The NCR Explained: What happened, and what the future holds 

If I don't hear an NCR Soldier say "Patrolling the Mojave almost makes me wish for a Nuclear winter" in Season 2 I'm gonna be mad

Todd Howard said the NCR isn't defeated or eradicated.

That's great general, but ive gotten word of another settlement that needs your help, ill mark it on your map

Lucy remembered but Hank gaslit her into thinking it was just the projector of the Sun/light in the vault corn field. Norm would have been too young to remember.

I think the theme playing over Lucy looking at the flag is foreshadowing that she’ll fight to restore the NCR (or at least try to). After all, it was the Vault Dweller and the Chosen One who helped shape the NCR into the powerhouse it was

“Hank and I buried her.” The fact they were able to BURY her sends up red flags considering they live in a metal box underground.

In New Vegas it's noted the NCR is facing shortages of electricity, water, and food, which is why they needed to expand. It makes sense that they couldn't devote resources to rebuild Shady Sands and might have abandoned the whole area in favor of better locations; even in the real world whole towns sometimes get abandoned when resources dry up. I suspect Moldaver and a few die-hards refused to abandon the area, or the NCR authorized her activities but wouldn't commit any resources to it. Restoring power might give the NCR a reason to return, possibly sparking another war with the Brotherhood.

Shady Sands being lost was quite a shock indeed. But as history tells us, the lose of a Capital doesn't mean the nation is gone. The NCR is still out there, and I got a gut feeling that they will come back and retake the Observatory form the brotherhood.

The scene where Lucy slowly pulls back the NCR flag was my favorite moment in the series.

I had a thought, moldaver might have been frozen at Hollywood forever, it was a funeral services company. She had meetings there. Might have had cryogenic capsules there too.

Since Aaron Paul reportedly wants to be in the show, I could totally see them introducing the remnants of the NCR through him as one of their rangers or something (if they do actually cast him).

I thought Rose learned that ppl were already on the surface, hence she found out the water from their vault was being siphon from the surface is how she knew....and why she left

Didn't the people who found the NCR come from a vault themselves?

I think the canon ending for New Vegas has to be the Mr. House ending, because why else would hank be going their. Also, the wrecked vertibirds and wrecked securitrons and New Vegas being in ruins could have been the NCR coming back and trying to get revenge on Mr. House and trying to take New Vegas for themselves like they were trying to do during the events of fallout New Vegas.

I think the NCR is currently politically fragmented after the lost of Shady Sands, and Moldaver was leading a renegade band of NCR forces, which would explain why her forces was so weak when facing off against the Brotherhood. But she may become a martyr to bring the other NCR factions together.

Is it just me, or was casting Erik Estrada as an NCR Ranger a stroke of subtle brilliance?

My head cannon is that the NCR hasn't fought back because they are still waiting for the permit to authorize military action.

21:32 I just want to say that this scene here was straight lifted from the good the bad and the ugly, and I loved every second of it, and actually I think this entire season was one big western with that theme, Lucy being the good, the potential good of mankind, Maximus being the bad, ambition, betrayal and hatred, and the ghoul is the ugly, the ugly face of survival and how the wasteland can really destroy a good person. Really well done and this scene especially.

Im sure the reason the Brotherhood did so well is because they had Maxin as reinforcmemts. The East Coast facton became the dominant faction, far stronger than the West Coast faction. Being unregulated by the counsil of Elders, Maxin is basicly the leader of the entire Brotherhood

For Moldaver's longevity I'm speculating some measure of identical cloning, possibly memory imprints... maybe even synth copies. All I'm sure of is that Season 1 isn't the last we see of her. "Flame Mother" might refer to the phoenix being reborn from its ashes, the entire ritual in Vault 4 might also be alluding to that concept.

Just a note to anyone wondering. Talking to one of the Freeside NCR squatters in Fallout New Vegas will reveal that Shady Sands wasn't the capital at the time of New Vegas. The Freeside NPC refer to Shady Sands as "the FIRST capital of the NCR." Also the refugees in Vault 4 probably DO think the NCR is totally gone. It's possible Moldaver encouraged that idea and that only blood and fire could bring it all back because she's placing the seed for a fanatical cult army down the line. She's called the "flame mother" which makes me think that her cold fusion technology might be related to ultracite from Fallout 76. Meaning that the means to achieve cold fusion always required nuclear war to generate the ultracite. Hence Hanks statement that she's no better than him. We MAY find how in the next season that Hank is exactly right on that point. How the hell did she survive 200+ years? Why is she called "The Flame Mother?" In a Fallout playthrough these would all scream "red flag" to me. Dubious motivation and a hidden agenda.

