I'm just going to do a quick post to wrap things up. Finishing the last two missions of the game took me about an hour. I sort of sleep-walked my way through the assassination plot, because I've tried and failed that mission so much that it turns out I could, purely by memory, skip the investigation and go straight to the solution. Which is a shame because it's kind of a tense political thriller where everyone could be a suspect, and you have to discern between friend and foe. But it turns out I didn't really have the patience to look for clues when I already knew the answer.
Anyway, the president was saved and the battle begun. Given my power armor, super sledge, and ample supply of drugs, it was mostly pretty easy. The lead Legion guy, Legate Lannius, gave me a brief amount of trouble, due to the fact that, mid-fight, something like a dozen legion soldiers showed up and were able to tag me with ranged attacks (also, apparently stimpack sickness is a thing). He had some cool weapons and armor that I was glad to loot, but couldn't actually keep (you have to reload a pre-battle save after you win, so I actually lost out on a lot of valuable items).
Finally, on my way out, general Lee Oliver of the NCR confronts me. At first he's congratulatory, due to my obvious prowess on the field of battle, but when he sees that I have an army of securitrons, he suddenly gets really aggressive. It's only possible to talk him down with a maxed-out speech ability, which is kind of a huge bummer. On the other hand, what sort of jackass threatens an allied head of state on the eve of their mutual victory? What did he think was going to happen when he failed to kill me? Was he just going to unilaterally embroil the NCR in a war with an emerging power, simply out of some kind of misguided nationalistic pride? I was nothing but polite and conciliatory, and far from "pissing on the Bear" I was merely asserting the right of the Mojave to self-determination and independence.
Seriously, fuck that guy. I guess he was banking on the fact that I was weakened after fighting off half the damned Legion, and just generally being a big ass hero for the forces of peace and freedom (and to be fair, the first couple of times, I couldn't quite get the drugs into my body fast enough to win the fight - I chalk my lack of preparedness up to the fact that previously, I've always had speech 100 by the time I got to this point). Just goes to show what I've always suspected about the NCR - they're a rapacious imperial power whose facade of civilization will be immediately discarded the instant that doing the right thing hits them in the pocketbook.
Maybe General Oliver thought we were going to war over the dam? I'll admit, the lack of nuance in the dialogue options is a problem here. Like, what are Independent New Vegas' obligations in regards to a treating signed under duress by a deposed monarch? Surely, the NCR's prior defense of the dam does lend some legitimacy to its claims upon it, but on the other hand, the only reason they were in a position to defend it in the first place was due to aggressive expansionism that trampled over the Mojave natives' right to develop their own natural resources (and I know the dam isn't technically a natural resource, but in the context of a post-apocalyptic society, it might as well be). Obviously, it's a complicated issue whose details need to be laboriously hashed out over the negotiating table . . .
. . .and not settled by threatening the life of the fucking hero of Hoover Dam, seriously Oliver, what the hell is wrong with you? You're not half the man that General Hanlon was, and I hate you for it!
Anyway, long story short, the Mojave becomes an independent power, and most of the places I visited were relatively prosperous. There was still some trouble due to sidequests I skipped. The Followers of the Apocalypse, in particular are screwed (which is something of a humorous bookend, considering how I failed to save them in the original Fallout). I have no idea how the independent Mojave will be governed, but I like to think it will be a constitutional republic, with me serving as a kind of George Washington figure.
It's possible. The ending narration left it ambiguous.
Though it's not really the ending, because of the save-game timewarp (thank goodness I held onto a pre-battle save). From here, there's still a shit ton left to do, but I'm actually going to try and keep this brief. All I want to do is the Old World Blues DLC (though it is perhaps misleading to use the word "all" because it's actually something of a mini-campaign), because I think it would be a fun and goofy coda to my time with the series.
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