Fallout: New Vegas/Characters/Caesars Legion

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This is a partial character sheet for the Video Game Fallout: New Vegas. Visit here for the main character index. Subjective trope and audience reactions should go on the YMMV page.

Caesar's Legion
Pax Per Bellum" (Peace through War)
—The Legion's motto as inscribed on their gold coins
"To enslave them is to save them, to give them purpose and virtue."
—Canyon Runner

- Courier: "Why is the Legion so...strange?"
- Caesar: "I used Imperial Rome as the model for my Legion precisely because it was so foreign, so alien. I'd seen what had become of the NCR's attempt to emulate the culture of Pre-War America - the infighting, the corruption. Rome was a highly militarized autocracy that effectively integrated the foreign cultures it conquered. It dedicated its citizens to something higher than themselves - to the idea of Rome itself. In Rome, I found a template for a society equal to the challenges of the post-apocalyptic world - a society that could and would survive. A society that could prevent mankind from fracturing and destroying itself in this new world, by establishing a new Pax Romana."

- Courier: "What does "Pax Romana" mean?"
—Caesar: "It means a nationalist, imperialist, totalitarian, homogeneous culture that obliterates the identity of every group it conquers. Long term stability at all costs. The individual has no value beyond his utility to the state, whether as an instrument of war or production.

A merciless and well-organized nation of imperialistic slavers originated from Arizona in the area around the Grand Canyon. Founded by the charismatic and dangerous Caesar. They modeled their society on the Roman Empire and believe that though force assimilation against the people that they conquered, humanity will one day all be united under the banner of the Legion, putting an end to all wars. They are currently aiming to push the NCR out of the area and conquer the Mojave Wasteland and one day California.

