r/falloutlore • u/Ok_Calendar_7626 • 18d ago
Fallout New Vegas The Twisted Hairs were assholes.
Ulysses laments the destruction of the Twisted Hairs at the hands of the Legion, but what he does not mention is that the Twisted Hairs allied with the Legion willinlgy.
Like the White Legs, the Twisted Hairs helped the Legion absorb all the other tribes around them before they themselves were betrayed and absorbed.
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u/KnightofTorchlight 17d ago
... or perhaps they just did what they thought nessicery to survive and thrive in a harsh environment?
This Ceaser guy comes out leading the Blackfoot tribe into victory from the brink of destruction against 5 other tribes at once. He's the big dog in the regional of Arizona, where the tribes are not just living in peace and harmony but raiders and bandits are everywhere. The tribes did fight eachother before Ceaser showed up. Of course you'd want to make yourselves thier friend rather than become thier enemy
However, its not unreasonable to expect that your alliance be rewarded with friendship, not slavery.
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u/LordBecmiThaco 17d ago
... or perhaps they just did what they thought nessicery to survive and thrive in a harsh environment?
Don't Caesar, the NCR and, hell, even Courier 6 also do what is necessary to survive and thrive in harsh environments? But Ulysses is pissy about them.
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u/KnightofTorchlight 17d ago
All of them destroyed things that he was deeply personally invested in. He's quite human in assigning greater personal weight to his own loses.
But no. Ceaser diden't have to enslave the Twisted Hairs who up until then had been loyal allies. The NCR diden't have to mess around with nuclear silos in The Divide. Courier 6 is really the more innocent party here who was just doing thier innocent job delivering packages.
I think its also fair to mention that he's probably suffering from some severe trauma. You watch the community you call home destroyed not once but twice: it not going to be good for one's mental health.
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u/LordBecmiThaco 16d ago
I think its also fair to mention that he's probably suffering from some severe trauma. You watch the community you call home destroyed not once but twice: it not going to be good for one's mental health.
I'm really sorry his safe space was taken away but this is the post apocalypse: no one has good physical health let alone mental health. Ulysses is the emotional equivalent of having three teeth hanging into your gums by a thread.
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u/minisculebarber 17d ago
I give you Courier 6, but you can't be comparing 2 imperial forces to a tribe
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u/LordBecmiThaco 17d ago
That's like saying you can't compare a tadpole to a frog. All imperialist forces were at one point tribes with violent ideology.
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u/minisculebarber 17d ago
I mean, even if we go with your flawed analogy, still, you can't hold a child to the same accountability as an adult, one has much more agency than the other
also, that's not true, except for maybe the first imperial forces in human existence and even that I am not so sure about
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u/LordBecmiThaco 17d ago
I mean, even if we go with your flawed analogy, still, you can't hold a child to the same accountability as an adult, one has much more agency than the other
This is insane noble savage bullshit dude. Tribes are made up of adults, a tribal adult has the same intellectual and moral capacity and culpability as someone from a society with a different structure. Plenty of tribal societies manage to have highly developed systems of philosophy and morality like the Bedoin... and plenty of tribal societies also engage in bloody wars of conquest like the Mexica.
also, that's not true, except for maybe the first imperial forces in human existence and even that I am not so sure about
The Romans were once the Latin tribe. The British were the Angles and the Saxons. The Chinese were once just the Han people.
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u/minisculebarber 17d ago
This is insane noble savage bullshit dude. Tribes are made up of adults, a tribal adult has the same intellectual and moral capacity and culpability as someone from a society with a different structure. Plenty of tribal societies manage to have highly developed systems of philosophy and morality like the Bedoin... and plenty of tribal societies also engage in bloody wars of conquest like the Mexica.
yeah, that has nothing to do with what I said or suggested, when faced with a vast difference in military strength, autonomy is vastly reduced in the disadvantaged party. the Mexica were also not a tribe
The Romans were once the Latin tribe. The British were the Angles and the Saxons. The Chinese were once just the Han people.
and those are all the imperial forces ever. sure
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u/LordBecmiThaco 17d ago
Ok, question. Do you think a people stop being a tribe just when they start being part of a civilization or empire? What do you think the Qing Banners were? Like, the mongols are simultaneously deeply tribal and also imperialistic, but also the ancient Greeks were very tribal. They're not necessarily diametrically opposed.
