It wasn't a recreational drug, he just took it as one.
And no, given that people use radiation to kill cancer, it very well could have been a cancer killing drug based on injecting radiation into the body to kill cancer cells.
Bethesda's Lore Recons
- Thread starter arcticflocky
- Start date
And no, given that people use radiation to kill cancer, it very well could have been a cancer killing drug based on injecting radiation into the body to kill cancer cells.
Irwin John Finster
Sonny, I Watched the Vault Bein' Built!
I give up.
I doubt that even the Fallout universe would try to stretch radiation therapy that much. Given the amount of products containing radium back in the early 20th Century and the ubiquity of radioactive stuff in ordinary things in Bethesda's universe I think it might as well be recreational.
But given that Eddie Winter was created as a medical experiment before the War everything's possible. It's Bethesda, after all, and writers are allowed to have some fun.
Irwin John Finster
Sonny, I Watched the Vault Bein' Built!
That is actually the excuse Pete Hines gave for Kid in the Fridge.
I'm ok with Obsidian having some fun because they're not terrible writers.
When you let people who don't give a flying F*** about the lore have fun, they destroy the universe.
Given that the fallout universe has stimpacks, basically a magic potion that can heal wounds and repair bones simply via a liquid you inject into your self, and can do so near instantly, its really not unreasonable IMO that they would try the same with cancer therapy drugs.
Also, I do believe Desmond Lockheart from Point Lookout was a pre-war ghoul also, Eddie isn't the first.
omegaspruz
First time out of the vault
Yes they are allowed to have fun. I don't think Kid in a fridge is a fun quest, the prospect of being stuck in small confined space is horrifying, especially for 200 years. While lets say a quest like finding prostitutes for a casino in Freeside, or perfomers for a casino on the strip. Utterly pointless quests, yet far more quote on quote fun and they reward us with actual gameplay rewards. My favorite being the songs of the lonesome drifter, who is the son of a mysterious fella who was like a stranger sometimes
Yes, Lockheart underwent a similar therapy as Winter. Doesn't make it more logical, though, especially in light of Vault 12, which was supposed to study the effects of long-term exposure to radiation. I mean, if they already knew...
Anyway, stimpaks were not always magical bone-healers. For crippled limbs you had to see a doctor or use the doctor skill, stimpaks were not sufficient. Well, I mean, imagining stimpaks as chems that help the body heal itself much faster it would be feasible that they also heal broken bones, but the doctor skill would be necessary to ensure that the bone would be straight afterwards.
But that's not how radiation therapy for cancer works: It uses focused and short radiation exposure to locally kill the cancer cells, with minimal damage to the tissue around it. Putting highly radioactive materials into a drug will spread it throughout the body, and inside the body even alpha- and beta-radiation is extremly dangerous because you don't have (dead) hard skin on your inside. A radioactive drug will just cause more cancer.
Irwin John Finster
Sonny, I Watched the Vault Bein' Built!
Let me stop you right there. SomeGuy doesn't care how things work - he doesn't understand how water works. He tried to argue that you can die of dehydration but not require water to live. Trying to explain radiation therapy is only going to end with frustration.
They didn't know, that's the thing. Both Lockheart and Eddie mention that the radiation thing was incredibly experimental.
True, but that is the way they are now, like it or not.
And while I am aware radiation therapy doesn't work like that in real life, many of Fallout's drug shouldn't work realistically either. Mentats shouldn't make you actually smarter, drugs can make it easier to think, but nothing can actually make you actually more intelligent like mentats does. And psycho shouldn't give you more damage resistance, you can't turn your skin to steel or anything, nor does you being able to do more damage in combat, outside melee damage maybe, make a whole lotta sense either. Taking a drug isn't going to make a bullet do more damage or anything.
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Mentats let you think better. What is intelligence? Your ability to think well and quickly. To form connections, and make sense of things, to understand.
Psycho, as the name implies, gives you a blood-rush. Don't you know, that drugged people are more resilient to pain and don't go down so easily? They can withstand wounds that would incapacitate sober people.
It's kind of like a certain mercenary has once said, "rage is a hell of an anesthetic".
With the damage increase thing I do agree though, that's a stretch.
The damage boost is a Bethesda-addition, though, it used to only boost agility and damage resistance (while reducing intelligence). Which makes sense in a combat enhancing drug.
But hey, at least we can all agree that Bethesda's silly magic potions are just that: Silly.
And as for the stimpaks: I don't have to accept it, though. It's silly, and NV's hardcore mode rightfully removed their ability to heal crippled limbs. You know, when things are silly and you don't like them, you criticise them instead of stretching your knees a bit and getting a fresh bottle of Listerine.