  • Affably Evil: Caesar. Inculta is a bit like this as well. Legate Lanius, despite being much more brutal than the other two, is surprisingly polite to The Courier and disapproves of Vulpes' methods of handling the West.
  • Altum Videtur: Their entire culture is based on the Roman Empire and they love to use Latin in their speeches.
  • Always Lawful Evil: One of the Legion's greatest strengths is how fanatical its soldiers are. That being said, they're far cries from the chem-mad Fiends.
    • Joshua Graham is actually a pretty nice guy. Though notably, he only became a nice guy after he left the Legion. When he was in the Legion, he was close to Complete Monster territory.
  • Armor Is Useless: Excepting the Centurions and the armor they make from the armor of fallen enemies, Legion armor is terrible in comparison to NCR armor. It may have something to do with most of it being made of football pads.
  • Assimilation Plot: A cultural version of this. It's not enough for them to conquer territory; they explicitly aim to erase the cultural identity of everyone they conquer and make it their own, so that there are no nations, only Nova Roma.
  • Badass Army: Every Legionnaire, from top to bottom, is either badass or dead. The rank-and-file might not be terribly creative or well-armed, but even Colonel Moore admits they are in fantastic shape and fanatically loyal, charging machine gun nests with little more than a sharp stick if their commander orders it. Caesar is an exception; he relies on his brains to get around his lack of brawn.
    • Depending on how you look at it, Caesar may still qualify. When you keep in mind that he is the equivalent of President Kimball, who is a former war hero, Mr. House, and Elder McNamara, who is a former Paladin, he still comes out looking rather impressive - despite having started out as a scribe. That's right: the most badass faction leader is the one who never received military training to become this good. He still has the highest strength stat of them all, shares the highest endurance stat, has the most HP, and completely outshines the others with his tagged skills (Guns, Melee, Unarmed - all at 100), making him better with guns than a former soldier and a former Paladin. While he may not actively lead his men in battle any more, he is still present near the front lines, unlike any of the other faction leaders. Think of it this way: He wears a Displacer Glove and can still punch you to death, despite being 55 years old (notably only five years younger than Kimball) and suffering from a brain tumor. Additionally, in his early days he was an adventurer linguist. Not as badass as his men, maybe, but still a good example for the badass leader of a Badass Army.
  • Badass Normal: The Legion has even less resources than the NCR, but has developed into a big enough threat to challenge them. Every Legionnaire is trained to charge at enemies with nothing but a machete without fear, no matter which advanced weaponry the other side is using.
  • Berserk Button: Never say Joshua Graham in front of the Caesar or Lanius.
  • Bread and Circuses: Mostly averted since the Legion have no intention of improving the living standards for the common people. But according to Raul's experiences and Caesar's long term plan, they rule over areas under their control using Type 2, except if you are a slave or a female.
  • Child Soldiers: Listen to Ranger Andy's story and he will tell you that the Legion have no issues with using child soldiers for suicide attacks against the NCR, knowing that the NCR soldiers will hesitate before they start shooting. When visiting the Fort, you can also see some young children training to be full Legionaries.
    • Those children have an even worse implication: Even in the NCR, many soldiers joined the active military at 16. Those aforementioned Legion children are expecting to be allowed to fight soon. Therefore it's likely the Legionaries become active soldiers very young. There is even a story about Lanius in which he (conflicting his usual story) became a soldier at age 12. While that seems to be the exception, there is also Chief Hanlon, who tells us that anyone who survives 10 years as a soldier in Caesar's Legion is exceptional and can be considered a veteran, since most of them die long before that. Think about that for a moment, and then about how old most of those Legionaries you are fighting probably are.
    • There's also the fact that Legionnaires you meet/fight in-game are on average shorter than most NPCs. Their shorter-than-average height does indeed imply that many Legionnaires you fight are rather young, barely adolescents at most.
  • Color Coded for Your Convenience: The most depraved and aggressive faction in the game wears red.
  • Democracy Is Bad: The Legion is at war with the NCR because Caesar is ideologically opposed to their democratic form of government. He considers democracy as an extension of the corruption that existed during the Old World and is ultimately doomed to fail.
  • Elite Mooks: The aptly named "Veteran Legionaries".
  • The Empire: The Legion has been at war every since it was founded and has been conquering every single community that they encountered. The NCR, Mr. House and the Brotherhood are the first real opposition that they ever encounter. The Legion domestic policies include killing the sick, the weak and the elderly since they are not worthy of being alive, and wiping out the cultural identity of everyone under their rule.
  • Evil Luddite: They make a habit of destroying any advanced technology they come upon, and Caesar is so mistrustful of technology that he considers the very idea of seizing whatever House has under the Fort to be silly.
  • The Extremist Was Right: Their brutal regime has made Arizona a safe and secure place to live. Safe in comparison to, say, the Capital Wasteland. In fact, it's one of the safest places in the post-war world... except for the fact that if you're not in a very specific group of people (healthy, young to middle aged, human male soldiers), you either get killed or brutally enslaved and this goes double for women.
  • Faceless Mooks: Many Legion soldiers wear balaclavas and sunglasses to cover their faces.
  • Five-Bad Band:
  • Future Imperfect: Less than you'd expect, since Caesar did his homework and the parts that are Roman are reasonably accurate. Still, as pointed out by Arcade, it's not Rome, just an army that's using it as a theme.
  • Genre Savvy: Caesar has taken the necessary steps to ensure that his ideals and plans for the future will be perpetuated in the event of his death. Even then it's implied that if he dies the Legion will fall into infighting, just not automatically.
  • Gray and Grey Morality: Caesar "intentionally a very dark grey." [dead link].
  • The Horde: Their entire purpose is to conquer and enslave everyone else. Even Caesar admits that they are more like the barbarians of Gaul than the legions of Rome.
  • Hypocrite: They always talk about how important loyalty is, and how they follow it, and apparently the lack of loyalty is the reason they butchered Nipton. However, many of the conditions for joining the Legion are A Fate Worse Than Death.
