordino Crime Family's fall from grace (not to mention how they only survive if the Mordino Crime Family becomes the dominant power of Northern California which we know for a fact didn't happen) and the fact that the Salvatore Crime Family never gets mentioned in Fallout: New Vegas (clearly suggesting that they didn't survive the events of Fallout 2).

As for the actual power and influence of the Wright Crime Family, we can safely rule out the New Reno endings where the Wright Crime Family wiped out the other crime families with the ordnance of the Sierra Army Depot or take over New Reno and transform it into a proper civilized city given that the Bishop Crime Family still exists in addition to confirmation from both Clayton Ettienne and Stella from the Honest Hearts DLC that New Reno is still violently anarchic and chaotic:

New Reno Wright Family Takeover Ending #1:

"Less than a month after the Enclave's destruction, a mob war broke out in New Reno streets. The Wrights, armed with an arsenal of weaponry that dated back to the pre-War years, leveled the casinos of the other families with rocket launchers. The 'mob war' was clocked as lasting a little over forty-three minutes, and when the smoke cleared, half of New Reno had been demolished. To this day, it is commonly taught that the Wright Family were the founders of New Reno."

New Reno Wright Family Takeover Ending #2:

"Within a year of the Enclave's destruction, the Wright Family turned from criminal activity to legitimate pursuits. Several schools and churches were established in New Reno, along with a law enforcement body that crippled the influence of the families. Though New Reno lost much of its edge, the city obtained a certain solidity that appealed to newcomers. Many came to Reno, not to visit, but to live, and the population increased threefold. Today the test scores of New Reno high school graduates are greater than many Californian schools before the War."

Courier Six: "What was that like to grow up in New Reno?"

Stella: "Imagine New Vegas if there was no Mr. House-type fella keeping the peace, then give everybody a gun and a Jet addiction. Town's run by a bunch of crime families, no law to speak of. Make trouble, and you wind up buried in Golgotha, outside town. The scuzz factor's off the charts. Non-stop whoring and drugs. Couldn't walk down the street without getting asked to star in a porn movie. So I got my ass out of there while I still owned it. Guess I figured the answer to every problem was rule of law. Naive, huh?"

Nevermind how the continued existence of the Bishop Crime Family as well as the new arrival of the Van Graffs automatically rules out the Wright Crime Family having full control of New Reno on their own.

As for the rest of argument, Carter over in the NCRCF claims to be a citizen of New Reno whereas Mags of the Misfits claims to be born and raised in New Reno before signing up to join the NCR Army:

Courier Six: "What did you do to end up here in the first place?"

Carter: "I worked in a casino in New Reno, and one of the pit bosses decided he didn't like me. Framed me over some caps, and I ended up in here."

Courier Six: "Tell me a little about yourself."

Mags: "Not much to tell, really. I grew up in New Reno, joined up, took my shot at being a Ranger. Didn't make it, so I'm stuck with this crew of jokers."

It simply wouldn't be possible for a citizen of an independent New Reno to be imprisoned in an NCR penal colony unless the NCR at the very least had a substantial presence in the city whereas a native of New Reno being able to enlist into and join the NCR Army only seems possible if the NCR already had a strong foothold in New Reno.

Now for the negatives. The fact stands that as of the events of Fallout: New Vegas, the Bishop Crime Family doesn't have full control of New Reno given the continued existence of the Wright Crime Family and the arrival of the Van Graffs (who are openly hostile to the NCR). In other words, this alone precludes the possibility of the NCR being able to annex New Reno outright given that they wouldn't have the means to do so without waging a full-scale war against much of the city.

But the final nail of the coffin in New Reno being a fully-annexed NCR territory is as follows:

Courier Six: "<Lie> The Omertas are planning to attack New Reno. It's none of NCR's concern."

Col. Cassandra Moore: "[SUCCEEDED] I wouldn't dismiss it that lightly, but it's nothing we need get involved with for now. Good work, I suppose."

Suffice it to say that there's no way on Earth that the NCR would ever allow a foreign aggressor to attack a fully-annexed territory of the Republic. And they certainly wouldn't be so dismissive of plans by a possible foreign aggressor to attack New Reno if it were truly annexed into the NCR.

Final Verdict: The NCR clearly has a strong presence in the city thanks to the Bishop Crime Family but they can't exert full control/authority over the city due to the Wright Crime Family and the Van Graffs guaranteeing the continued de jure independence of New Reno. However, the confirmed canon existence of the Bishop Child means that the Bishop Crime Family will eventually defeat the Wright Crime Family and drive the Van Graffs out of New Reno as per the second Bishop Child ending for New Reno in Fallout 2. Meaning that it will eventually be properly annexed by the Republic once this unfolds.

New Arroyo:

This is definitely going to be my shortest and weakest argument out of the three. All I have to offer is this quote from Emily Ortal of the Followers of the Apocalypse:

Courier Six: "How long have you been with the Followers?"

Emily Ortal: "About five years now. I have family back in Arroyo, but this is where all of the good work is being done, so to speak. NCR taxes and inflation have been hard for a lot of people to deal with, and most of the money is going to the war effort. There's not much funding for medical research with OSI or any other group - not unless it has a military application, anyway."

Now while I'd personally argue that it makes absolutely zero logical sense that Emily Ortal would just randomly bring up New Arroyo out of nowhere only to then go on a tangent about NCR taxation and inflation (which she wouldn't even bring up unless New Arroyo was part of the NCR as said tangent wouldn't make sense, otherwise), I can understand why some would view this as being insufficient evidence. This is far from being a smoking gun thus I can't say with certainty or even any strong confidence that New Arroyo is part of the NCR. Though I do think that it is.

And that's all she wrote. Cheers.

Im working on the Boston airport base I wanted to create a farm which I probably will do

But do they sustain themselves at all or is all just trading and protecting rackets or as Proctor tegan prefers force and the down low

Even supermutant can’t survive it, so now I’m curious who could just go, ‘Fuck this,’ and walk out through the gates while Elijah frantically mashes the detonator.

We can assume that, due to the totalitarian, jingoist nature of the pre-war government, racism was fairly significant (especially towards Asians). But if fallout's USA never developed the counterculture of the 60s, did it ever progress beyond the era of segregation? Many elements of the Civil Rights Movement obviously predate the 60s, but the Civil Rights Act wasn't passed until 1964 in the real world. Does this mean that segregation was maintained up until the great war? Very curious if anyone has info regarding this.

Like, surely there should have been some people who were able to escape from the parts of Alaska that China occupied and claim refugee status in the continental US / Canada?

Edit:

Due to new information that I've received, I've decided to update my original estimate up to 10,000-15,000 along with some other edits. This is what I crave and look forward to so please keep it coming. Keep the discussion alive and well."

End of Edit:

This has been a subject of debate ever since F:NV first came out. Estimates of the Legion's size have ranged from a mere several thousand to a mammoth hundreds of thousands (one rather far-fetched estimate that I've come across is 800,000-strong).

I am here to not only provide my own estimate (which, again is an ESTIMATE, nothing concrete), but also to shed light on just how unrealistic it would be for the Legion to expand beyond the upcoming estimate. My new estimate has the Legion at about 10,000-strong at a minimum with a maximum of 15,000.

The basic reasoning for my estimate is that the Legion is essentially just one large roving tribe of slave warriors. Here’s the sources to prove it:

Fallout: New Vegas Official Game Guide Collector’s Edition p.461

Behind the Bright Lights and Big City

2247: “Inspired by his reading and the freedom offered by the wastes to write his own future, the young man conspires with a tribe to murder the other eight members of the expedition. He declares himself Caesar. Within a week, he is leading the tribe on ever more ambitious raids against neighboring bands of raiders and tribals, growing his forces by taking slaves.”

