+SPOILERS+ The lore is broken beyond repair, now.

[mithraP]

Did Mister Emil Pagliarulo (Fallout 4's lead writer) actually play any previous Fallout game?
I've come to think that the answer is no. Or maybe he did, and didn't take them into account.

Listen, Fallout 4 is pretty much a good game. Ambitious, great atmosphere, pleasant gameplay, nice graphics, big map, etc, etc. I've had good times playing it, great times, even. The exploration is nice, some mods truly add something, the crafting system is well done etc. There are a few problems, sure, like for any other game... But there is a major flaw that cannot be skipped and that makes me wonder about the seriousness of the studio's writing team.

We already know the weaknesses of the main storyline and how it falls flat in its core elements (no choice at all, no consequences and forced, awkward emotion moments that didn't work well). Writers are supposed to be familiar with storytelling structures that can avoid these kinds of immersion breaking moments. I'd suggest to read "hero's journey" by Vogler, the various studies from Joseph Campbell or "Story" by Robert Mckee. But beyond the storytelling, we should be worried about the lore breaking elements.

Now, what is lore ? (baby don't hurt me) it's a series of facts, an established timeline, a recurring theme and a story structure introduced by the first game. Adding things to them is fine, it's actually what we wish a new episode has. But removing, ignoring or changing these core elements is what makes a lore breaking moment.

---
1 : The Institute is made of the greatest minds of the wasteland. The future of mankind, where the greatest scientific discoveries are made.
Contradiction with : the whole franchise

Except for synths, the Institute hasn't invented or improved anything. Most of their "discoveries" have been around for two entire centuries, and the Institute didn't even improve them in any way.

-About the energy. The Institute's greatest accomplishment is a 1942 technology : a nuclear reactor. They don't believe in fusion energy, you know... the energy that powers the vaults.
-They say that their motto is « humanity redifined ». West Tek made it two centuries before with embedding DNA with FEV, allowing mutation and evolution to happen way, way faster. Even the master's scientists debunked this idea, because humans WERE evolving ultra fast to match the fauna and flora that West Tek infected.
-A synthetic army ? Assaultrons and Securitrons are way deadlier than any of the Institute's synths and they were made by an Institute's student 200 years ago. A faction with zero military advancement in two centuries isn't exactly threatening or believable.
-Cyborgs ? A century old technology, mastered by a secluded religious order with far less resources, in California. It was working perfectly well. Improved lifespan, made people stronger, smarter etc. Shaun cancelled this program for no reason.
-Synths ? Yes, it's quite a feat, except that the Institute fails to recognize their obvious sentience, while at the big MT, their great minds acknowledged sentience in synthetic organisms a long, long time ago.
-Teleportation ? Pretty cool, except that big MT discovered this technology long before the institute and it worked way, way better.
-Weapons ? Which are worse than laser weapons invented two centuries before them.
-Agriculture ? Food replicators were invented two centuries before the events of the game, as per the GECK. And they were powered by portable cold fusion reactors, a technology our real life scientists only dream of while the Institute has trouble paying its energy bills.
-Bioscience ? Zero advancement, while the Shis in San Francisco actually made a plant that eats radiation and scrubs the land to make it livable. They can make synthetic oil out of seaweed and are on the verge of building their own nuclear reactors, plus their own power armors, their own gauss rifles etc. And they had way, way less resources than the Institute.
-Medecine ? Zero progress. They get outsmarted by a mark I Mrs.Nanny whose design was already half a century old by the time the bombs fell. They have a litteral cure for cancer in their vats and don't even think about refining it when their own leader gets sick.
-Oh, the institute can cure Super Mutants. Great. West Tek already knew how to make the same cure back in 2077. In Fallout 1, Zax even says that anyone who keeps a sample of their original DNA can be turned back into a human. In other words, the institute took two centuries to discover something that West Tek figured out in one single year.
-The Institute even gets outsmarted by one of their own fellow student, Mr.House, who managed to achieve immortality by himself, with makeshift technology. A technology he intends to sell to the NCR, with whom he makes business.
-Artificial Intelligence ? Invented and sold to the military two centuries ago, as proven by Skynet in the Sierra Army Depot.


2 : Jet is presented as a pre-war drug, shipped to vault 95 before it was sealed.
Contradiction with : Fallout 2.
In F2, you get to meet Myron, who created the Jet almost two centuries after the apocalypse. He clearly states how he made it (with Brahmin's excrements), how many slaves died during the tests, who ordered the drugs (The Mordinos) and why (to seize control of Redding).
"He could have lied, or he could have been inspired by an old drug", would you say. True indeed. However, every chemist is inspired by old drugs at some point. Doesn't mean that the creations share this nature. Also, Myron was a chemist genius, able to build chems at will, and never lied to the player about it. Confronted with his skills or the recipes of chems, you never see him talking nonsense, he actually proves that he has a great knowledge on the production process. "Derivatives of lysergics acid diethylamide and psilocybin" is an actual line from Myron, if your science skill is high enough to talk about chemistry with him.
The boy was also begging you to spare him when you first met him. So he was a coward. So can you imagine him lying to Big Jesus Mordino's face ? Remember how the man has a surprisingly good empathy and actually murders the player, a rough tribal wastelander, at the second he notices chit chat or insolence. Here, this is Myron we talk about. A skinny kid. Finally, the said kid killed between 100 and 200 slaves to get the jet "working". Now, let's do the math.

When you meet Metzger, the ruler of the slaver's guild, he sells Vic for 1000 dollars. An old, crippled, useless repairman. Not a young male tribal warrior in his prime, no, no.
Metzger buys Sulik for 1200 dollars, and pays each slaver 800 dollars for a run. Which means that a man like Sulik must be sold between 4000 and 5000 dollars for Metzger to make a profit. Now, look : the Mordinos, intelligent, drug knowing warlords who wouldn't spend a cap for nothing, bought 100 to 200 slaves so that Myron can kill them, and it's no big deal. Do you think that they would have spent such a fortune if Jet was actually a pre-war drug that any chemist could remake ? Remember how advanced was Myron's lab ?
No matter how you put it, Jet is not a pre war drug. Maybe it's inspired by pre war chems, but it's not one of them. And it couldn't possibly be an easy to make drug, as per the Mordinos' investments. It's not a big deal, but when you manage a huge franchise which was defined by its details, you can't just ignore the little things which make the whole hold together.

3 : Again, Super Mutants are all idiots (except for Virgil).
Contradiction with : Fallout 1, 2, tactics.
First of all, why are super mutants even agressive ? F1, F2, Ftactics' super mutants were agressive because they were brainwashed by the children of the cathedral to see humanity as the enemy. And yet, hundreds of them were already starting to see their errors and integrated themselves into society. FEV doesn't turn people into racists for no reason. Yeah, except Vault 87's for some reason, but F4's super mutants aren't from there.
Is there even a reason for them being so aggressive and not simply try to form a society, like all the super mutants who weren't brainwashed ?

Now, about their intelligence. FEV Doesn't turn humans into imbeciles. Most Super Mutants are actually very smart ; we know for a fact that Broken Hills is populated by hundreds of them (as per the Vault City's guide for travellers, which has the place's demographics), and they are smart enough to sign peace treaties, sign business deals, understand the interest of hiring private companies for their supplies, write down laws and obey them, run a successful mine etc. The lieutenant (just a lieutenant, not a high ranked officer) is actually one of the most eloquent NPC of the entire franchise.
Even the super mutants warriors of the midwest are actually smart. Brutal, yes, but smart enough to actually enroll in various BoS tactical squads.

The only dumb ones we ever see are door watchers. They are not core of the Unity's army, they are left behind to watch doors in secluded cities.

Some would say "hey ! Wasn't Fallout 1's main quest revolving around the fact that the Master couldn't raise smart mutants ?"
Nope. It's a myth. Check again, the master NEVER even mentions the mutant's intelligence, since he already has hundreds and hundreds of smart mutants in his army. He wants the vault dwellers for a totally different reason. He knows what happens with pure DNA, since he already made an experiment with a vault 13 citizen before the events of Fallout 1.

It makes a creature like himself. Which is all he wants : unity.
There's zero mention of mutant's intelligence, since their intelligence has never been a problem.

What about the Institute's ? They are all dumbs because FEV.
What about Vault 87's ? They are all dumbs because FEV.

I say this again : the FEV doesn't affect intelligence. At all.

