The NCR being a radically egalitarian yet xenophobic society that hates ghouls and supermutants on a starship troopers level would have made the legion more morally ambiguous and less comically evil than they are now. The legion would still be misogynistic slavers but if they were genuinely the only faction that treated nonhumans as people it would have made picking what faction to side with harder. Mr House would have been the shitty compromise between the two, he may have female sex slave robots and alienate poor people from the strip both human, ghoul, and supermutant alike, but he is more than willing to take everybody’s money. Meanwhile the yesman ending would have been a burn everything down without thinking about the consequences ending like it still is and turning New Vegas into a post apocalyptic Syria. Is the legion still bad even if they are the only faction that is cool with ghouls and supermutants. Yes, they own slaves, but it would also make the NCR bad if they are trying to commit a genocide against ghouls and supermutants. And the NCR needed to look bad in New Vegas, if there was more development time they absolutely would have added more content painting the NCR as not the good guys.
Also if the legion was an ever expanding military force that defeated and assimilated 87 tribes, did the ghouls and supermutants not have tribes? The word tribe is loaded with all kinds of real world colonialist terms but there was ghoul and supermutant tribes and settlements all throughout the fallout games. And the legion being based off rome did assimilate some of the people it did conquer, I’m not saying the romans didn’t treat conquered people like shit, but they had assimilated some of those people into their military force and government. I just see not having ghoul and supermutant legion troops as a missed opportunity, imagine if Lanius was a supermutant, Ceaser’s right hand man, imagine if Caesar called himself the successor of Master, if non-humans were intergrated into the legion in new vegas in the highest and lowest positions of their society it would have made destroying the legion a much tougher moral decision, because not siding with the legion would have been the worst possible outcome for anyone who wasn’t human.
Also there’s some stuff about supermutants being genderless so that would have been very interesting to see how the legion rationalize treating them as people but women not. I don’t think the legion is morally good, I wouldn’t want to change it too much because if they were too sympathetic it would be much like fallout 4 where the moral dilemma was, is slavery bad? But the legion are good villains, and if they had this one good character trait with them, I think it would have added a lot more nuance to the game. Because the choice wouldn’t be slavery or genocide, it would be these factions are evil, picking the third or fourth option somehow makes things worse. Also the only good things you hear about the legion are from Danny Trejo’s character so I just wish they went down the Legion being pro-ghoul route.
I see where you're coming from, but imo sometimes it's okay to have a comically evil group. Fascism is comically evil in real life after all, and doesn't look kindly on (what they would see as) "diseased" individuals like mutants and ghouls.
Besides, even though the Legion is comically evil, some naive chud players still side with them. So even the most comically evil group isn't totally unpalatable to idiots, just like real life fascism!
Counterpoint, if the majority of ghouls and mutants were siding with the explicitly bad slaver guys then the player would feel a lot less bad about killing them, and unless you specifically went out of your way to not kill them, you get an ending slide that says that you were responsible for starting a pogrom against mutants. There’s people who played fallout one and wanted to side with the master, I think the legion is the closest faction there is to that in new Vegas because there already is some bits of lore about them being somewhat tolerant to ghouls, and the ncr being the opposite.
Problem is, the NCR for the most part was established to be alright with ghouls (slightly less so with super mutants) in Fallout 2
If I recall correctly, there were even some NCR Rangers that were ghouls and super mutants
I think the real solution to the Legion being cartoonist would have been to have some more Legion territory on the map
Not places that were assaulted like Camp Searchlight or Cottonwood Cove, but places where they have been in control for a long while
That way we could see the other side of the Legion, the one that provides a semblance of stability in a world rocked by raiders and monsters
Of course, this stability would be enforced with excessive violence and hair-trigger punishments, but it would go a lot further to establish why some people would be okay with Legion rule than just a couple of people being like "Yeah, but you should have seen it before!"
My memory is fuzzy but yeah I'm pretty sure there were several NCR ghouls in 2.
A lot of the legion content was cut due to time and there was internal disagreement on whether they should have been a playable faction in the first place. I view the ncr acceptance of ghouls in the same way the legion would accept a female courier, they are willing to compromise out of necessity sometimes, the ncr and legion are willing to accept help from the enclave who are without a doubt the most evil faction in the entire series, but I think the ncr acceptance of of mutants should have always been lower than the legions, the ghoul rangers are a segregated unit, even in the best endings the legion should have been better for mutants than the ncr. Like attacking supermutants should have resulted in the legion going hostile.
a theme with the legion is what seems like a respect for/cultivation of strength is a totalizing oppression. The Khans, if sided with a victorious legion are made slaves despite the contribution and lies the legion rep told them.
so i don't think the Legion could be 'Pro-' mutant, they might tolerate some as slaves but the notion of plurality is against the principles of the organization
Yes the majority of mutants in the legion would be slaves/low level foot soldiers, but if supermutants and ghouls made up a noticeable portion of Caesar’s inner circle and the legion had a few moments of going out of its way “help” mutants, even if for a cynical purpose, I think it would give the ncr moral ambiguity they needed to not be the good guys. The legion does respect strength, they are willing to work with a female courier, the legion is still misogynist, I would like a legion retcon that makes them view humans and mutants as equal, both equal as slaves, it’s not like the legion would be a good thing, if their one redeeming quality was “ghouls aren’t discriminated against” instead of “they made the trade routes safer”, that would be a better reason to side with them. I would want an ncr playthrough have the player go out of their way to protect mutants, while a legion playthrough would basically stipulate that mutants are under the legion’s protection. As for why a misogynist military organization would tolerate mutants, might makes right. If Caesar said “mutants are cool” who would question him? If he modeled his empire off rome then I could see him assimilating mutants into his empire and making it very clear he will crucify anyone who has a problem with that.
the ncr moral ambiguity they needed to not be the good guys
if the player comes away with the impression the NCR are good guys i think they just failed to do the reading and this is needless complication to a straightforward metaphor. the NCR & Legion are two sides of the same coin. Bear and Bull is the stock market, Caesar represents the fascist lie of revolutionary rejuvenation of a capitalist order, NCR is mask-on capitalism that's exploitative, imperialist, and corrupt if you peer beneath the professed ideals. the Legion has it's moments of "helping" oppressed groups, the Khans, Fiends, and Powder Gangers represent constituencies that are justifiably angry at & hunted by NCR authorities and the pay off is that they're all worse off for throwing in with Caesar.