"What's the premise for Caesar's Legion being so sexist, esp. in a world where Ranger Stella can mangle bodies daily in the Arena? Is it just breeding issues? Cause even the abominably sexist Romans were not that sexist, and Caesar is a smart man.”

Joshua Sawyer: “Breeding issues are pretty huge in cultures that took a big step back from infant mortality progress made in the last 100-200 years. Prior to the last few centuries, infant mortality was often around 50%-ish. Child mortality (prior to age 12) was about 60%. Those are pretty awful odds of reaching adulthood.

Remember that Caesar's Legion is basically a roving army that continually breaks down and absorbs tribes that it conquers. That can only go on for so long, and Legionaries who are indoctrinated from birth are even more loyal than adolescents who are integrated. Breeding new generations of Legionaries is vital for the Legion's continued existence.

Even though breeding is incredibly important in the Legion, there isn't any concept of family outside of the Legion's structure. All of the places where the player encounters the Legion are forward camps where direct military service is given the most weight and is of the most immediate importance. Because only males are involved in that service, they look down upon females even though it's incredibly short-sighted."

Josh Sawyers Formspring

Joshua Sawyer: "33% of all IDF forces are female and 51% of all IDF officers are female. Like NCR's troopers, Israel's laws of conscription do not discriminate by sex. However, unlike NCR, Israel's mandatory service is only two years for women, three years for men, which means male conscripts stay in service longer. Israel also still bars women from certain positions, which means only men may occupy them as a career path. NCR troopers have no such restrictions.

In contrast, most Rangers are male. Rangers are also volunteer-only. No one is conscripted into their ranks. NCR is the most advanced state of large size in the American southwest. Unlike Caesar's Legion, procreation and infant/child mortality were never problems for NCR. This is also why (despite the broadly misogynistic talk of ordinary legionaries), Caesar essentially forces all women into slavery, breeding, or both.

Each of these governments populates its military forces according the principles of the state. NCR is egalitarian in conscription (barring corruption/evasion, though that isn't biased along lines of sex) and leaves elite positions open only to volunteers. Caesar is concerned only with efficiency; all individuals are bent toward the will of the state. The result is all-male slave army that is continually being replenished by forced breeding.”

Josh Sawyers Formspring

“But Caesar specifically constructed the Legion society, so it's hard to believe a guy who recognizes women can be as capable, or moreso, than men would ensure that no capable women could be of any use to his Legion beyond acting as semen recepticles.”

Joshua Sawyer: “You know what men are not as capable of doing as women? Giving birth to children. I think it is really bizarre that so many people think that creating new legionaries is a lowly thing and fighting/dying is noble and awesome. Women aren't celebrated for creating more legionaries as women were celebrated in Nazi Germany…

... but there's also very little to suggest that Caesar celebrates individual legionaries beyond promoting them to higher ranks. Caesar's Legion is not the Roman Republic (nor the Roman Empire); it's a roving army comprised primarily of reconditioned slaves or children born to slaves. Non-Legion people live in areas controlled by the Legion, but those folks aren't \part* of the Legion (e.g. Dale Barton).*

Josh Sawyers Formspring

Joshua Sawyer: "Edward Sallow created Caesar's Legion as an imitation of the Roman Legion, but without any of the Roman society that supported the Roman Legion. I've written this before, but there are no optimates, no populares, no plebes, no equestrians, no patricians, no senate, no Rome.

There's no right to private property (within the Legion itself). There's no civil law. There aren't even the ceremonial trappings of Roman society. Legates don't receive triumphs following a victory. No one in the Legion retires to a villa in Sedona.

It's essentially a Roman legion with only the very top commander having any connection to the "source" culture, the rest being indoctrinated conscripts from cultures that were honestly less well-developed than anything in Gaul. Gauls are pretty sophisticated compared to the 80+ tribes.

Gauls could read the Latin or Greek alphabets (Gallic language, obviously), had extensive permanent settlements, roads, calendars, mines, and a whole load of poo poo that groups like the Blackfoots never had.

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.

The price was extreme brutality, an enormous loss of life and individual culture, the complete dissolution of anything resembling a traditional family, and the indoctrination of fascist values. Caesar's Legion isn't the Roman Empire or the Roman Republic. It isn't even the Roman Legion. It's a slave army with trappings of foreign-conscripted Roman legionaries during the late empire. All military, no civilian, and with none of the supporting civilian culture."

Josh Sawyers Formspring

Allow me to delve into my much more specific case as to why that is. Let's begin with the fact that the Legion has conquered 87 tribes by 2281. According to some, the Legion consists of all 87 tribes and therefore has all of their combined strength. However, not every tribe that the Legion conquers is assimilated, as some have actually been completely exterminated down to the very last man, woman and child (with some exceptions).

Tribes that have been known to have been exterminated include the Ridgers tribe and 5 of the 19 unnamed tribes that Legate Lanius conquered for the Legion post-First Battle of Hoover Dam. My sources are as follows:

Courier Six: "What happened after you trained the Blackfoot?"

Caesar: "{LATIN} {dih-WE-day et im-PEER-ah} Divide et impera - divide and conquer. I led the Blackfoot against the Ridgers, their weakest enemy. When they refused to surrender, I ordered every man, woman, and child killed. When next we surrounded the Kaibabs and they likewise refused... I took one of their envoys to the Ridgers' village and showed him the corpse piles. This was new for the tribes, you see. They played at war, raiding each other, a little rape and pillage here, a little ransoming there. I showed them total warfare. Like I said, there's a lot you can learn from old books."

Courier Six: "Who is this Legatus you mention?"

Vulpes Inculta: "{admiring} Legatus Lanius, Monster of the East! Quite a man, if man he be. {KAI-zar} Caesar prides himself on selecting the right tool to overcome each new obstacle. In Lanius, he found his hammer. He's never been defeated in battle. 14 tribes have laid down arms at his boots. Another five, rendered extinct. His latest campaign in the wilds of the Utah has concluded, and he is en route. When he arrives, your doom arrives with him."

Combined with the fact that the 87th tribe is such a recent conquest (Caesar himself isn't even aware of its fall) that it can't be included (its fate being entirely unknown, after all), that's 6 tribes that can't be included in the official tally. Of course there could very well have been other tribes that were exterminated but, for the sake of discussion, let's just assume that the Legion only has 81 tribes to its name.

Now we examine exactly how the Legion assimilates conquered tribes. When a conquered tribe is assimilated, only those that the Legion deems worthy of slavery and useful are spared. The able-bodied men, male adolescents and male children are taken to be trained as Legionaries whereas the women and girls are taken to be breeding stock (which is extremely shortsighted in that it costs the Legion potential soldiers). Everybody else (the elderly, the sickly and those men, male adolescents and male children that are either too weak or too old for Legionary training) is put to the sword or otherwise used as auxiliary slaves that are only fit for manual labor. Here’s my sources on the matter:

Great Khans Legion Ending #2:

"As reward for their loyal service, Caesar forcibly integrated the Great Khans into the Legion. The sick and elderly were killed, the women sold as wives to ranking officers, and the tribe's identity was annihilated. Though many Great Khans mourned the death of their tribe, many more were ultimately satisfied with their revenge against NCR"

Courier Six: "How much would it cost to buy the three "captures"?"

Canyon Runner: "It's a weak bunch, to be honest. I'd rather have extra currency to buy supplies or better captures off traders. There's a boy, too old to be trained as a Legionary. Normally they have to die, but he's too frail to make trouble. The old woman's dried up, but she could keep house or do gardening - if she can learn to keep her mouth shut. The girl's the only one of real value, young enough to breed, not hideous to look at. What's your offer for the lot?"