4 : The base money is caps.
Contradiction with : Fallout 2.
Caps were only used during the first years after the war, as "farmer's money", as a currency indexed on the water value : one cap = one bottle of water.
Yeah, yeah, I know, caps were on the west coast, Fallout 4 takes place in the east coast, things can be different etc. I know, bear with me :

Diamond City is a trading hub, which means that there are caravans stopping by. Caravans from places where there are other currencies (their diversity is quite well established in all the previous titles) These caravaneers' employers want their share on the transactions, for obvious reasons. And by share, I don't mean barter of goods, I mean cash. Money. So, for Diamond City to actually exist as a city, there needs to be an exchange currency, aka, a bank. Baseball cards, game tickets, printed money... PRINTED money ? Now, that would give Piper way more importance, given the fact that she holds the printing machine. Her conflict with the mayor would have another dimension, as we'd witness not only a clash of convictions, but of pure, raw, political power. The game actually tries to take that direction, but falls flat on it. And here's a perfect example of a current, ingame dramatic situation that would have been greatly enhanced by a more serious approach on the established lore. Realism wouldn't change the current setting and drama, it would actually enhance it.

« No, no, you can't touch caps, they are a part to Fallout's identity » some might say. Wrong. Fallout 1 may had caps, but Fallout 2 had NCR Dollars backed on Redding's gold, issued by the Republic Reserve located in Angel's Boneyard. Mining communities use mine scrips. The Mojave accepts another currency, the Sunset Sasparilla caps. The whole midwest tribes uses ring pulls and Brotherhood printed scrips. The Legion's turf, which is insanely huge, uses Denarius and Aureus.

How exactly does it make sense for the east coast to use a Californian money abandonned since almost a century, and was backed by water in an arid environment, especially considering that there are six other kind of currencies between the HUB and the Commonwealth ? Considering that there is water EVERYWHERE in the commonwealth, and yet, caps have the exact same value as thousands of miles away, where it was used in an arid, desertic setting a century ago. Now, how long after the black plague did the European banks started to make loans and make money, again ?

Fallout's lore established a realistic economy, as part of its main thematic : "how do new societies deal with the errors of the past ?" removing any part of that, even for fun, nostalgia or fanservice, is removing a part of the central thematic. In other words, it's breaking the lore.
There are numerous ways to keep the lore up and kicking, yet still inventing new, original concepts. Among them, let's imagine... I don't know, let's imagine that the BoS wishes to extend his power through political and economical management. They'd basically turn into medieval templars (the bank templars, not the assassin's creed gymnasts), which would be as lore friendly as original. After all, they control the water purifier, and for many years, the currency was indexed on the water prices. What if they tried to extend that currency to the commonwealth, and encounter a suspiciously lawless state, with a shadow government opposing this new foreign currency ? Wouldn't that be the first hint of the institute's motives ? Wouldn't this economical takeover be a way to enhance the actual, current arrival of the Prydwen ? When you know that the BoS not only comes for the institute, but also to implement their power in this new land, that's double the intimidation potential of the scene.

Listen, I'm a random idiot, not a writer. And here are already two basic ideas to justify an economical situation that would fit the lore and the current storyline. Any competent writer could find dozens of other, better scenarios. And as proven, realism and lore fidelity wouldn't require to rewrite the game from scratch. It can enhance the current storyline and setting, which is actually good and wouldn't need a lot of duct tape to actually hold still.

05 : The Californian Brotherhood of steel approved Maxson's rise to power.
Contradiction with : fallout bible, Fallout 2, Van Buren, Fallout New Vegas.
When Fallout 4 takes place, the Californian Brotherhood doesn't "exist" anymore. It has been annhilated, smashed, destroyed, and everything in between... NCR kicked them when they were down, just like John Wayne would have done. The BoS is currently making a last stand to defend Maxson's State underground, and are getting ready to face the invasion of the NCR force, that CANNOT lose at this point. Even the Mojave Chapter cannot get in touch with HQ, so how would the elders approve Maxson's rise to power ?

06 : The BOS blows up the Institute.
Contradiction with : all of Fallout's lore.
Now, let's imagine a medieval knight. Brotherhood soldiers are basically that, in sci fi.
Would a knight kill a heretic holding the Graal ? Sure.
So, the BOS would destroy the members of the institute and their synths.
But then, would the knight melt the Graal and pretend he did some good work ? Hell no!
So why would the BOS nuke their Graal, their cathedral, their biggest resource of technology (something that they actually worship and swear to PROTECT) ?
Just look at all the technology inside the Institute. Microscopes. Bulletproof glass. Speakers and security cameras. LED lights. Automated doors which suggests the presence of pneumatic or hydraulic engines. A functional nuclear reactor. Computers. Digging machines somewhere. Humidifiers. Carbon filters in the ventilation systems. Functional coffee machines. Thousands of energy cells used by the synths which would be VERY usefl for the brotherhood soldiers in constant needs of supplies. Ovens, microwaves, circuit boards, wielding machines, washing machines, industrial arms, UV lamps to grow food underground. Water purifiers. Whatever technology used to make synthetic food.

« The brotherhood doesn't care about post war technologies », you might say. Except that they totally are pre war technology. 75% of the institute's gizmoes exist in our real world, including the nuclear reactor. Also, nobody ever said that the Brotherhood only focuses on pre war technology. Ever. It's a common myth backed by litteraly nobody in the games. Sure, they MOSTLY hoard pre war tech in order to preserve it, but they never limited themselves to that. Every single Fallout title shows the brotherhood having interest in post war tech.

In Fallout 1, the brotherhood clearly uses weapons manufactured by the gun runners, such as the ripper. Doctor Lorri enhances soldiers with bionic implants, turning them into cyborgs, which are clearly post war technology.
In Fallout 2, the brotherhood asks you to find the blueprints of vertibirds so that they can make their own. Vertibirds are post war technology. The chapter also uses ACE, which is an artificial intelligence who became self aware after the war.
In Fallout tactics, Paladin Dos is a cyborg. Post war technology. Several endings of Fallout tactics feature the brotherhood relying on an self aware AI to establish themselves in the midwest. These endings are noncanonical, sure, but still.
In Fallout 3, the Citadel's terminals mention the lead scribe building a post war technology called an « Accelerated Vector Fusion module » to take control of Liberty Prime's artificial intelligence.
In Fallout 4, the Prydwen itself is a post war technology and it serves as the brotherhood HQ. And Proctor Ingram uses bionic implants to cope with the loss of her legs.
Remind me again : what use do the BOS scribes have ? Studying the ashes left behind by the paladins ? Fallout 4's writer seems to think that the answer is yes.

07 : There's the Enclave armor in the wild, untouched for centuries and rusty :
Contradiction with : Fallout 2
The Enclave Armor was developped by the Enclave on the Poseidon Oil Rig AFTER the war and would have NEVER found its way in this basement. Ever. Also... Is that rust on it ? But... But the X-01 is made of advanced polywers and not of METAL, which makes it lighter than its counterparts.

08 : A ghoul stays locked in a fridge for two centuries, without food or water.
Contradiction with : every fallout.
If radiation is all it takes to keep a Ghoul kicking, then why did Necropolis Ghouls died of thirst if you took their water chip, in Fallout 1 ? This is a major, important plot element of the story, since it defines the hero's journey as morally grey, as communities are ruined to save vault 13.
Why do Harland in New Vegas clearly states that he had to eat radroaches and drink water from the condensation on the pipes not to die of hunger and thirst ?
Why do Slog Ghouls even grow food ? For money ? Come on. They are so broke they can't even pay attention.

09 : Ghouls can run/charge.
Contradiction with : Fallout 1 and 2.
In Fallout's lore, there are three « races » of Ghouls : Crazies, Scavengers and Mindless Ones. The only ones who went feral were the Mindless Ones or "Zombies" and they were frail, they were few, slow, they were weak and the only place I remember ever seeing them was around Necropolis. I don't even remember seeing any in Fallout 2. Why's that? Cause they've long since died off. Why? Darwinism, that's why. Survival of the fittest. And they disappeared while being protected by the crazies and scavengers, because they knew they needed protection and couldn't survive on their own longer than a single generation.

A single charge, and they'd break their legs. For how long would they be crippled ? All their life. So, logically, they don't run. It's actually a pretty important plot element in Fallout 2, as demonstrated by Lenny.

He, a medic ghoul (not a redneck zombie but an educated doctor) clearly states that Ghouls can't run. This is actually why he feels so sorry for himself and joins Fallout 2's hero, as an atonement act : he couldn't run after the hero's ancestor and help him with his quest. FO1 and 2 made a big deal of showing that Ghouls are easily scared by danger and stay away from trouble because of their fragility... they have advanced atrophy and a skeletal structure that is quite bad at even holding things in place - as we learn from the dialogue in FO2 talking with Harold, and in Fallout Tactics dialogs with the Ghouls who seek the protection of the Midwest Brotherhood of Steel. The bravest Ghouls actually enlist in the brotherhood ranks, but their agility is limited to six points and they can't run. They can only do an awkward, twisted trot.

In Fallout 4, Ferals are rotting corpses who have survived 200 years in a hostile/racist environment, without any protection, some of them without even eating anything, and they are able to run faster than humans, LITTERALY avoid bullets, charge and inflict massive damages. You can see the problem here.

