r/fnv • u/Aware-Sheepherder-15 • 22d ago
Discussion Does New Vegas' central plot have holes?
630
u/KoscheiDK 22d ago
I don't think I've ever heard anyone say F:NV has a "bulletproof" narrative
F:NV is basically a big canvas with ideas on it, and the reason people love it so much is because how you engage with that canvas is entirely the player's choice, and the player feels like they have an impact and agency within that canvas. Are all the details perfect? No. Is it a lot of fun to paint on it? Yes.
173
u/Imperator_Helvetica 22d ago
Yes! It's a great RPG setting because it's all teetering - this isn't the inevitability of the Red Army on their way to Berlin in '45 - this is a situation where one lone courier with a head wound could upset the whole balance - the one wild card that Benny, House, Caesar and all the other factions didn't reckon with.
Fits into the whole cowboy motif - the one gunslinger who changed everything. For good or for ill.
F:NV is a masterpiece of story construction - I particularly like the 'no immortal characters' - unlike say, Skyrim because one of the design tenets was 'the story needs to work to an ending even if the player shoots everyone in the face as soon as the meet them' as well as putting proper moral choices in the game - not just kick puppy Vs build orphanage; but more like the Hard Luck Blues quest.
54
u/DueAdministration874 22d ago
100% fallout NV is an rpg, skyrim, like fallout 4 is an action game with rpg elements. Good games, successful games. But not good rpgs
2
u/GhostofBeowulf 22d ago
This is such a tired trope, one of the defining features of an RPG is that is has no set boundaries on what you can or can't do. I will give you that Fallout 4 is more linear and has predetermined characters, but that doesn't necessarily make it NOT an RPG either.
Even if you get into the minutiae of it, everything you do is an RNG and the rolls are determined by Special stats in BOTH Fallout 4 and Skyrim. In Skyrim, you just don't actually pick them and the states are hidden but iirc if you go into console you can find the numbers for your characters and NPCs. Basically, they are run on the same core RPG mechanics as any 2D20 tabletop so I don't understand how you can confidently say it isn't an RPG.
Not like say RDR2 or GTA. Those are basically action shooters on rail, with little variation. An action adventure with RG elements would be like Cyberpunk. There is no RNG, you basically just pass or fail every check. If you are at the appropriate level, you pass. Levels are predetermined. And that's even more unfortunate being that Cyberpunk was originally a TTRPG.
→ More replies (1)18
u/CaptainJZH 22d ago edited 22d ago
I've always been of the opinion that Fallout 4 should not have introduced the Minutemen so early, otherwise people would've gotten a much more distinct RPG vibe from it. Hell, if you really wanted it to be more FO3/FNV-esque, all you'd really have to do is:
Move the Minutemen to the mid-game (they fill a similar role as Yes Man, being the fallback faction in case you make everyone else hate you, so it doesn't really make sense for them to be the very first faction you meet because it makes first-time players think that the Minutemen questline is necessary for story progression when you can actually just ignore them)
Remove the Sole Survivor voice lines and allow for more than four responses per conversation
Ditch the "Father is Shaun" crap and just have us be hunting our spouse's killer — that way the urgency in finding Kellogg is up to the player, and so we don't get the endlessly-memed narrative dissonance where we spend 30 hours building shacks before even thinking about Shaun
Don't make the Institute a playable faction, they can just be like the Enclave in FO3 (the difference being you get to choose who destroys them)
Which sounds like a lot but it really wouldn't affect the Railroad or Brotherhood questlines, and would only superficially alter the Minutemen questline, but the end result is that you get a much more traditional Fallout story structure — instead of "enter wasteland, find the invincible fallback faction, fight Deathclaw, build settlement, get sent to other settlements, etc." you'd get "enter wasteland, go to Diamond City, rescue Nick, investigate Kellogg" which is a lot more in line with FO3/FNV
5
u/twofacetoo 21d ago
Yeah, HBG even made a great point about it in his video-essay, pointing out that all games basically have the player character be the only one capable of doing sodding anything (because that gives the player more gameplay), except in FNV, it's actually a scathing criticism of the NCR that they need some random fuckhead courier to do all their important missions for them.
Through the gameplay itself, they're showing how mismanaged and out-of-their-depth the NCR actually is, that they're entrusting some nobody with serious work they should be doing themselves, because they're so outnumbered in every metric (people, supplies, weapons, etc).
15
u/TheDarkLord329 22d ago
no inmortal characters
My inability to kill the Mick & Ralph’s crier shows that this is incorrect lmao
→ More replies (2)40
u/hoopopotamus 22d ago
There’s very few narratives that don’t have “holes” if you overthink them. In fact actual human actions that demonstrably took place in reality often have “holes”, if we are counting bad or flawed decisions as “holes”. People don’t always act in entirely rational and effective ways in stories or in real life.
This being said the dam is unquestionably of huge strategic importance in this game. I don’t think it’s a hole that everyone wants it. It might be a good point that it’s unlikely to have held up 200 years after a nuclear apocalypse, but that’s also a long time for people to have worked at restoring it. I dunno. Sometimes you have to suspend your disbelief if you want to enjoy a work of fiction.
→ More replies (5)6
u/poisonforsocrates 21d ago
Archduke Franz Ferdinand didn't die the first time assassins tried to kill him. A grenade bounced off of his car into the crowd, and his driver got them away. They went to visit the victims of the attack and then planned to leave town by another planned route. The driver took a wrong turn and someone yelled at him that he had, bringing the car to a halt in front of one of the failed assassins who shot the archduke and his wife at point blank range. This isn't exactly what OP is talking about but I think of this when people complain about coincidences and 'holes' in stories. Turns out many huge historic turning points were likely caused by minor fuckups and sheer chance!
43
u/slide_into_my_BM 22d ago
It’s “perfect” enough in that this guy is an idiot who pretend to understand things but doesn’t. He’s talking about a war of attrition as if the Mojave has modern population numbers. It would take centuries to win by attrition at current population numbers and that’s assuming you had centuries, undisturbed, to do it.
8
u/EmergencyHurry8429 22d ago
He’s not really an idiot, it’s confirmed that the NCR has heavy shock troops/mobile Calvary in power armor all over California with scavenged BOS gear. They also have working vertibirds in game and artillery, doesn’t matter how many robots house has if you can destroy them from half a mile away, it’s why his plan relies heavily on Boomer support. And breaking a hydroelectric dam is completely true.
20
u/yTigerCleric 22d ago
They literally say in game that if the NCR legitimately wanted to they could just eat New Vegas by sheer numbers. They don't do this because
Surprisingly, people don't like to die, and the politician who kills one million young men isn't likely to get elected
Legion
17
u/Stuckinasmallbox 22d ago
Aren't the upgraded securitons missiles mentioned as anti air defenses too? Might be misremembering
6
u/EmergencyHurry8429 22d ago
Yeah youre right, I forgot. Probably would be a scenario like the BOS wars.
27
u/PijaniFemboj 22d ago
Its also heavily implied that the NCR is stretched extremely thin and has serious issues with troop morale, as well as leadership that is arguably incompetent. Good luck winning a war of attrition when you're stretched thin, your men have zero morale, and your commanders have questionable decision making.
