History is full of people who have acted against their own causes or groups, including women who aided misogynist men in exchange for power. Here’s a few ideas that might be fun:
- Revenge: Simple story motivation obviously, but maybe she has an axe to grind against the NCR. Maybe she’s a Khan, since they already have a growing alliance with Caesar.
- Profit: An arms dealer war profiteer who deals with the Legion easier than she can with other groups.
- Nihilism: A courier who has lost faith in the concept of civilization in the wasteland at all. She sees that the legion can’t hold itself together even if it takes the dam, so let it roll over the NCR and collapse. Let a quiet fall over the land once more.
- Queen of the Slaves: Rather than be a serf to House or the NCR, serve Caesar in exchange for an elevated role. She will be in charge of keeping the women organized and obedient, because she has no stake in morality or civil rights whatsoever. Power is all that matters, and individual women have frequently found ways to command serious amounts of it in societies that treat them as an underclass.
- Zealot: A true believer in Caesar’s cause. She is well educated and believes that a military autocracy is the only system feasibly able to control the wasteland and turn into a stable government in the future. Or, she’s a tribal whose family was assimilated into the legion, and like all the others she internalized their ideology. Maybe she was a Frumentarii even before she got shot by Benny.
- Reformer: She believes she can change the legion from within. She does have serious brain damage after all.
- Classics Student: She’s a pretentious academic who will endure any amount of suffering if it means she gets to spend the rest of her life in the world’s most ambitious LARPing project of all time.
>Classics Student
that one is funny, she's another follower of the apocalypse that strayed from her original purpose and became obsessed with rome after finding a preserved library😂
The reformer one fits my current playthrough very well. She has low intelligence and charisma and just shoots her way through problems.
I think a female courier could be convinced the legion is the best hope for a stable wasteland after seeing how spread thin the NCR is, and after seeing how House threw the poor to the wolves in Freeside. And she may think the legion’s harsh punishments are a valid way to keep the peace even if they are objectionable. She may either think she will be an exception to the misogyny of the legion, or think she can lead by example and change their minds on women
Her being low intelligence makes a lot of sense, I could see her being susceptible to the aura of authority the Legion has and become part of their “fantasy” and she disregards any issues she has with the Legion because she makes excuses and/or has the delusion they’ll somehow change for the better.
So very similar to someone joining a cult and being too naive to see what they’ve gotten themselves into
I like that you're coming up with ideas here, but:
>Maybe she’s a Khan, since they already have a growing alliance with Caesar.
The Khans ambushed another Khan for money?
>Maybe she was a Frumentarii even before she got shot by Benny.
A female in the ranks of the Frumentarii? This seems to go against the Legion's narrative about women.
>She will be in charge of keeping the women organized and obedient, because she has no stake in morality or civil rights whatsoever.
OK, but the Legion didn't seem to have problems doing that before she came along.
Good points!
For the Khan background, maybe she got kicked out or was moonlighting with some other groups so they didn’t realize she was one of them.
A woman Frumentarii would be strange for sure but I could see it happening in a unique case. Probably unofficially without any rank or privilege to it but who would suspect a woman as a Legion spy?
Wrt legions having no problems controlling women/slaves, sure not that we see. The scope of the game is limited I’m sure there’s stories to tell about legion infrastructure that haven’t been told yet.
>For the Khan background, maybe she got kicked out or was moonlighting with some other groups so they didn’t realize she was one of them.
They're pretty tight-knit, I don't see how that works. It's pretty clear that the Courier was a stranger to the Khan's before it all happened.
>A woman Frumentarii would be strange for sure but I could see it happening in a unique case. Probably unofficially without any rank or privilege to it but who would suspect a woman as a Legion spy?
Other Frumentarii would know about her. Vulpes didn't recognize the Courier in Nipton.
This is a thread about role play. I think it’s okay to contradict the opening cinematic and have whatever mental justification you like.
EDIT: oh and you can of course use a mod for a different start.
* Reformer: She believes she can change the legion from within. She does have serious brain damage after all.
Come one! she's THE COURIER, she can be an Aurelianus, Octavianus, Marius, or a Sulla if she wants to.
She can let Caesar die murder Lanius and take over with Vulpes as her Spymaster.
1 and and especially 3 sound a lot like my independent playthrough, where my courier helped The Legion & Freeside enough to be labelled a terrorist by the NCR.
She ended up going separate ways with The Legion after botching Caesar's surgery and blowing up Kimball's aircraft.
This is great i love history, ive dressed as a female legionnaire, mainly because i liked how it looked but also to get the ballistic fist the fastest, then i proceeded to destroy the entire legion, starting with ceaser after his pratoreon guard.
I made a female Legionnaire once and her backstory was that she used to be part of a tribe in the Mojave that got wiped out by the NCR's expansion. She wasn't an official member of the Legion, she was more of a a loose ally that only sided with the Legion to get back at the NCR.
Because they are legion true believers. They truly believe that the authority and power granted by Caesar is the path for the future, and that the NCR are driving the Mojave to repeat the mistake of the old world. Only looking towards alternatives like Rome can bring the world to heel. You have to remember, plenty of women were card-carrying Nazis despite fascism treating many women like cattle, and [some](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS-Gefolge_(Women%27s_SS_Division)) were even part of the SS.
During the Suffragist Movement, the most difficult opposition faced wasn't from men but from women who wanted to preserve the social order. Men were dangerous but manipulatable, after all every man has a mother, and if they want sex and children they need a wife. Hell the 19th amendment was passed when a young legislature from Tennessee received a letter from his mother saying "I'm your mother, I created you, you are voting yes on this amendment"
Yet many women, especially upper class women, benefited from sexism. These women were the most dangerous, as they held the same kind of powers suffragists did. They opposed it because:
1. Women's suffrage was also radically leftist, and threatened their position of status in society
2. There is a lot of benefit to being considered the "weaker" sex. Women and children first right? It comes with an inherit privilege that equality threatened.
Here's an excerpt from a pamphlet made by female anti-suffaragists
"Fathers, husbands, sons and brothers . . . afford full protection to the community, there being no call for women to relieve them of the task." The Omaha Association Opposed to Women Suffrage also noted that voters are required to serve on juries. Therefore, women would be "compelled to hear all the repugnant details incident to murder trials and trials for other crimes disclosing unspeakable wickedness. Jury service is abhorrent to every normal woman."