10 : There are super mutants at Boston.
Contradiction with : all fallouts.
Fallout 1 ends with the destruction of the FEV base, which was used to create mutants... And let me tell this again : pure, raw FEV doesn't produce super mutants, but monsters like Harold or the master. To engineer Super Mutants, the greatest mind of the wasteland had to grow psychic powers, unite itself with a computer and spend years of failures before even making his first super mutant. The destruction of his labs mean only one thing : that this knowledge is lost, possibly forever. There isn't a single plausible, lore-friendly scenario that explains how dumby dumb super mutants could create new soldiers on their own.
Fallout 2, which happens many decades after, actually confirms that the super mutants are almost all dead.
Fallout Tactics sees the midwest brotherhood stop the lat Super Mutants wave pretty easily. Depending on the ending, they end up enlisting for the Brotherhood of steel or exterminated in camps.
Fallout 3 ends with the Brotherhood seizing Washington D.C., Liberty Prime, Enclave technology and choppers. If there are still super mutants in the perimeter six months after that (logically, there shouldn't have been any in the first place, but well), then it would mean that the Brotherhood has officially retreated from the east coast. Which it hasn't.

11 : Robots have personnalities.
Contradiction with : all fallout games.
Speaking about Codsworth, why does he has a conscience ?
Listen, I love codsworth just as the next guy. He's a really cool character, probably one of my favorite. I wouldn't mind if he was a broken toaster randomly blattering nonsense and movie quotes like he did in the pre war intro. But it's one thing to have a personable toaster. It's a different matter all together when my toaster starts to pass moral judgements, like when Codsworth « Likes » or « dislikes » my actions or start crying about his boredom, developping loyalty towards Paladin Danse or expressing grief for my family. Or even straight up hating me.

Listen, he's a prewar domestic robot, made available to the middle class. He's not exactly the definition of an advanced, military AI, right ?
Well, that's a shame, because military Ais are the only ones who developped a personality, in Fallout's history, and this process only took place years AFTER the war. And let's look at them : they're huge. We are talking about a building sized terminal using a ridiculously powerful CPU to even function. If an IA needs to move, it needs a human brain to do so. A human brain. You know, a CPU so powerful that even our own engineers cannot even imagine a computer that would come close to it.

These intelligent machines are ZAX 1.2, a huge computer located in the glow who plays chess with himself. There is Skynet in the Sierra Army Depot, whose personality is very cold and limited. There are the robobrains and the Think Tank variants, who use human brains to feel emotions. And there's John Henry Eden in Fallout 3. And that's it. These are the only machines with a personality in the entire Fallout universe. Even the calculator, which is the most advanced robot of the whole pre war era, has the mind of an excel sheet.

And yet, a domestic, cheap robot, has developped WAY more sentience and personality than anyone of these artificial intelligences. Does Codsworth use a human brain ? No. Does his CPU has the size of a building ? No. Does his OS is as advanced as a military IA ? No. Then how has he become sentient enough to developp a moral compass and emotions ?

« Eyebots » were sentient too, you may say. Remember how Ed-E showed grief in Lonesome Road everytime you mention its creator. True enough. And true, eyebots were indeed a pre-war invention.
But Ed-E was a post-war prototype, which, unlike its little floating comrades, was built using transistors, a technology that didn't exist when Codsworth was made, and the very POST WAR engineers were ASTONISHED at Ed-E having a personality. Which means that even the greatest minds of the post war Enclave viewed an intelligent robot as something rare, extraordinary and unexpected. How to explain that, if a domestic, cheap butler was way more « sentient » than Ed-E before the war ?

[Qnomei]

Great points, but didn't Big MT have teleportation as well? I mean, it required a special gun to work, but that's the only issue I could think of.

Otherwise, the entire time I read this thread I wondered, "Why isn't OP a writer for Bethesda?"

[Gon]

whatever původně napsal:

If you want to read more truth about Fallout 4, and less fiction, I ivite you my dear friends to check out No Mutants Allowed. Some of the Fallout fans there have done a Very good job dissecting the flaws and weakness of Fallout 3 and 4.

No Mutants Allowed discussions tend to make it all clear. You can't go wrong, so do check it out. Right now.

NMA is a ball of collected hate. It doesn't matter what the game is like, some of the core members would hate it regardless. Some of the most vocal people there ripping into it gleefully admit they have never played Fallout 4 - Or even Fallout 3 for that matter, but hey! Why let a small matter like that stop them. Even some of the old Black Isle staff have said that they can't stand NMA's narrow view.

[mithraP]

PyroMemeDragon původně napsal:

First off, I want to get this clear, Fallout 4 does still follow the Hero's Journey, just put it up to the Hero's Journey and test if it does.
Second, I may have not play Fallout 1, 2 and Tactics, but I will play them, eventually. I have seen footage and it looks playable, despite being behind the times in certain parts.

Hi, PyroMemeDragon.
About not having played the previous games yet, don't worry. I think that most of the people here try to keep the conversation pretty mature so I would be surprised to see someone talking down to you just for that. Should that happen, just ignore them.

Although, I am concerned about one thing.
Some of my points and quite a few elements of the conversation refer to Fallout 1 and 2's plots, er, in details. Like, surgically in details, at some moments. We quoted exact lines of terminals to prove or disprove some continuity elements, for example. If you plan to discover these great jewels of gaming, some day, this conversation could... will take away some of the magic that you'd experience, and for which I envy you.

Whatever you decide to do, give the first titles a chance, they deserve it.
Fallout 2 has more content than its predecessor, but its first hours are pretty unforgiving. Boost the melee combat, save often during the intro, and let the rest do its magic.

[mithraP]

Jarl Dalek Sec of Brennenburg původně napsal:

NMA isn't a hivemind. There are plenty of people there who have admitted that they enjoyed Fallout 3 and they aren't shunned from the community or anything.

NMA does have a cell of very nostalgic gamers, true, but they never left me the impression of being forum bullies. They do rant from time to time, but they have the right to and they don't impose their views to others, so what's the problem ? If you come and talk about the good points of Bethesda's titles, they'd probably not participate in the conversation anyway, but if they did, that would probably be with a "well, that's just, like, your opinion, man". On overall, it's a friendly forum.

Qnomei původně napsal:

Great points, but didn't Big MT have teleportation as well? I mean, it required a special gun to work, but that's the only issue I could think of.

Hm. Interesting point! Old World Blues left me the impression of a christmas special, to be honest, and I didn't take it into much account until now, but I'll refresh my memory about it.
I am not sure that it was meant to be taken as seriously as, let's say, Old World Blues or Honest Heart. Even though, you are right, and what's written is written.

Qnomei původně napsal:

Otherwise, the entire time I read this thread I wondered, "Why isn't OP a writer for Bethesda?"

Oh, wow! Well thank you very much. That means a lot :)
Fallout 4 in itself is not beyond repair. Far from it. It wouldn't take a lot of duct tape to make its current setting, tone and characters fit a realistic, lore friendly and dramatic structure.
Almost nothing to add, not much to remove or to change. Many things to move, though, some setting elements, chronology and relationships to clarify, but there are tools for that. We already talked about Campbell's monomyth, among others. The lack of experience of metaphorical death/resurrection that defines the hero's last steps is clearly a problem, for example.
Well, that's just my opinion. I don't pretend to be able to write a "how to fix the game" or anything. Of course not. Just ideas. Lysimarkos actually asked me to post it, but I'd still have to translate it.

[fallout10mm]

I'm bored out of my mind so I guess I'll do a point by point rebuttle in a thread on the steam forums.

1: The north east isnt all dead. If radiation infect the geck produce a mutant jungle then the NCR, Vault city and Arrayo wouldnt exist as all three used thier gecks. Fallout tactics is only considered semi canon (there was a chapter sent to chicago but they lost contact with the group and havent heard from them since, Lyon's group was origionaly sent out to find them, Ceaser mentions the legion finding some scribes back east) and Fallout tactics 2 (where you get the info about flordia turning into a giant mutant craphole from a radiation infected geck) was never made and thus is completely noncanon (as is Fallout: brotherhood of steel, the one in texas). Also if the gecks were so easily effected by radiation then what was the ♥♥♥♥♥♥ point of making them when their purpose was to help the survivors rebuild after a nuclear war?

2: Caps. Caps being the currency because they were abundent enough to use, but not enough that they were nearly useless (like prewar cash had nearly become) and they needed /something/ to use as a bartering medium. In fallout 2 they switched to gold because gold is alot harder to counterfit, they had a decent economy going in the SW, and it was a finite resource. In New vegas (which canon status with bethesda is in question, since they make zero references to it outside of that cabbot quest) they had switched to a paper curency sometime between fallout 2 and then, which was supposed to be backed up by gold but the brotherhood somehow managed to destroy or irradiate the gold reserves (and redding apparently) and they had to back it with water instead, greatly devalueing the paper money. Caps were still being used outside of the NCR and by its merchents to deal with other comunities, which is why in new vegas you had the three currencys: NCR paper money, Caps (universaly accepted) and legion coins (backed by the fact they were made of silver and gold). It wouldnt be too surprising given the lack of clean water in 3 that they were also back ed by water, as that was the one thing everybody needed (cept the supermutants and the ghouls). Now in 4, given the ease you can make purified water makes it an odd choice if caps were backed by water there too but that might be a unintended side effect of the settlement feature, as it does seem that water is still in great demand in the commonwealth.

