Which minor faction(s) would you make a major one?

[Yamu]

At which point it's no different to the independent ending, other than it being them taking control instead of you.

I genuinely don't get why you'd need a separate ending for that.

I mean, that's the whole point of a "what if," no? We're not talking about game endings here but about actual outcomes. One of the most frustrating things about the independent ending is that you've got all the elements at your disposal to change and reform Vegas a thousand different ways but by default the game can't really guess at your intentions beyond looking at your karma (which, eww) and what you did with each faction, so it assumes that independent Vegas is largely going to mean a return to the pre-NCR status quo. It's like dumping out a huge bucket of Legos and then having Ron Perlman come along and force you to only build what's in the instruction manual. How any two factions in the Mojave use a Securitron army could differ almost as vastly as how the NCR and Caesar use their human ones.

 

[Risewild]

I mean, that's the whole point of a "what if," no? We're not talking about game endings here but about actual outcomes.

Although this thread (and the conversation) is not about "what if" but about which minor faction we want as a major faction and why.
Having the Followers and the Kings band together and control the Mojave (with or without the Securitron Army) goes against what those two minor factions believe and represent.
It's like if the Legion controlled the Mojave and started to encourage the legionaries to become fat drunks that would take drugs and gamble. It just goes against what the faction is and represents.

One of the most frustrating things about the independent ending is that you've got all the elements at your disposal to change and reform Vegas a thousand different ways but by default the game can't really guess at your intentions beyond looking at your karma (which, eww) and what you did with each faction, so it assumes that independent Vegas is largely going to mean a return to the pre-NCR status quo. It's like dumping out a huge bucket of Legos and then having Ron Perlman come along and force you to only build what's in the instruction manual.

While I agree with this, I also disagree (yeah, I am confusing sometimes). The endings are so general that it doesn't say anything specific on how the Courier rules the Mojave. It just leaves that out of the question.
It does change a tiny bit depending on the karma, but it is still generalized:

Supporting the ideals of independence, the Courier was recognized as the man/woman responsible for a truly free New Vegas. He/she ensured Mr. House's tyranny was broken and neither Caesar's Legion nor NCR would ever gain control over New Vegas.

Preferring neither the best of the NCR nor the worst of the Legion, the Courier was the man/woman responsible for a truly independent New Vegas. He/she had removed Mr. House from power over the Strip and broken the influence of the NCR and Caesar's Legion in the Mojave Wasteland.

Supporting all the chaos that comes with independence, the Courier was the man/woman responsible for a truly free New Vegas. He/she ensured the fall of Mr. House and the end of the Legion's and NCR's influence over New Vegas.

So all the endings are just "The Courier managed to control New Vegas, instead of NCR or Legion". That is all that the ending says (and it's all that the Courier achieves in the independent ending), the rest is up to the player to decide.
Like you said, there are thousands of ways one can reform Vegas, but nothing in the endings tell you you didn't reformed Vegas the way you wanted to, it only says you reformed it.

So I guess it would be more correct that it was like someone gave you a Lego set, had the plans for building a town that you had been following by yourself (your actions and decisions in the game that lead to you getting the independent Vegas ending) and then free bonus characters for you to play in that town however you wanted to. The purpose of the Lego set was just to set up the town (just like the purpose of the game is to reach the end), the rest is up to the player's imagination.

 

[NMLevesque]

Although this thread (and the conversation)
Having the Followers and the Kings band together and control the Mojave (with or without the Securitron Army) goes against what those two minor factions believe and represent.
It's like if the Legion controlled the Mojave and started to encourage the legionaries to become fat drunks that would take drugs and gamble. It just goes against what the faction is and represents.

How so? A Follower 'made' Yes Man, tried to bug House's network a couple of times, and they're certainly not opposed to tech. The Kings don't really have a position on it either way.

 

[Yamu]

Although this thread (and the conversation) is not about "what if" but about which minor faction we want as a major faction and why.

What if a given faction had a major endgame questline, in other words. I'm sorry if the semantics weren't clear, I may have made a conceptual leap in my head that didn't come through in the writing on that one.

