Phineas Gage and the Canon Courier

[Malpais Dominus]

I like to imagine the Legion fracturing turns their territory into an ancient Greek type situation with multiple fractured city states that have similar elements but each with their own little twists on Legion culture.

 

[TomJ]

I would figure a House ending + Kimball dead/impeached + General Oliver getting sacked would likely lead to an economic and social collapse of the NCR and would radically hamper Houses plans. I figure this because the NCR is already facing a water shortage and a food shortage is noted to be on the horizon (10-20 years if I remember the OSI quest correctly). Having the price of water start to inflate is bad enough as it is, compound that with it being a necessary input for food and the NCR will be facing inflation and shortages which are not good for a society at the best of times, but the NCR is not in the best health and it will have just sacked its leader and the public would be facing a crisis of confidence in its government. Which could very much throw the NCR into a civil war and likely cause them to start abandoning their territories north of Bakersfield. Which would basically reverse what ever progress has happened in the parts of California that in Fallout 2 were not in the NCR, but curious about it.

I would expect something worse to happen if an independent ending was canon. The Courier would probably cut off the NCR from water and power until a new treaty could be signed and if that took a year, God help the NCR. Inflation is one thing, but being cut off from the supplies you need is much harder to deal with along with all the political and social fallout that would come along with it.

I know House said something to the effect of his victory only leading to a 6 month dip in visitors to New Vegas, but that seems unlikely given how many problems the NCR is facing. It every much came off as a house of cards that would collapse if they didn't hold the dam and get to keep the Mojave. There is a good chance that will happen anyways, but having the resources of the dam seem to be the only thing that might give them the breathing room to deal with their problems.

I am also going to have a slight rant about the people who propose the Shi are independent, but use maps like this. As someone who actually lives in California, seeing the Shi being independent on a map and them having the territory that makes up the Bay Area, but the NCR magically owns the coasts always annoys me. Assuming the Shi remained independent or formed their own nation state, the areas they would need to hold militarily just to hold the Bay Area would basically cut the NCR off from the Coastal Range north of the Bay Area. Which would either mean the Shi would have it or it would be a lawless hellscape that would be a constant thorn in the side of the Shi and NCR. This has to do with how few places you can easily cross the mountains and get anywhere near the coast. And basically any one of the crossing points south of Redding (there aren't any that would still be passable without road maintenance north of Clear Lake) would allow the NCR to menace the Shi's proposed northern boundaries, which would mean no independent Shi or whatever they would be called.

 

[KingArthur]

I personally really like that idea of Indie Courier strongarming the NCR using water and electricity. It’s an interesting idea.

 

[Robert Edwin House]

SNIP.

The NCR wouldn't collapse due to lack of water, I wouldn't raise prices on such a valuable commodity and risk igniting such a problem, it's bad for business.

In any case, I would sell well bellow market value to the point that the NCR would literally drown in it before I let that happen.

 

[KingArthur]

The NCR wouldn't collapse due to lack of water, I wouldn't raise prices on such a valuable commodity and risk igniting such a problem, it's bad for business.

In any case, I would sell well bellow market value to the point that the NCR would literally drown in it before I let that happen.

Bad for business, perhaps; but then how to control the NCR? If not water, I doubt the Republic is gonna let losing the Dam go lightly. And even if House is in a good position post-battle, with upgraded securitrons in an entrenched Vegas, who’s to say that Kimball’s successor doesn’t share his desire to keep that water and power source, and throw bodies at the Strip? Potentially the slaughter would be like the Dam battle, but more horrific.

And unfortunately, unless Kimball goes home after being kicked out of Vegas and is completely spurned by everyone in the government, SOMEONE is gonna want to get back at House/the Courier.

Look at every campaign the NCR has fought; terrorist attacks from the Legion, horrible losses, and both sides just chuck bodies at one another like handfuls of pesos to children in Mexico City. The NCR seemingly inevitably is going to want payback, no matter what the reasoning. Withholding water simply expedites the process.

 

[Atomic Postman]

Bad for business, perhaps; but then how to control the NCR? If not water, I doubt the Republic is gonna let losing the Dam go lightly. And even if House is in a good position post-battle, with upgraded securitrons in an entrenched Vegas, who’s to say that Kimball’s successor doesn’t share his desire to keep that water and power source, and throw bodies at the Strip? Potentially the slaughter would be like the Dam battle, but more horrific.

Two factors.

The first, The Securitron Army (Upgraded) are a brick wall of strategic power to any invading army. Enough that the Mojave is able to apparently function as a completely anarchic power vaccuum for generations simply due to the threat.

The second, the Mojave War is painted as being Vietnam tier in popularity within NCR proper. From what we learn, if the NCR loses at Hoover Dam their taste for foreign intervention and warhawk politicians is going to get thrown out the window hard. No way after Kimball's lost another would-be invader gets elected. The idea of entering the Mojave again after all that waste of lives and time would be political suicide.

 

[Robert Edwin House]

Bad for business, perhaps; but then how to control the NCR? If not water, I doubt the Republic is gonna let losing the Dam go lightly. And even if House is in a good position post-battle, with upgraded securitrons in an entrenched Vegas, who’s to say that Kimball’s successor doesn’t share his desire to keep that water and power source, and throw bodies at the Strip? Potentially the slaughter would be like the Dam battle, but more horrific.

