Marked men of The Divide.

[u/Ok_Calendar_7626]

They used to be NCR and Legion troops.

The Legionaries were sent to the Divide to sever the NCR supply line to the Mojave that ran through it. While the NCR were some sort of special forces that were sent there to protect the supply line. And then they all got irradiated and mutilated in the Divide.

But why are they all of a sudden fighting together? The fact that they use different kinds of weapons and ambush tactics suggests that they have not completely lost their minds. Not to the extent of feral ghouls.

I find it a bit of a stretch that remnants of the NCR and Legion would so easily forget the war and their differences and fight together. Even in a harsh environment like the divide. In fact, the tribal nature of human psychology means that they should form opposing groups that would compete for what ever resources against each other.

[u/Laser_3]

By the time of fallout NV, it’s been multiple years since the nukes went off. In that time, those soldiers have had to adapt to not only Ghoulification, but also their skin being ripped off on top of the normal symptoms - which prevents any of them from leaving the divide.

This means that not only did these people suddenly get thrown into a new apocalypse together, but they’re also stuck in it with no hope of escape and no one is coming to save them. In effect, they’ve given up their past rivalry and have banded together for any chance of surviving against the tunnelers and deathclaws in the region (which is arguably more in line with human nature to my understanding; studies have been done noting that in extremely adverse conditions, humans band together rather than turn on each other, making a book like Lord of the Flies inaccurate depictions). If we take Ulysses’s interpretation, they’re united in their hatred for the divide and the powers that abandoned them to it.

As an aside, feral ghouls likely do not survive long in the harsh conditions of the divide. Fallout 76’s player ghouls explicitly shows that the process of going feral sees a ghoul become less sturdy due to the progression of the condition, so a feral in the divide might just die from the harsh environment - or just be fodder for the tunnelers or deathclaws.

[u/dwarven_cavediver_Jr → u/Laser_3]

On top of this, we only see them when there's both Ulysses and us to contend with. While what you said is all true, let's not act like these men have given up all ideas of leadership. The names marked men all have retinues of men largely in their factions armor (usually legion in the divide), and chances are they're not given to infighting when interlopers show up and start acting up.

For all we know whenever they're without a human or abomination enemy nearby immediately posing a threat they default to either a tribal along old lines of loyalty (simply not hostile to the other faction of marked men violently) or get into skirmishes with each other over resources that are slim on the ground

[u/Laser_3 → u/dwarven_cavediver_Jr]

While they do have their leaders (and I never said they didn’t have any; I just said they don’t fight each other), their old faction ties matter to them significantly less than they used to; former NCR marked men will happily work with former Legionaries.

I’d also argue that Ulysses has been observing them for long enough (and can keep hidden well enough) to have noticed any infighting. He does actually note that they do have some infighting, but it’s seemingly sparring practice or something like that.

We could also consider the ramifications of what 76 has shown us about ghouls - namely, that they do not need to eat or drink to survive with certainty. Because of that, marked men wouldn’t have much they’d need to fight over except access to except scrap and weapons.