    • And Caesar, despite all his talk about the weak not being worthy of living, is in fact himself a sick man suffering from a brain tumor and will have no problem about using modern medicine to save his own life even as he bans medicine in his society.
  • I'm a Humanitarian: Cannibalism is said to be an accepted practice among the Legion, though not all its members are cannibals.
  • In Name Only: Despite modelling themselves on Rome, they much more resemble Sparta (or the Gauls since, as Caesar himself puts it, "my Legion, at its current state, has more in common with the barbarians of Gaul"). Everyone is a slave or soldier, art and technology is unheard of, the slave support the warriors, the physically and mentally handicapped are executed, and doing horribly cruel things is seen as a sign of strength. Caesar even comments that he thinks the Legion appears closer to the hordes of Gaul.
    • To be fair, historians generally will tell you that Sparta was the warrior nation and Athens was the cultured society, with science, philosophy and government, of Ancient Greece. Rome was a country that looked back on Greece's ancient history and incorporated the cultural sophistication of Athens and the warrior culture of Sparta to create an Empire that would span a great portion of the continent of Europe and Asia. As Caesar himself explains the way to balance the Legion's warrior society out with a more desirable society where technology, culture and order will prevail is to create a center for their Empire, New Vegas will be their City of Rome that everyone will rally around, without a centerpiece, a capital for their society they will continue to be little more than nomads warring across a wasteland.
    • Ironically, the Legion may actually fit the name, specifically, Caesar's Legion is a legion as opposed to the whole of Roman society. The Legions were a structured, regimented, efficient military force that practiced absolute discipline and ruthlessness in combat. In this regard, Caesar's Legion perfectly matches their name.
  • Meet the New Boss: Caesar's manifesto is remarkably similar to The Master and his Unity, only with Legionaries instead of Super Mutants. You can even talk to Super Mutant Marcus about Caesar, and while he doesn't make a direct comparison you definitely get the vibe that he's seen it all before and knows it just isn't going to work.
    • Despite his contempt for Pre-War America, Caesar's flaws are worryingly similar to those of the Enclave. The glimpses we get of Legion's atrocities are remarkably similar to the iconic image of a soldier in Power Armor executing a captured and bound Canadian in the introduction to the original Fallout. The invasion of Canada and the sacking of New Canaan are also similar: both were innocent settlements that happened to have something their aggressors wanted, and so were brutally crushed. For all Caesar's attempts to make the Legion appear alien, their obsessive nationalism and intensely racist ideology are also more than a little familiar.
  • No Woman's Land: Women in the Legion are restricted to domestic roles or made slaves, with the exception of the female-only priestly caste, according to the FNV official guide. If your character is female, the slave Siri will tell you that this is the first time that she met a women who isn't a slave after she got captured by the Legion.
  • Politically-Incorrect Villain: Enslaving anyone without a pair of balls (and even if they do if they're not brawny enough/too brainy or don't especially want to be soldiers) is a good way to moot the question of whether the Legion might have a legitimate point.
    • The Fallout New Vegas Game Guide also says that they're racist against ghouls and super mutants.
    • Also, despite some rumors floating around the Mojave, mostly between NCR citizens, they are very homophobic, punishing homosexuality with death, if what Jimmy says is true. Rather ironic, when you consider the society Caesar's Legion is emulating.
  • Praetorian Guard: Since it is a faction based off Ancient Rome, this is a given. They're armed with Ballistic Fists in this case.
  • Putting On The Römisches Reich: Caesar modeled the Legion on Rome, particularly the post-Republic Roman Empire. He starts by uniting some tribes...
  • Rape, Pillage and Burn: Their standard operational procedure after taking control of an area. When you confront the Legate Lanius and have a high enough barter skill, you can point out that this is not a sustainable method for the Legion to operate under.
  • Rising Empire: Caesar sees his Legion as this. He intends on conquering New Vegas and establishing it as his Nova Roma, the nerve center from which he will go on to destroy the NCR.
  • Science Is Bad: Caesar believes that mankind's dependence on technology is what caused the Great War. He also thinks that it makes people weak and lazy over time. Therefore technology such as medicine beyond that of tribal remedies and war machines that allow for fighting without risking men (for example, robots) are banned. Energy Weapons are fair game because they're just guns. Caesar keeping an Auto-Doc and possibly Arcade for his tumor and using a Howitzer for the final battle, however...
  • Shown Their Work: Sometimes hard to tell from the real Roman Empire. They even pronounce Latin as correctly as they can according to current academic thought.
  • Sociopathic Soldier: Their entire organization.
  • The Spartan Way: The Legion have no problem with using child soldiers against their enemies.
  • The Spymaster: Just like the NCR, the Legion have an extensive network of spies and will know about it if you work against their interest. They even managed to infiltrate NCR's military command in the area and the Omertas on the Vegas Strip.
  • Straight Edge Evil: They despise the use of chems, drugs, medicine and alcohol. It is forbidden for anyone in their territories to possess chems under most circumstances.
  • Visionary Villain: While on the surface they look and act similar to the raiders of the Capital Wasteland, any length of talking with the higher ups (ESPECIALLY Caesar) will show that while the low-level grunts might be thugs looking for plunder, the leadership have vastly greater ambitions than being just another group of warlords. They want to remake the world in their image, and they have a surprising amount of planning in place to do just that.
  • We Have Reserves: From the countless bloodthirsty legionaries trained through brutal training regiments. They are also unwilling to surrender at all, Boyd talked about how difficult it is to get a Legionary to give himself up as a prisoner of war.
  • Well-Intentioned Extremist: Caesar aims to one day unite the entire wasteland under the banner of the Legion as a empire that would prevent humanity from ever fracturing itself again.
  • You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: Their standard operating procedure is to manipulate tribes or factions that don't meet their standards into serving them as quislings, then exterminate them. If they win at Hoover Dam, this is the fate that awaits the Khans, the Fiends, and the Omeras, as well as the Boomers and the Enclave Remnants if Lanius becomes the new Caesar.
  • You Will Be Assimilated: Their ultimate goal.
  • Zerg Rush: Even more so than the NCR. The Recruit Legionaries, the most common type of soldier, may be sent into battle wielding only machetes.