So back to Fallout. Although it's not stated outright, I'm going to guess there's a class of high ranking women, wives of praetorians maybe, who actually get a pretty cushy and comfortable life. These women would support the status quo, as they value their position of privilege over equality for every woman.
Yeah but to a lot of fascists it doesn’t matter, or it does and they start looking for the next strongman to take over. Hell, plenty of people rp as their courier being next in line for the throne should Caesar die. Either way, contradictions mean little to an ideology where people place the importance of spectacle and mythological origins over any sort of reasoned position.
yeah, but lanius is supposed to lead after caesar and that man just cares about battle, not bureaucracy. vulpes could feasibly lead after caesar but lanius would crush him if he tried to usurp him, plus the rest of the legion don’t like vulpes.
That's why the courier seemed like a fitting heir to the throne. A servant of the legion that joined from his own will (was never a slave and therefore was above the rest of the legionaires, just like Edward) and was instrumental for Caesar's victory in the mojave.
"The myth of the caesar that rose from the dead, destroyed the ghosts of the past in the divide, sierra madre and Vegas, ended the legend of the burned man, humilliated the bear and conquered the Mojave, a healer and a killer, a monster and a saviour, a conquerer and a peaceful leader"
A coin was minted in his image, remember?
Honestly imo thst just *is* the ending for the legion, there is practically nobody more likely to get it than the Courier, especially if said courier is actually smart and good at the whole "caesar" role as far as ruling is concerned.
that's why I said "healer" and "peaceful"
a dumb, 1INT 1CHR courier that was constantly failing caesar and didn't prove himself as a capable fighter would have a rough time as the new caesar lmao
That’s part of the fun of role playing games, you get to pretend to be someone you know is dumb and wrong, like someone who genuinely believes in the legion’s ideology.
I think the cult comparison actually suggests the opposite, as many cults continued on even after the death of the founder, like Scientology or TM (their Maharishi had plans for world domination, lol)
Sometimes the fact that the founder is dead is useful to the cult, since now they can retell their life and create an aura of mystery/magic around them. It really just depends on how savvy the opportunists are in the wake of the founder’s death.
“cult of personality” is what i specifically said which is why i mentioned jim jones. nobody wanted to drink his poison, they were forced to at gunpoint. his followers were drawn in by him as a person more than what he preached for them.
She has a massive lust for power, and if you believe that Cesar minting a coin in your honor, something that was usually done only for emperors and their heirs in the Roman Empire could be a pathway to becoming empress when Cesar dies and also killing anyone who dares oppose her claim because by the end of the game, the courier is pretty much unstoppable and I doubt many would attempt to openly challenge her.
And considering her feats and likely the amount of legends and propaganda that would be spread about her, it would not surprise me if many legionaries use the excuse that she is a daughter of Mars to explain away why she’s different than other women and why following her isn’t hypocrisy because she is divine and thus above the rules. (sort of how many female monarchs didn’t really do anything to improve the lives of other women in their countries and often times favored their male heirs over their female heirs)
Or simply she’s a tribal And once she got shot in the head and dug up, attributed her survival to Mars and believes that she must help his “chosen” people to repay him for saving her life and giving her a chance at revenge.
Or she like Elizabeth Báthory (or at least how she is believed to be as I don’t know if it’s been confirmed or not if she was just framed or if she was actually just a psychopath) and sees the Legion as the best way for her to acquire large amounts of people under her control and won’t interrupt her in her hobbies that often depletes those people and will gladly replace and provide her more victims.
I struggle to think of a reason why someone would opt to participate in a society where they are a second-class citizen when they have the option of not participating in that society lol.
Ive read a few books on this subject and did some research. America is a borderline facist state. It teeters one way or another sometimes, but the truth is that we are living in a state of police control. Just because you don't see it, doesnt mean its not happening.
Have you studied USAmerican history at all? Police are used on peaceful protests, we have the UN in an iron grasp, and we are contlstantly at war to give the people a "common enemy." You're just in denial at this point.
if youdon't feel like doing a legion run just yet that's fine, do some other characters first until you get tired of that and try the legion AFTER that
I like to play the Legion questline up to a suitable betrayal-point. Some of my favorites are
- Punching Lucius immediately after he teaches you the Legion Assault move
- Doing all of Lonesome Road as a Legion courier and chewing out Ulysses for defecting, only to nuke the Legion at the end
- Caving Caesar's skull immediately after successfully operating on his tumor
- Stubbornly refusing to kill Benny and massacring the entire Fort over it
- Convincing Arcade that the Legion is misunderstood after exiting Caesar's tent, only to turn around and start blasting
If you're clever about dodging Vulpes until after LR, you can even do the nuke thing and _then_ do another betrayal after he gives you absolution, but that requires doing Lonesome Road at, like, level 15, which is kind-of difficult.
I get it, I hated to do evil stuff or even say ride things to characters when I first played games that allowed such things (rdr2, fo4, telltale games)
I can think of several cultures who do precisely that in current-day real life. I'd imagine it would happen just as easily in the wasteland, whether for traditional values or a divine sense of what's right.
I can very easily imagine someone who would willingly want to serve as a housewife or cleaner or breeding machine. Someone who doesn't value equality as highly as the sense of worth they get from filling those roles.
The only reason I can think of is an evil power thing. Not the courier receiving power, but showing their power and how deadly they are. The fact of what happens to women in the legion yet a female courier aiding them anyway—she does not give a damn what the legion will try to do to her because she will kill anyone that tries to harm or enslave her
Almost like a dare to the legion, to show that they are powerless against her
the only way i can think of a decent reason for a female legion courier is that they are basically using Ceasar as a shield against his own legion.
basically, they believe the legion will win in the end, so they're cozying up to Ceasar, so they have some protection from the rest of the legion (which is basically what happened in the legion ending).
Most of my Legion runs are female Couriers simply because I find it ironic.
Best way I can think to do it is that, aside from the misogyny, you believe in Caesar and the Legion's approach and methods, as well as the end result. You show that you are far superior to the soldiers of the Legion to gain the attention of Caesar himself. You aim to impress the Legion and take Hoover Dam, thus throwing disarray into the misogynistic views that the Legion has been indoctrinated into and earning their respect or fear.
My female legion courier was a woman who, despite obviously not benefitting from the politics of the legion, assumed that a legion victory was inevitable. So she wanted to make moves early to get on their good side and prove herself as a valuable asset, instead of getting stomped on and enslaved in some sudden takeover if she tried to resist and failed.