Two factors.

The first, The Securitron Army (Upgraded) are a brick wall of strategic power to any invading army. Enough that the Mojave is able to apparently function as a completely anarchic power vaccuum for generations simply due to the threat.

The second, the Mojave War is painted as being Vietnam tier in popularity within NCR proper. From what we learn, if the NCR loses at Hoover Dam their taste for foreign intervention and warhawk politicians is going to get thrown out the window hard. No way after Kimball's lost another would-be invader gets elected. The idea of entering the Mojave again after all that waste of lives and time would be political suicide.

Indeed, coupled with the fact that by the time the NCR get's in the mood for that type of conflict again Vegas will be tied to the NCR's hip economically which makes any future wars 'difficult' to justify. For example, the water crisis in the NCR will only worsen and their electricity will become considerably cheaper thanks to Hoover Dam, any future politician contemplating a war would have to consider the possible destruction of the dam as a scenario or worse and for the NCR that's not worth it.

In the end another war with Vegas would be seen by the NCR public as a warhawk revenge fantasy, why invade and try to take the dam when you already have full access to it's resources for a price?

 

[Atomic Postman]

I'd also point out that the possibility of an NCR return invasion, or that of Caesar's Legion, sort of squashes the momentum of the game's plot if it isn't the be-all-end-all deciding battle of the Mojave. So I don't think within any conception of the game's writing it is something we're meant to consider. It's do or die.

 

[KingArthur]

That’s reasonable, but I meant more generationally. Think about the congresswoman who just died: RBG was 87. If the NCR has old Mojave vets on their congress, who’s to say that they won’t try again down the line? In the Roman Republic, one upmanship was a factor of war; to conquer lands that had pushed Roman invasion away was a coveted laurel, and one often pursued years, if not decades after the original attempt.

What I was trying to say is that if the NCR is anything like historical republics, some politician, sometime, is gonna try to conquer the unconquerable Vegas.

 

[Robert Edwin House]

It's still unlikely, for example, how many Vietnam Veterans have seriously proposed going back since the end of the war? Few, and they weren't taken seriously.

The chief reason the war occurred was over Hoover dam, its electricity and water supply with Vegas itself just being a secondary priority in every regards. Now Vegas is supplying those things at a cost and the NCR will literally be hard pressed in justifying why such a invasion would need to exist.

 

[KingArthur]

That’s just it, it’s like the modern US was with oil. At some point they’ll make an excuse, if they want the water badly enough. I’ll concede that it’s a stretch, but it’s still a possibility, depending variably on House’s diplomacy/pricing and NCR governmental elections.

 

[Atomic Postman]

Yes, it's like the modern US with oil in that it'll capitulate to and ally with totalitarian state(s) in order to keep it cheap within its domestic borders. The US doesn't invade Saudi Arabia, it works with it.

The NCR won't invade House's Mojave, it'll cooperate as long as the water continues to flow into NCR proper. Of which House is more than happy to provide.

 

[TomJ]

The problem with the cost of the water and electricity is that its never really explained how the water and power that was coming from Hoover Dam was distributed in the NCR after it was released before the battle other than House getting a cut of it. For all we know, and given how corrupt the NCR is, it was likely being given away on the cheap for political favor. Which would mean any cost increase would be seen as a massive spike and cause political problems. Especially if the NCR delayed signing the treaty because it was kicking out its leaders and potentially facing an early election and so on.

House says the NCR would settle after 6 months, what happens if it doesn't? Democracy works slowly, it took nearly 3 years from the beginning of the Watergate scandal to Nixon resigning and there were 3 months of hearings involved before he resigned. Given that the NCR is modeled after the US, there likely isn't anything about removing a leader for losing the confidence of the legislature and losing a war isn't a crime (probably) and exposing Kimball's corruptions would likely take down other people which gets politically messy. So what happens if Kimball decides to be spiteful and not accept House's demands and he hangs onto his office until the next election rolls around? The NCR taking its sweet time would start to be a problem for House if their political intrigue continued for more than 6 months. House does have to keep the Families happy after all.

The problem with comparing Vietnam to the Mojave is that Vietnam wasn't a supplier of a major resource to us, that was an ideological war in part. The NCR losing the Mojave would be more like the US losing Texas or Alaska. The loss of one of those would severely hamper the US economy along with causing political strife and probably caving in our governing political ideology.

To tie this to another thread on here and to conclude, it doesn't take much for things to go sideways and start snowballing. Kimball not resigning and holding on for 2 years until an election rolls around, would be a wild card that would make the world more interesting and would be normal for someone in politics. The wasteland could become more of a wasteland even without the nukes getting launched from the Divide, it could be purely down to one politician holding on to the bitter end. Like someone said "some of you may die, but that is a sacrifice I am willing to make." Kimball would just need to be that stubborn.

 

[Atomic Postman]

This would be a pertinent question if we didn't get an omniscient view of what occurs after Hoover Dam in the form of the endings.