Having the Followers and the Kings band together and control the Mojave (with or without the Securitron Army) goes against what those two minor factions believe and represent.

I don't disagree, and it's not a combo I'd have opted for myself, but gaining control of the Securitrons doesn't have to mean controlling Vegas, especially considering that (as you point out) you'd be putting that power in the hands of someone who wanted to see it used least. Not cosigning bureacracy or a pyramidal hierarchy of authority doesn't necessarily mean you balk at patrolled roads, staffed borders, or a fair and efficient peacekeeping force. We know Emily Ortal would be capable of being one of their botforce techs even though she'd rather be doing R&D-- I imagine MOST of the human logistics arm of the bot force would be less than thrilled at the chore. And Boom! We have an ending for Arcade where he gets to see an independent Vegas AND put his Enclave expertise to use in its service in a semi-martial capacity his father would be proud of, but he'd still get to be just as world weary and unsatisfied as in all his other endings
.

As you say though, again, the King doesn't see himself as the leader he is and that's unlikely to change by any endgame. Pacer is the kind to like to flaunt power and would probably step up if King was dead, but he'd be just another two bit hustling gang/warlord-- Benny, but without vision, cunning, style, or restraint. There's no civil leadership there. Any endgame questline involving those two would probably do better to focus on them securing their own interests during the confusion of the battle, dealing with invasion or impending siege on the strip, or evacuating like the Sorrows and the Khans.

I particularly like the idea of restoring and expanding the "when the moon comes over the tower" quest for a major Followers questline -- gathering info on his operations through Yes Man and various open House Industries network backdoors, infiltrating the bowels of the 38 while he's distracted, and installing hardware and software that would give the Followers access to his data and a way of checking his authority -- essentially, installing them as the "board of directors" he said he would never answer to, establishing a grudging symbiosis on both sides so that he has to play nice-ish in order to realize his vision for Vegas (weakening Vegas' position among the powers and undoubtedly pushing his milestone targets back by a dozen decades, give or take)

So all the endings are just "The Courier managed to control New Vegas, instead of NCR or Legion". That is all that the ending says (and it's all that the Courier achieves in the independent ending), the rest is up to the player to decide.
Like you said, there are thousands of ways one can reform Vegas, but nothing in the endings tell you you didn't reformed Vegas the way you wanted to, it only says you reformed it.

I know this is how most of us choose to play things out in our heads, but I think in actuality the fact that they give very specific ending details about most of the factions and people you interact with means that, by process of elimination, there are a broad range of postgame scenarios and situations which are precluded for Vegas and the greater Mojave wasteland.

 

[Unorthodox Outlander]

I suppose there is one sort of minor-faction questline that I wouldn't mind seeing... the problem is that it still ends up with a similar end-result as the usual independent ending and aside from minor details is rather redundant.

Basically: Courier goes around helping all these smaller settlements and the like and ingratiates himself among the common people; the eventual takeover of the lands around Vegas is more of a sort of revolution on the outside than seizing control of the "throne". Vegas itself will be taken in, rather than via an inside job, a "Storming of the Bastille" moment.

The only other idea I had was the Courier somehow pulling a Caesar on the local raider gangs/tribes (I HAVE KILLED HUNDREDS OF YOU BASTARDS! I OWN YOU, YOU HEAR ME!?!?) and going full warlord. That, of course, would probably end up being too much of a power fantasy, though.

(Really, though. After enough time in-game, the Courier has taken on thugs, mutants, nuclear abominations, gang leaders, and more than enough raider/gang mooks--plus NCR troops or Legionaries, or both! Time to fall in line or run like hell and quit throwing yourselves at the man who has consistently been kicking your collective asses after returning from the freaking grave.)


Naturally, neither of these make a bit of sense and are probably ridiculous, but what the hell, we're talking about what-ifs after all.

 

[Risewild]

How so? A Follower 'made' Yes Man, tried to bug House's network a couple of times, and they're certainly not opposed to tech. The Kings don't really have a position on it either way.