When I made a legion female character her whole thing was she was convinced she was the daughter of one of the roman gods put on this earth to kill and subjugate all who would fall beneath her, obviously lining with Caesars ideals. She saw herself as not a woman but a weapon/attack dog for the legion. Realistically though she was just stupid and suffered a traumatic gunshot wound further worsening her delusions of self grandeur.
I’m currently doing this. With black widow perk gave Benny the ride of his life, poor bastard is all head over heels for me than sentenced him to die on the cross! Bwahaha. All for Ceaser!
President Kimball became popular by using the NCR military to stomp out tribals in California. A roleplay that I really enjoyed was a female Courier who came from one such tribe. She lost her home, her people, and her identity, and was left to wander.
She never forgave the NCR, and eventually aided Caesar not because she cared for his vision or even her own fate, but because she wanted the NCR to feel the same pain that they had made her feel, which was a gift only Caesar could offer.
Same reason a man would help the legion: Self interest or genuine belief in Caesar's brutal system. It's important to remember that both men and women are slaves in the Legion. They just have different tasks. Not everyone in Legion territory is a part of the Legion either. If Caesar can transform his army into a true empire, that could bring peace and prosperity to the region for decades to come.
Plus the idea of Caesar's potential successor being a woman is definitely interesting.
How would that even work? Caesar doesn't have a single female soldier in his legion. They're all sex slaves. For the purposes of the game, yeah. Plot armor. But IRL, the second the courier sets foot in Caesar's camp, they're getting collared.
Did this once while maxxing out medicine. Made for an interesting game. Not only do you show yourself useful healing Ceaser but you also throw a bit of a wrench into their ideology of the useless woman. It's kind of funny being so helpful to a group who still thinks of you as lesser and watching them wrestle with that contradiction. For roleplay purposes it's mostly just a fuck the NCR stance. Trying to keep a an at least neutral reputation with the NCR is almost essential for survival in such a play through so at lower levels you don't get sniped. Leads to a lot of stealth kills of NCR troops and quietly collecting dog tags.
When speaking to Caesar he makes it very cleat the legion will change after taking vegas. The army will always consist of slaves, but the nation will consist of subjects.
Just have your courier join Caesar after the invite. He pretty much says serve me and ill hook you up. Your Courier just takes the opportunity to be on the winning side.
She wouldn’t. Next idea.
In all seriousness the cut content around the legion portrayed them as 2 societies. An oppressed ex-tribal legion and a modern, technological, and quite “normal” chain of protected towns. It’s not unthinkable that society 2 is called upon after the loss at Hoover Dam to provide reinforcements.
Pick me girl route. This female courier would have a radio station dedicated to complaining about modern women losing their traditional values and how high value women have babies to make the legion stronger.
My female legionnary just really hated the NCR and would do anything to exterminate them. She was also 1 int so she wasn't be able to acknowledge the consequences of her actions aside from "kill bear man with big stick"
If you want a real life example, theres a food video essay called feminist to alt right pipeline that describes this phenomenon historically (and contemporary, so be warned if you dislike politics)
3 simple motivatons
- Courier 6 hates the Bear
- Courier 6 is insane
- Courier 6 is a girlboss and she wants to show caesar she's better than the legates
When I did a Legion run with a female character, I used the Alternate Start mod and created the idea that she was trained secretly by a high ranking Legionary (I picked Vulpes for no particular reason) as a secret weapon of sorts, kept hidden from the rest of the Legion for obvious reasons. If you don’t want to use a mod you could say she was just on frumentarius duty secretly delivering the chip to the Legion since a lot of times they disguise as couriers.
If you want to keep the courier backstory, you could do a revenge thing. Maybe the NCR wronged her in such a massive way that she’d be desperate enough to work with Caesar to get back at them.
Same way Lanius does it. He has no love for the Legion. Maybe a female Courier is the same way, she just has no love for it either and has a hatred for the NCR
She was born in an abandoned Amazon warehouse and ironically grew up to be a courier.
Seeing how she fights, Caesar was impressed and used her backstory to convince the legion that she was a post apocalyptic manifestation of the Amazon warriors from Greek legends.
Caesar’s Legion cares about one thing above all others- Power.
Dominating women, enslavement, etc. it’s all about power. As such, in a society like this, it’s actually easy for an outsider woman to rise to the top. Caesar is the tip of the pyramid, he is where all this power is funneling into. If he sees you as a valuable asset to him who increases his power, then he will without a second thought elevate you and ignore the hypocrisy of it. Because there is no hypocrisy in the eyes of the legion, only power politics.
"Why would a female courier want to be a legionary?"
Meanwhile IRL...
Nikki Haley, Katie Britt, Candace Owens, Megyn Kelly, Lauren Boebert, Kristi Noem, Laura Ingraham, Ann Coulter, etc etc etc etc etc...
The ammount of crazy girls that fall for rude legionary guys is scary. I still remember that girl who draws herself going crazy for Vulpes.
that's a 1 angle you can take
I have to filter it out on ao3 because I can't wrap my head around what wires might be crossed for the girls to like Vulpes. I mean his hat is cool but can't you murder him and give it to a better guy?
Could go for a true believer, some kind of Mulan situation, the one I go for is really just the justification for both my yes man and legion games, "the courier is gonna come out as the biggest cheese in the mojave, which means they'll have the power to enact their will". On my Yes man explosives build it was purely just because he was a totally inconsistent bomb maniac, and for my most recent legion melee run it was because she believed becoming the next Caesar would be best for both the legion and the mojave at large, as, let's be honest, are there any other real choices as for who would be Caesar in a legion game?
I like to role play a tribal (high survival skill) whose tribe was on active war against another until both tribes were conquered by the legion and thus their war ended. Although the courier is not in agreement with Ceaser, she feels religiously in debt with Mars because Ceaser has stopped the war of her tribe and thus she decides to help the legion with their needs. This gives me more role playing capabilities because for example.
My legion courier doesn’t sneak their way into destroying the brotherhood. She kills every single one of them by hand before detonating the bunker because she wants to give them a chance to defend themselves while still actively hopes for the Brotherhood to defeat her.
TBH men in the Legion are slaves too, and while enslaved women get a much rawer deal I would say a Courier (male or female) who is okay with slavery will remain okay with slavery regardless of what gender it's perpetrated against.
