If you were born into a world that looked
like this one, with the bones of your dead
countrymen still lying in their beds, you
might have grown up just a little obsessed
with history.
The terrible story that led to all this.
As a person who grew up in a harsh and radioactive
wasteland, you would probably spend most of
your waking hours wrestling with questions
like, "How did this happen?
Will this catastrophe happen again, and if
so, can it be avoided".
It was in trying to answer these questions
that led to the birth of perhaps one of cruelest
tribes to ever be featured in a Fallout game.
This tribe is evil; however, they are one
of the biggest factions in post-war America,
and what they represent stretches well beyond
just the one game they make an appearance
in.
If the ultimate goal of Fallout is survival
in an unforgiving wasteland, then Caesar has
been playing that game at a much higher dimension
than most people give him credit for.
If you thought the Legion was just a post-apocalyptic
parody of the Roman Empire...
I'm afraid you haven't been paying attention.
Caesar was born about 150 years after the
Great War destroyed civilization in Fallout’s
timeline.
Society might have been sent back to the stone
ages, but by the time Caesar enters the scene,
the United States has started to bounce back
in the form of the New California Republic,
a democratic faction that dominates most of
the West Coast.
Born under the unassuming  name “Edward Sallow”, from
the very start, Caesar has a rough go at life.
Even as a protected citizen under the NCR,
he loses his father at a very very young age;
killed by raiders.
This is important, because it becomes the
single greatest event in the life of a man
who would later grow up to terrorize the wasteland
in his own right.
After the death of his father, Edward's mother
is forced to seek protection with the Followers.
The Followers are perhaps the most benevolent
faction in the wasteland.
Above all, they want to make sure the mistakes
of the Great War are never repeated.
What we're going to learn is that Edward Sallow
never stopped being a Follower.
As a matter of fact, in a sort of sick twist,
Caesar might be the epitome of what a Follower
can become once their keystone doctrine is
taken to its logical conclusion.
When we meet him for the first time in Fallout
New Vegas, it becomes very clear that this
man, surrounded by his animal skins and tribals,
is actually a towering intellect.
If you get to talk to him for long he'll try to justify the
actions of him and his Legion by referencing
philosophical ideas that can be found in the
books he's read.
And since Fallout's historical timeline is
just our historical timeline, these books
he's referencing are real.
They're these books to be exact.
All written by German authors, the topics
of these books give us a really unique insight
into the mind of a Caesar.
The ideology and philosophy,
the driving force behind Caesar’s Legion
and their ultimate goal in the wasteland
can be found in these pre-War books.
So how does a Follower become the Leader of
the cruelest tribe in the wasteland, and how
will that ultimately be a good thing for America?
Well, to answer both those questions we have
to look at Caesar's favorite author, or at
least the author he seems to reference the
most.
The 18th century German philosopher, Georg
Hegel.
[Caesar Audio Clip] "If there's anything Iearned
as a Follower of the Apocalypse, it's that
there's a lot of good information in old books."
Hegel, for those who aren't familiar, is credited
as one of the greatest systematic thinkers
in the history of western culture, a great
choice if you're trying to rebuilt civilization
from the ground up.
Hegel was a master historian.
He left his mark on philosophy by studying
the past, and studying the past is very important,
especially if your world was recently destroyed
by a nuclear war, and you're desperately clawing
for answers.
Looking at Hegel it's plain to see exactly
how much the Legion owes its existence to
this philosopher of the old world.
In his books, Hegel encourages his students
to “mine” history like one would mine
for gold.
Every civilization that existed throughout the ages could be looked at as a
grand human experiment, and every experiment
teaches you an important lesson.
The Romans could teach you how to conquer
and assimilate.
The Americans could teach you what happens
when your technology outpaces your morals.
To be a Hegelian historian means salvaging
from the past these important lessons.
And Caesar might be the greatest Hegelian
historian in the wasteland.
Yes, I know, Caesar crucifies people.
Enslaves them.
He makes his men fight with spears, and is
willing to let them die by the thousands because
he doesn’t want his Legion to use technology
like their soft and doughy enemies do.
Caesar, is a monster.
But like the best of them, this monster does
what he does, because he has clear purpose
and principals.
Caesar wants to eradicate cultural identity
in the wasteland, because in his well-read
mind, bickering people in a diverse and divided
world is what led to the apocalypse.