It's not a Followers made Yes Man, it is a "bug"... It's a device that would pick up information and send it back to Emily Ortal, so she could try and find out what kind of technology Mr House uses to live for so long. It's more like a listening device for computer information. Yes Man is a total override of Mr House's entire network, they are very different things.

I don't disagree, and it's not a combo I'd have opted for myself, but gaining control of the Securitrons doesn't have to mean controlling Vegas, especially considering that (as you point out) you'd be putting that power in the hands of someone who wanted to see it used least. Not cosigning bureacracy or a pyramidal hierarchy of authority doesn't necessarily mean you balk at patrolled roads, staffed borders, or a fair and efficient peacekeeping force. We know Emily Ortal would be capable of being one of their botforce techs even though she'd rather be doing R&D-- I imagine MOST of the human logistics arm of the bot force would be less than thrilled at the chore. And Boom! We have an ending for Arcade where he gets to see an independent Vegas AND put his Enclave expertise to use in its service in a semi-martial capacity his father would be proud of, but he'd still get to be just as world weary and unsatisfied as in all his other endings

I don't know their position about robots, they want to preserve and learn about pre-war stuff that can help humanity, like medicine and agriculture. And they do have advanced knowledge on many subjects. But for some reason we never see any robot helping them.

But the Followers do not have the internal hierarchy and organization to be able to control an army of Bots. They can't even control their own members or make a deal with any kind of merchant to get distilled alcohol for example. They are more like a badly organized Red Cross without any real hierarchy, in that they move to an area in need and provide basic free food, education and healthcare and then they move to another area in need, than they are the UN, where they do peacekeeping.
It is also worth pointing out that the Followers are pacifists and don't agree with harming other human beings unless it is to protect their own life. So I don't think they would want to have an army of overpowered weaponized robots going around "keeping" the peace.
I also mentioned before that they don't agree with landed territories, they believe that humans shouldn't separate themselves with territory and borders or something like that, so it would also not make sense for them to maintain peace in a bordered territory of their own.
They are also an anti-authority organization, they don't have leaders or bosses because they don't believe in those either. They are seen as anarchists because of that too.

All of the above really strikes me that they not only are not interested in maintaining any kind of power or responsibility in keeping the Mojave safety under their belt and/or controlling an army of robots, but it really goes against their beliefs.

Here is an interesting quote from J.E.Sawyer about the FNV Followers of the Apocalypse:

At least in Fallout: New Vegas, I think it's easier to find fault in what they don't do than in what they do. They tend so much toward anti-authoritarianism that they have weak internal hierarchies and a lack of clear or unified direction.

In The White Wash, Anderson's activities may or may not have been noted by other Followers, but even if they were, he doesn't have a "boss" and the Followers don't have any commonly accepted methods for dealing with rogue agents.

Similarly, when Edward Sallow became Caesar, he essentially just sent Bill Calhoun away and there wasn't anything he or the other Followers were prepared to do about it.

In the F:NV endings where the Followers wind up with a lot of responsibility, their tendency to over-commit and their lack of efficient organization result in a lot of problems. Even though they heavily distrust NCR, they are only able to provide adequate services in Freeside in an ending where NCR maintains control of the Mojave.

 

[NMLevesque]

It's not a Followers made Yes Man, it is a "bug"... It's a device that would pick up information and send it back to Emily Ortal, so she could try and find out what kind of technology Mr House uses to live for so long. It's more like a listening device for computer information. Yes Man is a total override of Mr House's entire network, they are very different things.

...Benny hired Emily Ortal to make Yes Man. It's references in the dialogue of at least three characters. She confirms it the most clearly.

 

[Unorthodox Outlander]

...Benny hired Emily Ortal to make Yes Man. It's references in the dialogue of at least three characters. She confirms it the most clearly.

Well, one might consider the difference of intentions. Benny plans to take over the strip. Emily and the other Followers might be genuinely interested in gathering data and possibly having a powerful bargaining chip. They seem rather... anarchic, for lack of a better term, and trying to govern doesn't exactly seem to fit their standard modus-operandi of spreading/gathering knowledge, medicinal practices, and research without much of a centralized command structure.