It was explained in the show that Muldavers experiment of cold fusion was rejected by vault Tech and she opposed vault tech. Specifically after shady sands was destroyed.

I imagine that the reason Moldaver is currently the main NCR leader is due to how the destruction of Shady Sands led to NCR officers forming warlord states in the anarchy, as we see how many of the NCR's military are mostly interested in their own gain. It could also be that they didn't return to Shady Sands because aside from the potential warlord issue, the destruction of Shady Sands could lead to repeats of the NCR correctional facility riot, alongside issues caused by opportunistic raiders, potential legion remnants, ect, which could possibly explain why Moldaver's force are the only NCR in the area, as the rest of the NCR military could be dealing with the previously mentioned threats.

Don't quite get the confusion over Moldaver's appearance. I assumed she somehow had access to a cryo pod in a vault like in Fallout 3 and 4.

My theory is that once the NCR lost it's capital, it broke up into a multitude of smaller decentralized NCR groups. Moldaver is the leader of the shady sands remnant NCR. Lucy (depicting the player character) triggering the fallout theme by touching the NCR flag makes me think, that it'll be Lucy's main quest line (overarching theme in all seasons to come) to re-unite and potentially even lead the NCR.

What confuses me is Moldaver is shown as older in the pre-war 2077 scenes then she is in the post-war flash backs with Lucy's mother. Why does Moldaver look younger when she's with Lucy's Mom? Is Moldaver a clone? Did she have some way to de-age herself?

Jack Cabot said he'd go to the Mojave. Maybe we'll see'em

One thing that I noticed about the crater of Shady Sands is it's rather big, so whatever was detonated had to have been a large load - nothing you can conceal on your body. The only options is either it was already there or the bomb was brought there with a truck.

I'm not sure about if Shady Sands is irradiated. If Lucy's Pip boy's geiger-muller counter reacted to a puddle of "dirty" water, why it didn't reacted near the crater of Shady Sands? The most realistic answer should be that a nuclear explosion above Shady Sands destroyed it and enough time has passed to no longer be irradiated, like in the case of the first nuclear weapons deployed in Japa

Player Choice is critical to NCRs existence. FO1 - Don't save Tandi or Destroy the Raiders, no NCR FO2 - Keep all the other factions against NCR NV - Side against the NCR The NCR history only exists if the player has supported it, which the lore assumes happens. Unlike every other faction in the series, which only have checks in their respective games.... exception being the Brotherhood which seem to win arbitrarily because of reasons while being shown to lose or be in hiding for lacking resources while controlling the majority of resources. The Brotherhood continuity has to be a running gag.

18:49 to be fair the main issue with the NCR in the Mojave and the reason House didn't believe in them was because they were spreading themselves thin and their bureocracy had made them make bad decisions, so it makes sense there wouldn't be an army there, also, as Stated by House the reason the NCR wins vs the brotherhood is because of their numbers, so it also makes sense they would lose to the Brotherhood if evenly matched

I honestly think that when she says that she buried her mother with hank she was referring to that to launch a nuke in vault tech you'd likely need two executives to input their I.D. codes to authorize the launch.

One thing just occured to me: If Moldaver is such a big deal - she said herself "Everybody knows who I am!" Why is the Ghoul surprised when he recognizes her on the poster when he's also been around for the last 200 years?

It wouldn't surprise me if we learned in Season 2 that after the NCR lost the second battle of Hoover Dam to either House or the Courier (Independent Ending) they relocated their capital to a place like Vault City, Redding, New Reno or The Hub. And after Arron Kimbal was either removed from office or killed (leaning toward killed if my theory of the Independent Ending is the cannon ending to New Vegas considering the post credit pull way at the end of Season 1) the new NCR president decided to focus on rebuilding, consolidating their power and stop their rapid expansion. Given that, when Shady Sands got boomed the new NCR president decided that Shady Sands was a low priority so only sent Moldaver to rally the survivors as a token gesture to keep the voters off their back. From that perspective it would make sense as to why when the Brotherhood attacked Moldaver's forces they were so weak, the main NCR basically left Moldaver to lead a skeleton crew. Given how they were depicted in New Vegas that seems to fit with their track record.