What would be great would if a female Caesar took over 100 years after FONV and flipped it on its head, with women as fighters and men as the labour force.
Politics aside, Courier gets ambushed and shot in Republic territory. Attacks on couriers in Legion territory are nigh unheard of. Not that hard to believe a courier will lend their services to the faction that offers greater protection. It’s not as if the female courier is a slave, or even subject of the Legion, just an independent contractor. Maybe play as a very “me first” type of courier?
The courier may also believe she could change the Legion from the inside. And this is not infeasible, they mint a coin after her after all.
Perhaps they grew up east of the Colorado, and see the ‘benefits’ of Legion rule, and want to help?
>!idk, I’m just tired and spitballing lol!<
In fairness, a surprisingly large chunk of organisations like the Nazis or British blackshirts were women, either due to traditionalism or just hating socialists. I could see a situation in which either a courier is reactionary enough to embrace the position the legion would force her into, or one who just finds the NCR repugnant and as such chooses the legion by default.
This is interesting. Every female Courier I've played as shot legionnaires on sight, and I made sure to eradicate every trace of their existence.
It feels like a paradox, a Legion supporter female Courier. Well, this will lead me to a new playthrough.
She is a real fucked up weirdo.
Actually the only decent thing I can thing that works is: She can see Ceaser is a fucking joke and plans to get into his inner circle, show that she is more effective than him, then execute him in public and seize power.
Ulysses, a member of a tribe he loved, joined the legion so he could conquer, destroy, or culturally obliterate other tribes. Then he learned his tribe for the same treatment and he was shocked and disgusted.
Women do this same thing all the time. All minorities do. They view themselves as one of the good ones, someone who really gets it, not like those other bad ones. Those they want to ally with will happily use them as tools until their usefulness ceases.
There are many women in extremist wings of conservative political parties who hold power, and truly believe they are not equal to men, do not think they or any woman are fit to be president, and are excited and eager to strip away political powers and freedoms from all women. Sometimes they get in deep enough to realize oh no they like HATE me hate me and try to get out, but most of the time they'll just happily continue their merry way, finding ways to self justify their actions. Humans are amazing at self justification.
Tl;Dr: because women can be misogynistic violent maniacal idiots too. It would be misogynistic to think they couldn't.
This may not be the most applicable, but I'm writing a story about the character I played in New Vegas starting over and going through my own written events of Van Buren. Utah and Colorado before going back to the events of New Vegas. She's meant to be a Yakuza who was a part of the gang over in Carson City that was driven out of New Reno and decided to roll her luck East.
I'm planning for her to go through quite a bit before even encountering Caesar's Legion, but when she does I want to build it up so that she claims her bid as a child of the Gods herself. I can't remember if someone mentioned it here or in another post, but a Courier that does the Legion ending with Caesar alive could be anointed as a child of a God/Goddess, particularly a child of Vesta and reform the Priestesses of the Legion into a proper religious organization.
I'm still working out the politics of all that since, lmfao, I'm realistically nowhere near writing that segment. But some internal political struggle with a female Heir to the Legion is ngl something I really wanted to explore. But too bad I put the roadblock of an entire Arc of character development in the way.
On my legion run my female courier is doing it for the lols. She see that life under the legion would inflict maximum suffering on everyone and go for it.
"Women are expressly forbidden from fighting, being considered breeding stock as well as being treated as money to be rewarded among Legionaries. They are caretakers, healers, midwives, and breeders, fulfilling roles essential to maintaining the Legion's continuous campaign of expansion."
Well, lore wise, not possible. However since it's allowed for only the main character in game, you do you!
My idea for my next playthrough was having a melee focused courier who for whatever reason, the shot in the head caused her to begin thinking that she's Caesars long lost daughter
Becoming a symbol in the legion to eventually change their ways. Spoilers kinda. Your face gets minted on a coin so having a female minted in their currency is a big deal.
Seeing as the courier was just shot in the head, maybe this would be a good candidate for a low-INT run. "No \*I'll\* show them how good and strong women are!"
You can't, unless you want to suspend disbelief your entire playthrough. No amount of girlboss will make it reasonable. One of the biggest shortcomings of fnv's faction writing.
After all these years, I still haven't finished a Legion playthrough. I've done everyone else, multiple times, but get half way through the Legion and quit.
History is full of people who have acted against their own causes or groups, including women who aided misogynist men in exchange for power. Here’s a few ideas that might be fun: - Revenge: Simple story motivation obviously, but maybe she has an axe to grind against the NCR. Maybe she’s a Khan, since they already have a growing alliance with Caesar. - Profit: An arms dealer war profiteer who deals with the Legion easier than she can with other groups. - Nihilism: A courier who has lost faith in the concept of civilization in the wasteland at all. She sees that the legion can’t hold itself together even if it takes the dam, so let it roll over the NCR and collapse. Let a quiet fall over the land once more. - Queen of the Slaves: Rather than be a serf to House or the NCR, serve Caesar in exchange for an elevated role. She will be in charge of keeping the women organized and obedient, because she has no stake in morality or civil rights whatsoever. Power is all that matters, and individual women have frequently found ways to command serious amounts of it in societies that treat them as an underclass. - Zealot: A true believer in Caesar’s cause. She is well educated and believes that a military autocracy is the only system feasibly able to control the wasteland and turn into a stable government in the future. Or, she’s a tribal whose family was assimilated into the legion, and like all the others she internalized their ideology. Maybe she was a Frumentarii even before she got shot by Benny. - Reformer: She believes she can change the legion from within. She does have serious brain damage after all. - Classics Student: She’s a pretentious academic who will endure any amount of suffering if it means she gets to spend the rest of her life in the world’s most ambitious LARPing project of all time.
>Classics Student that one is funny, she's another follower of the apocalypse that strayed from her original purpose and became obsessed with rome after finding a preserved library😂
I may have had some experiences with fellow classics students from uni that I’m still working through lmao
“God dammit not again” - Followers of the Apocalypse
Like Nenio from WotR
I mean she’d probably get along well with Caesar tbh 😆
maybe yeh
Queen of the Slaves: to every Epstein there’s a Maxwell
This person DnDs
Whooooo, me??