 

[Hassknecht]

I would make the Fiends, Great Khans, and Powder Gangers all able to make an alliance to create a "Raiders' Faction" to take over Hoover Dam and smash the place up to conquer the Mojave and turn it into their own personal hellhole.

The "Chaos" option to Caesar's Legion's "Order."

Maybe also make an alliance with the Strip gangs.

Possibly an option to eliminate the Fiends and substitute the Kings to make a kinder, gentler Raider Empire.

Hm, I don't really see the Fiends getting along with anyone too well, and the Great Khans are too tribalistic and introverted to work with anyone else, too, in my opinion.
And the Powder Gangers aren't really all that much about "personal hellholes" like the Fiends, they seem more than happy with just getting by.

/edit: The Followers should have been bigger.

 

[CT Phipps]

Hm, I don't really see the Fiends getting along with anyone too well, and the Great Khans are too tribalistic and introverted to work with anyone else, too, in my opinion.
And the Powder Gangers aren't really all that much about "personal hellholes" like the Fiends, they seem more than happy with just getting by.

/edit: The Followers should have been bigger.

Well I don't see how any of that effects things. It's not about getting along or building an empire. Quite the opposite. It's about making it impossible for any order or structure to happen.

 

[Risewild]

...Benny hired Emily Ortal to make Yes Man. It's references in the dialogue of at least three characters. She confirms it the most clearly.

Yes, but she only did it so she could get the information about how Mr House can live for so long. That is why Yes Man can't deny any order or lie. And yet, it seems that not even Yes Man knew what technology Mr House uses to keep alive.
She didn't build it either, she reprogrammed it to be that way ( Benny captured it after being disabled by a pulse grenade). I don't think she even thought Benny would use it to control the Strip.

She saw it as a way to be able to get the information she wanted, so she did it. As simple as that.
It doesn't show she wanted to use it for the Followers or anyone else to control Mr House's network, after all, for that to happen, someone has to actually kill or remove Mr House's access to his own network (I doubt that Emily wants to kill or disable Mr House or anyone else).

 

[Yamu]

But the Followers do not have the internal hierarchy and organization to be able to control an army of Bots. They can't even control their own members or make a deal with any kind of merchant to get distilled alcohol for example. They are more like a badly organized Red Cross without any real hierarchy, in that they move to an area in need and provide basic free food, education and healthcare and then they move to another area in need, than they are the UN, where they do peacekeeping.
It is also worth pointing out that the Followers are pacifists and don't agree with harming other human beings unless it is to protect their own life. So I don't think they would want to have an army of overpowered weaponized robots going around "keeping" the peace.
I also mentioned before that they don't agree with landed territories, they believe that humans shouldn't separate themselves with territory and borders or something like that, so it would also not make sense for them to maintain peace in a bordered territory of their own.
They are also an anti-authority organization, they don't have leaders or bosses because they don't believe in those either. They are seen as anarchists because of that too.

I agree with Mr. Sawyer about the Followers, but therein lies the rub -- They ARE functionally structureless, with few or no hard rules about who does what, let alone what they do or don't do as an organization. Caesar came from them, and in the peculiar form and path he took a "reformer" like Caesar could *only* have come from the Followers. Andersen is a murderer. Hildern and the OSI spun out of them. Arcade is all for breaking a few eggs to make an omelette, as long as the eggs aren't people he likes. Emily Ortal actively took it upon herself to potentially piss off the one guy in Vegas with the ability and the ruthlessness to push them out of the fort or eradicate them in retaliation. *The Courier* is a Follower (at least potentially, and in my games almost without exception), and in an independent Vegas run they control the Securitron army AND Big MT.

They're not all uncompromising idealists and they don't all share the same ideals, or take the same view on the ones they DO share. To work with "The Followers" isn't the same as aiding other factions, and where the rubber meets the road you're going to be dealing with nothing more or less than an individual (or small group) who has their own ideas about the greater good.