That's what Muldaever was doing. She was rebuilding the NCR, why she wanted the Cold Fusion spark & was willing to get it from a defector (friend of hers) of the Enclave. She likely thought that with it, a brighter future would ensue.

Moldaver looked about 35yo in flashback 1-2yrs before nukes. 219yrs later, she looks about 55-58. So only about 20-21yrs of life after nukes. Presuming she used cryo, if lived those yrs after one piece, she unfroze in mid 2270s, or she lived in intervals. Either way, when 1st unfroze would find herself in NCR, unless dates back, and way back to be one of Shady Sands founders. Either way that location/area would be important to her, cause pre nukes her entire work/company was there, so after nukes she stuck to it. We will see. Rose MacLean: Lucy during talk with Max said that up till she was 6yo, believed Vault light was Sun, only after mom gone, realized it was mom who made it feel real. Rose was hinted proclaimed dead (starved) during "Great Plague" of 2277 in Vault 33, when people starved (many died of starvation) and Hank dropped to 128 pounds, cause were forced to quarenten, and could not work on farms. All that sounds like manufactured cover up by Vault 31, for events in Vault 33 that happened during 2276 to 2277 when Rose went out with kids, and kids got back during (late) 2277 (would explain why Lucy has only short memory of all that), while Rose stayed out and was proclaimed dead. And only about 5yrs after all that Shady Sands got nuked. So quite some happened during those 5yrs, including NCR/Shady Sands internal political, economic and other issues, that led to Shady likely losing Capital of NCR status. Again, we will see..

Vault-Tec as a joinable faction would be cool to see in a future game

Oxhorn: "he's a mobster posing as a governor" Me: "So a governor?"

The minutemens influence seems to have made it all the way to the west coast when Thaddeus contacts the BOS, the guy running the radio station was broadcasting the minuteman song

Anyone see multiple Fallout series? Each one focusing on a different time period/faction? Kinda like Star Trek?

The fact that Maxwell is a survivor of shady sands, and then joined their sworn enemy, the brotherhood of steel... there is a huge story an character development bound to happen there. The whole cult scene was so unsettling. whose blood were they drinking there? The fact that Hank had access to a nuke to even fire at Shady Sands, somewhat re enforces that Vault Tek did indeed drop the first bombs. Not so sure we will have a happy ending. Fallout is grimdark, it's not really designed to have a happy ending. I hope NCR does recover, but the whole theme of Fallout is "War never changes" so a peaceful ending is unlikely!

I sooo want them to use the 'Metallic Monks' track in season 2. By far the best track in all fallout games.

The explanation we need for the BoS' strength comes from the fact that the Prydwen is there. Plus all the T-60. This means the Eastern Brotherhood (most likely under Maxon) is now in control. To futher back this up, it is mentioned that they are now getting orders from the Commonwealth. (Not sure what they are still doing there 9 years after destroying the institute especially without the Prydwen, which also suggests they have a permanent base of operations in Boston)

Pretty solid analysis. I wasn't really surprised the NCR was in for some rough times. Something that gets left out in a lot of the discussion about this is that New Vegas presents the NCR crumbling. I think we'll see a fragmented West Coast going forward but the NCR still around.

