Lonesome road was my least favorite NV dlc. It had apocalyptic visuals often lacking in NV ... but Ulysses... ugh.

He seemed like an unhinged, rambling lunatic completely disconnected from anything "real." Just rambling and rambling about... nothing. Eventually I actually tuned him out and stopped listening to his rambling. He seemed to be talking to, and about, someone other than my courier, like he'd made some ridiculous mistake and thought I was someone else. Unfortunately that assumed case of mistaken identity made me feel ... less inspired to keep going. He was, apparently, mistaking me for a different courier.

Maybe part of the problem was I had so many hours logged on my courier that I'd built up a head-canon accidentally. There wasn't any way my courier was the person he was babbling about. I didn't like, or care about anything he was talking about. He seemed crazier and more nihilistic than the enclave and harder to understand than the institute. Eventually I wanted to find and kill him just to silence his weird, pretentious, meaningless babbling.

I've read about a lot from the people who actually loved Lonesome road, and I have this huge, huge feeling that I missed something gigantic. Apparently he actually had something smart to say about life and human nature and all that? Did I tune him out too quickly, annoyed that he seemed to be (at the end of a long, long game) forcing a "wrong" origin on my character?

I will probably be playing it again eventually, trying to view it in a better light, more open to what it had to say.

Some people like Ulysses, despite their seemingly 'biblical' predictions and whatnot, you often hear this from people whom the common man believes are crazy and batshit insane, but if you open your 'cullinary sixth sense' beyond all that, you can tell they are very experienced knowing the world of old, and certain truths can be quite cold and unforgiving to new players. Maybe you misjudged Ulysses, maybe Ulysses misjudged you, no matter what he seems to predict of your past, does not mean he knows your future. Nobody does. And whether or not you appear to be this other courier Ulysses speaks about, he and he alone can never decide your character's story.

From my personal experiences of playing the DLC, I had every ambitious opportunity to reach to the end, which is his temple. And whether or not Ulysses was friend or foe, I didn't care because I wanted to nuke both the NCR and the Legion seeing both sides as my enemies during the time. He may think that I stand for nothing in this stance, which may somewhat be true, but I stand for my own banner regardless. I'm basically a liberator to free the people of New Vegas from both sides, hence Yes Man/independent at the time, but then again it looked as if House was more of a gray-zoner himself included. Just a man who understands science at it's highest caliber, in his own way I suppose. House may be seen as a dictator by others on the other hand, but back to Ulysses...

From what I know of Ulysses so far, I remember these words, 'shadow of the bull'. And I have a way to understand such philosophies and ramblings, especially from people who think they have seen it all, but I argue 'not' everything. Given enough time and research, I can understand the meanings behind symbols and messages As knowledge and information has no boundaries for people like me, and the same can be said for Ulysses. Maybe he too, needed to learn some new truths from 'my' toon, but I don't really consider myself a 'courier', but more of a soldier-type. What does he mean by 'shadow of the bull'? Why of course, Caesar's Legion. Who else could he possibly speak of? Ulysses is a former Legionnaire, my memory's a bit dusty but I do recall him growing up in Dry Wells, and the Legion claiming his family, yet Ulysses spent his time growing up under the Legion anyway.

But again, I suppose nobody could truly understand Ulysses or Joshua Graham in that matter.

Nah, you didn't misjudged him. He was a deranged maniac.

First, the guy hates everything. The NCR, House, ED-E, Vegas, walls, lights, civilization... If it exists, he hates it.

Second, he takes something totally random from your past (the fact you delivered a package which happened to contain military codes) and goes mental over it. Messengers are not responsible for the messages they carry; most of the time they don't even know what they carry, they just deliver. Yet for some reason, this guy not only blames you, but he decides to dedicate his entire life to seek revenge.