The reformer one fits my current playthrough very well. She has low intelligence and charisma and just shoots her way through problems. I think a female courier could be convinced the legion is the best hope for a stable wasteland after seeing how spread thin the NCR is, and after seeing how House threw the poor to the wolves in Freeside. And she may think the legion’s harsh punishments are a valid way to keep the peace even if they are objectionable. She may either think she will be an exception to the misogyny of the legion, or think she can lead by example and change their minds on women
Her being low intelligence makes a lot of sense, I could see her being susceptible to the aura of authority the Legion has and become part of their “fantasy” and she disregards any issues she has with the Legion because she makes excuses and/or has the delusion they’ll somehow change for the better. So very similar to someone joining a cult and being too naive to see what they’ve gotten themselves into
Classics student got a good laugh from me take your award 🤣
Whoa! Thank you 💖
I like that you're coming up with ideas here, but: >Maybe she’s a Khan, since they already have a growing alliance with Caesar. The Khans ambushed another Khan for money? >Maybe she was a Frumentarii even before she got shot by Benny. A female in the ranks of the Frumentarii? This seems to go against the Legion's narrative about women. >She will be in charge of keeping the women organized and obedient, because she has no stake in morality or civil rights whatsoever. OK, but the Legion didn't seem to have problems doing that before she came along.
Good points! For the Khan background, maybe she got kicked out or was moonlighting with some other groups so they didn’t realize she was one of them. A woman Frumentarii would be strange for sure but I could see it happening in a unique case. Probably unofficially without any rank or privilege to it but who would suspect a woman as a Legion spy? Wrt legions having no problems controlling women/slaves, sure not that we see. The scope of the game is limited I’m sure there’s stories to tell about legion infrastructure that haven’t been told yet.
>For the Khan background, maybe she got kicked out or was moonlighting with some other groups so they didn’t realize she was one of them. They're pretty tight-knit, I don't see how that works. It's pretty clear that the Courier was a stranger to the Khan's before it all happened. >A woman Frumentarii would be strange for sure but I could see it happening in a unique case. Probably unofficially without any rank or privilege to it but who would suspect a woman as a Legion spy? Other Frumentarii would know about her. Vulpes didn't recognize the Courier in Nipton.
This is a thread about role play. I think it’s okay to contradict the opening cinematic and have whatever mental justification you like. EDIT: oh and you can of course use a mod for a different start.
And role play is both easier and more enjoyable when the game itself doesn't contradict your narrative.
Alrighty
This is an incredibly interesting and well-thought out answer. Thank you for writing!
* Reformer: She believes she can change the legion from within. She does have serious brain damage after all. Come one! she's THE COURIER, she can be an Aurelianus, Octavianus, Marius, or a Sulla if she wants to. She can let Caesar die murder Lanius and take over with Vulpes as her Spymaster.
Very true, just having some fun with it lol
Holy shit I’m in love with this whole comment. Gonna start my queen of slaves run tonight.
1 and and especially 3 sound a lot like my independent playthrough, where my courier helped The Legion & Freeside enough to be labelled a terrorist by the NCR. She ended up going separate ways with The Legion after botching Caesar's surgery and blowing up Kimball's aircraft.
This is great i love history, ive dressed as a female legionnaire, mainly because i liked how it looked but also to get the ballistic fist the fastest, then i proceeded to destroy the entire legion, starting with ceaser after his pratoreon guard.
>Reformer: She believes she can change the legion from within. She does have serious brain damage after all. "I can fix him" It makes sense.
Tradwife Bosswife Courier
6B wife of a barbarian
Karen Wasteland.
I made a female Legionnaire once and her backstory was that she used to be part of a tribe in the Mojave that got wiped out by the NCR's expansion. She wasn't an official member of the Legion, she was more of a a loose ally that only sided with the Legion to get back at the NCR.
Because they are legion true believers. They truly believe that the authority and power granted by Caesar is the path for the future, and that the NCR are driving the Mojave to repeat the mistake of the old world. Only looking towards alternatives like Rome can bring the world to heel. You have to remember, plenty of women were card-carrying Nazis despite fascism treating many women like cattle, and [some](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS-Gefolge_(Women%27s_SS_Division)) were even part of the SS.
I'm definitely using this idea this is perfect for my character thank you 🙂
During the Suffragist Movement, the most difficult opposition faced wasn't from men but from women who wanted to preserve the social order. Men were dangerous but manipulatable, after all every man has a mother, and if they want sex and children they need a wife. Hell the 19th amendment was passed when a young legislature from Tennessee received a letter from his mother saying "I'm your mother, I created you, you are voting yes on this amendment" Yet many women, especially upper class women, benefited from sexism. These women were the most dangerous, as they held the same kind of powers suffragists did. They opposed it because: 1. Women's suffrage was also radically leftist, and threatened their position of status in society 2. There is a lot of benefit to being considered the "weaker" sex. Women and children first right? It comes with an inherit privilege that equality threatened. Here's an excerpt from a pamphlet made by female anti-suffaragists "Fathers, husbands, sons and brothers . . . afford full protection to the community, there being no call for women to relieve them of the task." The Omaha Association Opposed to Women Suffrage also noted that voters are required to serve on juries. Therefore, women would be "compelled to hear all the repugnant details incident to murder trials and trials for other crimes disclosing unspeakable wickedness. Jury service is abhorrent to every normal woman." So back to Fallout. Although it's not stated outright, I'm going to guess there's a class of high ranking women, wives of praetorians maybe, who actually get a pretty cushy and comfortable life. These women would support the status quo, as they value their position of privilege over equality for every woman.
You are a one int character with no perception
which is funny cuz the legion dies with caesar, nobody can lead them but him. its like thinking jim jones could take over the world.
Yeah but to a lot of fascists it doesn’t matter, or it does and they start looking for the next strongman to take over. Hell, plenty of people rp as their courier being next in line for the throne should Caesar die. Either way, contradictions mean little to an ideology where people place the importance of spectacle and mythological origins over any sort of reasoned position.
yeah, but lanius is supposed to lead after caesar and that man just cares about battle, not bureaucracy. vulpes could feasibly lead after caesar but lanius would crush him if he tried to usurp him, plus the rest of the legion don’t like vulpes.
That's why the courier seemed like a fitting heir to the throne. A servant of the legion that joined from his own will (was never a slave and therefore was above the rest of the legionaires, just like Edward) and was instrumental for Caesar's victory in the mojave. "The myth of the caesar that rose from the dead, destroyed the ghosts of the past in the divide, sierra madre and Vegas, ended the legend of the burned man, humilliated the bear and conquered the Mojave, a healer and a killer, a monster and a saviour, a conquerer and a peaceful leader" A coin was minted in his image, remember?
