AWKWARD ZOMBIE

i did it

Chapter 13a: This Place Is A Special Kind Of Falling Apart



First things first.



I need to find a goddamn BED.



I'm so fucking tired... oh hey maybe I can steal a bunch of shit before I hit the hay.



There's fuck all here that is any use to me, but I can hock it at a shop later.



Seriously, now, BED.



Shit, there's nothing out here. Maybe inside.



Bed bed bed bed bed.



I wonder if these NCR dorks would mind if I just sort of passed out on the floor.



Good god that took way too long.



Good NIGHT.



8 hours later...





Alright, now to ask around and see what the deal is with this place.



Uh, no, I just got here. Well, I got here several hours ago and have been sleeping ever since, but you know.

Anyway, what's the matter?



That's fucked up.



That's REALLY fucked up.



Sounds like a Nelson situation.

I'm good at the Nelson situation.



Don't worry, I can take care of a few Fiends.



Yeah, I know where that is.



I don't know what they could have to say that you haven't told me already.



While I'm here I'll check with the colonel and see what else I can do.



Looking for work. Anything you need taken care of?



More Fiends. Lovely.



Really.



Sounds like intelligence is leaking out like it's hooked up to a faucet. Maybe I can help you close it?



Where should I start?



Will do. What about that Legionary you're interrogating?



Maybe the Legionary needs to hit a wall. Repeatedly. At force.





Gotcha.



I'll get this done real quick.



Hey, I'm here for the torture.



I'm never sure.

Colonel Shoe said you need some help.



What can I say, I'm a helper.



No way. He's a centurion?



Huh. In my experience they usually run like dirty cowards.



I've never tried that. I should try that.



What do you think it means?





Sounds like he needs a date with Mr. Wall.





Hm, I'd have thought those would be lifted when dealing with Caesar's Fucking Legion.



Well, I have been shot in the head. Insane is a real possibility.





Good soldier, bad mercenary? I can do this.











































Okay, this asshole sounds like a true patriot. I don't think a beating is going to make him any more likely to tell me anything.



I have a better idea. I have the BEST idea.



The Legion. I'm here to kill you before you talk.



Legum servi sumus. We are both slaves of Caesar's law. Law that you flaunted.



Useless when dead, but dangerous when alive.



You betrayed his trust when you refused to follow his orders.



Are you suggesting Caesar would be happier that you were a deserter as well as a traitor?





Crying to mommy now?



Woman? In the Legion? Are you dense?



I think he's losing it.









Ice cold.



Bad move, Silus. I'm the only one who can help you now.





What part of this are you having trouble understanding? You are a traitor and a disgrace to the Legion.





(Headaches? What's that about?)



(And that explains the intelligence leak. Now I just have to find the son of a bitch.)



I wonder if all Legionaries are as stupid as you.



I spit out a few words of Latin and suddenly we're on the same side? Come on.



Funny. Now Caesar would be perfectly justified in sending an assassin to silence you. You are clearly too talkative for your own good.



And no force in the Legion can stand up to me.



Glad to be working for you, Boyd.



Now then, Curtis should be around here somewhere.



Found him.



Allison. Colonel Shoe sent me here about an intel leak?



So where do I start?



Well, I'm already friendly with Boyd, so I'll check with her.



Will do.



Boyd.

(Shepard.)

Notice anybody sneaking around and acting suspicious?



A shitty one.



Wow. Let's start with the break-ins.



Control tower? Mind if I go poking around in there?



Communications equipment.

Someone has been sneaking into a room with communications equipment, and at the same time someone has been reporting on NCR troop movements to their enemies.

How is this entire army so bad at putting two and two together? What about those AWOL soldiers?



He's a Ranger, those guys are super badass, aren't they?



Alright, I'll get back to Shoe on that. Anyone else?





And where do you think I might find him?



Super.



I'll go rummage through his stuff then.

What about the thefts?



Any leads?





Alright, I'll check him out.



While I'm passing through here, I'll stop at White's locker.



Just a journal, nothing to steal.



Two locations come up, East Pump Station and Westside. I'll check out Gomorrah as well if I have to.



For now, though, it's time to check out the tower.

This mission was one of my favorites.

get in the airplane

Show them recluse dudes in <redaction> what you're made of

It hasn't really come up a whole lot, but the Queen of Spades loves airplanes.

Just so you know.

So I've just been lurking for a bit, reading and thoroughly enjoying this LP. Please, keep it up, Exeres. I love New Vegas and the Queen of Spades is the best courier.

