Caesar

Caesar, born Edward Sallow, is the ruler and co-founder of Caesar's Legion

Background
Edward Sallow's family originates from near The Boneyard in the New California Republic, where he lost his father to raiders at the age of two. Following this, his mother gained protection from the Followers of the Apocalypse, and would work within the Boneyard Library as a cook and cleaner. Edward began taking free courses at the library, taught by the Followers. He remained with the organization, becoming an anthropologist and linguist. At the age of twenty he was sent alongside the doctor Bill Calhoun to study the languages of the tribes around the Grand Canyon, where he met a Mormon missionary from New Canaan, Joshua Graham.

Graham was already familiar with several of the local languages, but before he could teach Sallow they were captured by the Blackfoot Tribe. Sallow learned that the Blackfoots were at war with seven other tribes, a war that he was convinced they would lose. To save himself, Edward taught the Blackfoot new ways to wage war, which he had learned from old books. With a new strategy of total war the Blackfoots defeated the seven other tribes, starting with the Ridgers tribe.

When Sallow was finished conquering the seven tribes, he had them stripped of their identity and reformed into The Legion. He then crowned himself Caesar. He kept Graham as his first legate, and sent Calhoun back to the Followers of the Apocalypse with instructions that he not be interfered with.

After having seen the corruption and in fighting within the NCR, Caesar based the new Legion off of imperial Rome in the hopes that he would be able to emulate it's success, where all citizens work towards the betterment of the greater whole. He believes in his new Pax Romana, where the individual has no value beyond their utility to the state. He believes that the NCR is doomed to fail due to its corruption and inability for individuals to work towards the "greater good". Caesar maintains his power in part by the belief amongst the Legion that he possesses the divine right to rule by being the son of the god Mars. Children of those conquered by the legion are taken by priestesses to be indoctrinated.Fallout: New Vegas Official Game Guide Collector's Edition p. 41: "Caesar's Legion" "This horde of cruel, yet highly disciplined slavers has spread across the southwest like an all-consuming flame. Founded by a fallen member of the Followers of the Apocalypse, Caesar's Legion is effectively an enormous, conscripted slave army. As Caesar conquers the peoples of the wasteland, he strips them of their tribal identities and turns their young men into ruthless legionaries and women into breeding stock. Unlike the rag-tag Raiders back east, Caesar's "Legionaries" neither look nor act like haphazard, irregular troops. They are well organized, moving and attacking in large packs, and deliberately commit atrocities to terrorize those who might dare oppose them. ''True, Caesar is the perfect man. But he is not just a man: he is the Son of Mars, ordained by the god of war to conquer all Earth. To prepare the way, Mars razed the Earth, cleansed it with fire, and brought the weak and the wicked low; and now his son has come to deliver the wasteland from chaos and barbarism. To follow Caesar is to obey the will of Mars; to disobey is to condemn oneself to death. As the Son of Mars, Caesar has the divine right to demand servitude from all he encounters. Not everyone believes that Caesar is the product of a god's loins, of course. The most recently captured slaves tend to be pretty skeptical. But they aren't very vocal in their criticisms, and their children are raised not by skeptical parents but by priestesses appointed to that task by virtue of their knowledge of an adherence to the state religion.'' ''Nearly all physically capable, compliant males are compelled to serve in its armed forces. The primary value of pre-menopausal females is to serve as breeding stock (with Caesar or a legate governing how they are assigned to males), though they, like older females and less physically-capable men, are also used to perform a variety of other tasks. The largest unit of organization in Caesar's Legion is the Cohort, numbering about 480 infantrymen. Cohorts are further divided into Centuriae, which contrary to their name numbers about 80 men, and each Centuriae is divided into ten "tent groups" (Contubernia), making this the squad level of organization. Raiding parties are of this size (about eight men) and will be led by a Decanus (a squad leader, basically).'' ''Caesar desires two things: a Carthage, and a Rome. In the NCR he has at last found a grand adversary, against which he can wage a military campaign worthy of history books. And in Vegas, powered and watered by its great dam, he has found a capital worthy of, well, a Caesar. Contrary to the old saw, Rome will be built in a day. All it takes is plentiful slave labor, and Caesar has that in spades."'' (Fallout: New Vegas Official Game Guide/Faction profiles) Caesar teaches that women are inferior to men, and has decreed that homosexuality be punishable by death. Caesar has likewise outlawed chems and alcohol.

Caesar would continue expanding, completely conquering New Mexico, and Arizona, and conquering much of Colorado and Utah. By 2281 the Legion is made up of 87 tribes, with 86 of them having been conquered.

Caeser believes in the philosophical theory of dialectics, and believes that The Legion and New California Republic are antithetical to each other, and that he will destroy the NCR because it is inevitable. Following the Legion's defeat at the First Battle of Hoover Dam, Caesar had Joshua Graham covered and pitch and thrown into the grand canyon for his failure.

After defeating the NCR, Caesar intends to New Vegas and turn it into The Legion's "Rome". After this, he plans on transforming the Legion from a nomadic army to a more stable standing military, with the ability to better protect it's citizens and his own power.

Caesar currently suffers from a brain tumor, something he himself suspects. He cannot use his Auto-Doc to perform the necessary surgery to remove the tumor as it lacks a functioning diagnostic scanning module.

Appearances
Caesar appears in Fallout: New Vegas and is mentioned in its add-ons Honest Hearts, Old World Blues, and Lonesome Road.

Behind the scenes

 * The character was written by John Gonzalez, with Joshua Sawyer asking "for Caesar to present his rationale in the framework of Hegelian dialectics."
 * When asked about similarities between Kurtz and Caesar, Joshua Sawyer stated that both are educated "men of intelligence" that "traveled from a life of relative comfort, technological wizardry, and 'civilization' into a wilderness full of warring people with relatively low education and a relatively 'primitive' lifestyle."
 * According to Joshua Sawyer, the character was also partially inspired by Charles Taylor of Liberia, whose war crimes make Caesar's cruelty look "moderate" in comparison. Other inspirations were taken from brutal warlords of the past, such as Timur and Simon de Montfort.
 * Sawyer also stated that Caesar's Karma is neutral due to his "unmoored morality," and that "whatever moral framework he had as Edward Sallow" just vanished over time.
 * Metzger, the leader of the slavers guild from the Den in Fallout 2, was initially named Caesar during development.
 * An unused model of Caesar named "NVDLC02CaesarYounger" exists in the game files for Honest Hearts.