Why even bother writing full arguments when all you need is "Yeah, but Bethesda made it so, deal with it"?
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Intelligence is defined as many different things. But the way the Fallout games have used it, at least until Fallout 4, is "how much you know". 1 is a literal retard, and 10 is Einstein level genius. Taking a drug isn't going to make you not a literal retard, being able to think more clearly doesn't change the fact your character has mental deficiencies, and literally can't understand the subject at hand. It can't make you actually smarter, only able to more quickly process the things you can understand. Fallout 4 is probably the only game were mentats actually work in a way that makes sense, because INT level isn't a measure of mental competence anymore.
And I would argue that what you describe is more of an endurance thing then a DR thing like psycho. Armor, as a gameplay mechanic, is something you put over yourself, but it doesn't change who you are. Something like combat armor gives you DR, but it doesn't change how many bullets your body can take by itself. What you describe is an increase to endurance, a person's health/ability ability to take damage by itself. The way pshyco works in-game is that it somehow literally makes your body as strong as stuff like combat armor. A blood rush would increase endurance, not give you DR. Its the same as the toughness perks, you just magically have thicker/stronger skin, despite having the same endurance... because.
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Intelligence is, according to the description in Fallout 1, "knowledge, wisdom and the ability to think quickly", not just "how much you know". Given the optimistic Fifties vision of the future (which you like so much for excusing everything) it's absolutely feasible that there's a pill that makes you more focused and let's you think faster and clearer, essentially represented by a boost in INT.
The hit-point system is a game-mechanical abstraction. Psycho makes you a pain-resistant berserk, so it boosts damage resistance to simulate how you can withstand more damage before going down. For full realism the game should probably remember the full amount of damage you absorb while under Psycho, and give it to you after the Psycho wears off, but that would have probably been too complicated. But yes, it's more of an END boost, but in gameplay mechanics it wouldn't work as well as a general combat boost because it increases maximum hitpoints, but doesn't give you those hitpoints at the same time. Buffout boosts END, but because of that it's a bit less of an immediate combat drug.
It boils down to balancing game mechanics, really.
/edit: You could model Psycho as a combination of a Superstim and and Buffout, with a malus in INT, maybe.
That way you get a temporary boost in END/max HP, the Superstim effect heals you to that new maximum, it also boosts your ST and AG and lowers INT, and after the combat is over you take damage.
But as I said, it was probably done for balancing reasons.
The hit-point system is a game-mechanical abstraction. Psycho makes you a pain-resistant berserk, so it boosts damage resistance to simulate how you can withstand more damage before going down. For full realism the game should probably remember the full amount of damage you absorb while under Psycho, and give it to you after the Psycho wears off, but that would have probably been too complicated. But yes, it's more of an END boost, but in gameplay mechanics it wouldn't work as well as a general combat boost because it increases maximum hitpoints, but doesn't give you those hitpoints at the same time. Buffout boosts END, but because of that it's a bit less of an immediate combat drug.
It boils down to balancing game mechanics, really.
/edit: You could model Psycho as a combination of a Superstim and and Buffout, with a malus in INT, maybe.
That way you get a temporary boost in END/max HP, the Superstim effect heals you to that new maximum, it also boosts your ST and AG and lowers INT, and after the combat is over you take damage.
But as I said, it was probably done for balancing reasons.
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That's what I was going for. We aren't talking about realism when it comes to these drugs, we are talking about the hyper idealized 1950's World of Tomorrow world Fallout is based on.
Even as far back as Fallout 1, we have been able to achieve levels of being irradiated that realistically would lead to unavoidable death... yet we can just pop some radaway and its gone in a few hours.
We have drugs that make you smarter, that can make your skin turn to steel, and injections that can just heal your body near instantly, the idea that no one attempted to make a cure for cancer using radiation, and the same bullshit SCIENCE! as all the other drugs use, is honestly pretty crazy. Do I think it would have worked? No, but the idea that such a drug wouldn't have been in development is pretty unfounded.
If Big MT. can make skeletons use guns, despite them having no muscles, and the suits not actually covering their arms/hands, leaving how they are controlling their arms/hand unexplained, someone could try to idiotically cure cancer with a radiation drug.
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Oh yeah, those stupid skeletons... Someone didn't pay attention at Obsidian that day.
Anyway, this is again about drawing the line for sillyness somewhere. Just saying, "Eh, it's SCIENCE!, everything is possible, writers can have some fun" leads to crappy writing and plot holes that can't be overlooked as easily anymore.