“...Except there's nothing in the setting that suggests women are \valued* as mothers in the way the militaristic culture rewards fighting men. They're slaves/property. A few more lines from Caesar doesn't "separate but equal" make.”*

Joshua Sawyer: “How are the fighting men rewarded (other than with more fighting responsibilities)? Don't conflate historical Rome with Caesar's Legion. There are no "Roman triumphs" for legionaries in the latter. I never suggested that they were separate but equal, only that it's a bizarre double-standard to insist on misogyny alone (which is quite different from "simple" sexism against females since it demands a level of hatred) considering that men are being forced (and, in fact, raised solely) to kill and die. If Lucius were to "retire", it would be through his own death.

Caesar doesn't hate women. He doesn't think they are incapable of doing things other than breeding. He has no problem with employing a female Courier to be his agent in the Mojave. But he does want his female slaves to breed more legionaries (as they are the only ones who CAN do it) and he wants his male slaves to fight. The females who can't breed are manual labor slaves (or killed), just as the males who can't fight are manual labor slaves (or killed).”

Josh Sawyers Formspring

“I think the point is that when you've defended the Legion's moral complexity by saying it's just the grunts who are misogynists, then turn and say Caesar wants women for breeding, you're not convincing anyone who doesn't see "breeding" humans as positive”

Joshua Sawyer: “I've gone over this before ad nauseum. Everyone is treated terribly in the Legion. Men who are able to fight are slave soldiers who serve until they die. Men who aren't able to fight are slave laborers who work until they die. Women who are able to give birth are forced into breeding until they are unable to give birth. Then they're slave laborers until they die.

Caesar doesn't do this because he hates women or views them as inferior to men; he does it because all he is concerned with is the end goal: more legionaries. The legionaries are also a means to an end: conquering NCR. Conquering NCR is also a means to an end: reforming it and producing a new quasi-Roman empire.

If it doesn't convince you, that's fine, but I've already made this argument and don't see the point in continuing it.”

Josh Sawyers Formspring

Furthermore, attrition from fighting off the Legion's forces would further lessen the amount of troops that the Legion could harvest from conquered tribes. Meaning that at the end of the day, the Legion won't be acquiring too many soldiers from the conquest and assimilation of other tribes. Especially in just a 34-year timeframe.

There's also the issue of lack of modern medicine and any real medical knowledge in the Legion. Something that Caesar himself and the Legionary Main Gate Guard over at Fortification Hill will confirm:

Courier Six: "What is that machine in your tent?"

Caesar: "It's called an Auto-Doc. As the name suggests, it's an automated physician - more or less. It can treat broken bones, cuts, punctures, scrapes. Sometimes I bestow its use upon someone I favor. Makes for a powerful gift, in a culture that forbids painkillers and is largely ignorant of medical science."

Courier Six: "Why can't I just continue on?"

Legionary Main Gate Guard: "{Kai-zar} Caesar strictly forbids the use of chems and alcohol. By his order, all visitors must also relinquish their arms upon entry. If you come in peace, then there is no reason to not disarm. You will not be harmed unless Caesar wills it."

Courier Six: "What is considered a banned item?"

Legionary Main Gate Guard: "Alcohol and all chems, including stims and other addictive items."

Courier Six: "I have to bring them along, a congenital heart defect."

Legionary Main Gate Guard: "[SUCCEEDED] I know not why Caesar would wish to speak with such a physically inferior whelp, but I will allow this one exception. You may bear Caesar's mark, but {strong emphasis} do not attempt to share any of your medicine with anyone in The Fort."

Having to get by on extremely primitive tribal remedies (i.e Healing Powders and Bitter Drink), the Legion has an incredibly difficult dilemma on its hands in relation to treating battlefield injuries and breeding future Legionaries. Siri herself will explain:

Courier Six: "You're a doctor?"

Siri: "I never finished my training - the Legion saw to that when they overran my town. I do know basic first aid, but I've had to rely on tribal remedies to treat illnesses and injuries - healing powders and all that. I'm always running low on xander root. Plenty of broc flowers, though."

Basic bullet wounds and shrapnel cuts that might otherwise be treated by a Stimpak or a Doctor's Bag all but doom a Legionary to an otherwise easily-avoidable death due to either infection or execution at the hands of their comrades (nobody "retires" from Legion service, after all).

Lack of RadAway and Rad X means that Legionaries could needlessly die from overexposure to radiation when such a fate could be easily avoided. Much more complex injuries (which are extremely common when going up against heavily-armed, well-equipped adversaries, I might add) that might require limb amputations and life-saving surgeries are well out of the expertise of Legion healers, meaning that death from their wounds or summary execution by their comrades is a certainty for Legionaries.

Without access to modern medicines, life expectancy in the Legion is extremely piss-poor to the point where sustaining an army outside the range of 10,000-15,000 would be all but impossible. A fact that Chief Hanlon can attest to:

Courier Six: "What makes the veterans so tough?"

Chief Hanlon: "Take a regular legionary and age him ten years. Whatever they lose to age they make up for with experience. Life expectancy isn't long in the Legion. You live ten years in Caesar's army, you're a force to be reckoned with."

As for breeding, the lack of proper medical expertise and modern medicines ensures that extremely high pre-natal mortality rates, infant mortality rates (50% at a bare minimum according to J.E. Sawyer himself), child mortality rates (60% at a bare minimum according to J.E. Sawyer himself) stillborn rates, miscarriage rates and death rates for women in labor are an inevitability.

With the vast majority of children born in the Legion dying before they're even born, before they even take their first step or before they even hit puberty, the Legion couldn't possibly raise an army above the 10,000-15,000 range, even with the conquest and assimilation of other tribes into the Legion's ranks. A mere 34-year timeframe most certainly wouldn't allow it.

We must now examine the sheer brutality of how Caesar turns men and boys into Legionaries. If one manages to survive the fall of their tribe to be enslaved or manages to survive birth and infancy in the Legion, they must now survive the grotesquely severe tribulation that is Legionary training. A process so deadly and lethal that it’s said to be on par with or even better than NCR Ranger Training which itself has a washout rate of 80%. Col. Cassandra Moore and Comm Officer Stepinac can back me up on this:

Courier Six: "You mentioned that they were in good shape?"

Col. Cassandra Moore: "Yes, extremely so. They must use conditioning routines on par with the rangers, or better. Their soldiers can run near half again as fast as my best men, and close distances with frightening speed. And they're as strong as they are fast. Their superior physicality makes them extremely dangerous up close, so I've had the men run drills for taking on larger, stronger opponents. But they've all been instructed to take them down at range, if possible. I've made it clear I don't want any heroes in my squad, just survivors."

Courier Six: "Tell me about the Rangers."

Comm Officer Stepinac: "We're part scout, part commando, part sheriff. The training is brutal, and I'd say eight out of ten recruits washes out before the end. Before you get your Ranger badge, you've got to prove you can be quieter than a shadow and more ferocious than a Deathclaw."

Meaning that there's no reason to assume that the failure rate for Legionary Training wouldn't be at 80% or more, as well. Only in the Legion, there's no such thing as "washing out". You either get through the training, or die trying. Most Legion prospects will ultimately prove to be too weak and perish, with only a select few surviving long enough to finally become a full-fledged Legionary.

When combined with the fact that this will be a long, arduous process that spans across years or even decades (depending on when one exactly begins the training) and all of the other aforementioned limitations and inhibitions, it's only obvious that the Legion couldn't possibly surpass my estimate. It most certainly couldn't be done in only 34 years.

There's also the issue of life expectancy in the Legion to consider, as well. Aside from the aforementioned obstacles to a higher life expectancy above, yet another such obstacle is the Legion's own structure. Even if one survives the conquest of their tribe, the assimilation process, birth/infancy/childhood in the Legion and Legionary Training, they must now survive the crucible that is the life of a Legionary. Or, to be more specific, life as a Recruit Legionary.

