Silath's Journal: Day 7 - October 25, 2281

Headed out early today, at 5 AM. I've got to make the most of the available daylight; don't like to use the night vision module unless I have to.
Along the road south a feral ghoul, wearing NCR armor, came out of the hill charging for me. I noticed a building a ways behind it, and my pipboy identified it as the Coyote Mines. Inside the building were a few medical supplies, and inside the mine itself was plenty of dynamite.
Oddly, a few minutes after I entered the mine, two scavangers came running through randomly. Neither of em said a word, they just kept running wildly.

Came across Camp Searchlight further down the road, and it was irradiated all to hell. Some NCR experiment gone wrong, maybe? Was attacked by two more NCR ferals while going around it.
Reached Cottonwood Cove shortly thereafter. People were crucified along the road heading to it; I put them out of their misery. It was too late to cut them down; their hands had already begun to suffer cell death from lack of blood flow. As soon as I released the bindings, assuming their system survived the shock of all the dead cells entering the bloodflow, infection would get them.
Maybe, with the proper medical supplies for amputations, they could have been saved. As it was, it seemed better to just kill them. This was my first taste of what Ceasers Legion had to offer the people of the Mojave.

I passed through Cottonwood Cove, and with the mark of Ceaser, was able to take a shoddy raft up the Colorado to Fortification Hill. Before I was allowed to enter, I had to surrender my weapons. Of course. This was really starting to irritate me, but what I saw at the camp filled me with enough anger I didn't need guns to kill people in any case.
Rampant and blatant brutality, slavery, sexism. Everything that was wrong with the wasteland, was personified by what I saw here. Ceasers legion is not some great force of order and law, it is nothing to be admired or sought after.
All the legion is, is a group of thugs and murderers, throwing people into slavery under the guise of bringing stability to this world. And Ceaser is nothing more than a fallen man, someone who had the charisma and intelligence to do something great... and instead made something awful.
It's not just his fault, though. Too many people were willing to give up their freedom for the security Ceaser offered. How can they be so foolish, to not see it's exactly that kind of thinking that led to the Great War?

Needless to say I hadn't even met Ceaser yet and my opinion of him was already low. When I met him, he was very... flattering. I hadn't considered how my actions might look to the outside world. But he made an interesting point.
Ceaser claimed he had Benny as his prisoner, and that I was free to do whatever I wanted with Benny... once I had finished a task for him. This task was to take the platinum chip down to the bunker at Fortification Hill, and to destroy whatever it contained.
I agreed. At the time I had no idea what might be in that bunker; all I knew was that it was something House had spent almost a million caps on, and that Benny had tried to murder me twice for. That told me it was powerful. That told me it was dangerous.

I was given back my weapons and used the chip to access the bunker door. It led to an elevator, with the Lucky 38 symbol painted on it. The elevator led to a small room, with another massive monitor, with House's face on it.
Fancy meeting him here. House wanted me to use the chip on a terminal, at the far end of the bunker. I lied and told him I'd consider it; he had no power in this place. What was he going to do?

Inside the bunker was a veritable army of securitrons. Row upon row of them. It was a truly awesome sight. I could do as House wanted; I could give him this army of securitrons.
I could also take over Benny's plans; House still had no clue about Yes Man. But once this army was awakened, there was no putting it back to sleep. Even assuming I didn't fuck something up terribly, and used this army to do only good... there's always the distinct possibility of someone doing to me what Benny wanted to do to House.

These robots were just tools; neither good nor evil. And right then, it was my choice what to do with those tools. I realized that no one man should ever be allowed to have this kind of power. This was not a rifle, with which you could kill a few men.
This was not even a vast army of men like the Legion. This was what Ceaser WANTED his legion to be; unquestioning, always loyal, incapable of disobeying an order. That made it infinitely more dangerous than any army of men could ever be. An army without conscience.

I still had the dynamite taken from the Coyote Mine (Once it had been given back to me upon entering the bunker, anyway). I used it to blow the power regulators to the two massive generators in the bunker. The entire place started started falling to pieces around me; I barely made it out in time, a massive explosion rocking the earth under Fortification Hill.
Ceaser kept his end of the bargain, allowing me to choose Benny's fate. I decided to face him down in the arena, and cut him to pieces. Afterwards Ceaser talked to me once more; he wanted me to kill House.
Once again our goals were in alignment; I had planned on killing House as soon as I got out of this hellhole anyway. So I agreed, and I was finally allowed to leave. The raft took me back to Cottonwood Cove, by this time it was nearly 2 AM.
Needless to say I'm crazy fucking tired. Tomorrow's plans: kill House, and hopefully bring my part in this madness to an end. I should really remember to incinerate Yes Man, too.