Where I would disagree is I actually found the DLC pretty awesome. He makes for a great antagonist because he's just the right kind of crazy. Not so insane that you're dealing with a ridiculous comic book villain. Just insane enough that you can understand his personal motivation and why he's gone insane, while at the same time understanding that he is insane and you have to stop him. It's precisely what makes it so satisfying to kill him and nuke his legion buddies.

I also made the mistake of assuming that nuking a place I hadn't even seen could endanger huge numbers of civilians,slaves who just wanted to be free, etc. That I'd get a billion jillion negative Karma.
If I'd taken a fat man and launched it at legion soldiers, and hit a bunch of innocents, it'd still count as innocent deaths. So I could only imagine the damage that would be caused by attacking a city with a nuke.
I didn't want my ending slide to turn my hero into "and the lunatic who sentenced thousands of innocents to die slowly of radiation..." But apparently it doesn't count every innocent caught in the nuke, which isn't normal. Normally your crazed explosive playthroughs do count every death.

The way karma is tallied in new vegas is very badly broken, and I think that's the reason no one cares about it. But I play modded and patched to (beyond?) the limit, so innocent deaths count toward the ending slide. I'm quite terrified, if I'm playing a high-karma hero, of hurting any good guys. It's hard to undo a crazed murder spree in order to get that person's hat.

You also forgot to mention Bitter Springs, as the NCR's 1st Recon was involved in the wholesale slaughter of innocents. But why I decide to nuke both sides is because I have been damaged by traitors and turncoats long enough before in history, like as if an entire faction was against me. The NCR could be an example. I don't care if I get good karma or bad karma for nuking both the NCR and the Legion, and no shit, nuclear war does kill innocents even if you don't want it to. But I think at the end of the day how 'innocent' are the NCR's so-called 'citizens'? I tried speaking to them, even Boone, despite my recent arguments and disagreements with most of the NCR's trigger-happy bullshit, and I'm saying this because the NCR doesn't respect it's mod-ally well enough and the NCR simply thinks they can bargain orders at everyone, but that doesn't play quite on my table. And chances are the Crimson Caravaneers, the Gun Runners included, everyone sided with the NCR including it's 'sheeple' will give me a rather hostile response because I do not support it's tyranny and dictatorships. So I consider nuking both sides as a necessary evil. Though my army can easily kill both sides without having to resort to nukes anyway. It's a large enough force that will easily swamp the NCR and the Legion in large numbers, not just infantry on the front, but that's mod-related.

Humanity is technically evil anyways. And I used to be a goody-two-shoes to the highest caliber that I could possible, preferably a paladin-type, nah. Rather a savior, before I got into the anti-hero business and what not. I guess after all, good or bad, makes me the karma itself towards other factions and individuals, a force of nature if you simply call it that. But yeah, there's no major focus on karma when it comes to New Vegas, only reputation which I am quite annoyed over such a word in the game. But hey, it at least lets me know what my standing is with the other factions. Karma or not, the question everyone must ask themselves is would you let your enemy kill you? Or would you rather kill 'your' enemy? Survival instinct has it's functions. So it simply is then. That Ulysses may be a psychopath/sociopath of some sort, and his ultimate revenge is to nuke it all. Well then, if he hates everyone, why was his nuke aimed at the Long 15 alone? He could've nuked both. But I think Dry Wells serves as his memory lane, which is probably why he wouldn't do it.

Well in my book ulysses is just insane, most of his rambling just dont make any sense. His obsesion with history is something that he him self does not understand. How ever he is very fiting for the setting, this kind of insanity is quite rare in fallout, besides him you only have Cook Cook and that it, how ever such insanity should be more comon in fallout. And i still cant understand why so many people see him as something special and see over the fact that he is just insane. At the end i always like the snuff out his light.

I don't think what Ulysses says disrupts head canon too much especially if you accept that you've been Courier for a while thus you'd have to had some previous jobs before, He says it himself he never met you and he has only heard about what your actions and everything he is saying are assumptions he has of you not saying what you exactly did.

