i'm kind of just sitting here thinking about it and like, Goodsprings in Fallout New Vegas is kind of genius, isn't it?

It's really easy to dismiss it as just a tutorial area for a lot of the games mechanics if you choose to follow its quests, and it absolutely is. but it's a lot more than that, too, im just now realizing.

Goodsprings is the working class in the post apocalypse. It's a city that is too small and with too few resources or a good geographical location for the Legion to realistically care about conquering, and yet it also has not capitulated to being NCR Territory.

If you go through the quest, you see how these small folk live and go about their daily life. you see how they get through the day to day, this little slice of near commune life they've built for themselves.

But, in a more subtle way, it puts the NCR into perspective. I think Obsidian knew that your average player would see these military guys who represent the old world state and be like "Yeah, those are the good guys" without much thought. But Goodsprings challenges that.

Precisely because they are so small and so insignificant, and because they refuse to give up their way of life to NCR rule, they receive no help from the NCR when the Powder Gangers come knocking. It's up to you, the player, to assemble them into a small militia that fights back.

And that outright makes you ask, why wont the "Good Guys" help these mostly defenseless people? The Powder Gangers are from their own prison no less, and they won't take up the or protect the people being hurt by the NCR's own inability to hold their prison down.

If Courier Six had not helped out Goodsprings, they would perish at the hands of the Powder Gangers, or simply be taken over by them and forced into a different kind of rule anyway. It's up to the community to band together to stop that, not the Military, not the State.

Obsidian didn't really have to do a lot to convey to your average player that the Legion is evil, the very first time you meet them makes that clear, but even following the thread of Goodsprings, the very next place you're going to go is Primm and that continues the same thread

Primm equally has its own civilian inhabitants, but they *did* capitulate to the NCR's rule and even still the NCR can't defend them. They wont send enough men, ammunition, or any sort of heavy infantry to stop the Power Gangers from occupying the Grand Bison Hotel

And so even if you don't do the quests there, you pass right on through, the next place you're likely to get to is the Mojave Outpost where there's a big statue commerating how good and protective the NCR are of the Mojave and it even plays some low key military battle music.

If this was your first impression of the NCR, it'd be nearly impossible to break the mental image that these are not only the good guys but the absolute Saviors of the wasteland. They clearly view themselves that way. But it's not your first impression.

By the time you get to the Mojave outpost, you've likely defended a small town from a prison riot the NCR failed to control, fought past that verysame prison riot to get to Primm, cleaned up the NCR's mess they refuse to do anything about, before finally coming to the Outpost.

By the time you're at the Outpost, every single one of the NCR's stated ideals have been thoroughly and completely questioned in front of you, they seem weak and ineffectual. Maybe trying their best given the circumstances, but clearly not a State anyone needs.

I commit the cardinal trans girl sin of not enjoying F:NV as much as I did 3, but I'm beginning to realize that's because I played 3 as a child and just consumed it as "haha fun apocalypse romp" and not the actual very deep metaphors something like an apocalypse story brings.

But even still, I seriously have to commend Obsidian for doing their damnedest to show you that what is essentially the old world US Military are not the saviors, or even the good guys, they're incapable of defending the places they do control and refuse to help where they don't.

Man. Maybe I should replay F:NV and seriously give it a shot and not just treat it like I want it to be an apocalypse romp the way I have before. It's clearly got a lot to say.