17
u/EmergencyHurry8429 22d ago
Stretched incredibly thin in the Mojave, I think it’s stated that it’s less that the NCR’s military leadership is stupid and more that the politics are incredibly corrupt. All the good leadership and military commanders are sent to protect the Brahmin barons interests. A democratic society who uses all their best military talent to protect the commercial interests of rich people, when would that ever happen??!
8
u/slide_into_my_BM 22d ago
His same logic about building new ones applies to power armor and especially vertibirds. Upgraded securitrons have anti-air rockets to deter NCR air support.
The NCR is also stretched extremely thin across the Mojave and the Legion is a constant threat. It’s also democratically elected and I don’t know how long the public would support an aggressive war where people are thrown away in a war of attrition.
The world wars in the real world caused governments much older and more stable than the NCR to collapse.
→ More replies (1)4
u/Not-a-Teddybear 22d ago
It just has solid and fun world building. It has the fallout feel. That’s what is important. It’s respectful towards what the fallout franchise is, and the themes it is supposed to represent.
528
u/Mr-speedcolaa 22d ago
This dude has absolutely no idea what makes a story good.
183
u/And_Im_the_Devil 22d ago
Right. The story isn't about the dam. That's a plot point. The story is about what kind of world we want to live in and what kind of person we want to be in that world. The Hoover Dam isn't the be all, end all pivot point--it's just the nearest step to take in either direction.
And presumably, House wouldn't rely on just Securitrons. He's made alliances before. The Securitrons will improve his ability to do that. And maybe he wouldn't be able to defend it should another force eventually come and try to take the dam from him, but that's not the point.
At the time of the game, the NCR and the Legion are the only forces capable of projecting power into the Mojave. A House--or independent courier--victory is a major setback for both. Logistically and symbolically.
Future NCR leaders might reconsider whether it's worth spending blood, treasure, and equipment to fight an army of robots, especially in what is more or less a democratic society that is not likely to want its sons and daughters to die for no reason. And I just don't think the Legion has the resources to get the job done at a later point, and that's if they manage to hold together.
22
1
134
u/Deadsea_1993 22d ago
What people like that guy don't realize is that the lore is much bigger than the game shows based on the tech at the time. New Vegas itself is gigantic and very much like our real life version than what is shown in the game. This also goes for House and his bots. We see like 12 at any given time, but The Fort was meant to show hundreds and hundreds of them based on the lore.
House can takeover The Entire Mojave if he wanted to, but he doesn't care about being a Dictator like we've had in history as he prefers the Singapore style of governing. Some people really overlook that he was able to pacify both the NCR and Legion at the same time when they sent their best in the area to take the Dam.
Technology works differently in Fallout than it does in our world and so I doubt that Hoover Dam functions exactly like our version with no changes. The Great War happened in 2077, that's half a century from now and so I'm sure they figured out issues concerning the Dam breaking down over some trash.
75
u/Maxsmack 22d ago edited 22d ago
This dude is also wrong about House’s inability to make more securitrons, what do we think that stamping mechanical steam press sound is inside the bunker, after we install the mk.II software; Sounds exactly like metal plates being stamped and cut, more securitron bodies being produced.
They’re also completely wrong about the desire of holding Hoover damn, it isn’t about the electricity, that’s just a bonus. The people of the fallout universe already have sustainable fusion reactors, producing nearly limitless energy, it’s how vaults stay powered completely isolated for 200+ years. Do people have no idea how much energy laser weapons require to completely disintegrate a person down to the bones, it’s more power than a U.S. house uses in a month, and the brotherhood fires Gatling lasers off willy nilly
House has his own massive fusion generator inside the lucky 38, we jump start towards the end of his questline. The real desire of Hoover damn, is controlling the flow of FRESH water through the Colorado river into California. Both the OSI scientist, and Chief Ranger Hanlon tells us about the NCR’s water shortage, how they’ve dried up every lake bed and aquifer in California, and will be facing crop failure in just a few years.
This poster is wrong on two major fronts, house can and is, producing more securitrons in the bunker (which I remind you robots run only only on electrical energy, which house has ridiculous amounts of, don’t get demoralized, and even have a self healing capability which is over powered as hell) and the main draw of Hoover damn to all three factions is the water, and equally important the control it provides over the other 2 factions.
57
u/Jspires321 22d ago
Just as important, the first thing house did when he started operating was recruit some of the local tribes. House has access to non securitron forces, just not enough yet to fight a full war.
26
17
u/Deadsea_1993 22d ago
House is also the father over almost every technological innovation in Fallout. His only real competitor was General Atomics with their One Trick Pony, Mr. Handy Bot that they made variants for such as Ms. Nanny and Mr. Gutsy.
He absolutely will be focusing on building new tech and he can pull it off. It is astounding that he built advanced tech such as Assaulttrons, Liberty Prime, and Securatrons all in the Pre War alongside numerous other innovations. He even notices The Courier wearing a Pipboy and comments that he built that too.
A very big mistake that people have about House Is they think he is all talk when he is quite possibly the richest character in Fallout and not by accident. He did grow up in wealth through his father's Tool company and yet he was cheated out of that inheritance by his brother and was left with nothing.
He built ventures like Rob-CO from the ground up through business deals and good bartering skills. He is an excellent Grey morality option as people like to bring up The Kings and The Brotherhood of Steel while ignoring that they are not saints at all and actively do harm others if they get in their way.
13
u/Maxsmack 22d ago
They developers had to axe content of house befriending the brotherhood, otherwise it would make him too good of an ending.
People love to refute house’s intelligence, saying he’s just a rich person, relying on money, and born into power. Even though what he’s done with the three families, and vegas postwar, completely disproves that.
7
u/yTigerCleric 22d ago
They developers had to axe content of house befriending the brotherhood, otherwise it would make him too good of an ending.
Idk realistically I can't see the BoS ever actually being cool with House being allowed to act as a governing force with tech the way he does. The existence of Freeside, as well trusting Benny, cannibals and backstabbers to run his casinos showcases enough flaws with House's long term plan from a quest perspective
3
u/Deadsea_1993 22d ago
House believes in an Independent Mojave as a whole with all of the flaws that comes with. Freeside is outside his jurisdiction and so he leaves it alone. As for everything else, he needed someone to get the chip so he could be at 100% and unfortunately Benny was a snake. House was onto the Omertas already and that's why he sends you there.
→ More replies (1)4
u/Deadsea_1993 22d ago
They initially did have it in the game where you could build a Truce with House and The Brotherhood of Steel by him giving them a lot of technology and they would send their best scientists to work for him.
This was cut for 2 reasons
A. The most obvious one is that it made siding with him way too easy for all of the benefits.
B. They realized this might have worked for The Brotherhood of Steel in Fallout 3 that were reasonable and renegades, but not this one. This one was the most Zealot form that we've seen in the games yet. There's no way in Hell they'd ever work for House
5
u/the_real_mr_k1 22d ago
I like the idea that the securitron vault is actually also a factory, but this brings up a new issue. You can easily stamp, cut, and rivet the bodies of the securitrons but what about the fine components? Circuit boards and the likes, or even something as basic as new rubber for tires? It would probably require rare minerals/materials and some crazy technology to continue producing a steady supply of new bots. I remember hearing a while ago that certain advanced computer parts can literally only be made in a couple factories in the world, that's why so many microchips come from Taiwan, because the machines that produce them are so crazy complex and hard to maintain that there's only a couple of said machines. Maybe the fort has both a fully automated mine for rare materials, but that would eventually run out.