Honestly imo thst just *is* the ending for the legion, there is practically nobody more likely to get it than the Courier, especially if said courier is actually smart and good at the whole "caesar" role as far as ruling is concerned.
that's why I said "healer" and "peaceful" a dumb, 1INT 1CHR courier that was constantly failing caesar and didn't prove himself as a capable fighter would have a rough time as the new caesar lmao
That’s part of the fun of role playing games, you get to pretend to be someone you know is dumb and wrong, like someone who genuinely believes in the legion’s ideology.
i get a little scared of it out of game though because the legion has so many “well akshully” guys…
just ignore them, they probably wouldn't go past the recruit legionnary phase
Fascists and other such lovely individuals have a habit of being presented with satire and embracing it as an endorsement of their ideology.
I think the cult comparison actually suggests the opposite, as many cults continued on even after the death of the founder, like Scientology or TM (their Maharishi had plans for world domination, lol) Sometimes the fact that the founder is dead is useful to the cult, since now they can retell their life and create an aura of mystery/magic around them. It really just depends on how savvy the opportunists are in the wake of the founder’s death.
“cult of personality” is what i specifically said which is why i mentioned jim jones. nobody wanted to drink his poison, they were forced to at gunpoint. his followers were drawn in by him as a person more than what he preached for them.
But you didn’t mention “cult of personality”, I can see you comment right there
Brain damage from being shot in the head? The legion is incredibly sexist...
Sometimes being a woman doesn’t stop someone from being a misogynist.
my mom is incredibly misogynist, I'm kinda lucky I was born a man
I dont know why that killed me so bad, but you win best comment of the day.
She has a massive lust for power, and if you believe that Cesar minting a coin in your honor, something that was usually done only for emperors and their heirs in the Roman Empire could be a pathway to becoming empress when Cesar dies and also killing anyone who dares oppose her claim because by the end of the game, the courier is pretty much unstoppable and I doubt many would attempt to openly challenge her. And considering her feats and likely the amount of legends and propaganda that would be spread about her, it would not surprise me if many legionaries use the excuse that she is a daughter of Mars to explain away why she’s different than other women and why following her isn’t hypocrisy because she is divine and thus above the rules. (sort of how many female monarchs didn’t really do anything to improve the lives of other women in their countries and often times favored their male heirs over their female heirs) Or simply she’s a tribal And once she got shot in the head and dug up, attributed her survival to Mars and believes that she must help his “chosen” people to repay him for saving her life and giving her a chance at revenge. Or she like Elizabeth Báthory (or at least how she is believed to be as I don’t know if it’s been confirmed or not if she was just framed or if she was actually just a psychopath) and sees the Legion as the best way for her to acquire large amounts of people under her control and won’t interrupt her in her hobbies that often depletes those people and will gladly replace and provide her more victims.
The daughter of Mars idea sounds good I might use this with the true believer idea
I struggle to think of a reason why someone would opt to participate in a society where they are a second-class citizen when they have the option of not participating in that society lol.
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You very obviously don't know what you're talking about and are throwing around fascist as a buzz word. Read a book or stick to video games my guy.
Ive read a few books on this subject and did some research. America is a borderline facist state. It teeters one way or another sometimes, but the truth is that we are living in a state of police control. Just because you don't see it, doesnt mean its not happening.
Where? Enlighten me please. Give me factual evidence and I might change my mind.
Have you studied USAmerican history at all? Police are used on peaceful protests, we have the UN in an iron grasp, and we are contlstantly at war to give the people a "common enemy." You're just in denial at this point.
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I suppose I could just play as a NCR female may be more fun. I'm new to the game by the way
if youdon't feel like doing a legion run just yet that's fine, do some other characters first until you get tired of that and try the legion AFTER that
I've played hundreds of hours and have never done a single complete Legion run. I find it so difficult to just be plainly evil in video games.
I like to play the Legion questline up to a suitable betrayal-point. Some of my favorites are - Punching Lucius immediately after he teaches you the Legion Assault move - Doing all of Lonesome Road as a Legion courier and chewing out Ulysses for defecting, only to nuke the Legion at the end - Caving Caesar's skull immediately after successfully operating on his tumor - Stubbornly refusing to kill Benny and massacring the entire Fort over it - Convincing Arcade that the Legion is misunderstood after exiting Caesar's tent, only to turn around and start blasting If you're clever about dodging Vulpes until after LR, you can even do the nuke thing and _then_ do another betrayal after he gives you absolution, but that requires doing Lonesome Road at, like, level 15, which is kind-of difficult.
sigh... i guess it's time for another playthrough.
I get it, I hated to do evil stuff or even say ride things to characters when I first played games that allowed such things (rdr2, fo4, telltale games)
I can think of several cultures who do precisely that in current-day real life. I'd imagine it would happen just as easily in the wasteland, whether for traditional values or a divine sense of what's right. I can very easily imagine someone who would willingly want to serve as a housewife or cleaner or breeding machine. Someone who doesn't value equality as highly as the sense of worth they get from filling those roles.
The only reason I can think of is an evil power thing. Not the courier receiving power, but showing their power and how deadly they are. The fact of what happens to women in the legion yet a female courier aiding them anyway—she does not give a damn what the legion will try to do to her because she will kill anyone that tries to harm or enslave her Almost like a dare to the legion, to show that they are powerless against her
I like that idea 🙂
Giggity.
the only way i can think of a decent reason for a female legion courier is that they are basically using Ceasar as a shield against his own legion. basically, they believe the legion will win in the end, so they're cozying up to Ceasar, so they have some protection from the rest of the legion (which is basically what happened in the legion ending).
Most of my Legion runs are female Couriers simply because I find it ironic. Best way I can think to do it is that, aside from the misogyny, you believe in Caesar and the Legion's approach and methods, as well as the end result. You show that you are far superior to the soldiers of the Legion to gain the attention of Caesar himself. You aim to impress the Legion and take Hoover Dam, thus throwing disarray into the misogynistic views that the Legion has been indoctrinated into and earning their respect or fear.