Caesar

Voiced by: John Doman

"I was taught it was my responsibility to bring the torch of knowledge to the wastes. I may have taken the torch part more literally than they intended."
—Caesar talking about his origins

The head of Caesar's Legion, Caesar was a former member of the Followers of the Apocalypse by the name of Edward Sallow sent east to learn more about the communities there. Caesar found a cache of old books on Roman history and was soon inspired to use the blueprint of the ancient Roman Empire to forge a new civilization to survive the wasteland. He and his expedition was captured by a tribe but soon became their leader by teaching the tribe a better way of fighting and began systematically taking over tribes and creating them into Caesar's Legion.

  • Adventurer Linguist: What he started out as, along with Joshua Graham and Bill Calhoun.
  • Affably Evil: If you ignore all the murdering, torture, and slavery, he is actually a nice guy to talk to about political philosophy... At least until you touch a nerve and he throws a temper tantrum, threatening to have you killed.
  • Armored Closet Gay: Possibly. Homosexuality is (apparently) punishable by death in the Legion, but his relationship with Joshua Graham leads to some questions. His fondness for Arcade and apparent devastation after his death leads to even more questions.
  • Badass Bookworm: He was originally a linguist, sent by the Followers of the Apocalypse to research tribal dialects. His tagged skills? Guns, Melee Weapons, and Unarmed.
  • Badass Normal: The Big Bads of the Fallout series have included a super-intelligent psychic mutated blob, the President of the United States, a 200-year-old Master Computer, and a 200-year-old Master Computer who is also President of the United States. In comparison, Caesar is just a normal, mortal human born and raised the child of poor wastelanders, and yet has managed to become as great a threat as any of the arch-villains who came before him.
    • At least, as great as that Master Computer President, but that he might not reach up quite to the Master's or Richardson's level of threat isn't really Caesar's fault - the Master's army was composed almost entirely of superpowered goons led by highly intelligent superpowered goons (and there was no organized government to try to stop them), and Richardson's Enclave was in the final stages of a plan to kill all life in the Wasteland when they were stopped. That Caesar has more humble goals and faces greater opposition doesn't diminish the badassery of getting where he is, merely the threat he is.
    • It should also be noted that despite his never having been trained any sort of military or paramilitary group, his combat skills outshine those of war hero Kimball and McNamara of the Brotherhood of Steel.
    • He's also the most successful. Eden, Richardson and the Master all end up dead by the end of the main quest while Caesar can not only survive but potentially win (although there was an option to join the Master it was more of a Nonstandard Game Over). While their threat was curbed before they could do much damage, Caesar has already taken over a vast empire which still stands even after his defeat.
  • Bald of Evil: Even lampshaded by Mr. House.

"I don't want you harming a hair on that man's head, assuming you can find one."

