Hawkwing74
It Wandered In From the Wastes
Capitalist except where they can override it when they feel it's important enough to do so.
The problem in capitalism, communism, monarchy, etc. is the people. War never changes, etc.
Five Common Misconceptions about Fallout: The Series
It Wandered In From the Wastes
The problem in capitalism, communism, monarchy, etc. is the people. War never changes, etc.
CT Phipps
Carbon Dated and Proud
The joke about a big conspiracy being behind Fallout doesn't work when every game has a big conspiracy.
Children of the Cathedral
The Master
The Enclave again
Mr. House
And then the Institute
TheGM
The voice of reason
All of them were Vault-Tec the entire time.
CT Phipps
Carbon Dated and Proud
Sure.
Nah its not Vault-Tec, see, there were other companies present. All of those we could find names on the wiki, at least. Who cares about Poseidon...
Bradylama
So Old I'm Losing Radiation Signs
This is irrelevant to what I said. The United States in the Fallout games wasn't socialist so it's not pertinent.
You are grasping at straws and making shit up. I went over the conspiracy with a fine toothed comb. At no point does Vault-Tec express any anxiety over their ability to complete construction of the vaults. Again, the vaults were commissioned by the government. Those contracts were already secured. Vault-Tec offered to let the other corporations run their own vaults in the spirit of "competition" but mostly because they needed co-conspirators to make the Great War happen. And those co-conspirators seemingly went along with it, even though it would mean giving up everything they owned and controlled and moving into an underground bunker that another company built.
The Enclave is the continuity of the American executive. It's practically the US government as it was actually constituted at the end of the war. The president is a puppet of America's industrialists and haute bourgeois along with a few other powerful interests from the government & military, who constitute the only real franchise in American democracy.
The Enclave's primary interest was perpetuating the war against communism because it's existential to their interests. If communism won it would mean the eradication of private property and the wiping out of their power base, so its existence couldn't be tolerated in any shape or form. The Enclave would never blow up the United States. It'd be like Jeffrey Epstein blowing up Little St. James with himself on it.
CT Phipps
Carbon Dated and Proud
Again, the meeting is about:
1. Getting large amounts of capital to continue their projects through the lean times.
2. Get Vault ideas that they're lacking in (but is actually selling the Vaults into slavery)
I mean that just describes it.
Communism is not a concern for the US government after the Great War and was just an excuse for the two remaining superpowers to fight over the world's remaining resources. It's not ideological anymore than any other competing empires.
Literally the two things we know about the Enclave is:
1. They want to annihilate all Americans but their chosen elite.
2. They were fully prepared to ride out the apocalypse and didn't give a shit about doing anything to stop it.
Bradylama
So Old I'm Losing Radiation Signs
No it's not. That's just your headcanon. Bud said their sales were doing fine and never said anything about needing a cash infusion. Vault-Tec opening up the floor to other companies to do behavioral experiments also doesn't make sense because VT's whole plan hinged on the Bud's Buds concept for the Triune vault - which was already planned and being constructed. Barb announces that VT has over 100 vaults in America and they didn't dedicate all the resources they could to the whole point of their ideological project?
It's not a fucking "excuse" it's existential to America's whole conception of self. Pre-War America wasn't anticommunist because they were a mere resource rival, that could have happened with anybody. They were anticommunist because everything about the United States is built on private property. You're basically doing what the showrunners did and viewing the conflict between communism and capitalism as yet another dispute between petty factions destroying the world with their ideas on how to "save" it. The United States wasn't even trying to save the world, it was monopolizing Earth's resources for their sole use by American capital. It was starving the world to death.
They started the apocalypse by refusing to negotiate or back down from the invasion of mainland China. They didn't decide to push the button on themselves. This is pathetic what you're doing. The Enclave became pseudoscientific and racist because of their alienation at the Poseidon oil rig. By being seemingly the last bastion of civilization in the world, the Enclave imagined themselves as being its rightful inheritors, and the mutants of the wasteland as being parasites wasting the world's few remaining resources for their own petty survival and denying their use to the Enclave's plans. It's a direct parallel to America's relationship with the world during the Resource Wars.