4: Yep Jet is a post war drug. Bethesda screwed up by claiming it was a pre war drug. It also sorta shouldnt be on the east coast ether, unless somone who knew how to make it made thier way to the east coast sometime after fallout 2. At least they got the part about psycho being a rare military drug back then (the drug dealer in sanctuary didnt know what the guy who wanted it was talking about).

5: Super mutants are all idiots. The way FEV works is if the subject hasnt been exposed to signifigant levels of radiation/the airborne strand of FEV that got loose from West-tek, then they become "smart" supermutants, all the strengths, no loss of inteligence (though all "smart" supermutants suffer memory loss, as demonstrated by Marcus and Fawks, Uncle Leo). Now the strands used on the east coast are different then the west coast ones (as was the method of delivery, diping vs a gas) so theres no really telling other then the left over logs of how many were inteligent or at least not brain damaged by the process (vault 87s records indicate almost every testsubject died from brain damage).

6: Insititues main defense. The teliporter made sure that noone could get into the insitute without them wanting them to. even when the sole survivor got in the way they did, the insitute WANTED them to come. As to why noone started digging, if anyone tried they could have easily detected it (remember most if not all the birds are actualy synths) and sent a coursor to deal with it.

7: Deathclaws are ferals. Yep. They were even in fallout 1. Smart deathclaws were a product of the enclave's exparaments to make up for thier lack of manpower/disposable assets. Even so they decided they were too much trouble as they were too inteligent for thier own good, rebelling aginst the enclave.

8: Insitutes motives. They see gen 3s as nothing more then your average prewar model robot: tools to be used and discarded at will. Any that develop free will are simply malfunctioning and they try to recapture or kill them to fix the problem and stop anyone from figuring out how to build them thierselfs.

9: Insitute doesnt rule the commonwealth. They dont want to rule the commonwealth, they just want to have thier little exparaments and keep destroying any attempts to unite the commonwealth as it would stop/slow thier exparaments. They're just waiting for the surface to die off so they can eventualy emerge and take over. Think Enclave but not wanting to get any real blood on thier hands (they pretty much leave that up to Kellog and they hate him).

10: Shawn has cancer. Shawn specificly says there are ways to keep on living but "at a great cost" He doesnt want to. It's his choice. Sure he could take a dose of FEV and become a supermutant, then cure himself. Or cyborg himself like Kellog. or download his mind into a synth. Or pull a Mr house and live in a tube hooked up to computers for the rest of his life. But he doesnt see that as living. He's said (in emails) about how extending the human lifespan is wrong and shut down all the projects to do so. Strange views coming from the director of the insititue but thats his choice.

11: West coast brotherhood approved Maxton as new elder. I used to think the west coast brotherhood was utterly wiped out sans the Mojave chapter but theres a good chance that while most of them are gone (especialy the ones in the NCR) that they might have regrouped further north, outside of NCR territory or into other bunkers (they dont specificly mention in NV wether the Lost hills bunker was lost or not, though the NCR commander at the dam mentions they destroyed 3 or 4 bunkers during the war they had with them)

12: Liberty prime in alaska. Nope LP never left the pentagon until Lyon's boys got him running in fallout 3. If the bots in cambridge think he did, then it was lies spun by the goverment to up morale, which wouldnt be unheard of, especialy when they mentioned before that they took the city with high losses. Lieing to cover that up to play up thier technilogical edge is something the pre-war goverment would do.

13: Brotherhood blows up the insitute. The brotherhood has shown that if they cant have something then none can have it and they since they consider synths to be the greatest threat to humanity they'd rather blow it up and sift though the rubble later then risk it spreading (look at how they dealt with the east coast enclave).

14: Insititute/Railroad blow up the airship. The railroad blew it up as revenge for the brotherhood attacking them and killing Glory (dispite glory not seemingly dead). The insitute blew it up to basicly show the brotherhood they werent gona sit around and let them mess with thier toy box (the commonwealth) and by reprograming prime that they could take anything they wanted from the brotherhood and turn it into a weapon aginst them.

15: Ghouls are created by radiation. Yep ether volentary like Desmond and Eddy or just by being "lucky" enough to get enough radiation that should kill you but because of something in your genetics, turns you into one. The only known exception to this is Harrold who isnt a ghoul but a former vault dweller who got mutated by FEV into a very ghoul like state instead of becoming a supermutant (or whatever the master was).

16: Ghouls dont need to eat/drink/can surivie on radiation alone. Now the whole kid in the fridge thing while kinda funny IS pretty lore breaking and would have made more sense if he had been trapped at school for a long time (surviving off the food there) then got stuck in the fridge trying to make his way back home after he ether dug his way out or got freed somehow.

17: Ghouls can run/charge. True, lore wise Lenny made it a point that he couldnt run and that was the "norm" for ghouls. I actualy like this change from Fallout 3/NV, it made ghouls actualy pretty scary for the first time in a while.

18: Super mutants in boston (and in great numbers). I honestly cant really make an excuse for this one, much like supermutants in 3, it was really just a cop out by bethesda to shoehorn in an icionic enemy. I suppose CIT could have gotten a sample of the virus before the war and they maintained facilities that could reproduce it but thats a bit of a strech for me. At least in 3 they made it a point that the SMs there were nearly out of FEV and were gona die out soon anyway because of the BOS, even without the Lone Wanderer's help.

19: Insitute has teliport technology. New advances in technology arnt really all that uncommon in fallout, the enclave managed to improve apon power armor, Madison and the brotherhood got Liberty Prime running with its weapons working (something that the prewar military couldnt do with the all the resources they had), and theres all that fun stuff in old world blues. Whats not really stated in fallout 4 is what range the teliporter actualy has, I susspect its actualy confined to the Commonwealth itself.

20: Robots with personality. There just werent enough robots around in fallout 1/2 to get a real feel for how common personalitys were with prewar bots, just some ZAX computers, and a bunch of robots under thier comand. If fallout 3 is anything to go by, then they were rather comon, the two butler bots have personalities (perhaps not as....human as cogsworth, but maybe such personalities only really appear after functioning nonstop for a number of years, and they had been wiped a few times), as do some of the mr gutsys (sawbones writes vorgon level bad poetry, cerberus obviously wants to wipe out the ghouls, Sargent RL-3 is picky about who he follows).

[mithraP]

fallout10mm původně napsal:

1: The north east isnt all dead. If radiation infect the geck produce a mutant jungle then the NCR, Vault city and Arrayo wouldnt exist as all three used thier gecks.

Come now. Vault City used a clean GECK (vault 8's), just like Arroyo (vault 13's). As for the NCR, or shady sands to be precise, they never used this device to build their society. As said, this device features a matter replicator and clean agriculture templates (seeds, notably). If the said template is tainted by radiation, then, what the GECK won't be able to replicate anything clean. If it isn't, the GECK will replicate clean crops. It's that easy.

fallout10mm původně napsal:

Fallout tactics is only considered semi canon

Says who ? Its events are mentioned in a canon episode.
Briefly, sure, but no more, no less than let's say Fallout 2's Vault City.

fallout10mm původně napsal:

Also if the gecks were so easily effected by radiation then what was the ♥♥♥♥♥♥ point of making them when their purpose was to help the survivors rebuild after a nuclear war?

I'm not sure I understand your point. Sealed inside vaults, the GECKS have zero reason to be irradiated, and their sole function is to be used long, long after the nuclear winter.

fallout10mm původně napsal:

Caps being the currency because they were abundent enough to use, but not enough that they were nearly useless (like prewar cash had nearly become) and they needed /something/ to use as a bartering medium. In fallout 2 they switched to gold because gold is alot harder to counterfit, they had a decent economy going in the SW, and it was a finite resource. In New vegas (which canon status with bethesda is in question, since they make zero references to it outside of that cabbot quest) they had switched to a paper curency sometime between fallout 2 and then, which was supposed to be backed up by gold but the brotherhood somehow managed to destroy or irradiate the gold reserves (and redding apparently) and they had to back it with water instead, greatly devalueing the paper money.

I'm aware of the economical history of the west, but now the story takes place on a different place, where still using caps two centuries after an apocalypse makes no sense. And you don't take my point into account : how do foreign traders and caravaneers can make business with the commonwealth, in absence of an exchange currency ? Caravans' employers wouldn't care for barter. They want a cash commission on transaction. A cash commission they'd be able to actually use to make a profit, which is not possible with caps at this point. Remember the exchange rate, caps are worthless in NCR territories by now, and so are they for most other areas. As for New Vegas which may lose its canon status, that would be... concerning. Its events have no reason to influence the commonwealth in any way.

fallout10mm původně napsal:

4: Yep Jet is a post war drug. Bethesda screwed up by claiming it was a pre war drug. It also sorta shouldnt be on the east coast ether, unless somone who knew how to make it made thier way to the east coast sometime after fallout 2.