In terms of morality, New Vegas is pretty simplistic. The good guys are good, the bad guys are bad. I always laugh when Boxcars asks me what I have against the Powder Gangers as if they're boy scouts and not a band of killers. I don't think I've found a single NCR character that qualifies as "evil", meanwhile everyone in the Legion is a maniac (with the possible exception of the slaves).

When I play New Vegas, I never care that much for morality. I play as more of a morality neutral mercenary guy who just wants to use the conflict as an opportunity to make some dough so he doesn't have to go back to a shity courier job, instead live like a baller atop a big pile of money. Yet I always end up with Messiah morality. Why? Because killing raiders and ghouls (which make about 95% of your enemies) improves karma. I honestly don't know how you could end up a game with evil karma, unless you're just going around killing random NPC for no reason instead of doing the quests. It's a game where you can be both genocidal and moral. Kinda like the crusades.

In terms of role playing, the legion is a threat for humanity, as well as anything that's decent in the world. They're ISIS larping as romans, so whenever I see them I take Benny's advice and put on my stomping shoes. One interesting thing is that if you nuke the legion, you don't just nuke random territories. You specifically nuke the Twisted Hairs camp (the twisted hairs were Ulysses tribe before being absorbed into the legion), and those guys joined voluntarily, so...

Honestly, even if you want to play as a good guy and make the Mojave a better place, you end up killing a bunch of people. And you kind of have to. Civilization can't coexist with savages scalping people for kicks. I personally have no tolerance for those kinds of guys. I wipe out the Powder Gangers, the fiends, the Khans, the random raiders, and the Legion, then rout the NCR and go into the end credits to live as House's pampered guest.

Whatever happens from any form of antagonist usually happens for two things in particular. One, it's because they have a motive behind their character, basically meaning they've been through hell and torture, so I wouldn't go as far as saying there is perfect good and/or perfect evil. And of course an example of pure evil would be as mindlessly insane as your average feral ghoul. While the extreme good are often people with very open minds, no defense of themselves what-so-ever, a saint that sees the light and only to pursue it for the generosity and fairness of all. And when it comes to New Vegas, the truth is more grey than you think. Like I said, no such thing as perfect good, or perfect bad.

And gavin, if you think there is not a single NCR soldier that has done evil, then again you should speak to the Great Khans leadership on what happened at Bitter Springs. I of course speak of Boone in general. And there are two ways people can play out Boone's story, it's either the player can recognize Boone as a man who was forced to kill people, the sick, the elderly, and even kids with a guilty conscience, seeing him kick himself over the past, or pretty much like me, recognize Boone as a ruthless and careless psychopath. Even Colonel Moore at Hoover Dam, she seemed more like a psychopath rather than a diplomat. Especially when the Great Khans' 2nd-in-command spoke to me just as I left the tent. He did not say anything about wanting to ally with the NCR, but asked me if I wanted to convince Papa Khan not to ally with the Legion. So does that make all of the Great Khans a gang of raiders that cannot see to reason? Because this proved to me otherwise. People who refuse to know this common truth about the foundations of how these gangs were formed are nothing more than slaves living under fear, and mental slavery is worse than what the slaves under Caesar usually get, or maybe most are just mercenaries who care only for their greed and spoils. And pretty much I can say that knowledge is more powerful than two nukes that can obliterate Dry Wells and the Long 15.

I look at the NCR pretty much like how you can compare Stalin and the USSR. That's the evil I'm speaking of when it comes to the NCR. Typically, they are no better to me than mere communists of the far-right factor. Maybe the diet-coke of western communism. If that's not the term, I don't know what is. But I do know for the fact the NCR leaderships are essentially corrupt, no matter what few good generals and officers want to make a difference, they just won't have that position to do so. Some people want to be paladins and heroes who save the day, some people are in it for the thrills of evil, or possibly doing it because people like Ulysses are pretty much pissed off over something. Some like me, prefer to disconnect one's self away from the problems of two empires clashing at one another, and look to defend his own community pretty much. It's like saying 'Okay. This idea ain't working, and I'm not onboard with the other idea. Fuck this team sports game, time to become a third banner', and that's pretty much how I went with my own ways from there.