I actually have a very good analogy for the situation of what happened to Shady Sands and the NCR. This is what I like to call “Pulling a Johnny Flashback” for those of you who haven’t played Cyberpunk 2077, it’s worth mentioning that it isn’t just a random game CD Projekt Red made, rather the first virtual game that of a long running Tabletop RPG Series, and in one of those Games we could see Johnny Silverhand Raid on Arasaka Tower… Long story short, the Events described by the Tabletop Game and what Cyberpunk 2077 depicts happening are completely inaccurate. CD Projekt Red later damage-controlled by saying “oh, Johnny is a crazy schizo narcissist boy so of course it would be inaccurate” the fanboys bought this excuse hook line and sinker, but i could very easily tell it was just a clever excuse to save face at poor communication between the source material and the Adapters. We can prove this was never the original interpretation of Johnny’s Flashback being nonsense as other characters in the game describe that event occurring exactly as Johnny remembers it. We are seeing this again with Fallout. In the End Credits of one episode we see a charred Schoolbus of Shady Sands, with a Library Book showing a list of checkout and return dates. The last checkout date? *2277.* So unless this kid chose to steal the book but kept bringing it with her to school, Shady Sands was destroyed, i the minds of the Showwriters, in 2277. This whole “Oh, the Fall was something else, it got blown up after FNV” is 100% a case of pulling a Johnny Flashback. It’s a easy excuse that most will accept and move on with, hell, I’ll accept it too, but I’m operating under no illusions that this wasn’t just convenient Damage Control.

Moldaver is a synth since she knows Siggy from the Commonwealth

I want to believe the Fallout theme is going to be the giveaway in future seasons as to what the main faction/characters the story will focus on. In the games not only do you find out about the corruption around the wasteland, but you also bring it to light in ways you bring hope to those you help. Obviously helping some might make other your enemies, but that’s the nature of the Fallout universe. Can’t be friends with everyone. This series is shaping to become one of the best ones to come out in a long time and I’m here for all of it. The attention to detail is incredible and it captivates fans of the games while the storyline brings in new fans. It’s brilliant

We know that vault tech was after the United States government's Nuclear launch Silos, we know from Canon from Fallout 76 that the overseer of 76 was tasked with a secondary mission to take control of the Appalacha's automated Silos. So if a few other vaults were given this same task and not having to deal with the same security of the automated Silos of West Virgina, It could be possible for someone from vault 31 with knowledge given to them by vault tec to find where high yield nukes silos where located.

My take from FO4 is that the BoS is on the way up, I mean they went from hiding out in bunkers to having whole airships. Two now actually and on both coasts of the US. The Prydwin and whatever the airship from the show is called. I think the canon ending for FO4 has the BoS still active in The Commonwealth

I noticed the background music as well, I love it, sure wish we would've gotten more than 8 episodes. I still have so many questions, next season is so far away.

Either Lucy will join and restore the NCR or she'll be a very important ally to them later on.

I picked the NCR in New Vegas. Your video explaining why you picked the NCR is very well done. However, even though I picked them, I’m still mad at the NCR, because of the high taxes and they are slowly turning Goodsprings into a ghost town. So yeah, I’m really curious to see their fate in season 2.

I've been struggling to understand the contention over Shady Sands and the "fall" of the NCR. Anyone who has spent a decent amount of time in FNV, let alone hundreds of hours, knows full well that the NCR was in serious decline. Stretched at every point, terrible morale, corruption, motives and ethics internally questioned. I think you're right. The stirring Fallout theme used VERY deliberately and very sparingly. It's the stir of the NCR again. Perhaps regaining it's former values and even numbers. It's coming back to California in future seasons without a doubt.

Thank god, to me i grew up with the ncr, they are my favourite faction and i really hope there story dosent end, they are the best hope for people of the west coast. I was so devastated to learn what happened to shady sands and seeing the well in the flash back brought a tear ngl

Oxhorn? At 9am? *sips coffee* Okay. I'm up.

As the inventor of cold fusion, her moniker SHOULD be "FlameLESS Mother"

12:23 I am 100% convinced that this is the connection to the magical entities on fallout, and that Moldaver was blessed by one such entity, you have covered in previous videos the cuthulu-esque beings in the fallout universe and I believe that these blood sacrifices and rituals are what has kept moldaver alive for the last 200 years. Maybe mother of flame was a name given to her because she survived the Great War, and she even survived shady sands, where Lucy’s mother did not, maybe this magical regeneration is how she will return next season. I’m just glad that didn’t throw away that magic aspect in the show, it makes everything much more eerie and sinister.

I'm pretty sure Hank was insanely jealous when he found out his wife had emotionally moved on with someone else so he bombed the place.

