Time flew quickly—especially with the exhausting work of eliminating the NCR's remaining forces. In Shady Sands, the surrender had been nearly total, thanks to the president's broadcast, which looped as a recorded message nearly 24 hours a day:
"Citizens of the New California Republic… This is President Sean Murphy. From the presidential bunker in Shady Sands, surrounded by Legion occupation forces, I declare that all resistance has ceased. High command has been captured. The lines are broken. The government has fallen.For the preservation of life. For the future of our families. To avoid complete annihilation… I order you to lay down your arms.You will not withstand the Legion's advance. No city is beyond their reach. No garrison can stop them. This war is over.I am sorry for failing you… I am sorry for giving you hope.To those who still carry the courage to fight: please, in the name of what you once called honor, bury that courage. Because this is no longer heroism—it is suicide.To those who still believe in the Republic: it is no longer here. All that remains is obedience… and survival.Let every soldier return to their barracks. Let every rifle be surrendered. Let no more blood be spilled for a flag that no longer flies.President… no—just Sean Murphy. Out."
All bunker survivors were taken into custody. We transferred them by Vertibird to a secure facility in the Utah mountains. It was a measure of control—but also a calculated move to preserve Picus's (formerly Major Curtis's) public image. No one outside the innermost circle yet understood the full scope of the betrayal within the NCR. And it had to stay that way—for now.
The next step was inevitable. While most NCR forces surrendered, a handful of generals and colonels, still clinging to their regional mandates and hollow loyalty, chose to keep fighting. It was hopeless. Malpais's Legion had secured the borders and was now unrestrained, and my own forces had locked down the corridor to Shady Sands. These remnants were not an obstacle—especially with Frumentarii already embedded in nearly every level of their command and logistics structures.
Two weeks passed.
And reports began to flow regularly. My orders to begin placing slave collars on civilian populations advanced steadily. The Republic was too large—its people too many, too well-armed, too newly conquered. We had to proceed slowly. One town at a time.
The method was simple: we arrived as merciful conquerors. We demanded weapons be surrendered. We identified veterans, former soldiers, police, anyone with military training. We marked them. We waited.
And once the town breathed a sigh of relief… once they believed the worst had passed… in the dead of night, we sealed it.
The slavers arrived. The entire population was rounded up and shipped in caravans to distribution centers. One town at a time. Because none of these republicans could be trusted. At the first sign of mercy, they would conspire again—sabotage, resist, fight.
But not all were marked.
By direct decree of Lord Caesar, affirmed personally by me, two groups were spared:
First, the former Enclave members—for their uprising in the north and the military training they provided us. Their service was rewarded with total freedom.
Second, the Followers of the Apocalypse. By Caesar's express will, no slaver was permitted to touch them. They could not be interrogated, requisitioned, or detained. If they wished to leave Legion territory, they were free to go, unimpeded.
As we organized the systematic enslavement of NCR towns, my Legion continued to crush the last strongholds of the Republic. Cities like The Hub and Boneyard became extermination zones. They were important—but they weren't Shady Sands. They held no symbolic value for a triumphant entry. Caesar did not require them intact. So we used everything: heavy artillery, Vertibirds, incendiary bombs. If we had to raze every building to the ground, we did it without hesitation.
The defenses collapsed one after another as their lines faltered. Legion columns entered the smoldering ruins, securing block by block, leaving no stone untouched by our boots. Unlike in Shady Sands, where every step was measured to preserve the stage for our dominance, these cities served only one purpose: complete submission to the Legion's yoke.
At the same time, we closed the circle around the Brotherhood of Steel. They were no longer the armored lions of old. Hundreds of paladins and knights had fallen. They resorted to sending apprentices to the front—many without power armor, without proper training, without any real preparation for what awaited them. They were massacred without glory. Easy prey for my veterans—and even more so for my elite cohort, the Knights of Mars, handpicked to fight power-armored foes, armed with anti-armor weaponry and trained to hunt down the mobile fortresses the Brotherhood still clung to as they were slowly driven back into their last bunkers.
A week later, I received word from the west.
Lanius had razed San Francisco.
The defenses of the Shi State had collapsed after a long siege under Lanius's command. They tried to hold. They paid dearly. The city fell with a level of violence only Caesar's Butcher could deliver. It was a merciless sack, carried out with Lanius's trademark precision once the final phase began. Anything not bolted down was looted. Anything useless—destroyed. Entire buildings were gutted. Vaults of weapons and tech archives were either reduced to rubble or seized under the Legion banner.
And the streets… the streets were filled with crosses.
Reports said Lanius was enraged. The Shi, desperate to save their city, had attempted to assassinate him no less than four times—sending agents, assassins, saboteurs, traitors with kind faces and poison in hand. All failed. And Lanius responded with the only justice he knew: iron and suffering.
