#fallout analysis

[daxxed-out]

Me looking at my cat who knows he’s not supposed to be on the table

[spritepipis]

this shot also makes me fucking insane. i love cinnamontopography.

[artbyblastweave]

A Fallout lore youtube video with 314 views just informed me of Shalebridge, a location in Fallout 3 with an unmarked quest to defend a colony of small, friendly ants from an invading colony of the typical murderous ants found throughout the rest of the game. You can also use a further science/medicine check to boost the growth of the friendly ant colony to ensure their future success; in exchange, the ants will allow you to harvest a respawning bounty of ant nectar for the remainder of the game. Also noteworthy is that the friendly ant colony is denoted by extensive fungal growth around the entrance, in what I suspect is a nod to ant-fungus mutualism.

Anyway I can't help but interpret this as the eventual creation myth of a sentient FEV-induced mutant-ant civilization that, a hundred or so years down the line, will be telling stories about a benevolent giant who strode forth to smite their enemies in their hour of greatest need, before delivering unto them the mana of the old gods, Prometheus style. In this way and in many others Bethesda Fallout is consistently best at the margins

[callmewisteria]

Norm is absolutely one of my favourite characters in the Fallout universe. The fact he loves his family and wants what's best for them being what drives him to look for the truth of what has happened to them and why is fantastic. The ultimate difference between him and Chet, too, is a great show of his character. It began with him choosing to help his sister find their father and ends with him coming to the same realisation as she has – their father was not the man he said he was and much of their life has been a lie. Watching him decide to take the hunt for the truth into his own hands, even when it could be the end of him, is incredibly compelling.

What makes Norm so enjoyable to watch, too, is just how human he is. All of the characters in the show are that way, which is part of what makes it great (yes, even the ghouls as they were at one time human). The distress he feels at seeing what happened to Vault 32 being swept under the rug, and the anger he feels towards Betty and the others for doing it seemingly out of a desire for control and power more than anything else is tangible. The fact it drives him to take the risk of sneaking into Vault 31 shows his bold and couregous side, and also that it's driven by not only his own curiosities but his desire for the truth. It’s a great parallel trait he shares with Lucy and, as she comes to find out, their mother. The anger he feels towards his father and also the desperation he feels to survive are a great contrast of his truth seeking and his baser humanity.

All things considered, Norm's competing feelings of a desire for truth, a desire for safety, curiosity, and a love for his family are what make him a great character. The fact he shares those traits with Lucy but expresses them in different ways creates a strong parallel narrative for their characters, and also does a great job showing the two sides of courage. The fact neither he or Lucy are impervious or shy away from moments of weakness and subsiming emotion latch onto the naivety from their upbringing and also their humanity. With them both now having to reckon with the truth about their father, a reunion between them will I'm sure be great and also remind them that not all of their family members are bad. Reckoning with the truth about their mother and Lucy's love for her being what compelled her to end her suffering before breaking down at the gravity of it is another layer of complexity to their family dynamics that both of them will need time to sit with. The contrasting feelings of how they knew their father versus what they've come to learn about him serve well to separate them from others like Chet; where he, their cousin, chooses to remain wilfully ignorant, they chose to put aside their fears and look for a truth they knew was out there.

Chet is a coward because he chooses to ignore the truth he has seen with his own eyes.

Lucy is brave because she is willing to go to any and all lengths to find her father and is then willing to end the suffering her mother is under because of him; she is openly emotional and driven by that and the love she feels for her family and is horrified and shattered by her father being a different man than the one she had always known.

Norm is brave because he is willing to do anything for his sister and father and, when faced with the choice to stay in blissful ignorance, because he chooses to seek out the truth even when it could hurt him; he, too, doesn't shy away from the pain the truth about his father causes him and, like Lucy, has to learn to live with the competing memories of their father and the reality of who and what he is.

Hank is a coward because, while he goes to the extremes to attempt to preserve himself and his family, he refuses to accept the fact his actions have consequences for the way his children (and, previously, their mother) had seen him and instead tries to force things to go back to the way they were before his children could learn of his ability to be selfish.

And Rose was brave because she loved her children so much that she would and did do everything for them, even when she had to put her love for their father aside and risk herself so that she and her children could have a chance to live in truth rather than lies. Her children share that with her, even though they didn't know it, just as much as they share her love, empathy, and desire for the truth even when living in wilful ignorance could have been easier.