  • Big Bad: The closest thing the game has to one, unless you side with him. Though if you manage to kill him, Lanius will take up the role.
  • Black Sheep: As a child, he never fit in with the Followers of the Apocalypse due to his petulance and narcissism.
    • Alternatively, the main thing which drove him apart from their ideals is that The Followers seemingly only seek to bring and spread knowledge across the wasteland but not actually put it to some use. Caesar grew bored of simply learning the languages & culture of the tribalized Arizona and wanted to see something change, immediately.
  • Blood Knight: Caesar hides it better than Lanius, but he revels in violence for the sake of it. He'll scold the Courier for their lack of sadism if they ask to release Benny and afterwards he gloats about the satisfaction of destroying his enemies. If you refuse to help him further, he'll threaten to have you cut to pieces for his enjoyment.
  • Bonus Boss: At no point in the game does Caesar need to be killed to proceed with any questline, but killing him is very satisfying. However, at the end of the House/Independent questline, Caesar is almost certainly killed offscreen when the Securitrons underneath the Fort are activated.
  • Cult of Personality: See A God-Emperor Am I below.
  • Defector From Decadence: One of Caesar's motivations, evidenced by all his talk of "profligates" and "degenerates". Caesar was originally an NCR citizen and a member of the Followers Of Apocalypse. He left the two groups because he disagreed with them ideologically.
  • Embarrassing First Name: Edward.
  • Emperor Social Scientist: He built the Legion out of a few tribes by using his academic knowledge of Pre-War government, military tactics and Roman history.
  • Evil Is Petty: He threatens to kill you just for bringing up his defeat at Hoover Dam and throws a childish tantrum (complete with name-calling) if you decide to stop working for him. Taken Up to Eleven in Honest Hearts where he destroys New Canaan and tries to kill anyone connected to them simply to get back at Joshua Graham.
  • Evil Luddite: He believes that introducing modern technology (especially medicine) to a population will corrupt them and harm their cultural development by making them weak and dependent.
  • Evil Overlord: A post-apocalyptic version.
  • Founder of the Kingdom: Founder of the Legion and developer of its ideals.
  • From Nobody to Nightmare: He was the only child from a poor family that was raised as a Follower of the Apocalypse before he became the ruler of the Legion.
  • Genre Savvy: If the Remnants fought for a Legion victory, Caesar is at least knowledgeable enough about the Enclave to leave them alone. Lanius, meanwhile, decides to hunt them down, leading to Legionnaires dying by the hundreds.
  • A God-Emperor Am I: Proclaims himself as the Son of Mars and maintains something of a Cult of Personality within the Legion. He doesn't believe it himself, but the troops do to the point that suggesting Rome may be a pre-existing concept is punishable by death. The legionnaires are deliberately kept ignorant about such things and seem to genuinely believe Caesar is a descendant of gods. Some of the older ones probably do realize it isn't true, but they wouldn't dare to bring it up.
  • Hypocrite: What's that, Caesar? Science Is Bad? Medicine shouldn't be be allowed because the weak do not deserve to live?
    • He also apparently has no problem with taking Rex, a cyberdog, in as his personal hound.
    • Ulysses straight up calls Caesar "History's Hypocrite" if you tell him that Caesar is dead. He then goes on to tell the Courier that if Caesar was too weak to defend himself from you, then by his own logic he was too weak to lead.
    • He complains about how NCR's rampant capitalism and greed have made ordinary people suffer. Yet he devotes massive Legion resources to protecting merchants (some of whom like Dale Barton have profited directly from the Legion's war effort) and caravans while turning a blind eye to the extreme levels of sexual violence and abuse women in Legion territory go through.
  • Idiot Ball: You may spend much of the game killing and generally foiling the Legion's plans up until the point where Caesar himself invites you to his camp. Once there, he wants you to go and "destroy" the vault underneath his camp where a massive army of Securitrons is being stored because he refuses to introduce any of his men to advanced technology. And so then he gives the Courier back all of his weapons, and then sends him to do the task alone. Not even a single guard; he has it as an item of completely unwarranted faith that you'll carry out his bidding even if you've openly dedicated yourself to overturning every one of his plans in the Mojave.
  • Insufferable Genius: Caesar enjoys lording his intellectual superiority over others, to an even greater degree than House (House will explain advanced concepts to the Courier if asked, but Caesar will simply sneer that the Courier should read more books).
  • Karmic Death: What Caesar will inevitably receive if his brain tumor runs its course: a death at the hands of something potentially preventable by the very technology he banned from his civilization. Not that he didn't try said technology...
    • Also, the Gun Runners' Arsenal rewards the player for killing him in two very specific ways: stabbing him to death with a knife (A.K.A. the Ides of March) or throwing a spear at his head.
  • Non-Action Big Bad: He lets Lanius take command for the Battle of Hoover Dam. House even states that Caesar has minimal effect in the final conflict. Then again, he is an old man with a brain tumor and therefore in no condition to actually participate in combat. Besides, Lanius has it well in hand, and is a far more competent fighter and frontline general than Caesar.
  • Parental Abandonment and/or Disappeared Dad: In the supplemental material in the collector's guide, his father left him with the Followers of the Apocalypse when he was five. In-game, he tells the Courier that his father was killed by raiders when he was two.
  • Pet the Dog: If he takes over Vegas, Caesar allows the Followers to leave peacefully since they're the ones who raised him in the first place.
    • He'll also give Hanlon a quick, painless death out of respect, which is better than what Lanius gives him.
  • The Philosopher: Surprising considering the Legion's general mentality, though he will not tolerate being questioned by anybody apart from Arcade.
  • Prepare to Die: If the Courier comes to see him by his invitation and has a bad rep with the Legion, Caesar will tell you that it was all a trap and he's going to kill you on the spot. And then...

Caesar: Relax, I'm fucking with you.

  • Psychopathic Manchild: It's quite evident that he hasn't quite grown out of the narcissistic and petulant nature. He reacts poorly if the Courier tells him that s/he's done working for him.
  • Retired Badass: He may not lead his man in battle any more, but he can still punch you to death. He also outshines the other faction leaders in combat skills.
  • Shadow Archetype: To Mr. House. Both are Insufferable Geniuses and Self-Made Men who have established themselves as political powerhouses via application of their intellectual might and have lofty goals for humanity that require them to Take Over the World. But while House is a technologist and social libertarian whose plans are founded on futurism, Caesar is a fascist and an Evil Luddite who models his new society on Earth's past.
  • Sophisticated As Hell: The rest of the Legion may be extremely impolite to you, but they're formal about it. Caesar, while he can be just as formal as his subordinates, throws around the word "fuck" and name-drops Grognak the Barbarian to the Courier. This is especially pronounced when he's afflicted by his brain tumor. Paraphrased:

Courier: Does your head hurt?