The NCR is also shown in the post end credits for episode 8. Vertibirds with the NCR logo were shown crashed in New Vegas. So I think they are still a thing. Factions come and go in Fallout. Heck, you can totally wipe out three of them yourself in FO4. That is exactly what Hank was going on about (and what the game is about). Until one faction can reign supreme every faction is still in the running and at war. And you know: War. War only changes players.

I really loved the scene in the lead farmer's home, such a great riff on The Good, The Bad and The Ugly. Erik Estrada was great showing just absolute terror at The Ghoul being there.

i hope we find out more about the NCR, Legion, New Vegas and maybe even the courier 6 in the following seasons, i an very much intrigued to see where the story goes

I just hate that too me it really feels like "fucking stop asking for Fallout on the west coast!" and so they blew up shady sands, and show new Vegas at the end of season as dilapidated, no lights on, and ruined walls. Just feels bad ya know?

I get the sense that means the NCR moved all their resources to concentrate on New Vegas as they had finally taken full control of the area and their capital at Shady Sands was simultaneously destroyed.

I like to imagine the NCR people we see in the show are some type of extremist group that never gave up on shady sands while the rest of NCR moved on with their lives

NCR AND PROUD!

I presume NCR ending of New Vegas is canon now with Mr. Huse disconnected but alive and NCR took over New Vegas and made it their second capital, when suddenly it got attacked by army of Deathclaws and abandoned. Season 2 will also follow a storyline that will explain who send those Deathclaws (I think it was Vault-Tech). NCR has no more power amror to spend since all of those troopers died during siege of New Vegas.

could be that the whole "first capital" of NCR is like how, for example, in South Africa there's three different capitals (Pretoria, Cape Town, and Bloemfontein) based on three different branches of government (Executive, Legislative, Judicial)

Just hand the show over to oxhorn at this point cause the show runners obviously are just scooping whatever they can out of the boneyard at this point, writing wise

The reality is that Moldaver calling her settlement the "HQ" of the NCR doesn't necessarily mean anything. The NCR was huge, and all corners of it wouldn't have extremely easy communication with one another. Much like the Brotherhood, there are likely other settlements that consider themselves the torchbearers of the NCR now who may not even know Moldaver and her group exists. Depending on how much the NCR lost in Shady Sands, it also might not have been a simple matter of coming back in and re-establishing themselves. When it comes to Fallout theorycrafting, you always have to stay very local with your thinking and resist the urge to start drawing larger conclusions about massive entities like the NCR, or the Enclave, or the Brotherhood, etc. because the writers can and likely will always reveal that there's some heretofore unseen chapter, or force, or settlement out there.

I have my own theory about what is going on with the NCR. I think that the NCR was in the process of becoming like the Roman Empire when it was in the process of splitting between the Eastern Empire, centered around Constantinople, and the Western Empire, centered around Rome. So you have the primary capital of Shady Sands, their first one, and a second capital centered somewhere else (The Hub, Vault City, etc). The bear has 2 heads after all. You could even say that the Fall of Shady Sands was when it stopped becoming the singular capital of the NCR. Now, why was everyone talking about Shady Sands and their policies and influences in New Vegas? Because the 2nd capital was in the northern end of the NCR, and Shady Sands ended up being in control of the southern end, which is where Vegas and the Hoover Dam was located, meaning that they would have been the ones in charge of any operations out there. After the nuking of Shady Sands, the other capital decided to focus on addressing the internal problems in their half of the country since the NCR under Shady Sands was over extended, exhausted, and run more by the Braman Barrons, and they left the Shady Sands area to fend for themselves. Much like how the Western Roman Empire was allowed to fall apart by the Eastern half of the empire. But that's just my thought.

Apparently, some people genuinely aren't able to remember anything at all that happened before the age of 6 or 7. But even when we do, we still can't always remember things linearly, sometimes its just flashes of events things or places. I'm not sure how old Lucy is, but it is possible Hank gaslit her into thinking the memories were dreams, or a story she made up while playing make believe. I don't know how much younger Norm is than Lucy, but she seems really young in the flashbacks, if he was a toddler he would likely not remember at all, being able to form autobiographical memories (things you can recall having lived throughout your life) at that age is very rare. Also, to muddle it even more, your brain can from false memories. I had a couple really "vivid memories" from when I was really young sbout trips me and parents took that turned out to have been dreams I had, of places similar enough to other kinds of places they did take me to regularly, but that when you recall the details, those two particular places in the "memories" don't actually exist anywhere in the world. Memory is a fascinating thing. I'm also curious about the famine that supposedly killed Rose officially. Was it a real thing that actually did happen close enough in time that Hank was able to manipulate the kids into remembering the two things as overlapping? Or was there never a famine, and he and Betty just privately told little Lucy and Norm that it was a really hard time for everyone and to just never speak of it, because it would only upset people, and they obeyed, so it never came up that he lied about it?