He crucified every profligate who took up arms. Soldiers, militiamen, armed merchants—even field medics. All of them. Men and women hung in silence or screaming, nailed through hands and feet, their crosses standing tall along the streets in a forest of the damned.
The remnants of the NCR were left to Malpais to finish off. I assigned him nearly my entire legion, allowing him to conclude the campaign without resistance. Though he had suffered massive losses during the rapid push toward Shady Sands, he still managed to inflict far greater casualties on the NCR—according to their own reports. The efficiency of his operations exceeded all expectations, even under severe logistical disadvantages.
While he closed the military front, I focused on pacifying Shady Sands.
The surrender of the army wasn't enough to silence the city. Once high command laid down their arms, civilian protests began. Apparently, the citizens of the NCR still believed they could change something with marches, chants, and shouting. They didn't understand that their weak and decaying republic no longer existed. They were so used to governments that needed to listen in order to rule, they thought noise alone could force obedience.
They were wrong.
All it took was a few legionaries opening fire—first to the left, then to the right. The bursts dropped the first row. We dragged the wounded out, nailed them up, and crucified them in the same plazas they once used to rally. It was done more than once. The first executions didn't stop the protests—they only made them grow in number and violence.
Until I finally ordered an entire cohort to silence the crowd.
They were swept away. Thousands died. Thousands more were crucified. The entire city was crushed under a single message: the age of speaking is over.
And then… finally, Shady Sands went quiet.
Once calm was restored, cleanup began. Rubble was cleared, and the environment was prepared. Every avenue, every damaged façade, every symbol of the Republic was removed. New roads were marked, Legion banners raised, and ceremonial structures began to rise.
Everything had to be ready for Caesar's arrival.
He wanted to replicate what he had done in New Vegas—a triumphant entrance.
Now, Shady Sands would become the stage of his final consecration.
As in New Vegas, the entire population was forced to attend.
Thousands of citizens from the old Republic were lined along the main road leading from the heart of Shady Sands to the NCR Capitol. Every home was emptied. Every resident forced to take position in silence under the watchful eyes of the legionaries. No one was exempt. Elderly, adults, children. All bore witness.
The buildings along the route were occupied by armed squads. Snipers watched from rooftops. Patrols swept every corner. The air was dense. Still. The city held its breath.
And then, he appeared.
Caesar.
He rode atop a war chariot adorned with ceremonial spears, captured shields, and the melted remnants of NCR banners. Two white bulls pulled the structure with controlled strength. On the same chariot, standing like a statue, rode Lanius. The Monster of the East held Caesar's golden laurels of victory high above his head—effortless, solemn, sacred.
Caesar looked silently around him. His eyes passed over the endless rows of citizens with no need for words. His presence alone demanded respect—and fear. The crowd stood frozen, trapped between terror and the realization that everything they had once known was over.
When the chariot reached the Capitol, Caesar dismounted unaided. He climbed the steps with a firm gait. At the top, a throne awaited—constructed from the remains of the enemy: melted Republican steel, identification tags embedded in the backrest, defeated banners repurposed into ceremonial cloth.
He sat.
Lanius stood beside him, motionless.
From above, Caesar looked out over Shady Sands with complete calm. Nothing moved. Everything was under control. His gaze swept across the ruined city and the subdued crowd. For several long minutes, he said nothing—just allowed a faint, restrained smile to rise.
Then he stood and entered the Capitol.
I removed my helmet and followed closely behind him. He stopped in front of a large portrait of President Tandi, still hanging in the Capitol's main chamber.
"At last… decades of work… and I stand here, in the heart of the dying Republic," said Caesar, his voice low but brimming with power. His eyes scanned the chamber—from the remnants of Republican emblems to the Legion banners fluttering high above. "I do not come as a spectator, waiting for events to unfold. I come as their master."
He turned to me, still facing the portrait.
"Ah… the old queen of the NCR. Gaius, in my youth they taught us to revere her—to believe she was our guiding light. But when the Republic lost its queen, everything collapsed: corruption, decadence, the rich trampling the poor… Inept fools and thieves tried to fill her place, but none could truly rule. Without an absolute leader, there was only chaos."
He stepped toward the painting with purpose. With a single motion, he tore it from the wall. The frame cracked under the force of his hand. Tandi fell to the ground—her image shattered.
"From chaos comes order," Caesar declared, crushing the fragments beneath his armored boot. "And now, at last, Shady Sands has an absolute ruler."
I looked down at the floor—splinters of wood and paint scattered around us—while Caesar lifted his eyes to the ruined skyline through the Capitol's broken windows.
His new dominion began where the old Republic ended.