And no, making a radioactive drug to cure cancer is not the same level of sillyness as stimpaks and psycho and so on. The latter are necessary gameplay abstractions, because combat would be way too hard if you had to use First Aid and Doctor skills for healing. Instant healing and stat buffs are unrealistic, but they are necessary for the gameplay, and thus it's easy to overlook their logical flaws. Writing Hancock's backstory the way it is has no mechanical reason, it's just shoddy writing. It's deliberately digging logical holes when they didn't have to. Why put a kid into a fridge for 200 years when the kid could have just hid in the fridge from the Gunners two or three days ago? Why add a radioactive drug that turned Hancock into a ghoul when any other way would have done the same? Why make cars explode into mushroom clouds when nothing else does?
Same quests, same outcome, same things, less complaints from people who didn't buy their Listerine.
All those complaints were easily avoidable, and the reasons for the complaints add nothing of value to the game but a severe decrease in verisimilitude. It's shoddy writing that makes Fallout more lulzy than necessary.
Anyway, this is again about drawing the line for sillyness somewhere. Just saying, "Eh, it's SCIENCE!, everything is possible, writers can have some fun" leads to crappy writing and plot holes that can't be overlooked as easily anymore.
And no, making a radioactive drug to cure cancer is not the same level of sillyness as stimpaks and psycho and so on. The latter are necessary gameplay abstractions, because combat would be way too hard if you had to use First Aid and Doctor skills for healing. Instant healing and stat buffs are unrealistic, but they are necessary for the gameplay, and thus it's easy to overlook their logical flaws. Writing Hancock's backstory the way it is has no mechanical reason, it's just shoddy writing. It's deliberately digging logical holes when they didn't have to. Why put a kid into a fridge for 200 years when the kid could have just hid in the fridge from the Gunners two or three days ago? Why add a radioactive drug that turned Hancock into a ghoul when any other way would have done the same? Why make cars explode into mushroom clouds when nothing else does?
Same quests, same outcome, same things, less complaints from people who didn't buy their Listerine.
All those complaints were easily avoidable, and the reasons for the complaints add nothing of value to the game but a severe decrease in verisimilitude. It's shoddy writing that makes Fallout more lulzy than necessary.
Irwin John Finster
Sonny, I Watched the Vault Bein' Built!
Ok here's some background that you can maybe use for your discussion since I'm bored:
Ionizing radiation generates free radicals. Probably the most destructive of these in the human body is superoxide ion. Stable atoms have a pair of electrons in their outer orbital, whereas free radicals have only one electron with no partner. This makes it highly reactive with other atoms/molecules such that it "steals" the electron from other atoms. In doing so, it transforms those atoms into free radicals, and this results in a chain of free radical generation.
Altering the chemistry of atoms and molecules in such a way destroys the functionality of the molecules in the human body. More specifically, molecules that comprise cell membranes are affected, as is DNA. Ionizing radiation causes DNA fragmentation, which can lead to mutation in the repair process or by direct damage. These mutations can alter genes in such a way as to produce uncontrollable cell growth and division resulting in cancer.
Because radiation damages DNA in particular, cells that normally replicate their DNA and multiply a lot are most affected. This includes the skin and enterocytes (the lining of the gastrointestinal tract), which replicate constantly. In contrast, cells which do not replicate are relatively spared (but may still be affected) - including central nervous system tissue (brain and spinal cord).
Radiation therapy for treatment of cancer utilizes the same principles that cause cancer to destroy cancer cells. It is concentrated locally on the target tissue (the cancerous tissue). This is sometimes done via the use of radioactive substances, none of which are recreational drugs that someone would use to get high. In fact, quite the opposite if you have ever seen a cancer patient undergo such therapy.
Now, a GOOD WRITER would take this information and use it as a jumping-off point to make something creative and fun and even educational. A BAD WRITER would throw this information out the window and pull something form his or her arse like Kid in the Fridge and cry "I'm allowed to have fun!"
Good day.
Ionizing radiation generates free radicals. Probably the most destructive of these in the human body is superoxide ion. Stable atoms have a pair of electrons in their outer orbital, whereas free radicals have only one electron with no partner. This makes it highly reactive with other atoms/molecules such that it "steals" the electron from other atoms. In doing so, it transforms those atoms into free radicals, and this results in a chain of free radical generation.
Altering the chemistry of atoms and molecules in such a way destroys the functionality of the molecules in the human body. More specifically, molecules that comprise cell membranes are affected, as is DNA. Ionizing radiation causes DNA fragmentation, which can lead to mutation in the repair process or by direct damage. These mutations can alter genes in such a way as to produce uncontrollable cell growth and division resulting in cancer.