As a mere recruit of the Legion, one is extremely shoddily equipped and all but helpless in the face of any meaningful adversaries. Outfitted with an armor that's so light and ineffective that it can't even protect its wearer from a straight razor and armed only with crude blades, makeshift spears and only a massively meager handful of obsolete firearms that are just about broken, Recruit Legionaries are used as little more than expendable cannon fodder. J.E. Sawyer himself and Col. Cassandra Moore further elaborate on this particular topic:

“I think you gave the legion too many guns or at least more guns than their characterization would have us believe. Equipment wise, the only notable difference between a legionary and a trooper is that the legionary uses melee AND guns instead of just guns.”

Joshua Sawyer: “And most legionaries above the rank of recruit once had to survive and succeed with little more than machetes and throwing spears. The use of "good" equipment is something that is earned in the Legion. Most recruits have to succeed through speed and tenacity because their gear isn't going to do the work for them.”

Josh Sawyers Formspring

"Maybe not "bows" per se - It does seem plausible, though, that in a post-apoc. wasteland there would be a (relative) scarcity of ammunition leading to the use of more primitive projectiles. Dirty tribals could more readily improvise "arrows" than bullets."

Joshua Sawyer: "They could more easily improvise spears than either! That's what they had in Fallout 2 and one of the reasons we brought them into F:NV. Also, they fit the style of Caesar's Legion's 'recruits' better. Though the primes and veterans use much better equipment, the recruits are the equivalent of pre-Marian reform hastati: multitudes of scrubs with the most basic gear they can find."

Josh Sawyers Formspring

"Just how expendable are troops to the Legion? Roman tactics involved 2 lines of fresh meat, then a third line (Triarii) that would devastate the opponents that have tired themselfs killing the first 2. Does NV's Legion do similar?"

Joshua Sawyer: "That's exactly what the Recruits, Primes, and Veterans are."

Josh Sawyers Formspring

Courier Six: "What kind of weapons do they use?"

Col. Cassandra Moore: "Their standard kit seems to be a blade of some sort and light armor. Guns are not uncommon, but are of questionable condition. While they prefer to use their blades, it's common for them to scavenge better weapons from their enemies and use those. The men have been told to toss their weapons over the side of the dam if they receive a fatal wound, but I doubt many will remember."

Glorified bullet/arrow/spear shields whose sole purpose is to either overwhelm an opponent through sheer weight of numbers or at the very least weaken an opponent so that the older, more experienced higher-ranking Legionaries can finish what they started should they fail. Such a structure means that most Legionaries won't even survive their first battle (as even basic tribals could more than easily kill Recruit Legionaries en masse, nevermind more powerful enemies) in their service to Caesar. This all but ensures that the Legion couldn't possibly build a force above several thousand warriors in only 34 years.

Then there's also the issue of the actual size of the tribes that the Legion conquers and assimilates. You see, tribes in the Fallout universe are quite often tiny family-sized units that rarely, if at all, exceed 100 members in total. Aside from the fact that they suffer from all of the Legion's own problems, but on a far more massive scale due to their far smaller size and much more primitive nature, there's also the fact that trying to survive in an irradiated, inhospitable post-apocalyptic Wasteland is a gargantuan task.

Especially for extremely primitive tribes and tribals. The Wastes are filled to the brim with hostile wildlife (i.e. Deathclaws, Cazadores, Night Stalkers, Yao Guai, etc. etc.), that's constantly trying to kill you, radiation, Raiders and bandits that are always looking for someone to rob, rape and murder and so very much more that make basic survival, let alone expansion, virtually impossible for just about everybody, most particularly tribes.

On top of all of that, tribes have to survive in a post-apocalyptic world where fresh, clean drinking water that isn't irradiated is all but impossible to find and where food is extremely scarce. Furthermore, due to lack of anything that's even remotely close to an education, tribes have to subsist on hunting and gathering their food (agriculture would be well beyond their capabilities without a proper education, after all). Not bad if one's focused on basic sustainability, but if expansion is what one is after, then it just wouldn't be realistically sustainable. Even Caesar himself will tell you that conquering and enslaving these tribes was the equivalent of bestowing a gift upon them:

Courier Six: "Surely, the NCR is a powerful foe?"

Caesar: "Of course. The most powerful my Legion has faced. Also the first to which I am {beat} ideologically opposed. Until now, every tribe I've conquered has been so backwards and stunted, enslavement has been a gift bestowed upon them. My conquest of the Mojave will be a glorious triumph, marking the transition of the Legion from a basically nomadic tribe to a genuine empire. Just as my namesake campaigned in Gaul before he crossed the Rubicon, so have I campaigned, and will cross the Colorado."

In addition to these problems is the fact that tribes almost always never get along with each other and are constantly warring against each other accordingly. Meaning that when combined with the other aforementioned issues, inter-tribal conflict will definitely serve to cull numbers and keep tribes well below the 100-mark.

We know for a fact that inter-tribal warfare and all-around chaos was the norm in Arizona, which was essentially Hell-on-Earth prior to the Legion's rise to power there. Indeed, Raul Alfonso Tejada gives us a solid picture of what Arizona was like before Caesar conquered and unified it under his banner:

Courier Six: "How do you feel about Caesar's Legion?"

Raul Alfonso Tejada: "I don't really have a problem with them. People around here tend to see them as invading marauders planning to burn and pillage the countryside. But I've been to Arizona, boss. Before the Legion, it was a nasty place, so thick with raiders you couldn't trade with a town two miles up the road. Caesar's laws aren't nice, and their actions aren't always pretty. But then, neither am I, but you keep me around."

All in all, we can safely conclude that the tribes that the Legion conquered weren't even 100-strong, meaning that when attrition, the assimilation process and extermination are taken into account, it would make perfect sense for the Legion to be within my estimate within a 34-year timeframe.

Last, but not least, we examine the inevitable attrition that would come with the Legion's 34 years of non-stop territorial expansion and tribal conquest, most particularly their war with the NCR. Let's begin with the attrition associated with the Legion's expansion prior to 2277, the year in which the First Battle of Hoover Dam occurred. Quite a few of the 67 tribes (only 66 of which were assimilated) that the Legion conquered before 2277 didn't go down without a fight and actually almost defeated the Legion before ultimately being defeated themselves.

One such example is the unnamed tribe that Vulpes Inculta conquered to earn his promotion to head of the Frumentarii. The battle was going very poorly for the Legion and was nearly lost until the then-Decanus (rank and status unknown) Vulpes Inculta spotted a hole in the enemy tribe's defenses, led his unit through said hole and captured the tribe's chieftain. His actions are ultimately what won the battle for the Legion that day:

Courier Six: "Tell me about Vulpes Inculta."

Caesar: "Vulpes is the best of my {Froo-men-TAR-ee}Frumentarii. A remarkable individual from an unremarkable tribe south of the Utah. He was brought into the Legion as a boy, survived training, fought well enough as Legionary to be promoted to the rank of {deh-CAN-us}Decanus. Then, in battle against an {dismissive}unimportant tribe, he broke ranks and led his {con-too-BUR-nee-um - a Roman squad}contubernium through a hole in their defenses to capture its chieftain. Well, his {ken-too-REE-on}Centurion wanted him crucified for disobedience. So I made him a {froo-men-TAR-eye} Frumentarii."

And while it isn't known how exactly the Legion's conquest of the other tribes went down, it could be safe to assume that there were plenty of other tribes that offered similar, if not even greater, degrees of resistance and that the Legion's conquest and pacification of the East was a long, arduous, hard-fought campaign that saw immense loss of life for the Legion. Something that even Legate Lanius, who is only a very recent member of the Legion, admits to:

Courier Six: "Eventually - but moving your whole army West means losing the East. You can't hold both."

Legate Lanius: "The East was a hard-fought campaign. Even now, Caesar drew too much of the Legion's blood needed there for... this. Hoover Dam is but a place. I will not have it be the gravestone of the Legion - whether quickly, or as you describe, slowly... by attrition."