The Securitrons in independent Vegas are run by Yes Man , who's run by a single individual, and most of their logistics seem to be taken care of already. I don't think it would be hard to find someone within the Followers willing to take on the responsibility so that it doesn't fall to a more self serving group, and honestly, organizations like theirs boast no shortage of individuals who think of themselves as uncorruptable good guys anyway. Some or all of the Followers are bound to disagree with any definitive action taken by any of their members that goes beyond basic charity and triage, be it murder or trying to steal secrets from the most powerful man in Vegas or partnering with a local den of iniquity to help provide services; that doesn't keep it from happening.

 

[Hassknecht]

Well I don't see how any of that effects things. It's not about getting along or building an empire. Quite the opposite. It's about making it impossible for any order or structure to happen.

Well, you can't form an alliance between the three, which is literally your first step. And why would they want to form an alliance to smash everything up, anyway? Raiders rely on there being something to raid. The Great Khans could probably go and be self-sufficient, but the Fiends would die if there was total anarchy because they're parasites, and so are the Powder Gangers.

 

[Yamu]

The Great Khans could probably go and be self-sufficient, but the Fiends would die if there was total anarchy because they're parasites, and so are the Powder Gangers.

For the most part. When it comes to the Powders, I doubt Cooke would have even bothered freeing most of them if it hadn't been an all-or-nothing proposition or a spit in the NCR's face. Cooke's core group seem a lot savvier about keeping off the radar, and they're a lot more like hard-line terrorists than raiders. Given the chance they could probably make something of themselves, albeit not something nice. There are plenty enough people in the borderlands sympathetic to their "fuck NCR" mission statement.

Not that they'd ally with the fiends or anything. Motor Runner and the other ranking fiends (the ones who haven't lost their minds) are quintessential Mad Max nihilist raiders, devoted wholly to their self-gratification in the here and now. Beyond the Khans for their chems and (iirc/ don't miss my guess) the Frumentarii for their weapons, they don't really want or need any other large- scale entanglements. Too complicated, especially when they've already got what they need. And from the V19 Powders' standpoint the fiends are too visible, unpredictable, and indiscreet.

 

[Risewild]

The Securitrons in independent Vegas are run by Yes Man , who's run by a single individual, and most of their logistics seem to be taken care of already. I don't think it would be hard to find someone within the Followers willing to take on the responsibility so that it doesn't fall to a more self serving group, and honestly, organizations like theirs boast no shortage of individuals who think of themselves as uncorruptable good guys anyway. Some or all of the Followers are bound to disagree with any definitive action taken by any of their members that goes beyond basic charity and triage, be it murder or trying to steal secrets from the most powerful man in Vegas or partnering with a local den of iniquity to help provide services; that doesn't keep it from happening.

But then it wouldn't be a Followers ending or the Followers becoming a major faction. It would be a single "rogue" Follower doing it.

 

[CT Phipps]

Well, you can't form an alliance between the three, which is literally your first step. And why would they want to form an alliance to smash everything up, anyway? Raiders rely on there being something to raid. The Great Khans could probably go and be self-sufficient, but the Fiends would die if there was total anarchy because they're parasites, and so are the Powder Gangers.

This basically keeps running into the problem of trying to impose order on chaos when the goal is chaos. The Great Khans want revenge on NCR, the Powder gangers literally murder an entire town for the purpose of getting ONE GUY, and the Fiends are a bunch of drug addicted psychopaths who are fighting the ENTIRE NCR ARMY next to ther largest military base.

In real life, massive corporations aren't able to care about sustainable living and you're worried about them having to worry about not having enough room to sustain themselves in an entire region?

Really, an alliance between them all to beat NCR back would also work just because they would want to do so in order to prevent themselves from being wiped out since all of them are being targeted by NCR and would be killed by Caesar's Legion.

 

[Hassknecht]

In real life, massive corporations aren't able to care about sustainable living and you're worried about them having to worry about not having enough room to sustain themselves in an entire region?

No? I'm worried that all of them base their lifestyle on the existence of order around them to feed on. If they impose absolute chaos and anarchy (which neither the Khans nor the Powder Gangers would be all that interested in to begin with) they'd have nothing to prey on, nobody that grows their food and so on. Because the farmers wouldn't stay in the area for very long if it meant that they'd get raided without help all the time, and if they were to be enslaved the glorious raider empire would have to establish rules and hierarchy, undermining all the glorious anarchy.
None of the raider gangs actually want any sort of anarcho-primitivist rule over the wasteland. Two thirds want revenge on NCR, the other third wants drugs. All of them rely on raiding, which requires some form of productive society to prey on. And they know that. Well, the Fiends maybe not actively, but certainly unconsciously. They'd know soon enough for sure.