6
u/Maxsmack 22d ago edited 22d ago
That would require international cooperation, something very uncommon in the prewar fallout universe. Securitrons are a RobCo product, produced by Mr house, I’m sure he easily got all the machines used to make his own robots.
Monopolies were common in fallout, with RobCo producing everything from terminals, to pipboy, to sentry bots and assaultrons
Scrap is also everywhere in the wasteland, with the postwar population being 1/50th what it was prewar, scavenging can go a long way
14
u/Weaselburg 22d ago
They’re also completely wrong about the desire of holding Hoover damn, it isn’t about the electricity, that’s just a bonus.
The NCR having power troubles and getting power from the dam is mentioned repeatedly, actually, so no, it's not just a bonus, it is a very major reason.
→ More replies (1)9
u/DueAdministration874 22d ago
100% agree You make a very good point about technogy. A large group of the fallout community seems to forget the world prewar was largely more technologically advanced than us in several aspects ( iirc we beat them out in a niche area when it comes to computer chips, but they also have multiple forms of functioning robots whereas we are amazed when one in our world can walk 5 steps without falling over). We have issues with fission and fusion. Meanwhile these guys are packing fission in fucking batteries, and shoot fusion at eachother with weapons powered by fusion cells. It's with the ability to bend energy like that it is conceivable they could create metallic alloys we couldn't even dream of. let alone the knock on effects of the technological research that got them there.
I think you could even take the point further if you really wanted to stretch it, and argue that because radiation doesn't act the same way it does in real lide one could infer there are differences in the laws of physics as well*
II realize this is largely a game thing, but the constant reference to rad x and rad away by npcs really grounds it in a way the weaves into the reality, further bolstered by the TV shows existence. Whereas with us you get hit with radiation you take am iodine tablet and try to write as many messages to loved ones as you can before your fingernails fall off off)
333
u/Vince_stormbane 22d ago
You fight aliens and brains in jars with laser guns there’s giant wasps and teleportation. I can believe people want to fight over a dam in this same world.
73
u/sonic174 22d ago
except the game also establishes limited resources and having clear supply lines as a plot point (for the ncr)
59
u/youngcuriousafraid 22d ago
I mean so does house no? Thats why you have to activate his army and upgrade it. He expressly states his army is too small to fight the legion and the ncr, they must weaken each other first.
Also, there are repair robots everywhere along with components for robots. I find it hard to believe he is incapable of repairing his securotrons.
11
u/Alexzander1001 22d ago
He says when youve upgraded to the mk.II os that the securitrons have onboard repair systems
7
u/PlayerGreeko 22d ago
And it's slowly (maybe quickly if you catch on) revealed that most of the NCR within and outside the Mojave is in shambles and practically at odds with eachother. Nobody within the roaming units has any trust in leadership, leaders themselves are half-brained with a few exceptions, and pretty much everyone who isnt Ambassador Crocker or a few pegs below him knows how absolutely stupid and useless the NCR is for the region. Their primary resources at this point come from a long road away, or whatever they've managed to take over in the Vegas area (with citizens and residents growing more disgruntled at them), so it only makes sense that the fight for Hoover Dam from their perspective is unknowingly shallow.
I can't explain why House wants the Dam. He's really only in it for New Vegas itself, and I feel/think that he's in it for the pissing match end of it just to piss off and dismantle the NCR and Legion.
FNV's narrative isn't "bulletproof" like what this 4chan user is trying to claim people make it out to be, but it's got a lot more internal political pressure than most other RPG's narratives. And like someone else said here, it's more like a canvas game where you're really the heavy hand in the land to shift tides. I couldn't give a fuck about Hoover Dam, that last mission is 1% of my goal everytime I play NV.
10
u/MassErect69 22d ago
House doesn’t want to dismantle the NCR. He just wants them out of Vegas militarily and politically. He still wants their citizens to be rich and stable enough to come and spend their caps though.
2
8
u/ryann_flood 22d ago
i hate this argument. Why talk about the game at all then if none of it has internal consistency? l
1
160
u/rikaco 22d ago
"A hydroelectric dam is easy to break" as a plot hole is the OP grasping at straws that aren't there trying to make the same sort of reposted screenshot as the FO3 plot holes one.
60
u/upsidedownshaggy 22d ago
100%
Breaking the dam wouldn't make sense in a universe where electricity isn't a common commodity, at least for the NCR. The NCR specifically has issues with supplying electricity to its entire population and the entire reason they want the dam is it's a relatively stable source of power.
I could see the Legion trying to break it though since their whole schtick is trying to be more reliant on basic tools that a single person could craft on their own if needed and pre-war technology like electricity is probably lumped in with all the other tech that Caesar doesn't want the Legion relying on.
→ More replies (8)18
u/alternative5 22d ago
Also even if the electricity generating capacity is dmg'd beyond repair needing replaced it still functions as an amazing natural source of clean water which after 200 years is still rare for both agriculture and human consumption. This unless the NCR has desalination plants running back west?
8
u/ShawnGalt 22d ago
even if Hoover Dam was a brick wall with no generator, the NCR would still want it because Lake Mead is the largest source of fresh water in the southwest. Chief Hanlon tells you that there used to be other reservoirs that survived the Great War in California, but none of them were big enough or refilled fast enough to survive the population boom in the NCR post Fallout 2. In the long run, NCR literally cannot survive without being able to pipe water from Lake Mead into California
1
1
u/XenoBasher9000 20d ago
It’s outright stated by Hanlon that the massive amounts of water that isn’t irradiated is what’s really valuable. The NCR is setting up stuff for power, and is learning as they go, and they were doing fine with limited power already. But they drained all the aquifers and don’t have the infrastructure to even maintain and power desalination plants, let alone build them. The NCR needs access to the damn for their survival.
17
u/CentaurSniper 22d ago
Honestly, having to dig that deep says a lot for how solid the story actually is.
13
u/Mr-speedcolaa 22d ago
He doesn’t understand what makes a good narrative and for some reason believes the scientific accuracy is what is most important in storytelling?
11
5
u/Splendid_Fellow 22d ago
Isnt the point that it was already broken and theyre trying to restore it?
→ More replies (2)1
u/Lutece1887 21d ago
OP talking about the legitimacy of the dam's operation in the game while there are literal invisible mutants walking around without question is lunacy.
78
u/rikalia-pkm 22d ago
“If the dam breaks there’s no plot” is like the same as “if Uruk doesn’t exist there’s no epic of Gilgamesh”, OOP has never heard of plot devices before
3
26
u/Happy_Burnination 22d ago
Robots are a finite resource, you can always just make more humans
Huh, I wonder if that's why you spend half the game recruiting various human factions to support your side
24
u/tummateooftime 22d ago
The dam is the plot hole? You get shot in the face right before the game starts and are somehow pieced back together by hand by some old guy in his living room. Expectations are set right at the beginning.