Because radiation damages DNA in particular, cells that normally replicate their DNA and multiply a lot are most affected. This includes the skin and enterocytes (the lining of the gastrointestinal tract), which replicate constantly. In contrast, cells which do not replicate are relatively spared (but may still be affected) - including central nervous system tissue (brain and spinal cord).
Radiation therapy for treatment of cancer utilizes the same principles that cause cancer to destroy cancer cells. It is concentrated locally on the target tissue (the cancerous tissue). This is sometimes done via the use of radioactive substances, none of which are recreational drugs that someone would use to get high. In fact, quite the opposite if you have ever seen a cancer patient undergo such therapy.
Now, a GOOD WRITER would take this information and use it as a jumping-off point to make something creative and fun and even educational. A BAD WRITER would throw this information out the window and pull something form his or her arse like Kid in the Fridge and cry "I'm allowed to have fun!"
Good day.
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Uhhh... motorcycles, vertibirds, and even robots, all blow up the same way. Basically everything blows up in a mushroom cloud.
Why would he hide from the Gunners in a fridge when he had miles of ruins to do the same?
>Why add anything new when we can just keep recycling the old!
Because having every single ghoul in the world be either
>from the bombs
or
>Slept near some radioactive stuff and woke up like this
Isn't fun or interesting, and doesn't make their backstories fun to listen to. and everyone understands that radiation = ghouls, so his getting irradited some other way iss just following lore.
The only people I have honestly seen complain about things like this are the people here. Even people on /v/, the next biggest anti-Bethesda site on the internet, do people think these arguments about "why do things explode in mushroom cloud" are dumb.
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Yes. And none of it makes sense. The sentry bot, maybe, because he has ammo loaded.
Or let him play around and get stuck in the fridge, doesn't matter. There's tons of reasons for the kid to get stuck in the fridge, the point is that he shouldn't be stuck in there for 200 freaking years!
Adding new things is fine, if they make sense. Maybe Hancock was stoned out of his mind and thought a mininuke would make a great bong, why not. But a cancer treatment? I know it's your silly justification and not actually in the game, but still. The lack of proper writing on that part causes way too much uncertainty in its sillyness.
Personally, I think the massive proliferation of ghouls was stupid to begin with, it never really felt like something that should happen so often.
Oh hey, people on a 4chan board think that something is not dumb, that must mean it's totally fine!
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How does it not make sense when all are powered by nuclear engines?
Why shouldn't he be stuck in there for 200 years? plenty of ghoul have been trapped in various places since the war.
How does "got hit by a big dose of radiation, thus ghoul" not make sense when its the same thing as for every other ghouls? And why would ghouls not be everywhere when it was established as far back as Fallout 1 that radiation exposure = ghouls, and when the entire world was covered in radiation for months due to atomic war?
Its not even 4chan, its literally every single site on the internet. I've even seen people RPGCodex, which is often considered the second most intolerant site on the internet, make fun of how intolerant NMA is. I even know several people from here, who used to post here all the time, who left because they got tired of all the intolerance. Its actually part of the reason I came here in the first place. I wondered how one site could be so universally hated across the internet, even by tons of sites who normally couldn't agree on anything.
And to be honest, I am really only left wondering why at this point? Why do you people hold these games so standards that not even the people who made the games in the first place do? You have created your own dislike of these games by inventing a standard of realism and logic they never fit under, and then expecting the games to fit to this standard when they never did.
And there is always some excuse as to why its bad, even when its done by the older devs. "Ohh man they just MUST have not been paying attention to what they were doing when making those skeletons in OWB, there is just NO WAY they could have designed it like that on purpose because its just a game meant to be fun, its supposed to be so serious!" or "there's just NO WAY the guys at Obsidian/Tim Cain could have liked Bethesda's Fallout, they must be paying them millions to hide thier dislike over it!" its always just these insane, tinfoil hat, conspiracy theories about how it CANt be that way because it was meant to be, theres some sinister force in the background manipulating everything.
At this point, I'm honestly left wondering if you ever really liked Fallout, as the devs designed it, and are just mad that its been changed. Or if you just liked this idealized version of Fallout you hadi n your head, that never actually existed, and have just become increasingly bitter over the years as the devs, both new and old, have increasingly provided evidence that the idealized version of Fallout you liked was never what Fallout was supposed to be. At the point at which you start turning on the people who made the game, can you really say ou like what they made?
So really... why? why are you this hellbent over a video game of all things?
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