That being said, I kinda feel the need to defend Caesar's Legion, too. Yes, they're a barbaric horde of slavers, rapists, and dirty fighters. But they also maintain the most stable and safest territories in the west. The NCR, to put it bluntly, sucks at even maintaining its home affairs in Shady Sands and Vault City. There's still the Brotherhood of Steel, various raider groups, and their own senators making the NCR a shitty place to live. They couldn't keep a handle on their own treasury (formerly gold, destroyed by the Brotherhood of Steel) and now they're backing their currency with water, hence the reason $100 NCR bills are only worth 40 caps. The Legion, meanwhile, has some of the most valuable, with one Aureus being 100 caps. Because it's solid gold.
As for the slavery and rape, the Legion is doing both of those things. But Caesar is also uniting numerous factions in an effective, albeit violent manner. By stripping tribes of their individual identities he's created a nation under one banner, something that Robert House and the NCR will never hope to obtain in their current methods. The great flaw of the Legion's plan is that it all centers around Caesar's charisma. He's a single man holding them all together, without which the Legion will dissolve. But that's beside the point, which is the Legion is the most stable and transparent society in the western post-war United States. That's why it's foreseeable that someone would ally with them, security is a lot more important in the wasteland than your morals.

AND there I'm done. Sorry for the essay-level of argument. TL;DR: Caesar's Legion is despicable but you've got a better chance at seeing their nation survive than the NCR.

You don't have to be morally right to have effective leadership and run an effective nation.

See also: every dictator ever.

Well I guess when you're actually playing the game it's easier to just flat out hate the legion because you're a walking apocolypse that is pretty much unstoppable, so security is the least of your worries.

Actually the NCR holds California rather well. They really do make a difference there, and they're stable and working.
The problem is they're overextending into New Vegas now, which they don't really have the troops to keep. So their New Vegas outposts are horribly maintained and don't have even close to what they need.

NCR has also stood the test of about 100 years, and at least four presidents. Legion, however, will die out once Caesar is dead. There's no avoiding it. That's not stable, that's temporarily not fucked.

Legion is also not what you want if you want to stay personally safe, as you are required to be part of the army. So you're constantly going to be putting yourself in harms way. That's only if you're a guy. If you're a woman then you're just fucked eighty ways to sunday. By the guys.

They work at the moment but only due to brute force making them work. Duct tape holding together the boat, and it's gonna give out. That's not stable or safe or secure at all. That is actually the opposite of those things.

The NCR was stable. It was stable when it was ruled by Tandi, who was virtually a queen, the senators didn't dare oppose her and she was elected unanimously for 52 years until she died. Aradesh and Tandi made NCR great, and now it's turning around.

In 2281, the NCR is run by a bunch of corrupt officials who are extending themselves far beyond their control. Kimball is an incompetent president.

The Legion is quite cordial with profligates. And, by his very nature, Courier 6 is a profligate. They allow traders to pass in and out of their borders freely. So no, to stay safe with the Legion, you don't have to be a legionnaire.

until ceasar dies

and they still pronounce C as k

Profligate is their term for enemies of the Legion, namely NCR soldiers. They are most certainly not cordial with NCR soldiers.

The word you are looking for is dissolute.

And, as much as the other guy, you are just plain wrong about the Legion not being an enormous bag of dicks.

As Runes said, their stability doesn't count for shit. In all cases where Caesar dies, his Legion dissolves because of infighting and disloyalty.

Traders don't constitute the majority of the Legion's population. In fact, they don't even constitute part of the population at all. They're allowed in so the Legion can get supplies, but they're not part of the population and shouldn't be counted as such. When Legion does crumble, they'd be basically unaffected, aside from the loss of profit.

The NCR's problems can be fixed. That's the big point. They get control of the Dam and New Vegas, and they basically start a golden age for the area. Controlling both gets them funds, power, and everything they need to hold not just New Vegas, but the rest of the Republic. It lets them keep going, stronger than ever before. So you can very easily help fix the NCR. You can't do much about the politicians, but corrupt politics is everywhere. It's not like the Legion is exempt from that either. Caeser preaches about being unreliant on technology, but then has a power fist that uses fucking sound waves to attack. That's pretty fucking technological and goes way beyond everything else in the Legion.

The NCR is actually safe and secure, and will probably stay so, either by leaving New Vegas or becoming stronger as a whole. The Legion is just a trainwreck waiting to happen.

Not to mention the Auto-Doc he needs to fix his brain cancer. Basically Caesar is an enormous hypocrite.

Also a baby. If you tell him straight up that you won't work for him, he actually seriously pitches a baby fit. He's insulated himself with yes men and people too afraid to speak out that he can't even grasp the fact that someone might say no to him.

You guys seem to be under the impression that I'm defending the Legion's morality or practices of rape or something. I'm not.

I'm just defending the viability of siding with the Legion as first and foremost, profitable, and secondly, as the courier, a very good way to Not Die.

Otherwise, they're a bag of dicks.

Yeah I don't know why I picked profligates, it's just what they call you when you play the game. "I never thought Caesar would rely on a profligate of all people" and comments like that as you proceed with the quests.

AMICUS is the word I'm thinking of. The word for non-Legion allies.


Caesar, because he was a Follower, is really pretentious with using old Latin pronunciations with the hard K sound for Kai-sar and the long e sound in legionary.