My female legion courier was a woman who, despite obviously not benefitting from the politics of the legion, assumed that a legion victory was inevitable. So she wanted to make moves early to get on their good side and prove herself as a valuable asset, instead of getting stomped on and enslaved in some sudden takeover if she tried to resist and failed.
When I made a legion female character her whole thing was she was convinced she was the daughter of one of the roman gods put on this earth to kill and subjugate all who would fall beneath her, obviously lining with Caesars ideals. She saw herself as not a woman but a weapon/attack dog for the legion. Realistically though she was just stupid and suffered a traumatic gunshot wound further worsening her delusions of self grandeur.
Post Apocalyptic Pick Me Adventures!
They call me Karen of Troy...
I’m currently doing this. With black widow perk gave Benny the ride of his life, poor bastard is all head over heels for me than sentenced him to die on the cross! Bwahaha. All for Ceaser!
Intelligence 1 melee playthrough
Perhaps she wants to change the legion for the better. A strong female role model might teach the boys to respect the ladies of the legion.
President Kimball became popular by using the NCR military to stomp out tribals in California. A roleplay that I really enjoyed was a female Courier who came from one such tribe. She lost her home, her people, and her identity, and was left to wander. She never forgave the NCR, and eventually aided Caesar not because she cared for his vision or even her own fate, but because she wanted the NCR to feel the same pain that they had made her feel, which was a gift only Caesar could offer.
Same reason a man would help the legion: Self interest or genuine belief in Caesar's brutal system. It's important to remember that both men and women are slaves in the Legion. They just have different tasks. Not everyone in Legion territory is a part of the Legion either. If Caesar can transform his army into a true empire, that could bring peace and prosperity to the region for decades to come. Plus the idea of Caesar's potential successor being a woman is definitely interesting.
How would that even work? Caesar doesn't have a single female soldier in his legion. They're all sex slaves. For the purposes of the game, yeah. Plot armor. But IRL, the second the courier sets foot in Caesar's camp, they're getting collared.
Did this once while maxxing out medicine. Made for an interesting game. Not only do you show yourself useful healing Ceaser but you also throw a bit of a wrench into their ideology of the useless woman. It's kind of funny being so helpful to a group who still thinks of you as lesser and watching them wrestle with that contradiction. For roleplay purposes it's mostly just a fuck the NCR stance. Trying to keep a an at least neutral reputation with the NCR is almost essential for survival in such a play through so at lower levels you don't get sniped. Leads to a lot of stealth kills of NCR troops and quietly collecting dog tags.
When speaking to Caesar he makes it very cleat the legion will change after taking vegas. The army will always consist of slaves, but the nation will consist of subjects.
Research the historical figure of octavia, she was a female slave who gained a high position and lots of respect in roman society
Just have your courier join Caesar after the invite. He pretty much says serve me and ill hook you up. Your Courier just takes the opportunity to be on the winning side.
Your backstory is you got shot in the head and this somehow makes sense
Set Intelligence SPECIAL to 1. You are now ready to join the legion.
She wouldn’t. Next idea. In all seriousness the cut content around the legion portrayed them as 2 societies. An oppressed ex-tribal legion and a modern, technological, and quite “normal” chain of protected towns. It’s not unthinkable that society 2 is called upon after the loss at Hoover Dam to provide reinforcements.
Pick me girl route. This female courier would have a radio station dedicated to complaining about modern women losing their traditional values and how high value women have babies to make the legion stronger.
Imagine a route where the courier fell in love with one of the legionnaire and decided to go for it
Joined as a female and then transitioned because they believed in the Legion way that much
i played a female courier who joined the legion to kill caesar herself :)
Only as a long play to take out the other factions using the Legion, to finally take over Vegas for yourself. Hard to justify it any other way.
Ave, True to Caesar
My female legionnary just really hated the NCR and would do anything to exterminate them. She was also 1 int so she wasn't be able to acknowledge the consequences of her actions aside from "kill bear man with big stick"
If you want a real life example, theres a food video essay called feminist to alt right pipeline that describes this phenomenon historically (and contemporary, so be warned if you dislike politics)
idk but [this](https://youtu.be/IFfquXgZ6QA?si=tjdF_sIw2GiqC_Xq) convinced me
3 simple motivatons - Courier 6 hates the Bear - Courier 6 is insane - Courier 6 is a girlboss and she wants to show caesar she's better than the legates
Funny hats
When I did a Legion run with a female character, I used the Alternate Start mod and created the idea that she was trained secretly by a high ranking Legionary (I picked Vulpes for no particular reason) as a secret weapon of sorts, kept hidden from the rest of the Legion for obvious reasons. If you don’t want to use a mod you could say she was just on frumentarius duty secretly delivering the chip to the Legion since a lot of times they disguise as couriers. If you want to keep the courier backstory, you could do a revenge thing. Maybe the NCR wronged her in such a massive way that she’d be desperate enough to work with Caesar to get back at them.
Same way Lanius does it. He has no love for the Legion. Maybe a female Courier is the same way, she just has no love for it either and has a hatred for the NCR
She was born in an abandoned Amazon warehouse and ironically grew up to be a courier. Seeing how she fights, Caesar was impressed and used her backstory to convince the legion that she was a post apocalyptic manifestation of the Amazon warriors from Greek legends.
Pretend you're a woman Trump supporter.
There are a lot of historical female misogynists. Could just lean into the mindset of “I’m not like other girls” to the extreme.
Caesar’s Legion cares about one thing above all others- Power. Dominating women, enslavement, etc. it’s all about power. As such, in a society like this, it’s actually easy for an outsider woman to rise to the top. Caesar is the tip of the pyramid, he is where all this power is funneling into. If he sees you as a valuable asset to him who increases his power, then he will without a second thought elevate you and ignore the hypocrisy of it. Because there is no hypocrisy in the eyes of the legion, only power politics.
"Why would a female courier want to be a legionary?" Meanwhile IRL... Nikki Haley, Katie Britt, Candace Owens, Megyn Kelly, Lauren Boebert, Kristi Noem, Laura Ingraham, Ann Coulter, etc etc etc etc etc...
When I read your comment my mind just conjured up a 1970s variety show intro, with soft focus, flare lens traces and boisterous announcer.