Tl;dr – the entire MacLean family being driven by love for each other but expressing it in different ways that ultimately drive them apart is not only great at showcasing the different sides of courage and cowardice but showing the way Lucy and Norm are so similar and are driven by their love for their family just as much as their desire for the truth and that neither Lucy or Norm shy away from their emotional and impulsive reactions to it presents them as not only fully human but two sides of the same coin; they are both couregous even though they take two different paths to the truth.

[robotrules]

So I finished Lonesome Road this week and I thought Ulysses's take on his experience with the Think Tank was super interesting. When I first played OWB, hearing the Think Tank talk I thought their whole deal was "Let's push science to the limits, morals be damned". War was more of an excuse to do horrible, unethical experiments. But then listening to Ulysses’s log and his conversation made me recontextualize the Think Tank's motivations:

It never occurred to me that the Think Tank did all those terrible things out of a genuine desire to protect their country. That they did it out of what they considered patriotic duty, along with the fear of the communist threat, which explains Mobius's line here:

If patriotic duty and love of country was so important, then why didn't they ever mention it (especially Klein)? And then I remembered about Mobius's lobotomy of the Think Tank:

They forgot the United States. They forgot what communists were (except for Borous). The Think Tank forgot their whole motivation for what they were doing in the first place. So the only thing they had left was their mad science experiments, without meaning and purpose.

I'm not making excuses for what they did, but I do find it profoundly sad. Ulysses woke them up and they remembered, for that brief moment, who they really were, before regressing back to the Think Tank you meet at the start of OWB.

It makes you wonder, if there wasn't a war, would the Think Tank had even done all those awful things? Would Big MT have been a place of genuine scientific progress rather than a test lab for the war machine of Fallout's America?

[blazinginsquids]

The War Instinct

Spoilers for Fallout season 2

While a lot of people, fairly, found season 2 episode 6 to be an episode they didn’t really care about, I found it to be a very fascinating one. It explores a topic that I’m unsure how to word, but Hank refers to as “The War Instinct”. It’s the idea that people have this innate desire to be on top. Hank generalizes it more as a desire to go to war, but I personally think it’s more complicated than that.

First, let’s establish some other things that happen in this episode that I believe are also related to “the war instinct” that Hank describes:

- Barb saying she’s doing what she’s doing for Janey. Cooper asks her if she’s really willing to end the world for their daughter, and she responds “Wouldn’t you?”

- Reg arguing that they deserve to have whatever they want, because their ancestors were selfish, resulting in him and the other vault dwellers living comfortably. Therefore, they should also be selfish in order to continue to live comfortably.

- This happened in the episode before, but Cooper sacrificing Lucy if it meant he gets to see his family (Possibly worth noting that Lucy is, at least in her own eyes, and embodiment of goodness).

To be clear, what Hank calls the war instinct is less an interest in causing conflict, but rather a fear of conflict, and a fear of loss of control. The desire to be a top dog comes from the fear that, if you are not in control, you will be left behind. The only way to protect you and yours is to ensure their safety yourself.

A theme Fallout is keenly aware of is the idea that the victor writes history and controls the direction the world goes while they’re in charge. Even after an empires death, its philosophies and politics will set the stage for where the next era starts, ensuring their legacy is engrained in history. Hank directly says that the reason he destroyed Shady Sands was because of its success. It threatened his vision of the future because it proved another vision could take over.

This is even more direct with Barb’s reasoning of why she works for Vault Tec. As someone on the inside, she knows their real plans. She knows that the plans they have for those “below” them are sinister. When you are low on the hierarchy, even something like a vault, an attempt to be saved from the destruction out of your control, is just caging you into an even worse fate. By getting as high on the ladder as she can, she has the greatest chance to save herself and her family. Ultimately, the war instinct is an act of preservation in the face of fear.

This ties us into Reg’s club and its meaning in the episode. What would otherwise be seen as something out of place, or maybe something put in for the sake of having nowhere else to put it, actually does have a thematic purpose. Though, rather than being the cause of the war instinct, it is the effect.

When someone seeks preservation the way Hank and Barb do, their ultimate goal would be a comfortable life. A comfortable life guarantees that any worries or concerns don’t feel life threatening. The war instinct, in both Hank and Barb, causes them to dehumanize those that would suffer at their hand. This denial acts to help them cope with the harm they do onto others. They become selfish and think of their life as a strategy game, because it’s the only way they can guarantee their survival.