CT Phipps
Carbon Dated and Proud
00:30
We're not talking about in real life, we're talking about a hypothetical Mad Max world where the oil has run out and all of the world has descended into chaos because the only two remaining superpowers have gobbled up everything else. China didn't invade Alaska to spread communism, it invaded Alaska because of oil.
Um, they built massive amounts of shelters with huge numbers of people being used for guinea pigs to conduct scientific research on surviving the apocalypse. They had FEV in the works. They knew exactly what the apocalypse was coming and were fine with it. They were also deploying troops and martial law on the US already.
And we know that when the apocalypse happens, they plan to wipe out all surviving Americans but themselves so we know they DO happily WMD themselves.
They were pseudo-scientific and racist beforehand. Look at what the fucking crazy shit they were doing in WestTek labs before the war.
Bradylama
So Old I'm Losing Radiation Signs
Bro, listen to what they're saying. House immediately makes fun of Sinclair for wasting money on the Sierra Madre, but that was all Sinclair's money. It doesn't mean the Big Mt is hurting due to Sinclair's own project. Sinclair accused Bud of needing the money and Bud denies it. He also never asks for any money from the other conspirators, they are offered vaults of their own on the sole ultimate condition that they agree to help Vault-Tec start the Great War.
China tried diplomatic solutions for getting access to Alaskan oil and the United States refused, which is why China saw no alternative to an invasion. The United States was intentionally denying the use of its resources to the rest of the world just to maintain the rate of consumption demanded by American consumer culture. It would especially never allow their use by a power that seeks to ultimately overthrow the structure of capitalist political economy, which is the basis of America's power. You can't just bring up real life to excuse away the lore. Why are you even arguing about this then?
This is just another tautology. You're saying that the Enclave was fascist, which is what I've been saying. Preparing for the Great War and viewing it as inevitable is still not the same thing as dropping the bomb on themselves. I shouldn't have to explain this to you, it should be self-evident.
Hardboiled Android
Vault Fossil
It is the birth of the Enclave in some sense that it's making itself known to business and manipulating them into joining it, but the show pretty clearly telegraphs with the shadowy g-man watching the meeting that the Enclave already pre-exists as a distinct form unto itself, pulling the strings from the shadow. Because the show is written by and/or for simpletons.
You're cooking the books dawg, you just counted the Unity twice
I suppose you probably meant to say "The Enclave" here for Fo2, since it's followed by "The Enclave again"
How does Mr. House constitute a conspiracy? There is the fact that, by the strict letter of the law, Mr. House can't conspire because he drafts his plans entirely alone. Conspiracy, con meaning together, as in with others. That's a nit-pick of course, but putting it aside, I don't think there's anything particuarly "conspiratorial" in the every-day sense of that word about what he's doing. He has a plan, but that's not really the same thing.
I'd say a problem with your comparison to these various antagonists with the exception of the Institute (and possibly the Enclave as it's depicted in Fallout 3 - there are fan speculations that the Enclave is responsible for destabilizing the Capital Wasteland and doing things like paying Talon Company to take out do-gooders, but that's just speculation to justify poor worldbuilding), is that while these are groups that are conspiracies or conspiring to some degree, they're not really responsible for the setting as it currently exists. They're groups that have aims they try to achieve in secrecy, but they're in the process of trying to make that happen. Sometimes they win, sometimes they lose, but they're not these uber-powerful puppet masters who mostly get what they want and shape everything you see.
The closest you get is with House, given he is responsible for the setting of Vegas not having been nuked largely, but he bumbles his way through this and is constantly getting owned - He didn't get his chip on time, a few nukes got through, his computer system got fucked, he fell asleep for a hundred years and when he woke up was basically impotent for another hundred until an opportune moment, bumbled his way into picking tribes for somewhat arbitrary reasons and ending up with a tribe of cannibals who are actually willing to go back to cannibalism behind his back, a tribe of traitors who (Imagine My Surprise) seek to betray him, and his hand-picked protege tried to fuck him over and take over Vegas for himself. He's a competent guy, but he bumbles his way through things as anyone would.