5:48 the difference between a scientist and bureaucrat. A scientist does an experiment to see the result. A bureaucrat does an experiment to prove a previously agreed result.

Why have speculation when you can take the word from the horses mouth himself? Direct quote from Todd Howard, "One of the takes that we always have is to approach things very locally when we're doing Fallout. We're careful about saying what's going on in other parts of the world. And we always take this view of, communication is difficult. And look, if you look at the background, the NCR is a wide-ranging sort of organization and group across not just California, but other places. So the show focuses on this period of time and this group here, and that's what we can say right now. But I don't think you've heard the last of the NCR."

I can't wait for season 2.

Here’s a what if for you. What if that rival organization that the Vault Tec executive was talking about. Was actually the Institute. And that the Institute had a different way of preserving human life. Which preserving only the mind. And that Moldaver was actually a synth. After all, they had done this with the Boston, Detective and Nick Valentine.

I don’t think Muldavor is a general, but a sponsored scientist promising that her project would be crucial to restoring Shady Sands. This would ease the question of why she personally went to Vault 33 or be allowed to do so by those she works with, this can be answered in 2 separate answers. This first is that either she knows what Hank Maclane looks like, maybe she tried to convince him that Vault tech was wrong (though this once again brings up the question of why he didn’t recognize her, only answer I can think of is that he thought she died 14 years ago and had forgotten her face), or that Lucy’s mother told her enough about the vault for her to have an intimate knowledge of the layout. The second is very personal in that she was very angry at Hank specifically and wanted him to know who it was who ruined his life, almost as vengeance for Lucy’s mother, Shady Sands, and maybe even her cold fusion project and vault Tec in general.

Todd Howard even has a hard time saying new vegas lol he really hates the fact that obsidian made a better fallout than Bethesda, and he can't get over it

90% of this show's problems could have been solved had it been set in Chicago or Texas, or something.

Heck yeah I'm having a rough morning at work and then I come across a fresh new Oxhorn video.

Not a nuclear physicist, but given the lore behind Fallouts nukes and what we see, the crater of Shady Sands appears to have been a subsurface detonation. Thats the only way to get such a massive crater while leaving buildings standing so close to its edge.

Ruining the lore is awful but wipe the NCR from the face of the earth is totally unforgivable.

In my opinion it makes sense. This is the post apocalypse. The NSR can't be invincible. They have to lose somethin.

20:05 actually it appears 3 times! In the very first part of the first episode right when the bombs drop, they play a rendition of the “fallout theme”. The notes they play during this scene are ALMOST identical to the iconic note progression of the theme song. I believe they have it in a different key or have a note of the progression changed but if you listen closely you hear it

6:03 I think it’s safe to say that Hank dropped a bomb, the location of witch was probably supplied to him by vault-tec, if you remember Maximus told lucy that he “was a kid when the bombs dropped”, he was there and he hid in a fridge to escape the attack, it’s also consistent with the fact that there is a giant crater which I don’t believe would be the case if the bomb was underground, hank could have set off a device or a reactor in shady sands, but considering Max’s testimony it would be safe to say a bomb was dropped.

First by the way, I love your videos I’ve been a fan of them since 2022. Keep up the good work. Btw I’m your first like

Beth shills aren't qualified to talk F lore.

One thing that bugs me... doesn't shady sands not exist anymore. It was shady sands in fallout 1 and only fallout 1. When you come to what was previously shady sands in fallout 2 I'm pretty sure it's just known as the new California Republic. All these people calling it shady sands now makes no sense because most of them probably wouldn't know what shady sands was. After the first game everyone else calls it the NCR and unless you go through some dialogue you could probably play through all of fallout 2 without realizing it even was shady sands.

