Caesar's Legion

 Divide et Impera

Of the many factions of Fallout lore, the New Vegas introduced 'Caesar's Legion' stands out in particular as one of their number that I find perhaps the most fascinating. Born from the old post apocalyptic trope of a post-world society formed in the image of some pre-industrial civilisation like a Kingdom or Holy Church, Caesar's Legion brings a brutalised, twisted image of the Roman Empire to the harsh lands of the Fallout world under the 'necessary evil' clause. The belief that all which is broken in the world is too burnt up to be put together without an equal force of brute strength to match the cruelty of the new world. Only a bigger monster can tame a world of monsters. And though we've never gotten a chance to actually see what a non-warring Legion-created settlement looks like, there is a sort of Pyrrhic logic to that thesis which blossoms this overwise clearly evil-tipped antagonistic entity into a richer, whilst just as moral bankrupt, society.

To explain the history of the Legion we have to first bring up the concept of 'Tribes' as the Fallout universe understands them. In the West Coast games, (those made by 'Black Isle Studios' and 'Obsidian Games') Tribes are descendants from survivors of the Great War who typically didn't hail from Vaults or Military facilities. Those who weren't in populated cities at the time of the nukes, weren't in a part of an afflicted city which was hit so hard, or survived through some sort of other miraculous means. These are survivors who would have gone the rest of their lives dedicating each moment to making it to the next day in a world gone mad. As these people procreated, they would have lacked the facilities to pass on the wealth of knowledge they had the privilege to enjoy in the civilised world and when they were gone some part of the old world would be gone with them. Fast forward 200 years and some of these decedents have regressed entirely into tribalism, totally removed from the civilised folk who bore them a few generations prior. These tribes are actually quite plentiful up the Western coast and make up much of the human population outside of towns and Raider camps.

By the time of the 2240's, many of these descendant tribes have lost the knowhow of basic technology and sometimes even communication, which is why they make such tempting targets for missionary drives from 'Good Sarmatian' organisations like the educated people of the Followers of the Apocalypse. In 2246 a group of Followers, Edward Swallow, Bill Calhoun, and a physician with no name were dispatched to the Grand Canyon on one such mission, to learn of the cultures there, the languages that they spoke and probably find some way to improve their quality of life knowing that organisation's ethics. Edward's group met up with a Mormon in the area, called Joshua Graham, who knew some of the dialectics and was to teach them, but they didn't go very far before a tribe called the Blackfoots captured and held them all for ransom.

The Blackfoots had guts but they were simple and didn't know how to fight so Edward stepped up to teach them. They and the other Tribes from the canyon would raid each other and pillage to the limited capacity they were custom to, Edward changed that. He taught them tactics, organised them and then led them to utter victory against their weakest rivals. That could have been the end of it, but Edward had another lesson to teach. He asked them to surrender and when they refused he ordered the entire Tribe be killed, woman and children too. He went to the next tribe and ordered they surrendered, when they refused he took one of their envoys to the ruins of the last tribe who denied him and they soon joined up. In the words of Edward himself; "They played at war, raiding each other, a little rape and pillage here, a little ransoming there. I showed them total warfare."

As you can likely surmise, Edward went on to rename himself Caesar, basing his image on the many pre-war books he had read on the Republic of Rome. Joshua Graham became his 'Malpais Legate' and Bill was sent back home with a message "Don't interfere with me." What followed was a war of assimilation as the Legion broke the backs of Tribes and then absorbed their number into their own, erasing their individuality and personal histories on the back of a single vision dedicated in their reverence to their god king, the son of Mars, Caesar. These tribes were re-educated, taught tactics and Latin, rearmed, given American Football gear and spears to emulate old Roman battle dress, and reorganised into Legionaries, Speculatores and Frumentarii.

Caesar believed that the only way to bring together the fractures of society was to obliterate the identity and individuality which has driven them apart for centuries and unite them under a hegemonic, totalitarian, homogenous culture which enforces order and obedience to a higher ideal. One point of praise which is always levelled to the Legion is that their wake establishes undeniable structure on an otherwise wild world; caravaners trust in totally safe trading routes with Legion customs backing society. (And Legion punishments threating those who would dare to break it. Up to and including crucifixion.) Of course, the Legion is also prohibitively backwards, punishing homosexuality with death and refusing to allow Women to serve, mostly enslaving and trading them whilst treating them as little more than breeding stock.

Technology was largely frowned upon by The Legion, to the point where many Legionaries would charge into battle wielding spears and short blades, and subsist themselves on homeopathic healing powder recipes in place of Stimpaks. They shunned performance enhancing chems, preferring instead to train and refine their physical bodies to their utmost peak, and beyond bolt-action rifles and brush guns, they mostly left advanced firearms out of their armoury altogether. Caesar saw the trappings of technology as a crutch for humanity, an artificial back-bone which made society complacent and dependent. His Legion were built on the ideals that suffering and hardship forge the sharpest minds and toughest resolves, and learning to stand on their own feet without RobCo holding them up was a important philosophical step in his vision.

The Legion's greatest strength, it's rigidly centralised command structure, is also it's greatest weakness; as without a clear line of succession the death of Caesar would likely lead to the utter break down of it's ranks. Caesar had no children, and as of the events of New Vegas he was already dying from a brain tumour, which all makes it very hard to rely on the stability of a Legion built wasteland. Although perhaps that too is something that Caesar was trying to overcome when he, after a successful conquest of 87 tribes, bought his armies to Hoover Dam in order to fight the NCR for it's bounty. By breaking the back of the New Californian Republic, maybe Caesar sought to create a legend powerful enough to persist past himself and keep the Legion in line even after his passing. Who could honestly seek to rebel against the largest power in the wastes, afterall? 

After the events of New Vegas, the Legion would go on to either solidify their rule in the west or retreat back to Arizona, but either way their fate is never definitively finalised. An optimist could see this an a potential inroad to future tales about the Legion, perhaps of new upstarts staking their own claims to the throne. It seems that Caesar has forever changed the role and dynamic of tribes within the wastes from tiny reservoirs of  typically disparate local isolationists into a powerforce capable of seizing all the wastes with the right power behind them. A conviction demanding that human strength and numbers can overpower technological superiority when channelled through the right focus, and how that same strength can be corrupt into a particular person's grim vision of a wasteland saved.