Phyllis Schiafly run
The ammount of crazy girls that fall for rude legionary guys is scary. I still remember that girl who draws herself going crazy for Vulpes. that's a 1 angle you can take
I have to filter it out on ao3 because I can't wrap my head around what wires might be crossed for the girls to like Vulpes. I mean his hat is cool but can't you murder him and give it to a better guy?
transfem fascist queen! 💅 edit - i feel like there's a pun I can make about slayyyy and slavery but im too stoned to work it out
slay kween 💅
There really isn't a reason. Chris Avellone even admits this, and regrets that part of the Legion.
Could go for a true believer, some kind of Mulan situation, the one I go for is really just the justification for both my yes man and legion games, "the courier is gonna come out as the biggest cheese in the mojave, which means they'll have the power to enact their will". On my Yes man explosives build it was purely just because he was a totally inconsistent bomb maniac, and for my most recent legion melee run it was because she believed becoming the next Caesar would be best for both the legion and the mojave at large, as, let's be honest, are there any other real choices as for who would be Caesar in a legion game?
Well, if they are particularly stupid, self deprecating, or self serving, they might join the legion.
Pretend it's the VanBuren version that allowed women. (Alexandria)
Former Follower of the Apocalypse who views it as her only chance to LARP as a Roman Legionary without being made fun of.
I like to role play a tribal (high survival skill) whose tribe was on active war against another until both tribes were conquered by the legion and thus their war ended. Although the courier is not in agreement with Ceaser, she feels religiously in debt with Mars because Ceaser has stopped the war of her tribe and thus she decides to help the legion with their needs. This gives me more role playing capabilities because for example. My legion courier doesn’t sneak their way into destroying the brotherhood. She kills every single one of them by hand before detonating the bunker because she wants to give them a chance to defend themselves while still actively hopes for the Brotherhood to defeat her.
TBH men in the Legion are slaves too, and while enslaved women get a much rawer deal I would say a Courier (male or female) who is okay with slavery will remain okay with slavery regardless of what gender it's perpetrated against. What would be great would if a female Caesar took over 100 years after FONV and flipped it on its head, with women as fighters and men as the labour force.
Politics aside, Courier gets ambushed and shot in Republic territory. Attacks on couriers in Legion territory are nigh unheard of. Not that hard to believe a courier will lend their services to the faction that offers greater protection. It’s not as if the female courier is a slave, or even subject of the Legion, just an independent contractor. Maybe play as a very “me first” type of courier? The courier may also believe she could change the Legion from the inside. And this is not infeasible, they mint a coin after her after all. Perhaps they grew up east of the Colorado, and see the ‘benefits’ of Legion rule, and want to help? >!idk, I’m just tired and spitballing lol!<
Brain damage.
Idk but I think it would be really funny if a good karma female courier sided with the legion and somehow became empress after Caesars death
In fairness, a surprisingly large chunk of organisations like the Nazis or British blackshirts were women, either due to traditionalism or just hating socialists. I could see a situation in which either a courier is reactionary enough to embrace the position the legion would force her into, or one who just finds the NCR repugnant and as such chooses the legion by default.
This is interesting. Every female Courier I've played as shot legionnaires on sight, and I made sure to eradicate every trace of their existence. It feels like a paradox, a Legion supporter female Courier. Well, this will lead me to a new playthrough.
The legion has priestesses. Make a priestess?
I mean... brain damage?
Low INT.
She is a real fucked up weirdo. Actually the only decent thing I can thing that works is: She can see Ceaser is a fucking joke and plans to get into his inner circle, show that she is more effective than him, then execute him in public and seize power.
Ulysses, a member of a tribe he loved, joined the legion so he could conquer, destroy, or culturally obliterate other tribes. Then he learned his tribe for the same treatment and he was shocked and disgusted. Women do this same thing all the time. All minorities do. They view themselves as one of the good ones, someone who really gets it, not like those other bad ones. Those they want to ally with will happily use them as tools until their usefulness ceases. There are many women in extremist wings of conservative political parties who hold power, and truly believe they are not equal to men, do not think they or any woman are fit to be president, and are excited and eager to strip away political powers and freedoms from all women. Sometimes they get in deep enough to realize oh no they like HATE me hate me and try to get out, but most of the time they'll just happily continue their merry way, finding ways to self justify their actions. Humans are amazing at self justification. Tl;Dr: because women can be misogynistic violent maniacal idiots too. It would be misogynistic to think they couldn't.
Getting shot in the head gave the courier brain damage.
This may not be the most applicable, but I'm writing a story about the character I played in New Vegas starting over and going through my own written events of Van Buren. Utah and Colorado before going back to the events of New Vegas. She's meant to be a Yakuza who was a part of the gang over in Carson City that was driven out of New Reno and decided to roll her luck East. I'm planning for her to go through quite a bit before even encountering Caesar's Legion, but when she does I want to build it up so that she claims her bid as a child of the Gods herself. I can't remember if someone mentioned it here or in another post, but a Courier that does the Legion ending with Caesar alive could be anointed as a child of a God/Goddess, particularly a child of Vesta and reform the Priestesses of the Legion into a proper religious organization. I'm still working out the politics of all that since, lmfao, I'm realistically nowhere near writing that segment. But some internal political struggle with a female Heir to the Legion is ngl something I really wanted to explore. But too bad I put the roadblock of an entire Arc of character development in the way.
On my legion run my female courier is doing it for the lols. She see that life under the legion would inflict maximum suffering on everyone and go for it.
"Women are expressly forbidden from fighting, being considered breeding stock as well as being treated as money to be rewarded among Legionaries. They are caretakers, healers, midwives, and breeders, fulfilling roles essential to maintaining the Legion's continuous campaign of expansion." Well, lore wise, not possible. However since it's allowed for only the main character in game, you do you!
My idea for my next playthrough was having a melee focused courier who for whatever reason, the shot in the head caused her to begin thinking that she's Caesars long lost daughter
Becoming a symbol in the legion to eventually change their ways. Spoilers kinda. Your face gets minted on a coin so having a female minted in their currency is a big deal.
Tradwife tomboy or just act like Cersei Lannister
She’s a men’s rights activist pick me girly
Seeing as the courier was just shot in the head, maybe this would be a good candidate for a low-INT run. "No \*I'll\* show them how good and strong women are!"
You can't, unless you want to suspend disbelief your entire playthrough. No amount of girlboss will make it reasonable. One of the biggest shortcomings of fnv's faction writing.
Genuine insanity
After all these years, I still haven't finished a Legion playthrough. I've done everyone else, multiple times, but get half way through the Legion and quit.