Caesar: What does it look like, asshole?

  • Villainous Breakdown: If you blow up the bunker underneath his fort but then say you refuse to work for him any more (or just pretend to), he'll start cursing and throwing a temper tantrum. Then you can threaten him with Terrifying Presence, resulting in him crying for his guards.
  • Visionary Villain: In a way that is similar to the Master, he believes that the abolishment of freedom will create a better future for humanity in the long run.
  • Well-Intentioned Extremist: His ultimate goal is to unite the remnants of humanity and prevent a tragedy like the Great War from ever happening again. But his method for achieving that noble goal is morally questionable.
  • What Happened to the Mouse?: If you neither side with him nor take it upon yourself to kill him, he disappears from the narrative entirely.
  • Wicked Cultured: Caesar is a highly educated man and enjoys political/philosophical debates. He is also a well talented historian that justifies his extreme actions by naming historical examples.
  • Wolfpack Boss: By himself, he's basically just a normal Praetorian Guard with slightly worse armor. However, he has several Elite Mooks equipped with the most powerful hand to hand weapons in the game guarding him. It's not very hard to take them all out if you know what to do, but they'll kill you quickly if you screw up.
  • Worthy Opponent: He openly admires President Kimball's prowess as a warrior and considers it a waste that such a man would dedicate himself to politics.
    • Notably averted with the Courier. No matter the Courier's attributes and skills, Caesar clearly views them as beneath him and (if they side against him) is openly offended that such a person could stymie his plans.
  • Young Conqueror: He founded the Legion at the age of 22.

Vulpes Inculta

Voiced by: Jason Spisak
"Pile body upon body."

The head of Caesar's Frumentarii, which serve as the legion's secret agents, often infiltrating the NCR as spies. Vulpes Inculta is said to be a master at everything a frumentarii is carried out to do; espionage, sabotage, infiltration, terror attacks... He has no qualms with carrying them out no matter how horrid the act is.

The first time the Courier enters the town of Nipton, they will find it ransacked by a small Legion squad, led by Vulpes. He walks up to the Courier and says he will leave him alive so that the Courier can spread the word of what they did to Nipton. If you press him, he will go into detail; the original plan was that Powder Gangers were setting up a trap for off-duty NCR soldiers within the town. Only when the trap was sprung, the Powder Gangers realized they were stuck inside it too. The Legionnaires, by order of Vulpes, handed out lottery tickets which would decide the fate of each. Vulpes adds that "each clutched onto his own ticket, hoping they would be set free" implying that the people of Nipton didn't bother fighting back or rescuing one another, only hoping to be freed at the expense of others. This "karmic lesson" for Nipton is Vulpes's motivation for personally heading a group of Legionnaires to sack the place, as it was a town of debauchery and whoredom, Which Vulpes despises.

Vulpes shows up on several occassions after this event, for certain story missions.

What's especially notable is that Vulpes was originally planned to be a companion. It was likely unfinished due to time constraints during development, though a lot of bits of it remain within the code, such as unique voice lines for each of the companion commands. Vulpes could've been a Token Evil Teammate if left in.