Which would require a lot of talent, time and equipment. Commonwealth people have trouble building wells two centuries after the war, and in absence of a production place of any kind, so the most logical explanation for the jet's presence is western caravans. Which again, bring up the currency problem.

fallout10mm původně napsal:

The way FEV works is if the subject hasnt been exposed to signifigant levels of radiation/the airborne strand of FEV that got loose from West-tek, then they become "smart" supermutants, all the strengths, no loss of inteligence (though all "smart" supermutants suffer memory loss, as demonstrated by Marcus and Fawks, Uncle Leo). Now the strands used on the east coast are different then the west coast ones (as was the method of delivery, diping vs a gas)

Well, the Master still had a few hundred super mutants who weren't completely dummies, remember ? And let's not forget Talius or the Master's plans. He was well aware that non irradiated people could bring about a whole, diffferent race than super mutants.
As for the method of delivery, it can be a clue, indeed. Still doesn't explain why the Institute would release its mutants into the wild instead of just shutting them down in the lab. They cause a threat to their ambitions, after all.

fallout10mm původně napsal:

The teliporter made sure that noone could get into the insitute without them wanting them to.

How so ? Didn't need a teleporter to dig a little hole in the ground and get there. The only reason I needed a teleporter was to inflitrate the faction and recover data without them worrying. It's only by chance that the said infiltrator was the one that Shaun was expecting. Without his/her intervention, it would have still happened, Proctor Ingram would have simply sent someone else.

fallout10mm původně napsal:

If anyone tried they could have easily detected it (remember most if not all the birds are actualy synths) and sent a coursor to deal with it.

Being noticed when you attack an enemy's capital is part of the job. It's not like the BoS was hiding its intentions, after all. As for the Courser, if the Institute had so much confidence in their abilities, they would have used them to strike the brotherhood the night of their arrival. Yet, they did not. Neither did the coursers manage to eradicate the railroad, for that matter, which... raises the question of their true abilities. No doubt that the Institute keeps a myth around them, but in the end, it sounds like propaganda more than anything.

fallout10mm původně napsal:

Yep. They were even in fallout 1. Smart deathclaws were a product of the enclave's exparaments to make up for thier lack of manpower/disposable assets. Even so they decided they were too much trouble as they were too inteligent for thier own good, rebelling aginst the enclave.

I corrected my point long ago.

fallout10mm původně napsal:

They try to recapture or kill them to fix the problem and stop anyone from figuring out how to build them thierselfs.

Who could possibly have the technological means to build a synth, except the institute ? Even the Enclave would have trouble.

fallout10mm původně napsal:

They dont want to rule the commonwealth, they just want to have thier little exparaments and keep destroying any attempts to unite the commonwealth as it would stop/slow thier exparaments. They're just waiting for the surface to die off so they can eventualy emerge and take over.

Which contradicts Shaun's lines. Also, Shaun is an intelligent, educated man. He knows history. He knows that his there is a society on ground level 200 years after the war, it would need another nuclear war to make it die off. The Commonwealth shows no sign that its existence is dying off : people are doing business in Diamond City, listening to a local radio while welcoming foreign caravans and building new settlements, etc. Radiations are slowly going away. Not far away, a giant water purifier was built. In fact, with the BoS's power growing at the capital wasteland, it can only grow and become more secure.
So, Shaun is an idiot ? No. So, Shaun's motives are incoherent with his supposed knowledge.

fallout10mm původně napsal:

Think Enclave but not wanting to get any real blood on thier hands

Except Railroad's blood, innocent abducted people's blood and a whole BoS's chapter's blood. You raise another contradiction with their motives, in fact. These guys are butchers thinking of themselves as pacifists.

fallout10mm původně napsal:

Shawn specificly says there are ways to keep on living but "at a great cost" He doesnt want to. It's his choice. Sure he could take a dose of FEV and become a supermutant, then cure himself. Or cyborg himself like Kellog. or download his mind into a synth. Or pull a Mr house and live in a tube hooked up to computers for the rest of his life. But he doesnt see that as living. He's said (in emails) about how extending the human lifespan is wrong and shut down all the projects to do so. Strange views coming from the director of the insititue but thats his choice.

Love how you call him "Shawn" ^^ Strange views indeed, but that's my point.
Contradicts litteraly everything he stands for, and all the objectives he fought to accomplish, and which are now at hand. On overall, it's used as a cheap way to force awkward emotion into the plot, instead of just, you know, a coherent and immersive story.

fallout10mm původně napsal:

I used to think the west coast brotherhood was utterly wiped out sans the Mojave chapter but theres a good chance that while most of them are gone (especialy the ones in the NCR)

That's my exact point. I'm just raising attention on the obvious contradiction.

fallout10mm původně napsal:

Nope LP never left the pentagon until Lyon's boys got him running in fallout 3.

Again, that's my exact point.

fallout10mm původně napsal:

The brotherhood has shown that if they cant have something then none can have it and they since they consider synths to be the greatest threat to humanity they'd rather blow it up and sift though the rubble later then risk it spreading (look at how they dealt with the east coast enclave).

Yeah, they seized all their technologies and know they use them. Like the BoS does.
Why can't they "have" the MIT's tech ? They take it over without much effort. Destroying the synth's production, easy. But what about the rest of the researches ? Do you know how long a BoS scribe can go just to get his hands on a working microscope ? Now, look at everything the Institute has. Maxson's plan of nuking it all would have caused an immediate schism, like with the outcasts, and probably an internal civil war again. Let's not forget that any paladin can defy the high elder's authority.

fallout10mm původně napsal:

The railroad blew it up as revenge for the brotherhood attacking them and killing Glory
The insitute blew it up to basicly show the brotherhood they werent gona sit around and let them mess with thier toy box

You know, the BoS seized the Enclave's technology and weaponry. They probably have biological weapons, now, for example. They can turn the whole area into another glowing sea and wait for these factions to surrender. They can push the super mutants to the commonwealth. They can pay mercs so that they bring chaos to the area and isolate Diamond City. And finally, they can send the infantry in the streets, again, and try another approach commonly called "exterminatus".
What has the railroad/institute won, then ? Oh yeah, they avenged an average NPC or flexed their muscle in front of heavily armed fanatics who control the rest of the region, and who own Enclave's technology. These guys are geniuses.

fallout10mm původně napsal:

Yep ether volentary like Desmond and Eddy or just by being "lucky" enough to get enough radiation that should kill you but because of something in your genetics, turns you into one.

I know, but that's not the problem, here. "How" the ghouls are created, even Black Isle's team doesn't really know. It's "why" the Ghouls are created, in a storytelling sense. "New ghouls" like the ones in F4 overwrite a very fundamental, dramatic process that was a part of the universe. In other words, they rewrite an element from the previous games, which is, well, the very definition of breaking the lore.

fallout10mm původně napsal:

Now the whole kid in the fridge thing while kinda funny IS pretty lore breaking and would have made more sense if he had been trapped at school for a long time (surviving off the food there) then got stuck in the fridge trying to make his way back home after he ether dug his way out or got freed somehow.

That would have fixed it, true. Just like for the rest, a little writing effort and it all comes out fine.

fallout10mm původně napsal:

True, lore wise Lenny made it a point that he couldnt run and that was the "norm" for ghouls. I actualy like this change from Fallout 3/NV, it made ghouls actualy pretty scary for the first time in a while.

So did I. It made them dangerous, true. It also made them lore breaking.

fallout10mm původně napsal:

Super mutants in boston (and in great numbers). I honestly cant really make an excuse for this one, much like supermutants in 3, it was really just a cop out by bethesda to shoehorn in an icionic enemy. I suppose CIT could have gotten a sample of the virus before the war and they maintained facilities that could reproduce it but thats a bit of a strech for me. At least in 3 they made it a point that the SMs there were nearly out of FEV and were gona die out soon anyway because of the BOS, even without the Lone Wanderer's help.

Exactly. As for the super mutants who'd die without your help, it's actually a common story problem with Bethesda. For Skyrim, Fallout 3 and even Fallout 4, let's imagine that your character died in the first hour. The world would have been fine, in the end. Sure, settlements would have trouble, but the main danger would still be crushed.
-Skyrim : Not only a great fighter, Ulfric is also a dragonborn and he is leading a revolt. Logically, killing the dragons would bring the entire country to support him, which is his exact objective. So, no need for the hero to resolve the problem.
-Fallout 3 : The BoS would have won against the super mutants at some point, either with patience or with a military offensive. At this point, they would have seized vault 87 and found the GECK. And they already knew about project purity before the hero was even born.
-Fallout 4 : The hero doesn't bring any intel or strategic advantage that the BoS could have found on their own. Nothing would have stopped Ronnie Shaw to reform a unit of minutemen. Etc etc.

fallout10mm původně napsal:

There just werent enough robots around in fallout 1/2 to get a real feel for how common personalitys were with prewar bots, just some ZAX computers, and a bunch of robots under thier comand.