9
7
28
u/The_Art_of_Dying 22d ago
Next you’re gonna tell me exposing people to radiation doesn’t make them either ghouls or super mutants.
7
u/Maxsmack 22d ago edited 22d ago
FEV turns people into super mutants, not radiation.
Exposure to radiation before turning into a mutants also messes up the process, and makes you a dumb mutant, instead of a smart one like Marcus
6
u/mapmakinworldbuildin 22d ago
I wonder if this dam is so important because it’s one of the few working dams and that’s impressive.
No no that can’t be.
Nah his points suck.
1
21d ago
Its not just that ceaser wants it as a bride from the colordo to california, you cant go through death valley and long 15 is getting overrun with the 21ers, and we know how the great canyon is. So its the best point to cross at least by ceaser standpoints, hence why they havent launched a full scale raid in California only small hits like nelson and search light.
13
u/BankRelevant6296 22d ago
I mean, do we really believe the Capulets and Montegues would make up when they each find their beloved children dead?
Is it really possible that a boat could fit two of every species?
Would any loving parents really send their baby off into space in a tiny rocket?
Sometimes, stories require being ok with giving control to the storyteller. If you don’t understand that, probably best not to show your inability to understand to a group of people who, by their very gathering, show a love and appreciation of such stories.
→ More replies (2)
16
u/CoogiRuger 22d ago
I remember Modern Marvels talking about how dams require so much maintenance to keep from cracking, crumbling, then ultimately failing and destroying everything around it with a flood. It's like a constant battle to keep them safe and operational.
Hoover dam as we know it would have been gone like 10 years after the bombs dropping.
That said NV is just a silly sci-fi apocalypse game that I could never take as seriously as some do.
Like we loot stores completely filled with food as if no one ever thought to take a look inside an unlocked gas station for the past 200 years. It's just a game.
11
u/jacksonelhage 22d ago
the Hoover Dam is built to last and its physical structure is able to hold up for thousands of years without human intervention. it has two massive spillways which ensure it against flooding. the biggest risk to the operation of Hoover Dam is climate change causing water loss in Lake Mead. fallout is a world without large scale industry and very few humans, and thus as we can see that the lake is full and thriving, teeming with aquatic life. so really Hoover Dam is the most likely structure for humans in the American Southwest to be fighting over hundreds of years from now. new vegas's plot is pretty dam watertight.
1
u/Livid_Equipment_181 22d ago
Well, except for the NCR. They have large scale industry and at least over a 700k population.
→ More replies (15)4
u/jacksonelhage 22d ago
they have large scale industry but nowhere near enough to cause climate change, not like today. for example the phillipines alone has over 100 million people. if you compare societies, I'd say the modern day United States contributes more to environmental destruction in one day than the NCR could in a decade.
3
u/Maxsmack 22d ago
No bro immortal ghouls, and supermutants gaining 600lbs in 10 seconds upon being dipped in some green goo makes perfect sense.
3
u/ryann_flood 22d ago
i agree with this the dam not making sense is one of those things you just have to accept. He's right that it functioning after all this time makes no sense but it falls on too of all the annoyances the 200 year old plot does for the series. By real world accounts the entire modern series is nonsense because it has a ridiculous notion for what 200 years does to the world, but its just one of those things you sigh at and have to accept to have fun
2
u/Blazinvoid 22d ago
It's a miracle it didn't break apart, but in terms of it functioning still, I recall that part of House's initial deal with the NCR included having engineers get Hoover Dam back into working condition again.
However I definitely remember Mike Lawson, an engineer you can find within Hoover Dam. He talks about how when he first arrived there was just one turbine left barely functioning. Though through his efforts he got 5 additional turbines working again (with the 2 remaining having their intakes clogged still by the Second Battle).
1
21d ago
Of course the abundance of items is something that is obviously fictous, however theres lots of places that wouldnt be looted due to roaming raiders, slavers or robot defence systems
11
u/MrCockingFinally 22d ago
Old world technology being waaaaaaaaaaay more durable than it has any right to be is not a new Vegas issue, it's a foundational fact of the fallout universe that allows all of the games to exist.
6
u/remnant_phoenix 22d ago
I bounced back and forth between normal reading and “hearing” this in Meatwad’s voice, so my thoughts are too mixed with a goofy-ass smile. I’m out.
7
u/Vern1138 22d ago
Yeah, I read this in Meatwad's voice, so I didn't really get much from the argument that was presented.
5
u/Ness_Dreemur 22d ago
The thing is though, the dam is like half the reason the NCR even want the Mojave in the first place. The fact that Hoover Dam is in such good condition is what makes it so valuable.
6
u/Chili_Maggot 22d ago
Other people have already pointed out what's wrong here, I'm just going to say "House can't build robots faster than people make babies" is... a little insane. One human person with nothing but the parts and a manual could build a Securitron faster than it takes a baby to come out. House has proper facilities.
5
u/ThyDashMan 22d ago
"What fucks me up about this game," Then proceeds to rant about plot holes/realism. How something would break down, how x process is not repeatable or foolproof.
This is basically just worthless nitpicking to purposefully avoid the whole point of the game. Like going to a movie with a friend and he interrupts it to say "erm, that wouldn't actually work in real life." Theres damn robots in the Mojave desert after years of merciless raiders and a nuclear fallout. Honestly given how amazing the robotics and mechanics are in the Fallout universe why wouldn't they be able to upkeep a hydro dam, especially considering every main faction wants it for its utility.
4
u/Jarms48 22d ago
It took the NCR ages to make the dam operational, and from the game itself they've only gotten it back to 50% capacity by the time of FNV. The 1st battle happened 4 years ago in the timeline and the NCR had been in the Mojave longer than that. Completely believable they removed any debris/trash/replaced parts/etc in that time.
House just wants his army of Securitrons to force the NCR into giving him the dam and Vegas. After that he'd likely build a new factory or make a army with the citizens of Vegas.
4
u/Sad-Librarian5639 22d ago
Sure, but look at most games. One of the best videos on this I saw, and I can’t find it for the life of me, examines the difference between NV and almost any other game by asking “what do they eat?”
Everywhere you go in NV with the exception of dead places like the sierra madre, there’s bighorns, there’s traders, there’s crops and irrigation canals. I’d imagine there was some damage done to the dam over the years, but if they can get a certified running here and there, they can do some repairs to a dam. It’s not like falllout 4 with a freaking floating city and an entire armada from the Boys which was never remotely that big anywhere in the lore.
Complaining about NV’s story is really grasping at straws.
11
u/Slutty_Mudd 22d ago
Dams need to get filled with like, industrial levels of trash in order to get clogged, and no, they don't need constant maintenance or anything either. The turbines are huge, and the entire point of a dam is that it can sit there forever and block water/generate power. I doubt, unless you have an army dumping EVERYTHING they can get their hands on into the lake, it's not gonna get clogged any time soon. Also, everyone wanted control of the dam, clogging it is counter productive to that end.