So, I find there's a difference between being evil, and doing evil. Having gone through the story a few times, I haven't found a single NCR character that is an evil character. That's not to say everything the NCR or NCR affiliated characters do is perfect, they're not, but they are not evil maniacs like the legion.

I know the story of bitter springs, I just don't particularly care. Like I said, the Khans are savages, and dangerous. I always wipe them out myself, even though House's story line doesn't require so.

Then it just makes you much of a maniac as the Legionnaires are. But you're the role of a mercenary character, so I figured as such. But again, play FNV in any way you want, it makes no difference to me. I quite personally despise people who think their way is the only way. Not being salty, just making my points. Though it's another way of saying about people who think they have the answers to everything, or just simply don't care and do no wish to learn any further, because if you don't learn new skills, you'll never improve. But knowledge is a choice, just like power itself. You can use power to serve yourself, or to serve others before you. Your call.

Why? You said it yourself: Would you rather kill your enemies, or having them kill you?

The way I play RPG's is I like to put my own personality in the characters. My character behaves like I would in such situations. A choice between the NCR, the Legion or House, is a no-brainer for me; House is by far the best option. Similarly, when I find a minor group that's peaceful or harmless, like the boomers for instance, I often help them, but when I find a group that's dangerous the best you can do is wipe them out.

The simple fact is the Khans are savages. They rob, kill and scalp people for kicks. If you don't wipe them out, they join ISIS the Legion. If the Legion successfully takes Hoover Dam, they go on a murder spree in New Vegas (lots of innocent people killed there). The world has no use for dangerous thugs who kill for entertainment. Vegas is a better place without them.

Ah, I missed that part about the specific legion target. I was probably tuned out by that point,which is why I'm going to try again with a different eye toward it. That the target of the nuke were willing members in the Legion.

The Khans were more villainous in the original fallout -- purely considered raiders. But "raider" has since come to mean "absolutely mindless, nameless thing that always attacks on sight, and almost never anything else." By Bethesda standards, the Khans don't seem like raiders, although they aren't saints either. But they are, or at least, were raiders. Just... more social raiders.

Mostly everyones' evil comes in degrees in New Vegas, with the fiends possibly being the most mindlessly violent group that still has named characters (deathclaws and generic nameless raiders are even more mindless, but you never get a chance to hang with any any of them in new vegas.)
Though the Fallout 1 Enclave were probably the worst of the worst, planning on literally poisoning everyone who wasn't on the oil rig, world-wide. Not just super-mutants and ghouls... everyone. Globally. Their oil rig? That time I had no qualms about that necessary nuking, even if some of the rank-and-file soldiers weren't all equally dedicated to the cause (as the Mojave Enclave Remnant seemed to suggest.)
The NCR and Brotherhood have times where they're more arrogant and warlike than they need to be, but they're not absolutely gleefully reveling in inflicting pain, rape, and death. They each think they're doing the world a favor in their own way. Hell, even Caesar likely genuinely thought he was doing the right thing. I'm not sure how much that counts for... something about good intentions and roads to hell and all that.
Cook-cook had no such illusions and likely didn't give a shit as to whether or not he was making the world a better place (on a good day.) The three casinos were each petty and interested only in their small goals too, no grand illusions of saving the world. Although who knows what a "King" Benny would have been like, with a securitron army.
House's victory will lead to the most interest future though, if he's right about space travel.

You didn't miss it. The game doesn't tell you. It just says you'll redirect the nukes to Caesar's territory. It's only after, during the ending, that it mentions the nukes were sent to the twisted hairs' camp. Plus, you have to pay a lot of attention to figure out who the twisted hairs were (or be like me and look it up on the nukapedia).