True. But the very idea of an autonomous robot with a functioning personality (in other words, that allow it to take decisions based on emotional informations) defies everything the robobrains stand for, and which are very common in the previous titles.
A common human brain is more powerful than supercomputers, even by today's standards. So, what, Codsworth has a supercomputer's hardware, now ? Like, Skynet's kind of hardware ? I don't remember Codsworth and Curie to be tall as a building and require a hundred fans to, well, not just melt.

[Old Cat 🐱]

"I'm simply pointing out that previous Fallouts established what the GECK does"
Do they?
At irst they were just a combination of seeds, chemicals and cold fusion power.
Then, in F3, it suddenly becomes something much more advanced:
"The G.E.C.K. will collapse all matter within its given radius and recombine it to form a living, breathing, fertile virgin landscape and allow life to begin anew. " - Fallout 3

No more gardening, you turn it on and it terraforms the area around into needed structures, perhaps without limits.

[mithraP]

darkevilkeeper původně napsal:

"I'm simply pointing out that previous Fallouts established what the GECK does"
Do they?
At irst they were just a combination of seeds, chemicals and cold fusion power.
Then, in F3, it suddenly becomes something much more advanced:
"The G.E.C.K. will collapse all matter within its given radius and recombine it to form a living, breathing, fertile virgin landscape and allow life to begin anew. " - Fallout 3

No more gardening, you turn it on and it terraforms the area around into needed structures, perhaps without limits.

Yeah, that's one of my points regarding lore consistency. Because that's clearly not what happened for Arroyo and Vault City, which are important parts of the lore.

What is funny, but actually concerning, is that by turning the GECK into this macguffin device and alienating its lore, they actually made the GECK useless for its task, while the original, lore friendly one, would have probably done a good job. In Fallout 3, James hints that he is after the GECK's replicator.

By definition, it... replicates things. In this case, either irradiated cells from the GECK's templates or irradiated cells from the water (which is at a lethal level of radiation, at this point). Either way, it wouldn't work, unless explained why. Which never happens.

[Gon]

mithraP původně napsal:

fallout10mm původně napsal:

Fallout tactics is only considered semi canon

Says who ? Its events are mentioned in a canon episode.
Briefly, sure, but no more, no less than let's say Fallout 2's Vault City.

According to the wiki, and attributed to Emil Pagiarulo in an interview with NMA's Ausir. To be fair, in the old days there were many threads like this one in Fallout forums about how badly Tactics destroyed the lore (And how the game sucked, didn't deserve to have the Fallout name, etc.)

mithraP původně napsal:

fallout10mm původně napsal:

4: Yep Jet is a post war drug. Bethesda screwed up by claiming it was a pre war drug. It also sorta shouldnt be on the east coast ether, unless somone who knew how to make it made thier way to the east coast sometime after fallout 2.

Which would require a lot of talent, time and equipment.

Time and equipment, yes. Talent.. No. If a pimple faced self-taught teenager can develop Jet in New Reno, then it doesn't take that much talent.

mithraP původně napsal:

fallout10mm původně napsal:

Shawn specificly says there are ways to keep on living but "at a great cost" He doesnt want to. It's his choice. Sure he could take a dose of FEV and become a supermutant, then cure himself. Or cyborg himself like Kellog. or download his mind into a synth. Or pull a Mr house and live in a tube hooked up to computers for the rest of his life. But he doesnt see that as living. He's said (in emails) about how extending the human lifespan is wrong and shut down all the projects to do so. Strange views coming from the director of the insititue but thats his choice.

Contradicts litteraly everything he stands for, and all the objectives he fought to accomplish, and which are now at hand. On overall, it's used as a cheap way to force awkward emotion into the plot, instead of just, you know, a coherent and immersive story.

I refute this. East coast FEV more often than not destroys higher brain functions, something that no scientist would want. As for 'enhancements' like Kellog's, its established ingame that Shaun hated Kellog and a lot that he stood for, so cybernetic enhancements may be off the table for that reason. Is it poor writing? Possibly. But so's a lot of the original writing. (Just what is the aim of the BoS? Collect technology for the sake of collecting technology).

mithraP původně napsal:

fallout10mm původně napsal:

The brotherhood has shown that if they cant have something then none can have it and they since they consider synths to be the greatest threat to humanity they'd rather blow it up and sift though the rubble later then risk it spreading (look at how they dealt with the east coast enclave).

Yeah, they seized all their technologies and know they use them. Like the BoS does.
Why can't they "have" the MIT's tech ? They take it over without much effort. Destroying the synth's production, easy. But what about the rest of the researches ? Do you know how long a BoS scribe can go just to get his hands on a working microscope ? Now, look at everything the Institute has. Maxson's plan of nuking it all would have caused an immediate schism, like with the outcasts, and probably an internal civil war again. Let's not forget that any paladin can defy the high elder's authority.

The BoS have a habit of destroying tech they can't have for themselves. They are also canonically uninterested in sifting through the ruins. Case in point: Mariposa. Largely intact under the rubble, but ignored by the BoS. Also, remember that the appearance of locations in the games is only representative of what would really be there. The Institute would be considerably bigger (and more interesting) than what we see in the game - Just like The Vaults of F1 & F2 would be bigger if they matched the descriptions of them.

mithraP původně napsal:

"New ghouls" like the ones in F4 overwrite a very fundamental, dramatic process that was a part of the universe. In other words, they rewrite an element from the previous games, which is, well, the very definition of breaking the lore.

You say its fundamental. I say its a minor detail. Both are opinions.

[Straybow]

mithraP původně napsal:

fallout10mm původně napsal:

They dont want to rule the commonwealth, they just want to have thier little exparaments and keep destroying any attempts to unite the commonwealth as it would stop/slow thier exparaments. They're just waiting for the surface to die off so they can eventualy emerge and take over.

Which contradicts Shaun's lines. Also, Shaun is an intelligent, educated man. He knows history. He knows that his there is a society on ground level 200 years after the war, it would need another nuclear war to make it die off. The Commonwealth shows no sign that its existence is dying off : people are doing business in Diamond City, listening to a local radio while welcoming foreign caravans and building new settlements, etc. Radiations are slowly going away. Not far away, a giant water purifier was built. In fact, with the BoS's power growing at the capital wasteland, it can only grow and become more secure.
So, Shaun is an idiot? No. So, Shaun's motives are incoherent with his supposed knowledge.

I wouldn't necessarily say incoherent so much as twisted. It makes it much harder to continue his plan if he accepts that there is something on the surface worth saving, it is easier to simply dismiss it as dead/decayed.

mithraP původně napsal:

fallout10mm původně napsal:

Think Enclave but not wanting to get any real blood on thier hands

Except Railroad's blood, innocent abducted people's blood and a whole BoS's chapter's blood. You raise another contradiction with their motives, in fact. These guys are butchers thinking of themselves as pacifists.

Blood by proxy in those circumstances, possibly of the same/similar moral consideration as doing the killing themselves but it is easier to claim innocence if you are personally removed from the consequences of your decisions. This may make the institute repulsive depending on your values but it seems consistent with their behavior in general.

mithraP původně napsal:

fallout10mm původně napsal:

Shawn specificly says there are ways to keep on living but "at a great cost" He doesnt want to. It's his choice. Sure he could take a dose of FEV and become a supermutant, then cure himself. Or cyborg himself like Kellog. or download his mind into a synth. Or pull a Mr house and live in a tube hooked up to computers for the rest of his life. But he doesnt see that as living. He's said (in emails) about how extending the human lifespan is wrong and shut down all the projects to do so. Strange views coming from the director of the insititue but thats his choice.

Love how you call him "Shawn" ^^ Strange views indeed, but that's my point.
Contradicts litteraly everything he stands for, and all the objectives he fought to accomplish, and which are now at hand. On overall, it's used as a cheap way to force awkward emotion into the plot, instead of just, you know, a coherent and immersive story.

I understand the point you are driving at but personally I considered Shauns limited life expectancy as a way of explaining away the undue haste the institute is handling the Gen 3 roll out. The Gen 3 are tied to him, they are his in a way and represent a different form of immortality. Still out of all people you would think the director of the institute would been amenable to transhuman solutions.

mithraP původně napsal:

fallout10mm původně napsal:

The brotherhood has shown that if they cant have something then none can have it and they since they consider synths to be the greatest threat to humanity they'd rather blow it up and sift though the rubble later then risk it spreading (look at how they dealt with the east coast enclave).