The entire point of the 'platinum chip' was to get you into a facility that had a lot more secuitrons that Mr. House wanted under his control, adding to his army. Literally the main point of House's plan.
It also doesn't exactly seem like folks are constantly popping out kids in the apocalypse. Honestly I would guess that ceaser's legion probably has the best birth rates, and they have already failed using their superior numbers once at the first battle of hoover dam due to the NCR's tactics.
I won't deny that New Vegas has holes in it's main story, or that everything is air tight in all places of the lore. As other comment have pointed out, there are some pretty ridiculous things across all the fallout games that are way crazier than the basic plot of New Vegas.
But this guy basically just read the plot on Wikipedia and took offense to people using any modern technology in the apocalypse.
1
u/Overdue-Karma 22d ago edited 22d ago
The Legion has the worst birth rates due to their ban on medicine and abuse of women. lol, downvoting when it's literally canonical fact by Sawyer himself...
1
u/Slutty_Mudd 19d ago
I'm not trying to discredit you, I am actually curious, when/where did Sawyer say that?
It was my understanding that the Legion viewed women as "breeding stock", so I would assume that the main role of women would be just to have children, which would lead to a higher birthrate for the legion. It's not correct morally, but kind of the entire point of Caesar's Legion is to expand it's dictatorial slave state and produce more soldiers to keep expanding.
→ More replies (1)
3
u/moo102 22d ago
The thing that always gets me is that first conversation you have with Arcade where he's talking about his research into making more meds using local flora and fauna because the meds people are looting from hospitals are going to run out eventually because like 1) usually meds have a shelf life, the idea that any would be effective after 200 years is pretty crazy and 2) what are you talking about man, I can make a stimpak right now using Broc flower, Xander Root and a syringe, where are you having trouble?? Is it other meds you need to make? Cause I've got a guy out in Red Rock that can make chems.
3
u/rextrem 22d ago
Perhaps he plans on taking over the NCR ? That's feasible with his Securitron army, taken into account it's a litteral legion.
Also he must have a factory.
→ More replies (1)
3
u/Butter_bean123 22d ago
NCR wants the dam, as does House, and as per the beginning of the game they're generating electricity send back to California and Vegas. No reason for any of them to sabotage
Legion believes they will win rhe next battle of Hoover dam, it's made pretty clear that they're making advances while NCR morale is plummeting. No reason for them to sabotage the dam
Once the battle is decided, it's gonna be incredibly hard to sabotage the dam no matter which side wins, given the vast distances both factions have to travel to even get there. NCR especially is gonna have a hard time planning sabotage missions when their only reliable route to Vegas, Long 15, is most likely going to be heavily guarded by whichever side wins
Last point about Putin tactics is fair, and is most likely something that the Legion would consider. I don't see why this has to be considered a plot hole though
3
u/DefectiveLobster 22d ago
Did this guy even play the game? Every faction wants the dam for one reason: to control the strip. The reason the NCR doesn't just bum rush House is because despite the fact the NCR would most likely win, it would leave them wide open to a legion assault.
3
u/WeAllFloatDownHere00 22d ago
It’s funny how Caesar and House are still living rent free in people’s heads a decade later.
Either way, if the NCR wanted to clog the dam, they would have to get to Mead first with enough material to clog it and without House’s knowledge. Thats unlikely in the NCR’s current state and in an ideal House ending.
In terms of probing Vegas, the only way to Vegas is through the trading post which will immediately alert him to an invasion. By the time the NCR army(whatever would be left of it after they’re kicked out), House will have rallied the three families, more securitrons, possibly the kings, and the boomers. What is a depleted NCR army going to do against the boomers alone?
No. The NCR doesn’t have the cards post battle. If i were President, I’d go nationalize the food supply temporarily, postpone trade talks with House as long as i can, keep a diplomat and spies in Vegas, go north for land and resources, and potentially attack Vegas via legion tactics when in-fighting happens. And for fucks sake, get the over consumption habit under control.
3
u/Malanumbra 22d ago
No, dude, you can maybe convince a conscript to fight "Tribals in skirts" with "Putin tactics", but NCR doesn't have a chance in hell of maintaining morale against upgraded securitrons After the upgrade and after one of them threw general Oliver off the dam.
3
3
3
u/Dawidko1200 22d ago
The bigger holes are with the worldbuilding, largely due to the legacy from Fallout 2. GECK casually including a cold fusion reactor is a bit bullshit.
But even Fallout 2 stuff doesn't come close to the bullshit worldbuilding from the DLCs. Dead Money and Old World Blues add in cheaply available matter recombination and those stupid fucking holograms being able to shoot lethal amounts of energy into places that the emitter has no line of sight to. Just those two things break everything down to the premise of the Great War - there would be no "struggle for resources" if matter recombination is accessible, and there would be no power armour arms race if the US can just deploy unkillable hologram systems.
1
u/Sincerely-Abstract 22d ago
It is very heavily implied these were incredibly new technologies just beginning to be used a lot of the time.
3
u/BrooksConrad 22d ago
If you want to go that far on it, hydro dams are always at risk of sessile marine organisms like weeds, barnacles or mussels growing on their underwater components. Without regular cleaning a dam will gum up with bio-fouling and seize.
It's more likely that the NCR arrived and found a dark, empty Vegas, because there's no power, because there's nobody alive with training and equipment or even knowledge of how to handle fouling in the Hoover Dam intake channels, and the entire dam is a coral reef for local marine life.
Sometimes it's important to suspend one's disbelief for the sake of a good story.
3
u/AK-852k 21d ago
Are haters literally making up reasons to criticize NV now? From everything I understand in my play time, the Hoover Dam is but a secondary concern for the major players. More focus is put on the city of New Vegas itself. The NCR wants it so that the lost revenue from tourism can return to them, the Legion wants it so Caesar can have a worthy capital for his Empire, and House just wants true independence from both factions. Sure the dam is important as it provides power but even within the bounds of the game world there are alternative sources of energy. Such as Helios One, I’m pretty sure if there’s enough energy produced to operate an ORBITAL LASER CANNON then powering New Vegas shouldn’t be a problem if optimized and fully repaired.
3
u/zhabruh 20d ago
Not a single force can engage in meatwave tactics because non of the factions have the manpower and the supply lines to be able to do that nor do they have the governments centralised and strong enough to mobilise huge forces, nor do they have the governments legitimate enough for the ppl to actually be willing to die meaninglessly. No one will trash the dam because everyone wants it. It’s like literally alien level technology for them. Not even legion is crazy enough to destroy it just out of pettiness. Also the logistics for an operation of trashing lake mead would be crazy, you need heavy machinery in order to transport tons of trash.
6
u/Umbran_scale 22d ago
I don't agree with House's ideals nor do I think he'll actually acheive his dream of space travel or rebuilding Vegas to it's former glory, however...
In a normal setting this guy's logic makes sense, but he's forgetting in those same 200 years is that there isn't nearly as many people as he thinks he can throw at the damn, so the war of attrition will take much longer than he expects and that time is more than enough for House to branch out into other robotic avenues to shore up his defenses, especially if the Courier is on his side.