I really enjoyed the show, but words cannot describe how afraid i am of what will happen in season two. When we see new vegas there are no lights, no people in the streets, no sign of NCR or legion, only Hank presumably trying to find mr. House. Despite all the plotholes in the show, none of it direcly afects the games, but the show now has the power to decide what the fate of new vegas was, and I pray to Yes man that they don't blow it.

Bethesda is erasing all non-Bethesda Fallouts, so that the only choice are the microtransaction apps they call games.

Hank is cartoonishly evil and his motivations are stupid. This is bad writing and nobody should be defending it

When he says “hell I probably have some of your lead in me.” He’s joking about lead that the lead farmer scavenged being smelted down into bullets, kind of hinting that he’s been shot a lot. They didn’t know each other

The NCR, like any "empire" is going to go through expansions and contractions. There was already talk during New Vegas that they were over-extending themselves and their resources. I don't think Moldaver is a recognized leader for the NCR (at least not anymore). She's taken it upon herself to lead the remaining forces in the area, similar to what warlords in other eras have done. There's still an "official" NCR capital and region of control, just not in the south anymore. San Francisco, Sacramento, and Reno are all possible locations. One of the games (1 or 2) puts the NCR total population at a million people or more. Shady Sands was only 34,000+ of that. Two dam battles, whatever happened in New Vegas from the end credits, and the nuking of Shady Sands finally broke them and sent them backwards to redraw the lines of their borders, until they can recover. And losses like that can also cause unrest internally for the areas they do still control, meaning forces that would be used to retake lost areas are being used to maintain control in normally "safe/controlled" areas.

Thank you, Ox. Ive only ever played fo4 so i dont know all this other history. I hope you give us a cliff notes version of 1, 2, 3, 4, new vegas, 76, and the things between. I tried to watch your play through vids, but... these are very long games and im old.

The fun thing about the show is it's roughly a blank canvas so anything can happen

In Fallout New Vegas you find out that 5% of the NCR’s population is in the Mojave area. In Fallout 4 you find out that the population of the NCR is at least 3 million, it controls at least 3 states of the old world and the main military forces are not in the capital.

It's pretty neat that we can talk about Vault Tec as a Fallout Faction in the present tense, not just pre-war

Moldaver and Jack Cabot's immortality have to be connected somehow

My favorite fan theory is that Mordaver is a clone. That she probably originally died during the first bombs. Then her clone died during Shady Sands. She went out a hero, and that's why Vault 4 worships her. And another close died at the end of Season 1." I've always been a big fan of the "immortal revolutionary" character in science fiction. That revolutionary character who goes down with the ship and stays behind to perish in a blaze of glory, only to magically show up again for the next battle. And again for the next epic show off. Who is cloning or and why isn't really important to me. But the idea that she can keep popping back up is a fascinating theory. And it's also interesting that we, the audience saw her die at the end of the season, but none of the main cast beyond Maximus, and he's not into politics. So she could randomly show up again, and no one will think it's weird that she died. They would just assume she made it out alive

When Lucy raised the NCR flag and the theme music start playing that gave me chills fr

Moldaver is absolutely my new favorite character in video game lore! She feels like the playthrough you’d get out of Nora in Fallout 4. Because she was already a strong pre-war figure that was standing up against the mass corporatism, she used her position as a whistleblower to secure her life during the Great War. And when she emerged she didn’t solely seek vengeance or revenge, she used her political power to rebuild and re-establish herself among the wastelanders instead of trying to change them into reformed citizens. Now though of course Nora doesn’t come with such an established origin, as the player it’s up to us to make one for her. And everytime I play as Nora, I always went the “Moldaver” route. Rebuilding the Minutemen, thus transforming the Commonwealth. To me it seems like this may also be Lucy’s path. As her original goal to find her father slowly became altered by the fate of the wasteland and predetermined factors that came before her. Like Nora’s son becoming the leader of the evil institute. Though the goal to save her son still remained, it inevitably became an altruistic nightmare as she was faced with larger challenges that stemmed from her son’s reach into the wasteland. I guarantee by then end of the Fallout series, Lucy will be much hardened and wiser to her power as a leader, instead of focusing on saving a family that is already changed.