  • Adaptation Dye Job: Vulpes is featured on one of the playing cards included within the Collector's Edition where his hair is blonde instead of brown.
  • Affably Evil: Like many other characters in the game, his friendliness to the main character is the only thing keeping most players from murdering him on sight.
    • He keeps this up throughout the story. When he gives you missions or you ask some info from him, he doesn't seem to talk down to you and simply gives you the facts.
  • Animal Theme Naming: His name translates into "Desert Fox". And of course there's the dog head he wears.
  • Blatant Lies: He claims none of Nipton's population tried to fight back during the lottery, but if you poke around the nearby trailer park, there's a dead citizen with a lottery ticket and lazer rifle, with the ashy remains of a legionary, showing that at least some of the townspeople resisted.
  • The Comically Serious: If you meet Vulpes in New Vegas for the first time then go to Nipton, he says "I was the Frumentarii who gave you The Mark. I wasn't wearing a dog's head at the time" then continues the scene as normal. It causes the scene to lose its creepy tone quite a bit and is also quite humorous.
  • Cunning Like a Fox: It's part of his theme.
  • Dissonant Serenity: He never speaks in anything but a cold and smooth voice.
    • Unless you go all Terrifying Presence on him and tell him you'll wear his head like he wears that dog's.
  • Establishing Character Moment: His appearance and the way he coldly explains how he handled Nipton sets the tone for both him and the Legion for the rest of the game.
  • Meaningful Name: "Desert fox". Probably in reference to his cunning, especially as the originator of that nickname also happens to be the trope namer for Magnificent Bastard.
  • Nemean Skinning: He wears a Vexilarius Helm when out in the field.
  • Older Than He Looks: He was the one who pacified the Twisted Hairs, the tribe that Ulysses belonged to, an event that happened around 30 years before the main game.
  • Pay Evil Unto Evil: A definite believer of this. Don't believe him? Just ask Nipton. He'll even tell you straight up to kill him if you believe he's in the wrong.
  • Red Oni, Blue Oni: Plays the Blue Oni to Lanius. While Lanius is a Blood Knight who prefers glory in open war, Vulpes works in subversive ways that the Legate considers dishonorable.
  • Sharp-Dressed Man: If he's still alive by the time you get to the Strip, he be there to give you a message to come see Caesar disguised as a Gambler, including a suit and a hat.
  • The Spymaster: He is the head of the Frumentarii, in charge or overseeing all the Legion's covert-ops and military intelligence actives. You can take a few missions from him as well.

Legate Lanius

We shall see how brave you are when nailed to the walls of Hoover Dam, your body facing west so you may watch your world die.

Voiced by: Mitch Lewis

"Lanius is savage. Savagely loyal, too, but only to me - he has no love for the Legion. But this has its uses. He has no attachment to his men, no compunction about battlefield losses. All he cares about is destroying the enemy. When another legatus or Centurion fails to achieve results, I send Lanius to make things right. His first step is to beat the failed commander to death in front of his assembled troops. Then he orders the ritual of decimatio."
—Caesar's views on his second in command.

Known as The Monster of the East, Legate Lanius is Caesar's right-hand man and the commander of the Legion's army.

He is the tallest human character in the game and serves as the Final Boss (unless you side with the Legion). He wields a massive sword to battle and is never seen without his armour; nobody ever gets to see his face, something Lanius himself upholds as his slaves are all blinded. This, along with the fact he has several wildly conflicting backstories within the game, shrouds him in mystery as to who this man truly is. "Lanius" could be a Legion position rather than an individual person, something that's even implied by Ulysses ingame.

  • Affably Evil: Much like the other Legion bosses. Lanius allows the Courier to reason with him even if you are a sworn enemy of the Legion.
  • Badass: In the game files, he's even listed as "Legionary Badass".
  • Badass Beard: Although you can't see it when you fight him due to his mask, which itself has one.
    • Although his unmasked appearance ingame could be a case of Gameplay and Story Segregation; although his ingame face is viewable if you remove his mask (which has a beard), in a story sense that might not actually be his face, and therefore canonically he may or may not have a beard underneath his mask.
  • Bad Boss: The Radio New Vegas news story in which he is first mentioned involves him beating an under-performing squad commander to death, and then ordering nine-tenths of the force to kill the remaining tenth (that last bit is actually rather expected of a Roman-esque military force, considering the actual practice of Decimation).

Mr. New Vegas: And you thought your boss was a pain.