Yeah, they seized all their technologies and know they use them. Like the BoS does.
Why can't they "have" the MIT's tech ? They take it over without much effort. Destroying the synth's production, easy. But what about the rest of the researches ? Do you know how long a BoS scribe can go just to get his hands on a working microscope ? Now, look at everything the Institute has. Maxson's plan of nuking it all would have caused an immediate schism, like with the outcasts, and probably an internal civil war again. Let's not forget that any paladin can defy the high elder's authority.

Paladins helped me turn Mariposa into a ruin, again. Whilst I generally agree I think you are pushing the possible fallout of the decision a bit too far. I do think the destruction of the institute could have done with some further elaboration.

mithraP původně napsal:

fallout10mm původně napsal:

The railroad blew it up as revenge for the brotherhood attacking them and killing Glory
The insitute blew it up to basicly show the brotherhood they werent gona sit around and let them mess with thier toy box

You know, the BoS seized the Enclave's technology and weaponry. They probably have biological weapons, now, for example. They can turn the whole area into another glowing sea and wait for these factions to surrender. They can push the super mutants to the commonwealth. They can pay mercs so that they bring chaos to the area and isolate Diamond City. And finally, they can send the infantry in the streets, again, and try another approach commonly called "exterminatus".
What has the railroad/institute won, then ? Oh yeah, they avenged an average NPC or flexed their muscle in front of heavily armed fanatics who control the rest of the region, and who own Enclave's technology. These guys are geniuses.

Size and scope of Brotherhood operations is unclear, probably so the writers can make them as large or small as the feel like, either way the destruction of the prydwen and 'some' of the senior leadership is a blow. I tend to think of them as still relatively small as Bethesda doesn't seem interested in pursuing major state formation in the east coast.

mithraP původně napsal:

fallout10mm původně napsal:

Super mutants in boston (and in great numbers). I honestly cant really make an excuse for this one, much like supermutants in 3, it was really just a cop out by bethesda to shoehorn in an icionic enemy. I suppose CIT could have gotten a sample of the virus before the war and they maintained facilities that could reproduce it but thats a bit of a strech for me. At least in 3 they made it a point that the SMs there were nearly out of FEV and were gona die out soon anyway because of the BOS, even without the Lone Wanderer's help.

Exactly. As for the super mutants who'd die without your help, it's actually a common story problem with Bethesda. For Skyrim, Fallout 3 and even Fallout 4, let's imagine that your character died in the first hour. The world would have been fine, in the end. Sure, settlements would have trouble, but the main danger would still be crushed.
-Skyrim : Not only a great fighter, Ulfric is also a dragonborn and he is leading a revolt. Logically, killing the dragons would bring the entire country to support him, which is his exact objective. So, no need for the hero to resolve the problem.
-Fallout 3 : The BoS would have won against the super mutants at some point, either with patience or with a military offensive. At this point, they would have seized vault 87 and found the GECK. And they already knew about project purity before the hero was even born.
-Fallout 4 : The hero doesn't bring any intel or strategic advantage that the BoS could have found on their own. Nothing would have stopped Ronnie Shaw to reform a unit of minutemen. Etc etc.

And yet we get the complaints that Bethesda creates god tier character who are the chosen one for all the problems in the world (which I tend to lean more towards). Not that it matters profoundly but Ulfric can use the thuum and is not a dragonborn.

[mithraP]

Gon původně napsal:

According to the wiki

The wiki includes the events of fallout tactics in the official timeline. Proof : http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Timeline#2198

Gon původně napsal:

and attributed to Emil Pagiarulo in an interview with NMA's Ausir

Oh, yes. Emil Pagiarulo who changed the GECK's function, the ghouls' nature, who ignored the established timeline, turned vault tek into Umbrella and forgot that dozens, if not hundreds of irradiated people turned into sociable, sexually defined and relatively smart super mutants. A man who wrote a story about an unnecessary water purifier machine in a area where nobody would have agreed to live in the first place because super mutants invaded it a year after the bombs fell. And let's not even talk about the inexplicable betrayal of half a BoS chapter towards the ideals it was fed with since they were born. Why does the brotherhood protects a DJ again, while north, the Institute's threat was established and known for thirty years, according to Mister Pagiarulo's fantastic timeline ?
Tell me again how he is a lore specialist.

Gon původně napsal:

To be fair, in the old days there were many threads like this one in Fallout forums about how badly Tactics destroyed the lore.

Sure thing. But it invented new things, things that can be considered as bad, true, but it didn't rewrite, modify or erase elements of its roots. It can be considered as badly written and incoherent, but it didn't touch the established lore. It made its own.
Which is what you expect from a normally written sequel.

Gon původně napsal:

Time and equipment, yes. Talent.. No. If a pimple faced self-taught teenager can develop Jet in New Reno, then it doesn't take that much talent.

Listen to Myron's dialog again. The guy may be a spoiled, annoying brat, but he is not just a random chemist. Even the head of the medical department of Vault City, with all his education and technology, never managed to even replicate Jet, which was made by a self educated genius half his age. Do you think that the Mordinos, drug savy mafia lords, would have entrusted a random kid with what was probably their biggest investment ever ?

Gon původně napsal:

I refute this. East coast FEV more often than not destroys higher brain functions, something that no scientist would want.

My point is, in Fallout's world, scientists found a cancer immuned, genetically engineered organism... 200 centuries ago.
Look at medecine and technology 200 years ago. Look at it now. Do you honestly think that if anybody, anywhere, made a discovery about a cancer immuned organism, 200 years later the greatest minds of science wouldn't have learned to master it ? I never talked about Shaun becoming a super mutant. I talked about how unrealistic it is for a scientific community to have made zero medical advance in two centuries, while on the other hand, stipulating that all they did during that time was science.

Gon původně napsal:

Just what is the aim of the BoS? Collect technology for the sake of collecting technology.

Yes. It's simple. It works. It integrates the world well and it refers to dozen, if not hundreds of monastic orders who were basically doing the exact same thing with relics, for centuries. It refers to the dark ages monks who were protecting the roman's knowledge just for the sake of it. It is realistic. That's an order that could potentially exist, should the world end.

Gon původně napsal:

The BoS have a habit of destroying tech they can't have for themselves.

Oh really ? Which ones and when, exactly ? They may destroy the source of a geopolitical threat, sure, but never pure, raw technology. They isolate it, put it in quarantine, protect it and study it. The destruction of technological, pre war data is not only a collateral damage, it's actually worse than taking human lives, according to their credo.

Gon původně napsal:

The BoS have a habit of destroying tech they can't have for themselves.

Also, in this case, there is no "they can't have it for themselves" scenario.
They invade the MIT with great success. Execute anyone in sight. The civilians flee the place. The synths production line is stopped, forever. All security systems are off.
The MIT is theirs without any question, with all the techs it contains. Not just "heretic machines" but microscopes, terminals, the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ teleporter technology, nuclear reactors. They CAN have it, and these are not trivial things to the BoS, they are religious relics. They would have never destroyed them, especially when they were in their control.

Gon původně napsal:

They are also canonically uninterested in sifting through the ruins. Case in point: Mariposa.

Mariposa is a bio military base. Which advanced technological wonders does it contain ? None. Lost Hills is a far more advanced facility, technology speaking. Mariposa's wonders are in the fields of biological research, a domain in which the BoS shows zero interest. Of course they wouldn't care if the place was destroyed.

Gon původně napsal:

You say its fundamental. I say its a minor detail.

"There ain't any ghouls but old ghouls. We're the first and last generation of ghouls." - Typhon, Fallout 2.

Giving the player a fundamental, empathic reason to intervene in the Gecko-Vault City crisis and give the ghouls the power of a harnessing a nuclear plant is not a story "detail".
Giving the player a reason to embark with Lenny, a weak, rotting, ever walking zombie who gets the whole group blocked at entrances is not a detail, especially when it's connected to the previous titles.
It can go far. Without the various storytelling elements that create empathy towards them, you would have no reason to talk with Harold and Talius (not ghouls, I know. But, the player doesn't make the difference, yet.), conversations which lead to learn the fate of the previous vault 13's dwellers, the origins of the Master etc, etc.
These are not details. They are fundamental story elements, and they only work because of a set of tools, this one included. These tools being a part of the game's structure, removing them is litteraly a lore breaking decision.

[Mako]

bloodymonarch původně napsal:

Numbuh Jedi původně napsal:

think you can do better?

You're a resident of Vault 81. Virus successfully introduced to population via Mole rat 200+ years after Nuclear Armageddon. You are charged with going out into commonwealth in search of a cure. However, the BoS and Institute are grabbing up/scrapping all the tech in the area. Meanwhile, Railroad/Minutemen are fighting their respective goals while Gunners try to make caps and damn the consequences. You can join any of these groups to achieve your original goal in unique ways.

I think that would be a much more open and dynamic game, with a lot less cheesy "emotion" that nobody felt.

Edit: The more I think about this, the more you could write in. Like alternative endings where you harness the virus as a weapon while holding the only cure, etc.