 

[CT Phipps]

No? I'm worried that all of them base their lifestyle on the existence of order around them to feed on. If they impose absolute chaos and anarchy (which neither the Khans nor the Powder Gangers would be all that interested in to begin with) they'd have nothing to prey on, nobody that grows their food and so on. Because the farmers wouldn't stay in the area for very long if it meant that they'd get raided without help all the time, and if they were to be enslaved the glorious raider empire would have to establish rules and hierarchy, undermining all the glorious anarchy.
None of the raider gangs actually want any sort of anarcho-primitivist rule over the wasteland. Two thirds want revenge on NCR, the other third wants drugs. All of them rely on raiding, which requires some form of productive society to prey on. And they know that. Well, the Fiends maybe not actively, but certainly unconsciously. They'd know soon enough for sure.

I think you're overthinking the fact of "imposing" absolute anarchy's difficulty. All they have to do is kill House, drive out NCR, and stop Caesar's Legion.

Then THEY are the only authority and since they have no desire to rule, it will be an absolute anarchy.

It's not that difficult to destroy central authority in a weak state.

 

[Risewild]

No? I'm worried that all of them base their lifestyle on the existence of order around them to feed on. If they impose absolute chaos and anarchy (which neither the Khans nor the Powder Gangers would be all that interested in to begin with) they'd have nothing to prey on, nobody that grows their food and so on. Because the farmers wouldn't stay in the area for very long if it meant that they'd get raided without help all the time, and if they were to be enslaved the glorious raider empire would have to establish rules and hierarchy, undermining all the glorious anarchy.
None of the raider gangs actually want any sort of anarcho-primitivist rule over the wasteland. Two thirds want revenge on NCR, the other third wants drugs. All of them rely on raiding, which requires some form of productive society to prey on. And they know that. Well, the Fiends maybe not actively, but certainly unconsciously. They'd know soon enough for sure.

I already said something very similar to that in the past, but I never managed to convince Phipps.

All they have to do is kill House, drive out NCR, and stop Caesar's Legion.

So... All they have to do is get rid of the three main, most resourceful, well protected and most powerful factions in the entire Mojave Wasteland each of them with armies that number thousands (Mr House is probably the exception here, I don't remember how many Securitrons he has before getting the ones in the bunker but I don't think it could be thousands). That's definitely a very little "all they have to do is". Specially when they are all weak and fractured groups that don't have the same goals at all and also have very different philosophies (Fiends are junkie savages, Khans are a tribe that wants to return to their old glory and Powder Gangers are criminals that just want to survive without being in jail anymore).

Khans are one or two handfuls in total number, Powder Gangers are not that many either, Fiends seem to be the most numerous but I doubt all put together they would have a force of more than one or two hundred (stretching the numbers a bit) individuals.

 

[Hassknecht]

I think you're overthinking the fact of "imposing" absolute anarchy's difficulty. All they have to do is kill House, drive out NCR, and stop Caesar's Legion.

Then THEY are the only authority and since they have no desire to rule, it will be an absolute anarchy.

It's not that difficult to destroy central authority in a weak state.

Oh yeah, totally, why didn't I think about that? They just have to defeat three major factions with complete armies while being basically a band of scraggly drug addicts, a decimated bunch of tribals and a prison full of gangsters.
Anyway, the point is not that it's impossible, the point is that they'd kill themselves by doing that.
They are raiders. They need something to raid. They don't produce anything on their own, they need an ordered society nearby to feed on. They. Would. Kill. Themselves.
That's why they have no interest in destroying all order. Yeah, the Fiends would potentially take over Camp McCarren and expand quite a lot, but there's no way they would ever take out all the major factions because that would mean their end. They could, potentially, but they wouldn't because an ordered society is their lifeline.