    • Oddly enough, talking to him shows he does care about his men and is just a Bad Boss in order to keep them in line.
      • Considering that the Legion is heavily composed of all sorts of nasties like former raiders, this is probably a necessity.
  • BFS: The Blade of the East.
  • Blood Knight: He considers war to be the entire point of living. If you managed to talk him in to retreating, he will give you a speech about how violence will set people free in ways that they will never understand and give them strength.
    • He even uses you as proof of this, pointing out all the things you have done after getting shot in the head.
  • Chekhov's Gunman: The earliest thing you're likely to hear about him is from a news story about his practice of decimation on the Legion troops.
  • The Dragon: He is the Legion's second-in-command and the most powerful warrior that they have, second only to Graham.
  • Dragon-in-Chief: He's the general of the Legion and the commander for the final battle. House predicts the Legion would collapse in a year without Caesar though.
  • Dystopia Justifies the Means: While Caesar's rule is hardly anything to look forward to, Lanius' rule is much much worse with the intention of creating a Darwinistic world where the weak would be broken by violence while the strong thrive in constant warfare.
  • Even Evil Has Standards: He finds Vulpes Inculta's sacking of Nipton, Searchlight and his dealings with the Omertas dishonorable. And he can be persuaded to retreat if he's convinced that the campaign to take over the Mojave will be too costly for the Legion in the long run.
  • Evil Sounds Deep: In part owing to his mask distorting his voice, but it still counts.
  • Final Boss: Surprisingly for this game, played completely straight, unlike, say, Colonel Autumn.
  • Flunky Boss: If you fight him, two Praetorian Guard and a little less then a dozen Veteran Legionaries will spawn, packing ballistic fists, machetes, marksmans carbines and super sledges. However, if you talk him into fighting you alone, he becomes a Duel Boss. If you play your cards right, you can even invert it. The speech check will have him order his men to back down, but you can still have the NCR Ranger Squad Leader, one humanoid companion (e.g. Boone), one non-humanoid companion (Rex or ED-E), Cannibal Johnson and Doctor Henry, whereas he as no other support.
  • Four-Star Badass: The best general in the Legion.
  • Genius Bruiser: Despite being made out to be a savage brute, Lanius is actually a better tactician than Graham and wiser that Caesar thinks. He also understands warfare enough to know that defeat in battle is not the only way to lose a war.
    • If you look at his SPECIAL, you'll find his Intelligence is the highest of all of Legion members!
  • Get Back Here Boss: After you deplete his health about 3/4, he runs away, throwing grenades to cover his retreat. He's actually running towards the pen for his dogs, when he gets there he'll unleash them, use some healing powder, and charge back at you.
  • Hidden Depths: Using the barter skills to talk him into backing down reveals he's very much aware that the legion can't go on the way its doing for much longer.
    • Considering how mysterious Lanius is, how dubious and conflicting all accounts about the man are, he probably has countless hidden depths to his character, because no one else in-universe has been able to figure him out. Although he's brutal, it's clear from the player's dialogue with him that he is not a fool, and not even completely blinded by pure lust for waging war (because he IS capable of noticing when a battle is no longer worth fighting). He is not Stupid Evil and yet he is an absolutely ruthless man, so it isn't clear where he stands.
  • I Am the Noun: "I am the East. And I will prove it this day." He's not bragging.
  • Large and In Charge: He's the tallest and physically strongest human character in the entire game, and his metal armor makes him look even bigger.
  • Legacy Character: Implied by Ulysses.
  • Lightning Bruiser: He can run faster than a Deathclaw, not to mention he can take more damage than the Legendary Deathclaw and hit even harder with his sword.
  • Made of Iron: He can take 5 anti-tank rounds to the face without even slowing down. A Legion solider at the arena mentioned that Lanius once killed 10 men in a match. All at once. Barehanded.
    • One-Man Army: In one version of his backstory, when the Legion showed up to take over his tribe he basically fought them all off for weeks by himself.
  • Meaningful Name: His name means "butcher," appropriately enough.
  • Memetic Badass: Like Boone, he's one both out and in-universe.
  • Multiple Choice Past: There are a few accounts of how he came to be the Legion's greatest soldier that don't quite match up with each other. For example, Caesar's account of how he was the mightiest warrior in a conquered tribe and was press-ganged into the Legion doesn't fit Lucius' claim that he was already a centurion when he was 12 years old. Likewise, Joshua Graham remarks that he never heard of Lanius during his time leading the Legion, and only learned of him recently by reputation, suggesting Lanius wasn't present or at least prominent in the Legion until after Graham's banishment (a relatively recent event). Ulysses mentions the possibility that there has been more than one Lanius, since the only ones who have "seen" him without his mask are blinded slaves.
  • Noble Demon: To some extent. He dislikes Vulpes' underhanded methods (specifically his ploy with the Omertas) as well as the idea of a Pyrrhic Victory. At the very least, he is one by Legion standards.
  • Pragmatic Villainy: He can be persuaded to abandon the fight for the dam and retreat. This can be done through convincing him with one or several factors, such as "if the Legion over-extends it might get stretched too thin", "if this battle ends up crippling the Legion army it'll be too weak to hold New Vegas", and so on. The fact you can appeal to him with reason and he actually listens to you if the idea may benefit the Legion more in the long run, shows that Lanius isn't as much of a mindless savage as Caesar tells you he is.
  • Throw Down the Bomblet: Besides his BFS, his only weapons are his Incendiary and Frag Grenades.
  • Tin Tyrant: He wears metal armor that covers every single inch of his body.
  • Undying Loyalty: To Caesar, and when you bring it up to the Legion as a whole (being Caesar's will).
  • Worthy Opponent: He considers you to be one if you managed to use speech to convince him to retreat. He even says that your views are noble, and hopes that the west will one day be full of people like you, so he can return one day and fight them in an epic battle.
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