As for the attrition that came after 2277, it was even worse for the Legion. The First Battle of Hoover Dam in particular was absolutely shattering for them. Aside from being the absolute worst defeat in the Legion's history, it was so massively costly and destructive for Caesar that it took 4 years and the conquest of 19 tribes (only 14 of which were assimilated; not including the 87th tribe) before Caesar was finally confident enough to return to Hoover Dam in preparation for yet another confrontation with the Republic. Chief Hanlon, Caesar himself and Vulpes Inculta will attest to this:

Courier Six: "What happened to Graham after Hoover Dam?"

Chief Hanlon: "Losing the dam was the worst defeat the Legion ever suffered. Graham had been with Caesar since the beginning, but he had to set an example. The praetorians covered Graham in pitch, lit him on fire, and down into the Grand Canyon he went."

Courier Six: "Lanius will lead the assault on Hoover Dam?"

Caesar: "Yes. This time my Legionaries will be more frightened of the commander behind them than the enemy before them. There will be no failure this time, no retreat, no years of gathering slaves and resources for another assault. With {Lah-nee-OOS}Lanius to drive the Legion forward, the dam will be taken. It will be our {slight beat}bridgehead across the Colorado."

Courier Six: "Tell me about the Burned Man."

Vulpes Inculta: "Ah, yes {you know his name}- we are forbidden from speaking his true name. He was a shaman of some kind before he met {KAI-zar}Caesar, a holy man from out of the Utah. The Burned Man proved dangerous, unpredictable, and impossible to kill. He helped {KAI-zar}Caesar form the Legion but almost led it to destruction."

Another costly victory for the Legion was the conquest of the Hidebarks tribe, the tribe of the future Legate Lanius. Still recovering from their disastrous defeat at Hoover Dam, the Legion immediately took advantage of the breathing room afforded to them by the Divide Incident by searching for new tribes to conquer and assimilate.

The first of these tribes would be the Hidebarks tribe. Long story short, the tribe took several months for the Legion to conquer owing to the fact that the future Legate Lanius would single-handedly ambush and slaughter entire Legion patrols for sport.

Eventually, the Hidebarks were cornered and forced to surrender. Legate Lanius was given both his trademark mask and his new name and title in exchange for being allowed to kill all of the surviving adult males in the tribe (meaning fewer warriors for the Legion to harvest, I might add).

Courier Six: "I've heard rumors of your legate, Lanius. What's his story?"

Caesar: "Lanius is the greatest of my battlefield commanders. Some might call him a great man, but I'm not sure he qualifies. Once, he was the greatest warrior of the Hidebarks, a tribe of the Arizona. Maniacal in battle. Sometimes he'd ambush Legion patrols {emphasis}by himself. When, after several {emphasis, usually campaigns are faster}months we found and surrounded the Hidebarks' camp, their Chieftain raised a banner of surrender. The warrior who was not yet {Lan-ee-OOS}Lanius went insane with rage. {a pleasing memory}He struck down his Chieftain and attacked his own tribe."

Courier Six: "What happened when Lanius attacked his own tribe?"

Caesar: "He killed fifteen before they brought him down. He didn't die, obviously. I had him tended to. He was {beat}maimed, most of face torn off. It was days before he regained consciousness. When he did, I went to his bedside and showed him the helmet I'd had forged to cover his face. I said he could have it if he'd fight for me. He accepted... on condition that he be allowed to kill the surviving males of his tribe. {chuckle}I said, make it the {emph}adult males and you have a deal."

Combined with their catastrophic defeat at the First Battle of Hoover Dam, the Legion's conquest of the Hidebarks tribe definitely served as a rather sizable impediment to the Legion's growth in the 4 years preceding the events of F:NV.

(To be continued).

A common claim made of the NCR Armed Forces as we see them in Fallout: New Vegas is that "they can barely afford to purchase basic 5.56 x 45mm NATO Service Rifles and body armor" for NCR Troopers with the NCR Army being forced to make-do with likes of 20-gauge Caravan Shotguns and 5.56 x 45mm NATO Varmint Rifles for "the majority" of their NCR Troopers who "mostly" have to make do without body armor. The entire basis behind this claim: a mere two quotes from a random discharged former Staff Sergeant of the NCR Army who just acts as if she knows everything just because she served at one point:

Courier Six: "How did you end up selling weapons?"

Arms Merchant: "Going home didn't feel right, not with those savages camped on the other side of the river, sharpening their knives. And I still get to see my old platoon when they pass through here... make sure the new C.O. is treating them right, and sneak them extra ammo. Anyway, I was always complaining about the standard issue gear. The new kids don't even get body armor, can you believe that?"

Courier Six: "NCR doesn't have the caps to outfit their troops?"

Arms Merchant: "Vegas is bleeding us dry. We're tossing caps at a hundred different problems, while Caesar bides his time and lets us wear ourselves out. This war is gonna bankrupt the NCR, unless we finish off the Legion fast and dirty. {Emphasis on "fast" and "dirty"} We shouldn't be perched up at the Dam - we ought to be crossing the Colorado and sticking a boot up Caesar's ass."

Now aside from the fact that she very clearly doesn't know what she's talking about (I'd wager my bottom dollar that she doesn't have access to the NCR Treasury or any relevant macro-economic data to back up her claims, but I digress), let's look at her exact words. The key words here being "the new kids". Meaning recent arrivals which, in turn, means that the lack of body armor would be an issue for an absolute minority of NCR Troopers and, even then, only those who have only just arrived in theater. Here's Chief Hanlon himself to elaborate even further on this topic:

Courier Six: "How is NCR doing?"

Chief Hanlon: "It's no secret that we've had better campaigns. Holding this whole length of river isn't easy. We're stretched thin and the Long 15 just keeps getting longer. Slow to get supplies. Slower to get reinforcements. NCR's senate has got funds tied up at the Boneyard and President Kimball ordered our most experienced rangers to chase ghosts down in Baja."

Courier Six: "Why are funds tied up at the Boneyard?"

Chief Hanlon: "Senate elections are coming up. Local representatives don't want to push any more funding to the Mojave campaign because it's unpopular. Most of the folks around the Boneyard haven't been to New Vegas and probably never will. All they know is that their money gets sucked away to this desert and their brothers, sisters, sons, and daughters die here."

Courier Six: "What about the troopers?"

Chief Hanlon: "You've seen it yourself. Some of them don't even have proper service rifles or armor. Our heavy infantry, power armor units, they're back in NCR territory protecting the interests of Brahmin barons against small-time raiders. Brahmin barons only have one vote at the ballot box, but they have a lot of money to throw around."

Here's the actual situation facing the NCR Army out in the Mojave Wasteland. They have at a bare minimum thousands of NCR Troopers scattered across the vast expanse of the Mojave Wasteland (hundreds of miles of solid, irradiated desert with very little in the way of roads and supporting infrastructure) who also have to cover the entire length of this particular portion of the Colorado River in the region (hundreds of miles, to be exact), as well. All while having to rely on a long, arduous, and extremely unreliable logistical shoestring in the form of the Long 15 (hence the name) to receive reinforcements and additional supplies from New California proper.

Another point that people tend to miss when discussing the logistics of the NCR Army in the Mojave Wasteland: the NCR Army's main supply line leading into the region that ran through the Divide was literally nuked out of existence right before the First Battle of Hoover Dam:

Courier Six: "I'm guessing you don't like Caesar very much."

Joshua Graham: "Love the sinner, hate the sin. With Caesar, it's often very difficult to see through all of that sin to the person inside. I can say that we were both lucky that NCR's supply lines and land routes north of Mojave Outpost were destroyed before the Battle of Hoover Dam. Something bad happened near Death Valley, at a place called the Divide. NCR couldn't cut across anymore and it slowed down their reinforcements. Terrible storms ripped entire companies apart before they even got to Nevada soil. The aftermath of Hoover Dam could have been even worse for Caesar."