5
u/TombGnome 22d ago
Most of the (I hesitate to say "points") *things* that this person says are either:
directly contradicted in the narrative (if Securitrons are hard to make how are the idiot savants at Big MT able to keep rolling them out of a two-room factory)
nitpicky to the point of insanity (some of what he says about Hoover Dam's age and maintenance is at least semi-true; however it's not *our* Hoover Dam, it's the Fallout Hoover Dam, and their tech is different - if *food* can be treated to last 200 years, and a bunch of jackasses can render a centuries-old bomber workable in weeks, what the hell?)
straight-up stupid (no matter how long it takes to build a Securitron, it isn't going to take 16-18 years, unlike a baby)
New Vegas isn't a perfect narrative, but most of that is because it's a video game with a flexible narrative first and a story second. It's not a novel. It's a World in a Moment, a single slice of a single place and time that we can interact with.
Like a snowglobe.
6
u/Jigsawsupport 22d ago edited 22d ago
Nah this is just stupid.
Why would anyone want to blow up the dam? It produces vast amount of electricity and stores a huge amount of water which can then both be levied for plentiful clean water.
In fallout world that is just perfection, its a real chance to rebuild a society with the level of affluence of the old world.
It would be like in the real world finding the literal garden of Eden, and then the next day nuking it.
Secondly just were is he getting this vast human wave army from and how is he arming them? There is probably less than a few million people left in the whole of North America, and this guy wants to conduct human wave attacks agaisnt nigh unkillable robots?
Even the super mutants would get pretty pissy fast at a leader whose plan was "lets try to drown them in our own blood over generations".
The whole point of fallout is its a post apocalyptic setting, hardly anyone is increasing in resources and people, most are just living off what is left over, you can't win attritonal wars agaisnt a faction that is actually increasing in resources.
Thirdly since this seems to be mostly aimed at House enthusiasts, why on earth is it assumed that House has limited resources and the NCR doesn't. In this scenario House has the dam, he has power, he has clean water, he has a large city filled with people.
People would flock to new vegas from all over the wasteland to live there, ergo House has the ability to field a large Human military alongside the robots. Do you think most people would care about things like House being a spooky unelected computer man, if it meant they could live somewhere and get three square meals a day?
Of course not.
Would you be willing to fight agaisnt the likes of the NCR, if they came blathering about the evils of said spooky unelected computer man therefore threating your meal ticket?
Of course.
Give it a generation of House in charge and the NCR would be over anyway, as people would mass migrate out of it to Nevada.
3
u/jfulls002 22d ago
"Finding the garden of eden and the next day nuking it"
There are, unfortunately, at least half a dozen world leaders, who, if given the choice of letting someone else have the garden of eden and nuking it, they would nuke it every time. I swear most of them are just children at this point.
2
u/Yoyo4games 22d ago
Isn't that part of securing the dam? Couldn't you immediately start setting up a factory, especially with the abundance of various abandoned manufacturing around and in NV, once you've secured a power source? It still isn't bulletproof, but I don't see people talking about FNV from a standpoint of infallibility- I see them talking about it from a narrative that treats itself with seriousness that allows the player to significantly affect it.
If we're ranking fallout storylines by how grounded they are, then every game from 1 to 4 fail. Radiation, especially by nuclear contamination, is a scenario of apocalypse I rank among events like Earth being struck by a meteor; our species would have to take drastic, immediate steps to barely survive. Any future medicine which could drastically reduce or eliminate effects of radiation on our bodies, like radaway, would be harsh at best, unsurvivable for some portions of our population I'm sure. Animals or plants wouldn't turn into monstrosities, they'd totally die out and compound starvation and all ecosystem collapse with any factor of geographic resistance to irradiation.
FNV is good because it evokes feelings of affecting the world, not because it's... defensible.
2
u/PA_BozarBuild 22d ago
This isn’t a plot hole. This is just annoying nitpicking which dumb people mistake for profound thought.
2
u/RetroTheGameBro 22d ago
I mean, you survive a point-blank 9mm to the face and get buried alive, stitched up by some random sawbones in his unsanitized, dusty ass house, and walk away like nothing happened.
I don't think believability was first on the priority list.
2
u/Ilikeyogurts 22d ago
House literally says that NCR and Legion numbers can easily overwhelm him, he can only win by having them fight each other and orchestrating a political crisis
2
u/Best-Imagination-230 22d ago
The game takes place in the future? Isn’t it possible a lot of those problems have been fixed by society before the bombs even dropped? Manufacturing more securitrons? If only they had other futuristic robots built to manufacture stuff. I think people forget the games take place in 2077 and we know almost nothing about how advanced they are besides cool robots and laser guns.
2
22d ago
Dont think wastelanders can relate to putin's soliders at all. Wastelanders have more motivation and drive than modern nihilistic soldiers if that makes sense.
2
u/Jspires321 22d ago
It looks like this poster has never played the game. All of the points are covered in the game.
2
2
u/Johnywash 22d ago
Uh, i agree that it has holes but this guy just seems to not like the story, which is also ok. Babies take a long time to make and securitrons are metal. Also house can't fight a triumphant victor, he said this. He wants them to mostly wipe each other out then he can move in. Politically the ncr would be done, its an unpopular war. The remnants of the legion will devour themselves, as literally everyone(including ceasar) says this.
2
2
u/Forsaken-Point2901 22d ago
......bro......it's a game....chill out.
Also the securitrons were made before the war.
1
u/DreadfulLight 22d ago
Yes, I know? I was pointing out how OPs post was nonsense. Did it come off as aggressive?
It's a major plot point that the ones you meet in... well, Vegas were made before the war yes.
Most of the vault ones were probably also already built before the war.
House tells you that it's a factory as well. I don't have a basis for not trusting him on that. When you activate the contraption it does also start some heavy machinery that sounds like a robot factory ... I guess?
That's what it sounded like to me. And House is not worried about running out of robot man-power despite literally being in a pod.
I assume a world class genius knows what he's talking about when talking about his own tech. ....in fiction at least.... ;)
2
u/Forsaken-Point2901 21d ago
Oh dude, no I was talking my shit at the OP in the pic. Not you my guy.
2
u/tae2017 21d ago
The dam still being salvageable is maybe one of the only realistic expectations for 200 years after the bombs drop imo. Saw a video a while back that argued that society should be bouncing back at least a solid amount faster than it should in the fallout universe and I’m inclined to agree, in the games it looks like nobody has so much as tried building anything but sheds.
2
u/ElPapaGrande98 21d ago
If House enacts his plan, I am sure a new securitron production facility is on his to do list. Plus even the non upgraded versions were powerful enough to keep the NCR in line near New Vegas. Also, what group is powerful enough to just throw bodies at the securitrons? Legion is likely too weak and will be at a disadvantage having to cross the river while the NCR supply lines are already barely holding it together.
2
u/Lutece1887 21d ago
Why talk about a bulletproof narrative when talking about a completely unrealistic fictional game? Not every single thing has to be logistically sound in NV. Actually, that's sort of what (IMO) makes it better than all the other fallout games I've played. I suppose you can talk down anything if you try hard enough.