Reg’s scenes act as a way to show the audience that the war instinct and the selfishness it requires doesn’t go away once it has succeeded. Instead, it evolves, and to an extent becomes unsustainable.

To be clear, both Reg and Betty are displaying “the war instinct”. Both want their side to come on top, and both are doing it out of preservation. Betty has more of a “good of the group” mindset, wanting everyone to make sacrifices to sustain the group as a whole while she figures out a solution. Reg on the other hand acts selfishly. He portrays his interest as for the support group, but it’s clearly him realizing that he will be liked if he gives this group what they want. Both Betty and Reg act out of a fear of losing control, but Betty’s is more tied to needs, and Reg is more tied to wants.

The war instinct is portrayed in a nuanced manner throughout the show. It is portrayed as both the problem, and the solution to the problem. Acknowledging it will never go away and will likely be the doom of humanity is the broadest way to explain its thematic role.

What I find interesting about it is that it leads to a philosophical question about what’s right and wrong when it comes to this instinct. I’d say the show distinguishes right and wrong through selfish vs selfless. Almost all displays of the war instinct have both aspects, but one noticeably outweighs the other. Barb is trying to protect Janey, but as Cooper points out, she’s willing to kill other mothers and daughters to do it. Betty is trying to take away Reg’s offerings to his community, but it’s because it will only serve to shorten the chances the vault has of surviving while she works to get Steph to give them more water.

But again, it’s not that easy either. The show also portrayed selfish and selfless and the deciding factor of who lives and who dies. The ghoul has survived in the wasteland so long because he actively makes a choice to be selfish. Lucy has nearly died a multitude of times because she has tried putting others over herself.

When Hank tells Lucy that wars are fought over nothing, he’s really telling us the conclusion of the themes of the show. Selfishness and fear are a conundrum that locks its victims in. When you’re born into a world ripe with selfishness and fear, no matter how much selflessness could theoretically free you, continuing the cycle is the only realistic way to have a chance of making it out alive on your terms.

[abraxo-official]

Thoughts on the new Abraxo lore in the new f76 expansion

I do not play fallout 76 HOWEVER it does not surprise me at all that they we were making weapons for the US military and owned by everyone’s favorite bisexual millionaire. I mean, what is a tide pod if not domesticated agent orange?

[the-yearning-astronaut]

Ok so despite not following any of the show tags or even searching through them, I've seen a fair amount of discussion on my dash regarding the pacing of season 2 of Fallout. And while I agree it would benefit greatly from even just two more episodes, I don't think Reg's support group scenes are as unnecessary as I've seen people claim they are, for a number of reasons.

First of all, this show has been carefully and deliberately crafted. From the costumes, the weapons, background props, music selections, etc to lines of dialogue and entire scenes -- everything seems to have a purpose. Symbolism, foreshadowing, mirroring, quality of production, you name it. I don't think these scenes with the support group are symbolic or foreshadowing or anything, but I DO think they serve a narrative purpose. And I don't think the show runners would include as many of these scenes as they have if they didn't serve the plot somehow.

Which brings me to my second point....

Right now Betty is one of two people from the 31-32-33 vault system that has any idea that there's more to the vault than everyone has been led to believe. And she's the only one who actually seems to care about the people under her watch. But her conflict with Reg and the issue of the broken water chip has raised the tension in vault 33 to the max. Even if she finds out Steph has initiated phase 2 (and I doubt either of them has any idea what phase 2 actually means for their vaults... Also I guarantee the FEV will be distributed through the water system which 32 is now sharing with 33....) and decides to protect her community in some way, their trust in her has been blown. No one is going to listen to her, which means things are gonna get real ugly real quick.

And finally, why inbreeding specifically? Well I think this might be a two part thing. On one hand it shows a novel aspect to vault life and the social dynamics within. But more importantly I think there will be something about the genetic component itself that will play a role in s3. Either those people that are products of inbreeding will be less affected by the FEV due to their possible genetic abnormalities, OR they will be even more susceptible to the virus than the other dwellers (ie changing faster or having worse mutations etc.). Either way, I'm expecting a bloodbath in 33 as much as I am in 32....

Anyway, in instances like this where the overall plot line extends over multiple seasons, I think it's too soon to judge whether these scenes are pointless or not. More context and material is needed before such a judgement can be cast. Right now they seem awkward and useless, but it's because we don't have the full picture yet.

That all being said, the pacing does still feel clunky and completely lacks breathing room.... and like everyone else, i really wish shows would get contracted for 10-12 episode seasons again at minimum...