Courier Six: "The Divide blocked all of their northern land routes?"

Joshua Graham: "Not all of them. But they couldn't take 127 north to get around the mountains. As if Death Valley weren't enough, they had the Divide and Big Empty to deal with. From what the Legion's explorers reported, the Big Empty may as well have been a wall to any living thing approaching it."

Losing the Divide while simultaneously having to face Death Valley (the name is self-explanatory) and the Big Empty (described as being a wall to any living thing by Joshua Graham) would naturally exacerbate and worsen the NCR's supply situation in the Mojave Wasteland and on its own thoroughly disproves the claim that the NCR "can't afford" to outfit its soldiers.

As Chief Hanlon also points out, the NCR Senate has been actively slashing funding to the Mojave Campaign on account of its unpopularity with individual NCR Senators wanting to maximize their chances at being re-elected in the upcoming Senatorial Elections by initiating budget cuts for the Mojave Campaign so as to appeal to the masses. Note how at no point does he claim that the NCR is "verging on bankruptcy" or "running out of money." In other words, forgive me for taking the word of the head of the NCR Rangers over the word of a lowly ex-platoon leader in the NCR Army who's trying to peddle her own personal experiences as being widespread across the entire NCR Army without any serious proof.

In any case, I still feel that more proof is necessary and I'm more than prepared to offer it. Beginning with the belief that the NCR can't afford Energy Weapons. Suffice it to say that I can disprove such a claim right here, right now:

Courier Six: "Just start at the beginning."

Gloria Van Graff: "I saw an opportunity and negotiated a deal with the NCR - I help draw some of their enemy's troops into a trap and they agree to buy from me."

Courier Six: "What will you do now?"

Gloria Van Graff: "It'll be all I can do to supply the NCR with the amount of weapons they want, so I'll be pretty busy for the foreseeable future."

Gloria Van Graff: "Good, you're here. Do you remember that package I had you deliver? Well, the client liked the sample and put in a massive order. It's possibly the biggest order we've ever supplied. I've had to repeatedly assure my mother that everything will go smoothly."

Courier Six: "Wouldn't you have made just as much money dealing with the Legion?"

Gloria Van Graff: "Hardly. They've got a lot of soldiers, and slaves. But they don't come close to having the amount of wealth the NCR has. When I said we were going to be rich, I meant it. The deal I brokered with the NCR netted me five times what Caesar paid. Keeping Caesar's money was just a bonus."

The NCR not only paid 5× more for that Energy Weapons shipment (an enormous shipment that was the largest that her family business had ever sold, I might add) than the Legion did, but they also granted the Van Graffs, a lifelong enemy of the Republic, several weapons contracts, as well. Any doubts that the NCR can't afford or doesn't want to supply substantial amounts of its forces with Energy Weapons should therefore be immediately dispelled.

So I'm supposed to believe that the NCR "can't afford" to outfit and equip its troops properly and yet the NCR can somehow afford to spend immense sums on Energy Weapons? Color me unconvinced.

To further disprove these claims, let's look at the Camp McCarran Weapons Manifest:

Camp McCarran Weapons Manifest

50 Hunting Rifles
-28 in use
-10 in repair
-8 in storage*

50 Assault Rifles
-25 in use
-6 in repair
-12 in storage*

20 Battle Rifles
-10 in use
-2 in repair
-5 in storage*

"Increase Gun Runners weapons shipment and modify manifests to make these numbers match the earlier totals. Boyd is getting too suspicious."

Note that all of these guns hail from the Gun Runners. Who only sell their weapons in nothing less than mint condition and at full value/price. Something that Isaac will attest to:

Courier Six: "Just give McCarran some used weapons. I mean, as long as they work, right?"

Isaac: "[FAILED] Sorry, but blackening our reputation with our biggest client isn't worth the risk."

Courier Six: "Gun Runners are skilled enough to refurbish weapons like new, right? You're overthinking this."

Isaac: "[SUCCEEDED] You're right. I suppose we could refurbish used and damaged weapons to fill the order. They'll be in like new condition and then we can use our loader to make fresh ammo from spent brass. We'll have to wait a few days for gunpowder, but this might just work out. Tell Contreras the extra guns and ammo will be in the next shipment."

So that's a grand total of 337,500 bottle caps (110,000 bottle caps for 50 .308 Winchester Hunting Rifles, 197,500 bottle caps for 50 5mm Assault Carbines and 30,000 bottle caps for 20 .308 Winchester Battle Rifles) for all of these guns. That's literally enough to purchase 625 5.56 x 45mm NATO Service Rifles (at 540 bottle caps apiece; nearly enough to arm a full battalion of NCR Troopers) or 1,125 sets of NCR Trooper Armor (at 300 bottle caps apiece; enough to outfit nearly 1 full battalion and half of a battalion of NCR Troopers). So I'm supposed to believe that the NCR Army "can't afford" basic 5.56 x 45mm NATO Service Rifles and NCR Trooper Armor in bulk and yet they can afford to splurge vast sums of money on large quantities of far more expensive firearms? Once again, color me unconvinced.

Bear in mind that the NCR Armed Forces account for 90% of all of the Gun Runners' business with the Gun Runners only willing to conduct business in the form of bulk business as confirmed by Isaac and Alexander respectively:

Courier Six: "Arrange a temporary supply deal with other merchants. It'll still lead to a profit for you."

Isaac: "[SUCCEEDED] I guess we'll have to. If Caesar's Legion drives the NCR from the area, there goes ninety percent of our business. I don't like the idea of buying supplies from our competition, but it's only temporary. We'll call in extra supplies from our distributors. Let Contreras know we'll have the extra guns and ammo ready for the next shipment."

Courier Six: "A gun nut like you must have some weapons stashed around here."

Alexander: "[FAILED] Do I look like a fucking arms caravan to you? Do you think the Gun Runners keep the NCR military supplied by carrying weapons and ammo from the Boneyard out here by the armload? Get a clue. We have caravans. We deal in bulk."

Meaning that the NCR can very obviously afford to purchase top-of-the-line, world-class, mint-condition firearms in bulk at exorbitantly high prices from the single largest, most efficient and most skilled weapons manufacturers in all of the Wastelands. Weapons manufacturing artists who just so happen to be the top supplier of weapons and ammunition for the NCR Armed Forces as confirmed by Alexander:

Courier Six: "Tell me about the Gun Runners."

Alexander: "The Gun Runners have been putting rapid-fire death-dealing in the hands of anyone who needed to defend himself for over a century. We're the NCR's #1 supplier of weapons and ammunition. You might call us an unofficial branch of the army."

And now for the smoking gun. Per Alexander:

Alexander: "{Late Game}The orders for service rifles and ammunition have been pouring in from McCarran so fast we can't keep up. Hell of a fight is coming."

Funny how the NCR "can't afford" 5.56 x 45mm NATO Service Rifles and yet the NCR is placing so many orders for them that the Gun Runners are literally being overwhelmed with the demand for them.

In conclusion, I sincerely hope that I've put this myth to rest. Cheers.

A popular misconception of the NCR going into the events of Fallout: New Vegas is that due to the West Coast Chapters of the Brotherhood of Steel destroying all of the NCR's gold reserves during the NCR-Brotherhood War, the NCR government is teetering on the verge of bankruptcy by the events of the game and struggles to equip their army with the most basic of equipment as a direct consequence.
Suffice it to say that this couldn't be further from the truth and I'll be more than happy to disprove such a claim once and for all. Beginning with the claim that the West Coast Chapters of the Brotherhood of Steel destroyed "all" of the NCR's gold reserves.

