For the express purpose of rebuilding and restoring the city, it is.
mainly because the raiders he gathered wasn’t enough.
he likewise does not believe it should remain as such.
He is known to execute anyone of the “soldiers” in his army who are sadistic towards the slaves.
Sure that is what the slaves will do, but the pitt is home to steel mills, and if restored could big a major factor in the rebuilding of America, which cannot happen as long as the locals keep mutating into troggs.
You can boil down the pitt to a simple question:
can you see through the forced labor of a unwilling and poorly treated labor force for generations to come, if their sacrifice could lead to America restoration? or is personal freedom more important and the American dream better off dead?
Reminds me Far Cry 5 which has the gall to accuse the player of being too violent in all its endings after pitching you against a gun crazy cult that murders, kidnaps and forcibly lobotomizes those they deem unfit so they can work in fields growing plants used in creating mind control drugs.
Why did that necessitate the workers be slaves and not equal partners in the operation of the mill?
(It didn’t)
He enslaves people. Given the lack of viable children in the Pitt, the only way to get new blood is to send out raiding parties to enslave people from elsewhere. “I’m nice to the people I deliberately enslave and put into backbreaking conditions in my poison factory.” Yeah man, for sure.
He makes of point of calling them “workers” a small, largely pointless gesture but one he stands by and believes is important. they are however still slaves in all but name.
Children could be viable if his daughter and wife are left alive and allowed to develop a cure, siding with the slaves makes this impossible as you take the child away and kill the wife, the only one in the pitt with the knowledge to develop the cure.
Likewise if the steel mills get back in working order they can produce tools and other necessary craft, slavery can be slowly faced out as the city is restored, this does not happen if the slaves are set free.
Is it any different in current age? sure you get a salary but don’t tell me minimum wage isn’t slavery with extra steps.
I don’t want you to think I am justifying what Ashur does in the pitt, far from it, but much like other growing empires in fallout, it is a possible path to rebuilding the world. The question is, do you think the ends justify the means.
That’s not an answer to my question - because the answer, of course, is that they don’t need to be slaves. It’s a choice, because Ashur was ultimately greedy and self-interested in carving out a fiefdom for himself.
With Maria’s birth he could have left, disbanded the Pitt entirely pending a cure being found. Or he could have contacted the Brotherhood - of which he was a member - and entreated them to offer their scientific expertise to the project. No doubt they would have had some ideas and capabilities beyond one bombed out little room, as well as interest in a working steel mill.
He chose not to, because he was a lowly tarnished, playing as a Lord. There was no altruism or dedication to ‘rebuilding America’ or anything so ‘lofty’. Only the power.
The enslaving was not a “necessary evil”.
It was just evil.
the ‘locked in the bunker with the psychopathic cult leader that makes it clear he will forcibly impregnate your character repeatedly’ ending does have a certain uhh, vibe, I’ll say
Do you think people would willingly come to a city with a unique degenerate mutation that turns them into little more than ghouls but somehow worse?
He defiantly had a Caser moment and decide he could save the world, no denying that.
The cure being years away since the baby is to young for the needed blood samples and test required.
The brotherhood, known for kicking in your teeth if you have as much as a battery or a working camera depending on how zealous the chapter you meet is.
besides he is by all reason a deserter, it would not benefit him to contact them again, and lastly if the brotherhood were really interested in the steel mill, they would have stayed. they already looted the city for what they could and killed a majority of the troggs while doing it. Its why Ashur had an easy time gaining control in the first place.
I am not sure the brotherhood is interested in the research, but there are at least 1 or 2 groups in the capital wasteland alone who would be. in theory the slaves could take the child to one of them and maybe develop a cure. Sadly Bethesda writing does not consider it an option to even suggest.
Power corrupts, and he is by all accounts a raider warlord with big dreams.
while he may refer to the labor as “workers” and the raiders as “soldiers” they are just labels, he knows this, he knows the workers are slaves and the raiders are just bandits high on chems, in fact his attempt to cull the cruelty is having the opposite effect on the raiders he leads.
And while he allows slaves to win their freedom and he will punish specially cruel raiders under his command, he could do more, way more, you could argue he doesn’t because he needs to appease his “army” or you could argue he is just high on cope.
Build gardens in the north and pop over to de-Festus and kill greenskins in the area.
Plus the garden can give more garrison units to those factions and give em more power to defend
Well, we are literally dealing with a religous fanatic who believes the end justify the means and that he is getting instructions from the Man Above Himself…
I swapped to Karl, so I’m just having to brute force it.
It’s going ok - Kazrak is no more, Toddy has been reinstated, but the one Grot in the ointment is stopping me focusing on Festus. Honestly, whoever crammed TWO legendary lords AND a pointless greenskin faction into such a small area needs a firm slap -_-
Speaking of which, so does whoever tweaked the Diplomacy system. Don’t get me wrong; it feels better than TW:W2, but that’s not saying much. The whole ‘you’re viewed as a threat for being aggressive’ is SUCH a stupid system; I’m trying to do diplomacy with the other Imperials, none of whom seem to want a trade deal, and I’m a ‘mild threat’ for saving their useless hides from Kazrak, Orcs, etc etc.
Then as soon as I manage to get one trade deal, I’m viewed as green/ok again? What? Make it make sense… or have more depth than a turgid puddle, for heck sakes…
Turn 17.
Nordland, who had two settlements and no foes last turn, just died. Entirely. I’m guessing from the sudden spike in Slaanesh corruption, someone just sailed in and wiped the floor with them.
Black Pit orcs are still a problem, because the nerf to Lord blue skill tree makes moving anywhere painfully slow, especially off the roads in the wilder bits of the empire.
We somehow lost about 10 Imperial Authority points in the space of a turn.
Festus is still lolloping around.
Grom is rumbling around the border, and I can only hope he’ll pick fights with the Lichmaster or Marienburg, who are doing fine in their illegitimate little corner, of course…
Sylvania are into the top dozens for power rating/threat, Drycha is doing her obnoxious thing.
This is on Easy Campaign difficulty. Easy. I DREAD to think what hard or higher is like! This isn’t easy, and I dare say it’s not even fun, at this point. It’s just constantly fighting fires in an over-crowded cage match, where everyone else gets a much better starting roster than the Empire does.
I might just go back and play Shogun 2, to be quite honest. That was a game that finely tuned progression, faction spacing, and feeling good… -sigh-
Edit: Fine. Fine. The Urks want a reckoning? I’ll give 'em a Reckoning! Khazukan Kazakit-ha!
Empire can be a rough one, especially if a friendly faction (Kislev is notorious for it but sometimes Ungrim does it too) takes a bunch of empire territory - feels bad to either not get your nice 100 authority or have to declare war on allies just to get a hold of the moot or whatever
Imgur is doing a protest against their moderators atm. During the sunday, someone posted an image of a ww2 bad guy getting punched. Mods deleted it as they deemed it inappropriate.
So now the entire site is in protest and currently flooded with nothing but posts about punching fashes and its quite beautiful.