You realise its basically the same set, right? You only changed starting location and hero's motivation to go outside. If father-son relationship is cheesy then why finding a cure isnt?

mithraP původně napsal:

Sure thing, but you start as a tribal. Raised to believe that he/she is the choosen one, the messiah, savior of the people.

I dont have any problems with linear RPG stories. In many ways having a linear story really helps to make it interesting and focus more on character development (if you make all choices for your character all character development goes out the window).
What I dont like is when developers add choices but force players to pick what they think is right.
Either the moral is constantly preached (save it for linear RPGs or better make players come to a conclusion on their own). Or not the "right" choice doesnt benefit anyone and would only be fitting if you play psycho (Bethesda too made some of it - like destroying BoS in the end of F3 Broken Steel). Or by heavily punishing the player in gameplay terms (like making a faction that controls a better half of the map hostile to the player right in the beginning).

mithraP původně napsal:

So, sure thing, you can also become a bad guy, getting the slaver's tattoo on your face. It makes things easier. Fun. Profitable. It's even what's expected of you, story wise. But then, oh then, how the game makes you regret it. How people make you feel how much you've doomed yourself, as you are denied the NCR's justice, Vault City's consideration etc etc.

Its pretty close to a wrong choice system I described. You arent even put in a situation that would make becoming a slaver a real choice. You arent surviving and dont need this little extra money to pay for Vic's freedom and obtain the best gear from all Den's vendors at the same time, yet gameplay punishment is harsh and you even warned about it beforehand. Good for roleplaying evil psycho, but hardly worth it.

mithraP původně napsal:

You killed an immortal for MS Word's paperclip's sake ^^

He isnt really immortal. Besides I prefer to think of myself as better ruler anyway ^^

mithraP původně napsal:

I'd understand your point, if Curie didn't have the possibility to genuinely fall in love with the character

Curie had 200 years to achieve self-awareness, you can immediatelly spot a difference between her and regular robots.
Synths are programmed to infiltrate, to look and act like humans. Even Institute's scientists didnt decide among themself what they are. At this point there is no way to tell a difference.
But there is a difference, if they arent self-aware then Railroad is a bunch of crazy terrorists willing to sacrifice human lives for some talking toasters.

mithraP původně napsal:

But as soon as they do, you immediately become their unique snowflake, which, well... breaks absolutely everything to me.

Well, player is always special in those games. Developers tried to make world move on its own (BoS will still re-assemble Liberty Prime, and Institute still finds a way to start its reactor if you work against them, some minor world events occur w/o player directly triggering them, etc). But its impossible to hide this completely.

mithraP původně napsal:

Also, remember when you go see Preston and act like a ♥♥♥♥ ? He basically tells you "you may think of yourself as a villain, general... But I know you, and no matter if you like it or not, you are a good man".
Shouldn't be... like, the most taboo sentence ever, when it comes to a game with choices ?

If given other circumstances, yes. But you are good. You saved his ass w/o him ever offering any reward. You probably saved a few settlements after that.
Then you go and tell him how evil you are. What response did you expect?
The same with Danse. In this world actions mean more than words. You expected him to act like a spoiled little girl after a few sarcastic lines?

mithraP původně napsal:

And then he smiled at me, took his rifle and said : "Another settlement needs your help"

He's made practical and selfless (after all he was the last minuteman alive to not become a traitor or raider, so it would be out of character to act differently). In the opportunity I already mentioned (the last quest) he explains that no matter what the minuteman are still needed, even through you lose him as available follower.

[Gon]

mithraP původně napsal:

Oh, yes. Emil Pagiarulo who changed the GECK's function, the ghouls' nature, who ignored the established timeline, turned vault tek into Umbrella and forgot that dozens, if not hundreds of irradiated people turned into sociable, sexually defined and relatively smart super mutants. A man who wrote a story about an unnecessary water purifier machine in a area where nobody would have agreed to live in the first place because super mutants invaded it a year after the bombs fell. And let's not even talk about the inexplicable betrayal of half a BoS chapter towards the ideals it was fed with since they were born. Why does the brotherhood protects a DJ again, while north, the Institute's threat was established and known for thirty years, according to Mister Pagiarulo's fantastic timeline ?
Tell me again how he is a lore specialist.

Fine. Tactics is canon. The BoS came out of a Vault. They were altruistic and beat back threats to humanity. Talking hairy Deathclaws are common. Many ghouls have tree's growing out their head. Speaking of ghouls, ghoul recruits can have above average agility, meaning they can probably run. Modern weaponry is all around. The MidWest BoS are considerably more competant than all other chapters, as they actually know how to construct Power Armour, and not just salvage it (Mind, as in Fallout 1 a couple of yokels can improve Power Armor and the Plasma Rifle over what the BoS use, one has to doubt the competance of the Scribes).

You may not like Pagiarulo's stance, but well, frankly 'boo-hoo'. That is the official stance of the company, and if you are going to argue lore and canon, you have to accept the canon status as it has been laid out, else there is no point. (On the plus side, he also rendered Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel non-canon (And there was much rejoicing)).

mithraP původně napsal:

Listen to Myron's dialog again. The guy may be a spoiled, annoying brat, but he is not just a random chemist. Even the head of the medical department of Vault City, with all his education and technology, never managed to even replicate Jet, which was made by a self educated genius half his age. Do you think that the Mordinos, drug savy mafia lords, would have entrusted a random kid with what was probably their biggest investment ever ?

He was self taught and stumbled into making Jet. That much he states himself. He was clever, certainly, but his original invention of Jet was pretty much an accident: The Mordino's shovelled the dung into vats to grow magic mushrooms (At Myron's suggestion, prior to this they were farming peyote which had a very poor turn around), the fumes were concentrated and BOOM! Jet was created. So it was an accident, and he quick-talked his way into the rest.

Vault City were not able to replicate Jet, as its creation was too simple. It was overlooked in favour of searching for more complex answers to the question to its creation.

mithraP původně napsal:

My point is, in Fallout's world, scientists found a cancer immuned, genetically engineered organism... 200 centuries ago.
Look at medecine and technology 200 years ago. Look at it now. Do you honestly think that if anybody, anywhere, made a discovery about a cancer immuned organism, 200 years later the greatest minds of science wouldn't have learned to master it ? I never talked about Shaun becoming a super mutant. I talked about how unrealistic it is for a scientific community to have made zero medical advance in two centuries, while on the other hand, stipulating that all they did during that time was science.

Great! We must have a cure for cancer now, as for centuries we've been looking non-stop! And not just one research place, but dozens, if not hundreds worldwide who largely share knowledge between themselves... Just because you may research something, does not mean you will succeed.

(We do have cure's for several present day diseases right now, its just that current side-effects often include 'painful, agonising death', so the cure is generally considered to not be worth it).

mithraP původně napsal:

Mariposa is a bio military base. Which advanced technological wonders does it contain ? None. Lost Hills is a far more advanced facility, technology speaking. Mariposa's wonders are in the fields of biological research, a domain in which the BoS shows zero interest. Of course they wouldn't care if the place was destroyed.

You don't believe they would be interested in revisiting their ancestral home? The place where all their initial technology came from? The place that has the technology to synthesise a highly advanced virus? Technology that could potentially be repurposed?

[Gon]

mithraP původně napsal:

Also, remember when you go see Preston and act like a ♥♥♥♥ ? He basically tells you "you may think of yourself as a villain, general... But I know you, and no matter if you like it or not, you are a good man".
Shouldn't be... like, the most taboo sentence ever, when it comes to a game with choices ?

Its poor writing again, true. But if you listen to what he says later in the game, at that point he was a broken man on the verge of suicide. The Minutemen were the centre of his whole existence, and you were the only possible option available to do anything about it. For good or ill, he foisted the responsibility on you (As he does for every little problem that pops up).

[Six of Saturn]

To the arguments about the Institute. I think Shaun is right about most everything. The surface needs to die out. I say this because of the glowing sea that bathes the whole commonwealth in radiation quite frequently. No region like this exists in any fallout title. People on the surface DNA has been altered from that of prewar humans and continues to be altered with every storm that blows through. They are unsuitable for reproduction in the eyes of the Institute, they must die out. The Institute also runs DCity through proxy, and allows it to exist as control group. Providing synth animals(brahmin for sure) I have also seen birds without mutation, cant prove they are synth yet.

Shauns goal is human purity.That is why he is against the cybernetics Kellog had, and stopped the development of thus after taking over.

Shaun Dying:
Now was the FEV research a last grasp to cure his cancer? You never find out but he pushes it without reason agianst Dr.Virgils objections. He kept his cancer secret, only one person knew he had cancer that's Dr.Volker. When Virgil left and all research failed(as it always has with FEV) he resulted to die as a pure human would. Its all about human purity. Anyway just my 2 cents.

BTW you guys are beasts. A great thread.

https://youtu.be/myhnAZFR1po