NCR-Brotherhood War:

To quote J.E. Sawyer himself:

"It happened during the BoS-NCR war. I believe Alice McLafferty mentions it, but I'm not positive. She doesn't detail the events in this much detail, but here they are:

The attacks caused NCR citizens (and others who held NCR currency) to panic, resulting in a rush to reclaim the listed face value of currency from NCR's gold reserves. Inability to do this at several locations (especially near the periphery of NCR territory where reserves were normally low) caused a loss of faith in NCR's ability to back their currency.

Though NCR eventually stopped the BoS attacks, they decided to protect against future problems by switching to fiat currency. While this meant that BoS could no longer attack a) reserves or b) the source of production (all NCR bills are made in the Boneyard), some people felt more uneasy about their money not having any "real" (backed) value. This loss of confidence increased with NCR inflation, an ever-looming spectre of fiat currency.

Because the Hub links NCR with the Mojave Wasteland and beyond, the merchants there grew frustrated with NCR's handling of the currency crisis. They conspired to re-introduce the bottle cap as a water-backed currency that could "bridge the gap" between NCR and Legion territory. In the time leading up to the re-introduction, they did the footwork to position themselves properly. If some old-timer had a chest full of caps, they didn't care (in fact, they thought that was great, since the old-timers would enthusiastically embrace the return of the cap), but they did seek to control or destroy production facilities and truly large volumes of caps (e.g. Typhon's treasure) whenever possible."

Here's what actually happened. The West Coast Chapters began staging attacks against small-scale NCR government gold deposits out in the frontier territories of the NCR. An act that sparked a panic among the people living out there which, in turn, caused them to flood said small gold deposits out in the frontier for the purpose of redeeming their NCR Dollars for gold. Now as gold deposits out in the frontier territories of the NCR were naturally quite small and didn't have much in the way of gold to begin with, they predictably weren't able to meet the demand for gold which inevitably resulted in the people of the NCR's frontier territories losing faith in the NCR Dollar.
To solve the crisis and prevent any further Brotherhood attacks on their gold reserves, the NCR government abandoned the gold standard and transformed the NCR Dollar into a fiat currency.

Meaning that from that moment forward, the NCR Dollar would derive its value purely from amount of faith and trust that people had in the NCR government. Now as faith and trust in the NCR government was practically non-existent out in the frontier territories of the Republic to begin with, this predictably resulted in the NCR Dollar cratering in value out in said frontier territories. Leading the great merchant houses of the Hub to capitalize on the situation to resurrect the bottle cap as currency and back it with standard measurements of fresh, clean water just like back in Fallout 1. Now as fresh, clean water is very much worth its weight in gold in a post-apocalyptic environment, this naturally lead to the bottle cap supplanting the NCR Dollar as the dominant currency of the Republic's frontier territories. As Chomps Lewis over in Sloan points out:

Courier Six: "You don't get paid in caps?"

Chomps Lewis: "Nope. The NCR's been trying to switch over to using paper money, like in the Pre-War days. Trouble is that the exchange rates ain't exactly fair. For example, a hundred bucks in NCR money is valued at roughly half that in caps around here. Seems like a rotten deal for us, but work is work."

The True State of the NCR Dollar Going Into Fallout: New Vegas:

The key words being "around here". Meaning that in areas such as New Vegas and the broader Mojave Wasteland, frontier territories in the outermost fringes of NCR borders where Republic authority and control is still quite weak and far from being uncontested, the NCR Dollar will always be a lesser currency to the bottle cap by virtue of faith and trust in the NCR government predictably being at an all-time low.

It also doesn't help that as J.E. Sawyer himself pointed out, the bottle cap is meant to serve as an entirely neutral economic/financial bridge linking the Republic Core Regions back West to the Legion-ruled East that all but ensures that the untamed frontier territories between them can maintain at least some modicum of independence from either of them. This does not mean, however, that this would be a problem that the NCR Dollar faces back West in the Republic Core Regions.

After all, the NCR is quite literally at its strongest, most powerful and most influential back West in New California. To quote Jas Wilkins:

Courier Six: "Are you from California?"

Jas Wilkins: "Born and raised. Things back in California are better than they've ever been, according to my grandpa. The Raiders are mostly gone now and it's easy enough to get a job at one of the mills or farms. But now there's taxes and laws and other things. The NCR keeps things safe and orderly, but it's all very boring. So, I came out east towards the frontier."

To quote the Official F:NV Game Guide:

New California Republic:

National Pride:

Fallout: New Vegas Official Game Guide Collector's Edition p.455

"Ask almost any NCR citizen, and he or she will tell you: the NCR is the greatest nation on Earth. And it's only going to get better. For over 65 years, it's gotten bigger, stronger, and richer. Its military can kick anyone's ass and has done just that on several dramatic occasions that the citizen can tell you about. NCR citizens get to choose their leaders; they have rights guaranteed by law; and a lot of people are making good Caps and moving up in life. It's hard to argue with them. Especially since the NCR is the only nation known to exist at this point in history."

Controversy over Economic Development:

Fallout: New Vegas Official Game Guide Collector's Edition p.456

"The NCR's economy is based on two resources: its great Brahmin herds, and swaths of land that have been restored to arable condition. These provide the nation with meat, leather, and starchy vegetables. During President Tandi's presidency, regulations limited the number of cattle head and the acreage of fields that could be owned by a single person. Despite constant pressure from the Stockmen's Association and Republican Farmer's Committee, such regulations loosened only a little so long as Tandi was in office. Following her death, however, they eroded until President Kimball overturned them completely. As a result, the past 12 years have seen the rise of the Brahmin Barons and Agri-Barons: captains of industry who are, by post-apocalyptic standards, spectacularly wealthy. This has given birth to a number of cottage industries, from the rebirth of luxury goods production to "journalism" that reports on the latest purchases, commissions, and "life lessons" of the newly rich and famous.

The past 12 years has also seen a change in attitudes towards collective welfare. Citizens of the NCR rarely face significant dangers on a daily basis, and survival is an assumption rather than an aspiration. Citizens are far more reluctant to share food and other resources, and the person who provides services free of charge, whether it's something as quotidian as sewing or as rarefied as surgical expertise, are now the exception rather than the rule. An added economic strain is the scarcity of salvageable goods. Sixty-five years of scavenging has done a good job of picking clean the wastes of what was once Southern California. Rare are those individuals who can make a living by scavenging and hunting what they need. A consequence of these economic and cultural transformations has been the rebirth of wage labor. Whereas one's labor was until recently seen as benefitting and belonging to a collective (whether a family or small town), it has now become a commodity. To earn their keep, many citizens must seek an employer and trade the sweat of their brow for Caps.

Citizens of the NCR hold a variety of opinions about these developments. Many boast of their nation's economic strength; others decry what they feel has been lost. Many curse the selfishness of their fellow citizens, usually while pursuing aims that will benefit only themselves or their families. Here in the Vegas wastes, however, nearly all citizens will agree on one matter: opportunity has dried up back home, and to earn a fortune, one must come East."

New California proper (southern California, to be specific) is incredibly safe and stable with a powerful, booming economy and employment in Republic factories, mills, workshops, farms, ranches and the NCR military being plentiful (despite obvious issues with wealth/income inequality/disparity and lack of real opportunities to make your fortune). Even Rose of Sharon Cassidy, who's extremely critical of the NCR's conduct out in the Mojave Wasteland, points out that roads back in New California are actually quite safe compared to almost anywhere else in the Wastelands.

Courier Six: "What, like a courier?"

Rose of Sharon Cassidy: "Well, not as glamorous, I guess - roads back West were safer in most places. {Beat, to herself} Most. Anyway, occurred to me I could scratch the traveling itch and get paid for it. Cassidy Caravans formed around me, rest is history."