He wants to keep technology out of the hands
of the common man, not only to maintain his
own power, but because history recently demonstrated
that an over-reliance on technology is destructive
in the worst possible sense.
Over-reliance on tech is what led to the Resource
Wars; what prompted the Great War.
[Caesar Audio Clip] "The NCR is a loose conglomerate
of individuals looking out for themselves;
it's not built to last.
I'll destroy it because it's inevitable that
it be destroyed.
If you’re looking at the world through Hegel’s
lens, then the NCR is an experiment that has
played itself out before.
The NEW California Republic is really just
the OLD United States, with all the strengths
and weaknesses of a democracy.
And in case you've forgotten, in Fallout’s
timeline, democracies haven’t had
a great run as of late.
“If you want to see the fate of democracies,
look out the windows.”
And looking out the windows is exactly that
I did when I met Mr House for the first time.
The view is tragic.
The New California Republic thinks that rebuilding
society means bringing back the principals
and political institutions of a Pre-War America,
but if you think about this from the perspective
of any well-read person residing in the Fallout
universe, this is crazy.
If the definition of insanity is “doing
the same thing over and expecting different
results”, then yes, a really good argument
could be made against the NCR and its current
mission.
I think that even Caesar himself wouldn't
say that the New California Republic is inherently
evil, but their blind determination to bring
back the ideologies of a recently failed state
is “questionable” at best.
This flies in the face of what a post-apocalyptic
society should and would be concerned with.
Make no mistake, if you resided in a world
like the one presented here, preventing something
like the Great War from ever happening again
should rank very highly on your list of priorities.
And yes, you’d be right to say that Caesar’s
methods are way too extreme, but if Caesar’s
Legion is an overcorrection to the Great War,
then the NCR could most definitely be seen
as an under-correction.
If it’s true that history repeats itself,
then the NCR is ultimately doomed.
But, isn’t Caesar’s Legion ultimately
doomed too?
After all, in this game of post-apocalyptic
Civ, Edward Sallow has chosen to play as the
Romans, and as we've highlighted before, when
Caesar dies, this experiment of his ends,
and it likely ends very poorly, right?
Wrong.
The Legion’s mere presence in the wasteland
is important, and win or lose, the fact that
this faction even exists in Fallout’s timeline,
means that America might not be doomed after
all.
While Caesar might be the most well-read man
in the Wasteland, he’s forgotten to heed
one of Hegel’s most important lessons.
Hegel warned that mankind tends to make progress
by constantly jumping from one extreme to
another.
It's something that the wasteland itself is
currently going through.
To demonstrate how this pendulum of progress
works, let’s briefly look at a real-world
example from Hegel’s day.
The French Revolution.
During that period, an all-powerful monarchy
abuses its power, and in response an all-angry
peasantry lops off their heads.
Anarchy ensues.
Eventually order is restored when the pendulum
swings back to Napoleon, who in turn, promptly
abuses his power.
Only after the fall of Napoleon and many years
of bloodshed does the pendulum find equilibrium
with a modern state, a more balanced government
for the French people.
Hence, progress.
Like Napoleon, Caesar should and will fail,
but not before swinging the pendulum, one
more time.
While the Legion is certainly a bad thing
for those living in the wasteland at present,
its existence is vital if America is ever
going to learn.
Caesar isn’t just some poorly dressed cosplayer
trying to seize power, he’s presenting an
ideology to counter-balance the NCR’s ideology.
It's forcing mankind to look itself in the
mirror, and start asking itself questions it hadn't
before.
Without Caesar, or someone like him, America
is almost certainly doomed to repeat the mistakes
of the past.
So with that said, who stands at the center
of this pendulum?
Who's the equilibrium?
The synthesis?
The solution?
Is it Mr House?
Is it the Courier?
Is it someone, or something else?
Let me know what you think.
What should a governing body look like in
a world like the one presented in Fallout.
If your answer is simply the NCR, then I’d
don’t think you’ve been listening.
If you liked this video, and the philosophy
it explores, I would highly recommend checking
out the School of Life.
It’s a channel I personally watch a lot,
and it proved very helpful when researching
this topic.
If you want to learn how to rebuild society
in the event of nuclear war, here’s the
video about Georg Hegel.
I’ve been Josh, thanks for watching.