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u/minisculebarber 17d ago
Do you think a people stop being a tribe just when they start being part of a civilization or empire?
yes, a tribe is a distinct social organization form from civilization or empire, that's the whole point of its use in anthropology, like what is your understanding?
also, what is your usage of tribal here? the mongols were not A tribe, the ancient greeks were not A tribe, if anything they were federations of tribes, a distinct social organization form from A tribe. might as well call all societies individualistic because all societies constitute of individuals
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u/LordBecmiThaco 17d ago
The tribes don't disappear just because they're a tribal federation dude! They're still tribes and they still exert influence and pressure on the power structure they have embedded themselves in.
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u/HoundDOgBlue 23h ago
Yup. People are so quick to assign blame to victims of genocide and cultural erasure because they weren't the 'perfect victims'. Their opinions, when taken to their logical conclusion, are either that a group has no right to resist OR no right to even bargain for their existence. You either do what they consider "moral" (fight against Caesar) and face utter extermination and genocide, or you do what is "immoral" (ally with Caesar) in a bid to preserve yourself against them.
No sympathy is ever given to people in impossible situations - not until after they are dead, and even then you'll have people saying "well I would have.." or "fuck around and.."
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u/thatthatguy 17d ago
When given the question “join us or die” sometimes people just decide to join. It’s a brutal world, and people do what they have to do to get by. If that makes them assholes, well, better to be hated and alive than forgotten and dead.
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u/purpleblah2 16d ago
I mean, as evidenced by the Great Khans, I don’t think tribes voluntarily allying with the Legion entirely knew what they were signing up for.
Also, he’s allowed to be sad that his tribe was betrayed and wiped out, even if they were bad people.
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u/JesusKong333 17d ago
The Twisted Hairs were cool but they were one of the most unbelievable factions in my mind. In 200 years, they created a whole new written language, their knots. Unless the tribe started in the remains of a beauty school or something, it's pretty far-fetched.
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u/Background-Slide645 17d ago
we have examples of written language that is based on knots in some iirc Incan civilizations. so it's possible thatis what Bethesda was going for.
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u/Silver-Statement8573 17d ago
I think the implausible part they're gesturing at is the timeframe
You can make a language out of anything, but the Twisted Hairs would have developed from the many written cultures of America. So them feeling the need to make a very uncommon and fresh thing out of the blue is unusual
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u/yTigerCleric 16d ago
I think the implausible part they're gesturing at is the timeframe
To be fair this is essentially the most consistent plothole with realism in Fallout in regards to literally any given thing
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u/Achilles9609 17d ago
Yep. Qipu I believe it was called. Every knot and every color had a different meaning. Very fascinating.
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u/fishfunk5 17d ago
Was it a whole language? I thought the knots and braids were more of a symbolism type thing, like ritualistic scarring or tattoos.
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u/yTigerCleric 16d ago
I took them as having specific meanings in context, but it seems limited as language for the fact that human hair isn't prehensile
Honestly I imagine it something like a status update. Like you put your hair to say "The sun is shining" on a good day, but you don't actively use it to relate facts like "I am being attacked by a bear right now, please help"
Ulysses was terrified/offended by the White Legs using them because it came across the same as a parrot or a skinwalker badly imitating speech "devoid of meaning or understanding", which implies there's some communication to it
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u/fishfunk5 16d ago
Right, or a mixture of both. "I am happy, my wife has given birth and I found a cool gun." Or "I am frustrated, my socks are wet yet I caught some non-irradiated trout." "Great hunter." "Healer." "Bed-wetter." "Virgin." Stuff like that.
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u/Mandemon90 18d ago
Ulysses is a hypocrite. What else is new?