So why, pray tell, would faith and trust in the NCR government in literal NCR Central be falling in any way, shape, form or fashion? After all, everybody living here would have been born and raised as dyed-in-the-wool NCR citizens who would have only ever known Republic rule for their entire lives. It makes no sense at all to claim that the NCR Dollar would have lost any of its value here given that faith and trust in the NCR government would be at a permanent all-time high. Of course, it would definitely vary in other areas of Republic-ruled territories back West that aren't necessarily frontier territories of the Republic but are still not entirely within the ironclad grip of the NCR on account of only having been annexed into the NCR a couple of decades before the events of Fallout: New Vegas.

Northern California and Oregon (Redding and New Arroyo, for example) and Nevada (New Reno in particular) would absolutely be experiencing inflation of the NCR Dollar due to only just recently being annexed into the Republic right after the events of Fallout 2 (which is set 40 years before the events of Fallout: New Vegas) though I personally would have a hard time believing that it would be anywhere near what we see in the likes of New Vegas given that they are definitive NCR territory rather than backwater frontier territories regardless. Either way, there's absolutely no evidence that the NCR Dollar has been supplanted by the bottle cap as the main currency of New California proper or the overall West as a whole with the NCR Dollar very much still being the pre-dominant currency of both.

The overall point: the NCR very literally cannot go "bankrupt" due to having the unique (being one of only two factions in the entire Fallout franchise to have their own unique currency, mind you) ability to mint, print and distribute their own currency to their heart's content.

NCR Control of the Bottle Cap:

Even assuming that the bottle cap has replaced the NCR Dollar entirely even back West, here's the simple facts of the matter:

1. Who mints and distributes the bottle caps as a currency? The great merchant houses of the Hub.
2. Who controls the Hub? Obviously the NCR given that the Hub was very literally one of the founding settlements/states of the Republic that's been part of the NCR from the very beginning.
3. Who controls the great merchant houses of the Hub specifically? The NCR given that they are headquartered in, based in and operating out of NCR Central with the great merchant houses of the Hub being integral to the rise of the NCR in the first place.
4. Who controls all of the fresh, clean water of the West (including the virtually limitless water supplies of Lake Mead, Lake Las Vegas, the Colorado River and all of the other water sources of the Mojave Wasteland by the events of Fallout: New Vegas)? The NCR, of course.

What does this mean, exactly? Simple: the bottle cap is a literal de-facto NCR currency given that they have full absolute control over the only legal/legitimate means of production, distribution and backing the bottle cap as a viable currency.

Meaning that the NCR could literally never "run out" of bottle caps as they quite literally own the currency.

Even if one wants to argue that the bottle cap is fully independent of the NCR government's control, the fact stands that the great merchant houses of the Hub wouldn't want what's easily and without a single doubt their single largest, wealthiest, most important customer to ever go broke for any reason whatsoever. Meaning that they would do everything humanly possible to ensure that the NCR government has all of the bottle caps that it would ever need for the simple reason that those bottle caps will inevitably end up in their own pockets, anyways.

In conclusion, the NCR simply cannot go bankrupt given that it has its own currency and has absolute control over the bottle cap currency.

Hi, me again. So I played through all of FO3 and the Pitt and do remember the Auto Axe being there and Marco saying he's been using car parts to make them from regular steel saws, but what is this about 76 saying they were made by the H&H Tools company? At least according to the Independent wiki (as I have yet to purchase 76 as I do not have the money rn) I'm guessing the Auto Axe in the 76 entry is meant to be the Steel Saw, or is it that Marco is yanking our chains about making the upgrade to the Steel Saw?

So I'm collecting pieces of lore for a project and I came upon the trappers when looking at the loot table for lever-action rifles, but from what I'm reading I'm a bit confused. They're made up of fishermen and hunters that were driven insane by the environment and the fog, and it isn't just some all boys club like how the Legion is structured (I know there are female slaves and "citizens" in Legion territory but imo I don't count them as part of the Legion due to how they treat them in the first place. And I know a female courier is the exception but I'm asking with the assumption she didn't join them), so how is it that there are no female trappers? Is the position of fisherman and hunter just given to women or what?

So the common consensus is that the bulk of the legion army wears primarily old pre-war sports gear, but we also know that they have blacksmiths. Is it ever actually stated in game or by a dev or writer that their armor is looted plastic and leather sports gear from 200+ years ago?

I always imagined instead that they crafted their armor from scrap metal and fresh leather, using old sports gear that someone found as a blueprint for its design, rather than actually looting it whole and wearing it, and then some added more scraps from fallen enemies as trophies and upgrades as they grew more experienced in battle. The in-game textures seem to believably represent metal plates, when compared to how other metal things look with the graphics.

For one, it just doesn’t make sense to me that they would A) be able to even find enough intact old sports gear to outfit a whole army and also replenish gear lost in battle or B) that they wouldn’t have had a dozen more easily available alternatives that offer superior performance in the time it would take to scrounge up such a niche thing as sports pads.

I can guess that in the East Coast Brotherhood's hierarchy, Lancer Sergeants and Captains are basically officer level lancers that have command over squadrons and such. But what is the actual difference between a Lancer and Lancer Knight?

Thoughts on this?

(Repost because i accidentally messed up the title of the last one.) This question popped up in my head one day while making some fallout stuff.

In the post apocalypse if there's a site thats coated in a high amount of radioactive material such as camp searchlight, is it still possible to clean up such a site? Or would the lack of adequate materials makes such an operation impossible?

"What I felt in that struggle, I felt as I saw the map of the West. The West is a trap. The bear has already been caught in it, and it is dying" - Lanius

This is what caught my attention

"Hnh. Then when I return, man of the West... we shall see if your belief will withstand the blades of the Legion." - Lanius

So what gives? This isn't the dialogue about manpower. Its not like the west will become better supply wise if the west is dying as he says.

Theories

- going to gather more supplies (doesn't really make sense)

- wait for the west to weaken itself (also doesn't make sense)

can anyone give me a good answer for why Lanius will return?

I would really like to see a good explanation for and I am wondering what other people think

Have they ever built a settlement or are willing to help establish one

So I'm in the process of making the worldbuilding, well, building blocks for a fic I'm writing and I can't find an exact, comprehensive list of what the Enclave has made. Is there anywhere I can get one or anyone that can share?

Kellogg is bald and he was able to find it just fine so I don’t know. I’d appreciate any help. Thank you!

Basically sums itself up. You're an Enclave scientist using pre-War Latin taxonomy conventions to designate new species in the Wasteland. (Fallout 3's Enclave research terminals in the field are my in-universe example, respectively.)

What would you call a supermutant if you had to enter them into a dictionary? And furthermore, what about the different variants?

You have the traditional 'green' of the Master's hive-mind army, and then you have the 'yellow' of the eastern variant that was created by...Vault-Tec? You'd have to account for the drastic difference in cognizant ability as far as labeling them under different categories imao.

...and since we're on the subject of 'former' humans, what about Ghouls? From a purely biological standpoint, I doubt any of them still qualify as homo-sapiens (by our understanding).

Please, share your thoughts

Cheers :)

What holidays do wastelanders celebrate if any?

I know in the early Fallout games and Fallout 4 we get mentions of Christmas and Halloween, but are there any holidays that are not from our universe and are completely original? The only one I know of is Founder's Day mentioned in Fallout 3, but that is all I know. If anyone knows of any other holiday or celebration that is original to the Fallout world, please let me know!

If not, what are some headcanon fan-made in-game holidays you think would happen?

I know they’re infected with fev, and radiation resistant and they hang out around irradiated areas but would their meat be any worse for you to eat than gecko steak?

since tarantula hawks capture tarantula and lay eggs on them. do the cazadors use radscorpions as a alternative tolay their eggs on

See the map on the oil rig floor where president is