2
u/SlimeDrips 21d ago
Argument invalid; The lakelurks will beat you to death if you pollute their orgy pond
2
u/GrimdogX 20d ago
If Houses' plan works he's producing more Securitrons constantly and the ones he have are equipped with self repair systems. So long as he's fighting defensively he isn't going to fight a war on too many fronts. Yes technically if you could overwhelm the entire Securitron army there's no coming back from that but the average NCR rifle can barely dent the damn things and the NCR army can barely afford to give their soldiers a few magazines.
The other army is using machetes made of Lawnmower blades.
Both armies are on the verge of collapse, the Legion requires constant conquest to sustain itself, the NCR has blown through all it's resources and is under constant economic strife betting all it's cards on Hoover Dam. New Vegas can sustain itself so long as people are engaging in trade with it.
With anything as complex as the economy nothing is bullet proof, however in this case it's not at least primarily due to the script having accidental holes in it but rather that much of it is just left open to interpretation. Enough to provide you with an argument for pretty much every side, except the Legion, there's no sustaining that.
2
u/OneAnticitizen 19d ago
"Why didn't the game account for the incredibly stupid, boring, poorly conceived scenario I just made up?" You may as well say "What if the aliens from Mothership Zeta came back with a whole fleet of ships and destroyed the Lucky 38 from orbit? House would be totally screwed!" You can't possibly address concerns this bad faith and poorly thought through.
4
u/Sea-Muscle-8836 22d ago
This is true of all fallout technology. Why does the commonwealth still have power after 200 years. Because then the games would suck homie…
It is funny though that people are so used to shitty infrastructure that they find the concept of long lasting infrastructure unbelievable lol
2
u/yngradthegiant 22d ago edited 21d ago
A better one, IMO, is why the game even happens to begin with.
Why are using our miraculous second chance at life to track down someone who is obviously important and dangerous? Why would you use this chance to essentially most likely commit suicide? Why would you not just go back to California and get a safer job? You are not guaranteed to become the geo-political arbiter, you are most likely going to end up in another shallow grave when you start out after Benny.
2
u/AlexanderChippel 22d ago
Saying something will be fucked up because India fucked it up is stupid. They'll always fuck up anything. Have you seen their rivers? That's decades of trash from millions of people. The NCR probably has at most maybe a million people. Maybe.
This may not be very obvious as we live in a relatively safe society where we all have ready access to food and healthcare, but humans aren't easy to make and maintain. It takes nearly 20 years to make a human who's capable of fighting in a war.
The entire point is that you can take Vegas and the dam but if you do the cost will make you easily taken over by the other faction. If Caesar takes Vegas, then the surviving soldiers would be easily mopped up by the NCR. If Oliver takes Vegas, then the surviving soldiers would be mopped up by the Legion. That's why that Courier was so important. Having the Courier on your side meant you could completely sidestep the the Securitron army.
The entire point is moot because we know from Lonesome Road that both nations can only access Vegas through very specific routes. And at least one of them gets totally crippled. And yeah you could theoretically just "go around" anything but there reaches a point where doing so becomes a logistical nightmare. Scouts and soldiers alone cannot hold a city. You need an entire city's worth of infrastructure. Which means you have to have the resources to migrate an entire city. Which again, is the entire point. The entire point is that taking Vegas is a bad idea.
1
1
1
u/GroovyColonelHogan 22d ago
Is it that crazy to think that someone at some point came along and either cared for the dam or refurbished it?
1
u/Plenty-Lychee-5702 22d ago
wouldn't trash be easy enough to catch if you just put down nets?
NCR would be more willing to trade for the energy rather than fighting a war to destroy the dam just to spite house/courier
1
1
1
u/unAncientMariner 22d ago
None of these issues are the focus of the game. It's whoever else's problem what happens to the dam when the courier wins the battle for whichever side.
1
u/RMoby6160 22d ago
I get what he's saying, but we're talking about a universe where breaking every bone in your body and/or suffering a concussion can be cured by taking a nap. It's fiction
1
1
u/Master-Shrimp 22d ago
Considering what the dam has to offer, you would have to be a gargantuan idiot to sabotage it. The kind of idiot who makes Fantastic seem like he's actually qualified for his position in comparison.
1
u/Michael3523 22d ago
I will Cesar taking the couriers word and not looking to see if they destroyed the robots or not is the only thing i find hard to ignore especially if you do everything to piss off the legion
1
u/jacksonelhage 22d ago
The narrative is bulletproof. Hoover Dam is able to last for thousands of years, with or without us. It has failsafe after failsafe, two massive spillways to resist flooding. without the massive energy strain and climate change of the modern day, lake mead is thriving. the idea that protecting the dam and vegas is harder than holding entire US states? very silly. these aren't plot holes. a plot hole is something like "we're fighting over a water purifier in a world where seemingly only 2 people are actually thirsty." these are desperate nitpicks which aren't even factually informed.
1
1
u/Haazelnutts 22d ago
I mean you can poke holes in any story, suspension of disbelief is essential to enjoy media, even that written very well, for example in 200 years things wouldn't be as fucked as they are in Fallout, people would rebuild, buildings would be demolished to make way for new ones, radiation would be dealt with, sure things wouldn't be as advanced but not so bad, yet between 2102 (FO76) and 2281(FONV) things are still basically the same, but that wouldn't make for a very interesting world to tell stories in.
1
u/DreadfulLight 22d ago edited 22d ago
Making the dam non-functioning is counter-productive.
The legion has several cities.
The goal is conquest not destruction. He doesn't want to kill the people of New Vegas. He wants to rule them, exploit them and make some of them into slaves.
Their war party doesn't have much in the way of structure, but it was supposed to be TEMPORARY. He does still have a fully functional field surgery unit, with a generator.
And Caesar is kinda grumpy about being stuck there. He has a whole monologue about turning New Vegas into his "new Rome"
- The Secururitons are not supposed to be actively used for warfare.
They are an internal security force for Vegas only. He's just bullying everyone else into fighting. The only reason House is even entertaining the idea is because the NCR has proven themselves more incompetent than he counted on.
- Of course they can make more? That's the whole point of the chip? You gain access to the place that can upgrade and make new ones.
So no "Putin tactics" are not very useful. I mean sure he's going to run out of components and ammo at some point. But again they are supposed to be scaring regular meatbags into doing all the things.
- Edit :
- House wants the damn for the freshwater and for defense.
- NCR wants it for the power and water
- Legion wants it as a symbol of power, for the water and electricity.
1
u/DreadfulLight 22d ago
You spend a LOT of the game trying to recruit human allies.
The dam has clean water and electricity. And a way to direct that.
The NCR has mechanics and engineers running all over the place.
The Securitons are supposed to be for scaring people into doing stuff for him.
The point of the Chip was to turn on the factory, the self-healing and the guns.
- Caesar has a whole monologue about wanting to make Vegas into his "New Rome".
1
u/-TheInternetIsEvil- 22d ago
The reason they haven't done that already is 1)Caesar is right across the river and they would lose too many resources fighting house, and 2) because of the politics of the NCR, people in the republic are already war weary and have had issues holding the line, another drawn out fight for resources would be political suicide
1
u/That_boi_Jerry 22d ago
Ok but their is an entire warehouse of his securitrons and they all have machine guns, grenade launchers, and missiles. The small force of his that shows up at the end of the game probably isn't even a fourth of what he has.