The way it feels like Vault-Tec is presented in the show is more like an omnipotent controller of how events transpired, sort of like how (I'm told, haven't seen it) Palpatine is presented in the Rise of Skywalker, "I am the puppet master, I've been pulling the strings, I'm responsible for everything!!" as sort of a lazy ass-pull.
In the interest of fairness - My argument will be undermined somewhat when, as I currently expect, next season or so it's revealed that while Vault-Tec intended to drop the bombs but were beaten to the punch. Still, I think the argument above holds water for the spirit in which they're depicted, if not the letter of the plot.
Norzan
So Old I'm Losing Radiation Signs
Give it like a year and there's gonna be a ton of video essays on how the show was actually shit. Most people are drinking that honeymoon phase koolaid right now, but we'll see if they are gonna be saying the same thing after that.
Bradylama
So Old I'm Losing Radiation Signs
Either the shadowy figures in the balcony are Enclave officials or Vault Tech executives and it could go either way. Barb is still a mere division head and the guy she received orders from is likely the CEO. If they ARE Enclave that would be the stupid option, so it's probably what they went with.
Iprovidelittlepianos
Vault Senior Citizen
You know, it never occurred to me how hilarious it is that House picked those guys to run a casino just because he was nostalgic for the mafia.
Bradylama
So Old I'm Losing Radiation Signs
House's biggest character flaw is that he understands things and markets, and he understands people as rational actors - but he can't understand people as sentimental and emotional beings. He thinks that his right to rule is self-evident because he has the vision and the means to construct a technologically sophisticated civilization in the Mojave, but he doesn't care anything for how the structure of his rule actually cuts his allies out of the franchise and gives them a reason to go for the brass ring. He doesn't care at all about the long term consequences of wiping out entire factions or the lives he's exterminating. His ultimate downfall is the very sociopathic genius that made him a tycoon in pre-war America.
The biggest irony about House bringing back Vegas from being a derelict boneyard, is that the re-establishment of civilization also gives rise to a nascent sense of national identity. Benny doesn't just plot to betray House in order to acquire power for himself, he views Vegas as its own polity with the right to rule itself, and that House has no claim to it as someone who abandoned the world and only returned to it in order to opportunistically exploit the NCR.
The biggest irony about House bringing back Vegas from being a derelict boneyard, is that the re-establishment of civilization also gives rise to a nascent sense of national identity. Benny doesn't just plot to betray House in order to acquire power for himself, he views Vegas as its own polity with the right to rule itself, and that House has no claim to it as someone who abandoned the world and only returned to it in order to opportunistically exploit the NCR.
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CT Phipps
Carbon Dated and Proud
House's argument is enlightened self-interest in that everyone will be better off under him than they are in the Wasteland and it's a compelling argument but some of his decisions are insane and definitely screw over people who have done nothing to warrant it. Vault 21 for example.
He also basically rewards cannibals and Raiders in two of his three gangs just because they fall in line. The fact he turns a blind eye to sex slavery because prostitution is a profession he needs to fulfill is another sign of how messed up this all is.
Bawls Lover
First time out of the vault
It was actually Bud Askins all along he was the one pulling the strings
CT Phipps
Carbon Dated and Proud
Is he supposed to be CEO of Vault-Tec and just a puppet for Mrs. Bishop or just an upper executive?
Bawls Lover
First time out of the vault
No, Bud Askins is literally the enclave.
Hell, Bud askins is the legion, the unity, the attis army, the new plague, the institute, the calculator, and the scorched, he's responsible for it all
CT Phipps
Carbon Dated and Proud
By which I mean I'm asking in the show and not as a joke.