Caesar: Edward Sallow, the Man Who Built the Legion

Caesar is the founder and dictator of Caesar's Legion, born Edward Sallow in the New California Republic. A former student of the Followers of the Apocalypse, he turned a captured tribe into an empire modelled on ancient Rome, and in Fallout: New Vegas (2281) he waits at Fortification Hill to take Hoover Dam and New Vegas. The TV series picks him up as a corpse. (Fallout: New Vegas; Fallout, "The Profligate")

Who was Edward Sallow?#

Sallow tells the Courier he was "born a Profligate myself, a citizen of the NCR", near the Boneyard. Raiders killed his father when he was two, and his mother found work cooking and cleaning at the Followers of the Apocalypse library. He learned to read there and took the Followers' courses for free. (Fallout: New Vegas)

He trained as an anthropologist and linguist. At 20 the Followers sent him on his first expedition, to the Grand Canyon with a physician named Calhoun, to learn the dialects of the local tribes. The official guide dates his birth to 2226, which puts the trip in 2246. (Fallout: New Vegas; Fallout: New Vegas Official Game Guide)

On the way they met Joshua Graham, a missionary from New Canaan who already spoke several tribal dialects. Graham remembers the two Followers in Honest Hearts and says Sallow was the one who got them into trouble. Before the lessons got far, the Blackfoot tribe took all three captive for ransom. (Fallout: New Vegas; Fallout: New Vegas: Honest Hearts)

How did Sallow become Caesar?#

The Blackfoot were at war with seven other tribes and losing. Over Calhoun's objections, Sallow taught them to clean and fire their guns, make explosives and fight in small units, all from what he had read in old books. He then led them against the Ridgers, their weakest enemy, and when the Ridgers refused to surrender he had every man, woman and child killed. (Fallout: New Vegas)

He showed the corpse piles to an envoy of the next tribe, the Kaibabs, and they gave in. The Fredonians followed, then the rest. Once his confederation was big enough, he crowned himself Caesar and merged the tribes into one Great Tribe, the Legion. Calhoun was sent back west with a warning not to interfere. Graham stayed and became the first legate. (Fallout: New Vegas)

Sallow chose Rome because it was alien to the tribes and because, as he sees it, Rome absorbed the peoples it conquered and gave them something bigger to serve. Every conquered tribe loses its name and customs. He styles himself the son of Mars, and by 2281 he claims much of Utah and Colorado and all of Arizona and New Mexico. (Fallout: New Vegas)

What does Caesar want?#

Caesar explains his war in terms of Hegel. The NCR is a thesis that creates its own antithesis, the Legion, and their clash will produce a synthesis. He compares the NCR to the late Roman Republic, full of bureaucracy, bribes and infighting, and says "The Colorado River is my Rubicon." Taking New Vegas would give the Legion its Rome and turn a nomadic army into a standing empire. (Fallout: New Vegas)

He thinks the NCR was strongest under President Tandi, who ruled so long that he calls her its queen, and has been weaker since real democracy took over. He also refuses to use the Securitron army buried under his camp. Machines, in his words, offer "victory without sacrifice", and he wants warriors. He keeps an Auto-Doc in his tent all the same, and hands out its use as a favour. (Fallout: New Vegas)

His first push failed. In 2277 Graham led the Legion against Hoover Dam and was routed by the NCR, and Caesar had him covered in pitch, set on fire and thrown into the Grand Canyon. Legate Lanius replaced him. (Fallout: New Vegas)

Caesar and the Courier#

The Courier is brought to Caesar's tent at the Fort and sent to destroy what lies in a bunker beneath the camp, which turns out to be Mr. House's Securitron vault. Caesar can then hand out Legion work, including an order to assassinate NCR President Kimball at the dam. (Fallout: New Vegas)

He is also ill. A Courier with enough medical skill can get him to admit to months of headaches, two weeks of a dragging left leg and moments where he stares into space mid-sentence. He suspects a brain tumour and asks the Courier to treat it. This is the quest "Et Tumor, Brute?", and the Courier can save him with the Auto-Doc or let him die. (Fallout: New Vegas)

Killing him is possible too. Mr. House shrugs it off: the Legion will attack anyway and, given a year, fall apart into "a monster consuming itself." In the Legion ending a cured Caesar rules New Vegas. If he died, Lanius is crowned instead. (Fallout: New Vegas)

Caesar in the TV series#

Season two, set in 2296, takes Lucy MacLean into the Legion's camp in the Mojave and shows Caesar only as a skeleton. He has died of causes the show doesn't give, and the Legion has split into two camps, each behind its own Caesar. Sallow's body lies on the earth mound between them, holding a note both sides believe names his heir, and neither can reach it. Lucy argues with the Lacerta Legate over how to say "Caesar" before he has her crucified. On the way out, the Ghoul sets off an explosion that restarts the fighting. (Fallout, "The Profligate")

In the finale the Lacerta Legate drags the remains into his tent and reads the note: "I am Caesar. I am the Legion. It ends with me." He stabs the one legionary who saw it, eats the note, takes the golden laurel and walks out announcing "Caesar is dead. Long live Caesar." He then marches the Legion on New Vegas, promising to build "Caesar's Palace". (Fallout, "The Strip")

The note doesn't sit neatly with the game. In New Vegas, Lucius tells the Courier that Lanius would take over if Caesar died, and Craig Boone says NCR intelligence believed the Legion had a whole line of succession ready. One way to read the show is that Sallow changed his mind in his last years. House's prediction of a Legion eating itself comes true either way. (Fallout: New Vegas; Fallout, "The Strip")