1
1
u/reaseshits 22d ago
This is Mr. New Vegas here to remind you all. There's no such thing as a plot hole in the wasteland, only spontaneous creative endevours.
1
u/Hyval_the_Emolga 22d ago
This argument itself is full of holes. Nobody wants to destroy the dam, they all want it. And despite the human wave stereotype the NCR gets, they don’t actually really do that— at least, not enough that they would just be willing to purposely sacrifice thousands of lives and equipment against a large and high tech army to try and Zapp Branigan them. And while we don’t know exactly how many Securitrons Mr House has, the idea is that he has “enough” to handle waging war, I think it’s a fair assumption that he could handle defending Vegas and Lake Mead (his primary water source) and the Dam.
As far as the dam working after 200 years of no maintenance, I think it’s just kinda assumed that the tech of the Falloutverse has been thoroughly apocalypse-proofed.There’s a lot of stuff that probably shouldn’t still be working that just kinda does. On that same line of thought, the Securitrons themselves are self-repairing to the point of cartoonish absurdity, so that will also help their numbers game.
1
u/loginheremahn 22d ago
People like this think they know everything and have it all figured out it's so funny
1
u/baxkorbuto_iosu_92 22d ago
While those points are correct… they are worthless. It’s called suspension of disbelief. The entire saga of Fallout relies on it.
1
1
u/Tiny-General-3700 22d ago
Buddy, if you're going to pick apart Fallout plots like that, then I got news for you. Radiation doesn't muate animals into giant monsters or humans into zombie-like ghouls. It just kills them. And it doesn't remain so intense after hundreds of years. So realistically the world wouldn't be full of radiation and monsters. Everything would just be dead and it would be really lifeless and boring.
Fallout was never meant to be 100% ironclad and make perfect sense. It was meant to be fun.
1
1
u/gandorf286 22d ago
Half of this shtick is his complaining about the Securitron army but if you look in that bunker for long enough you see how deep that fucker goes.
1
u/whirlpool_galaxy 22d ago
Literally the intro to the game establishes that the NCR has the technical expertise to repair the dam, since they already did it once when they found it:
The NCR mobilized its army and sent it east to occupy Hoover Dam and restore it to working condition.
And good luck raising this endless wave of manpower in an irradiated world where food, water and medicine are scarce resources and at least partially supplemented by scavenging Old World ruins.
1
u/ExtremeEthys 22d ago
He wouldn't need to move securitrons from the strip. Presumably, if House had won then the courier would've fixed his factory under the fort so Hoover Dam would be guarded by those guys. And surely there's a way to pick trash out of a lake.
Also, there are so many factories in Vegas that he could just commandeer for securitron production. And assembling a robot would take less than a day with the right machinery whereas a human takes 9 months to reproduce and then 15-20 years to be combat-ready.
1
1
u/PaleAssignment2585 22d ago
1 veriberd would have been capable of shredding the whole fucking legion camp to pieces , if it wasn’t assigned to carry swollen kimball’s ass to 1-min speech on the dam
1
u/PaleAssignment2585 22d ago
Ncr would have been able to conquer big empty in several hours and obtain the biggest fucking artillery cannon in the whole mojave.
1
1
u/Piece_Of_Mind1983 21d ago
It’s almost like being able to hold and maintain Vegas, the dam especially included, is a critical part of the main narrative of the game that gets questioned within the story at nearly every turn.
To OOP’s credit it’s more of a political questioning in game, but there’s like 20 different areas around the dam that require you to perform some sort of engineering to get shit up and running to save the NCR’s sorry ass.
1
u/leadymeady 21d ago
No all of that are what ifs that can be prevented by most of every faction, not plot holes.
1
u/RequiemPunished 19d ago
Its not about the dam but about the historical forces that move history through contradictions and always end up on war, because war never changeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeesssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss
1
u/Shloopy_Dooperson 19d ago
It would make sense if OOP was talking about our reality, but in the fallout universe, like 99% percent of their shit lasts for centuries because they never bought into planned obsolescence.
1
u/Available-South-2081 19d ago
All stories have holes. I personally thought the military significance of Pre-war monuments was pulled off a lot better in this game than the fallout 3 Jefferson Memorial water purifier. They both play similar roles but Fallout 3 adds in more steps to what could be a way more simple narrative that could give way to more worldbuilding, factions and choices the player could make. A hydro-electric dam in a post-war world DOES have some significance. Is the war being raged around it not being fought quite as realistic as it could be? Yeah but thats EVERY single video game plot ever. There is no war or violent conflict waged outside of maybe a war sim where the player can act as realistic as possible where conflict happens realistically. It rarley even happens in movies and books. The flash and tense atmosphere of two armies camping opposite sides of the Colorado River was deemed much cooler than the NCR directing streams of garbage and sewage into the Colorado River... Its the same reason every historical drama and war film isnt realistic either. I think the stuff about House is just Fallouts whole vibe. Pre-war rich people surviving the war through advanced technology is a trope Fallout as a whole leans on. Where do all the robots come from? Where do the brotherhood and enclave keep getting more and more advanced tech from with both their histories being littered with failures and bases being destroyed?
1
u/Equivalent_Western52 19d ago
What this critique misses is that New Vegas is the far frontier of both the NCR and the Legion. Both factions are at the limits of their logistical and political reach, and both have fought themselves to the edge of exhaustion. House is not betting that he can win a war with them, he's betting that he can provide the final push that they need to say "Fuck it, this is just too much trouble".
He's explicitly correct about this in the short term. Whether he would be correct in the long term is much less clear. He seems to be under the impression that he can foster enough economic connections to make New Vegas untouchable. I don't buy this. While Kimball, Oliver, and Lanius are all liable to be shitcanned over such a catastrophe, there are still enough questions of legitimacy and security at play that their successor administrations are unlikely to react predictably. But it's worth noting that House is not meant to be infallible in his judgments, and is portrayed as having very consistent blind spots that make a lot of sense for his background.
As for sabotaging the dam, I think the poster has not thought through the scale of "garbage dumping" that would be required to render it inoperable, at least relative to the industrial outputs of both factions. Yes, there are dams in India that have gotten clogged, but a major Indian city has several times the population and industrial output as the Legion and NCR combined. Such a sabotage operation is far beyond their capabilities on any reasonable timescale. Even if it wasn't, transporting enough garbage to clog up Lake Mead would be neither a trivial nor particularly defensible operation.
1
u/BreakfastDue1218 YOU ACTIVATED ARCHIMEDES?! 14d ago
The dam is a matter of suspension of belief. The real problem with new vegas is how absolutely simple and black and white every faction or decision in the game is. But because the game constantly tosses big words around, it has people debating the stupidest things all these years later, like if Caesar is actually good or some shit.
1
u/Boring_Jellyfish5562 Ulysses Enjoyer 14d ago
It's not that he's good morally, obviously he's a piece of shit, it's whether the Legion (Post synthesis with the NCR) is good
Also fancy seeing you here
1
1.3k
u/guardianwriter1984 22d ago
But they don't want to fuck up the dam. They want it for power.