[Zion] Was Joshua too cruel in the attacking ending?

[MagnusCerebrum]

I could not fulfil the xx/90 speech check in the dialogue with him, what would've happened if I did?

[Vassago Rain]

If you plead mercy, he becomes a changed man who no longer destroys his enemies utterly, but it ruins the legend of the burned man in the process.
If you're the one who kills Salt-upon-wounds, you get a similar ending, but Graham finally finds peace with himself.
If you let him land the killing blow, you get the bad end where he essentially repeats the things he did with Caesar.

[MagnusCerebrum]

Originally posted by Vassago Rain:

If you plead mercy, he becomes a changed man who no longer destroys his enemies utterly, but it ruins the legend of the burned man in the process.
If you're the one who kills Salt-upon-wounds, you get a similar ending, but finally finds peace with himself.
If you let him land the killing blow, you get the bad end where he essentially repeats the things he did with Caesar.

Okay, good, i got the middle ground.

[N0P3]

The Burned Man is pivotal in many ways to the story lore of New Vegas and can't help but ask why there was not more by way of interaction with Joshua.

Joshua understands why the White Legs do what they do and extreme violence was a vehicle for Joshua to show the "savages" the end result of their choices --fight fire with fire analogy.

Joshua does have many discussion/dialog opportunities therefore, for that reason alone, Honest Hearts has some re-playability; the dialog opportunities are not all orbital to the White Legs either --hint, hint. Enjoy the story and do not forget to play Old World Blues & Lonesome Road too...

The DLC for New Vegas divulges a great deal of background information concerning characters and events, but like any other non-confrontational character interactions require skills and perks promoting a strong dialog platform in your favor.

Take care.

[MagnusCerebrum]

Originally posted by SoundDriver:

The Burned Man is pivotal in many ways to the story lore of New Vegas and can't help but ask why there was not more by way of interaction with Joshua.

Joshua understands why the White Legs do what they do and extreme violence was a vehicle for Joshua to show the "savages" the end result of their choices --fight fire with fire analogy.

Joshua does have many discussion/dialog opportunities therefore, for that reason alone, Honest Hearts has some re-playability; the dialog opportunities are not all orbital to the White Legs either --hint, hint. Enjoy the story and do not forget to play Old World Blues & Lonesome Road too...

The DLC for New Vegas divulges a great deal of background information concerning characters and events, but like any other non-confrontational character interactions require skills and perks promoting a strong dialog platform in your favor.

Take care.

I strive to attain that strong dialog platform. I'm very close to leveling some skills like speech, science, and barter to 100 in order to get the best possible result in dialogues.

[Atrushan]

Originally posted by Vassago Rain:

If you let him land the killing blow, you get the bad end where he essentially repeats the things he did with Caesar.

It felt like the right thing to do for me, because they had a score to settle. Especially after all the backstory I had heard about Salt-upon-wounds I couldn't care less about sparing his live.
Needless to say that I was quite surprised when things turned so bad in the ending. But that's one of the strong points in the game. Replay value. Better luck next time.

[Vassago Rain]

The thing about Graham is that he really needs to let go. Not 'let go' like Dead money phrases it, but literally let go.

The only way for him to do this is to show him that there are bigger, more merciless monsters in the world than him (you kill Salt-upon-wounds), or by reminding him that there's a thing called mercy, and before he became the legate, then the burned man, he practiced it heavily.

Since Salt-upon-wounds is just a gosh darn tribal chief of a warband that doesn't know how to farm, hunt, or do anything but raid, once he loses a battle, he loses all power, and he's done for, anyway. Doesn't matter if he takes a bullet to the head, or tell him to go back to the jungle, like the honorless caveman that he is.

[Bob of Mage]

There is also what following Graham's example is doing to the tribals in Zion. If you look around during the final battle you will see a number of cases where POWs are gunned down in cold blood. There is the risk of Graham repeating his past mistakes and leading yet more people down a dark path.

Without much of a recorded history the two groups you deal with in Zion can very easily repeat the mistakes that have happened elsewhere. For example they wouldn't really understand the saying "the road to hell is paved with good intentions". For us the gamers we have the knowledge of human history, and have seen cases where "just casues" have gotten very out of hand.

There's also the idea that what really shows a person's true nature is how they treat those weaker then themselves. There was little to gain from killing Salt-upon-wounds then and there. As was repeatedly pointed out after being beaten in battle he and his tribe was doomed. If you let them get away there was a good chance they would die anyways, and there was no real chance they would pose a future threat. So it was fairly safe to end the fighting with "peace" instead of more dead bodies. It also shows the tribals with no knowledge of war that you can deal with your hated enemies in ways that don't include bloodshed.

[odd_box]

For me, whenever I would play through this dlc I would always strive to get the ending with Joshua Graham. Only difference really is that I convince Joshua to spare Salt-Upon-Wounds not only out of mercy but by the fact that Salt's tribe was doomed to fade to obscurity anyway and would never be assimilated into Ceasar's tribe. Perhaps the most satisfying (To me anyway) was seeing the ending slide where Salt was basically "Demoralized, a dim shadow of his former self." while the rest of his tribe and their camps were destroyed by the 80's tribes.

I guess it all boils down to personal preference and what the player courier would do in their his/her shoes. Good dlc though.

[Tarik Torgaddon]

I typically did it for him, to calm him down. I agree with him in that the White Legs are pawns of Caesar, and are an existential threat to the denizens of Zion Valley. They see mercy as weakness.