How come Enclave soldiers don't clad themselves in red, white, and blue?

Warhawk said:
Harken said:
Haha, FO3's spiky robot Enclave actually made the original look pretty realistic when directly compared.
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Actually mother was referring to the FO2 design. She just thought the FO3 design was "stupid."
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If all you're going off of is the color palette, and if you're western-centric, then sure the original design seems "malicious". But that's just because it's big and black, and very naive mindsets just perceive that as "evil". The helmets looked more like giant bug faces than they did "evil" or "malicious", and if they were bright silver like the original T-51b's, then we'd think very little of the Enclave when we see them. But they were given a distinct look, and on top of which, distinct color palette, so they stood out prominently from any other entity encountered in the game, and it worked perfectly. Sentiments that the design catered to feeling exaggeratedly evil were merely simplistic sentiments to begin with.
 
The fuck are you on about? "Western-centric?" "Naive sentiments?"

Funfacts:

- Fallout was made BY westerners, FOR westerners, IN a western culture, ABOUT western culture, FOR western consumption. This offends you or something? Tango Sierra.

- Big and dark (not black, in any game) compared to smug and shiny is a deliberate contrast. Light and darkness, good and evil. You really expect me to believe the intention was some mystical "otherness" rather than straightforward bad-guys? Really? Was the intro to Fallout 2 not blunt enough for you?

- Your "bug faces" happen to include glowing yellow eyes, often contrasted with dark backgrounds and shadows in official art, with deliberately downward-slanting lenses, giving the impression of furrowed brows, anger, or violent intent, along with perhaps a hint of a predatory animal. Even the shape of the headpiece is curved as if something other than a human skull resided within. This isn't just "different" from smug and shiny, patriotic retro-future aesthetic with visors, but a complete contrast across the board.


It doesn't take a genius to see how often the Brotherhood of Steel is adored by fans as being the "good guys," so much so that Bethesda homed in on that impression and exaggerated it for their straightforward plot in FO3. And when they're the ones with the bright and shiny futuristic stuff, and their opponents happen to have darker, more suggestive characteristics that are the exact opposite, are you really going to tell me it's because they're "just different?" And then have the nerve to call anyone having this patently obvious observation "naive?" God almighty.
 
They actually resemble a male sheep's head. That's why the Navarro password is 'sheepshead'.

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Well there's a forehead-slapper. I'm really not sure how I never managed to see the resemblance before. Rams and goats being prominently affiliated with Satan or paganism in western culture still doesn't bode too well for The Enclave's case here, though.
 
Nodder said:
It wouldn't be very practical as camo, but it'd be interesting to see Enclave elite units of some sort get all up in jingoism. Or at least have the flag more displayed. In both Fallout 2 and 3, they wear ugly brutal militaristic body armor. Which is totally understandable and practical. But maybe they could have more patriotic-looking units, something like this perhaps?

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The above sounds like the sort of odd thinking that originates out of Bethesda. However, the use of a subdued American flag on the right shoulder and stenciled on branch of service on the left side of the chest would definitely not be a harmful addition.
 
@alec
Heh, suddenly that "sheepshead" password phrase the guards are asking for makes a much more sense to me! :smile:
 
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Nodder said:
How come Enclave soldiers don't clad themselves in red, white, and blue?
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For the same reason the French Army got rid of their red trousers during WWI :

The very heavy French losses during the Battle of the Frontiers can be attributed in part to the high visibility of the French uniforms, combined with peacetime training which placed emphasis on attacking in massed formations. The shortcomings of the uniforms were quickly realized and during the first quarter of 1915 general distribution of horizon-blue clothing in simplified patterns had been undertaken.
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Looking back at this thread, especially at that Rifts Chaos Earth cover, I wasn't meaning literally red-white-blue "camo" suits so much as the Enclave to just have a more sense of American branding. Like more eagles in their iconography. More stars. More flags in their base. Just a roundel or even a colored stripe on their vertibirds. It doesn't have to be as cartoonish as Bethesda's work, but they just don't give a particularly strong "we are the last foothold of a great nation."

On the other hand, maybe it's just as well that they're this weird strange goat-headed thing instead. Like what is this bizarre WPA socialist realism / Art Deco thing based on the World's Fair.

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Nodder said:
Looking back at this thread, especially at that Rifts Chaos Earth cover, I wasn't meaning literally red-white-blue "camo" suits so much as the Enclave to just have a more sense of American branding. Like more eagles in their iconography. More stars. More flags in their base. Just a roundel or even a colored stripe on their vertibirds. It doesn't have to be as cartoonish as Bethesda's work, but they just don't give a particularly strong "we are the last foothold of a great nation."

On the other hand, maybe it's just as well that they're this weird strange goat-headed thing instead. Like what is this bizarre WPA socialist realism / Art Deco thing based on the World's Fair.

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Yeah, I think the fact that they have a more distinctive aesthetic is good.
 
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