In season 2, episode 3 of the Fallout series, Lucy encounters Caesar’s Legion, or what remains of it.
Fans of Fallout: New Vegas are primarily concerned with one question: Which ending of the Obsidian role-playing game is canon? In fact, the Fallout series will not provide a clear answer to this question, as has already been officially confirmed.
Nevertheless, this does not prevent Robert House (Justin Theroux), the NCR, or Caesar’s Legion from making an appearance: With the two major factions fighting over Hoover Dam and control of the Mojave, Lucy (Ella Purnell) and the Ghoul (Walton Goggins) have now made their acquaintance 15 years after New Vegas.
What is the status of Caesar’s Legion 15 years after New Vegas?
In the third episode of season 2, Lucy finds herself in a Caesar’s Legion camp (and immediately points out that they are pronouncing the Roman general’s name completely wrong). A handful of important details about the fate of the brutal slave drivers are revealed:
- Caesar’s Legion still exists, but is nowhere near as powerful as it was 15 years ago.
- In fact, the faction has fallen out: After Caesar’s death, at least two different leaders have claimed leadership. This is despite the fact that Caesar had actually chosen a successor. Each of them now sits on their own throne and wears their own outfit, which bears a striking resemblance to that of the original Caesar.
- However, the original’s corpse is laid out in the middle of the camp, around which a front has formed: anyone who tries to deliver Caesar’s message to his survivors is shot down by one faction or the other.
- The warring parties are thus in a rather absurd stalemate that even irritates Lucy: No one can advance, no one wants to back down. As a result, the once powerful faction has torn itself apart.
- Caesar’s Legion is so preoccupied with its own civil war that the faction hardly has any significant influence on the Mojave anymore. That’s good news for the NCR, because after the destruction of Shady Sands, there seems to be almost nothing left of the New California Republic.
What does this mean for the canon ending of New Vegas?
Caesar’s Legion is broken and defeated after the death of their great leader. But doesn’t that mean the faction must have lost the battle for Hoover Dam?
Not necessarily. This shows how closely showrunners and screenwriters Geneva Robertson-Dworet and Graham Wagner studied New Vegas. It stands to reason that the original Caesar died sometime 15 years after the events of New Vegas.
Even during New Vegas, Caesar is 55 years old and suffering from a brain tumor. Regardless of whether Courier 6 cured him with the Auto-Doc or a giant revolver, it’s not at all far-fetched that a warmonger in the middle of a radioactive desert wouldn’t make it to his 70s.
Let’s get to the point: Caesar’s Legion was held together solely by Caesar himself.
Virtually every smart person in New Vegas predicted that the faction would be doomed once its leader died. Key figures such as Robert House, Ulysses, and Joshua Graham made it clear to players that Caesar’s Legion would fail sooner or later.
The Fallout series has thus only fulfilled the prophecy that was already foreshadowed in New Vegas. And it did so without necessarily committing to a canonical ending.
By the way, you’ve probably noticed that Macaulay Culkin is wearing the armor of Legate Lanius. However, that doesn’t automatically mean that the star of Home Alone is playing Lanius. It’s much more likely that his character simply relieved Lanius of his belongings after his death. Rules of the wasteland and all that.