Now, the Khans are probably not the most mindless, murderous, filthy, savage raiders. But honestly, if they live like animals and kill people for fun, why split hairs? What's the point of a Fallout game if you can't get in your shiny power armor and burn savages to a crisp anyway?

I found all factions in New Vegas fairly simplistic.

- The NCR: Good. Also, incompetent and boring. Dedicated to old world values and suffering from old world woes. A regurgitation of the past. At least they try.
- The followers of the Apocalypse: classic altruists. Good people but incapable of building anything sustainable. Harmless.
- BOS: A total dead end.
- Boomers: an OK bunch. They have a fetish for explosives, but who doesn't? They keep to themselves, they don't harm anyone that doesn't try to harm them, and they'll eventually open up more and more.
- The families: Petty and pretentious. But useful if kept in check.
- The Remnants: Nice and cuddly grandparents who probably have more than one war crime in their history, but now they're old and harmless.
- House: Literally the only one who offers a future, for the character, New Vegas and humanity as a whole.

Everyone else is evil and only useful as a target for my flamethrower.

The NCR (if we choose to face them as antagonists) are extremely unusual as game antagonists, although maybe they shouldn't be.
They're not really psychotically evil (and if there was a scale of nastiness in Fallout, they'd be much close to the nice-guy side). But if you choose to fight them, it doesn't automatically make you as a psycho either.

I've seen them described as "affably incompetent." Relative to the rest of the fallout universe, I suppose. "At least they try," as you said.

I think if we could have seen Shady Sands rendered in all its "modern-graphics" glory, we might have thought of them a little better (All we've got are some pixely 2d scenes from the older game). In Fallout 2, their city cleaner, greener, newer, and more modern-looking than Bethesda fallout town, even if it lacked the towers and glitzy lights of Vegas. That's gotta count for at least a little. I'd have rather lived there than any other town I've seen in Fallout, going by how "at least it's not a ruin covered in garbage or underground." The NCR does something amazing in the Fallout world: New construction. And garbage sweepers.
That probably shouldn't be incredible, but in Fallout, apparently it is absolutely astounding and very, very rare. Even the people of Goodsprings lived in trash, if you looked at the floors of some of their homes.
So if the NCR wins, at least we'd all be clean. Clean and affably incompetent.

No, fighting the NCR doesn't automatically makes you a psychopath. In fact, within the context of New Vegas I think you'd be crazy not to fight them. I think joining the legion does make you a psycho.

I think within the fallout universe they're one of the best factions. Their problem is they try to do waaay too much and they're so busy rebuilding the past that they can't think about the future.

If I had to choose a town to live in within the Fallout universe, I'd be the Strip though. Much better, and much more fun, than Shady Sands.

I was a huge House supporter on my first playthrough, until he asked me to kill off the brotherhood. I didn't like them all that much, but I didn't want to have to probably shoot/lose Veronica, who had been my courier's first companion and basically best friend up until that point.
If I hadn't met her, it would have been House all the way. Instead I ended up going independent on my first run.
On my second playthrough, the BOS bastards strapped a bomb to my character and forced him to try to go on assassinations. They had sealed their fate, for sure. They had SO much more civil with Veronica and a high-speech character.

You know, it's funny because I did pretty much the same thing. For my second playthrough, I just found a mod to build an alliance between House and the BOS where the character convinces House to give them a chance and if they prove to be a liability he'll kill the off later.

I tried all companions in NV (well, almost all companions, the human ones; I don't like ghouls or super mutants), and I found them pretty disappointing. Cass is bitchy. Boone is depressing. Arcade, in terms of personality, he has none. Veronica is the only one I actually liked. So I felt bad killing off her friends and family. Honestly though, House's description of the BOS is on point.

The BOS is a faction I really want to like, because I'm kind of a techno fetishist as well, but I always end up opposing them in every Fallout game because their philosophy is a dead end.