Ideas for new Fallout threats
- Thread starter The Dutch Ghost
- Start date
Vault Fossil
I think the series could try an emotionally motivated main antagonist, except unlike ulysess one not necessarily related to the player character. Most of the fallout villains (master, enclave, the various factions in NV and 4) have had so far are generally rationalists, who always have some sort of twisted logic or idealogy that supports that what they are doing is good. Said reasoning isn't always sound but the failures stem more from ignorance than emotion.
Why not take a step in the other direction? The genocidal mad scientist victor presper character outlined in the van buren design docs is a decent template, but his generic hyperationalist anime villain cleanse the world of the dregs of humanity schtick could be replaced with something more personal to his backstory.
I think an emotionally motivated villain could make for an interesting story and maybe open up options for very many of the player's actions in sidequests and roaming the wastes to have long term consequences that affect their relationship to and interactions with the antagonist, which tends to be relatively fixed in most of the titles.
Why not take a step in the other direction? The genocidal mad scientist victor presper character outlined in the van buren design docs is a decent template, but his generic hyperationalist anime villain cleanse the world of the dregs of humanity schtick could be replaced with something more personal to his backstory.
I think an emotionally motivated villain could make for an interesting story and maybe open up options for very many of the player's actions in sidequests and roaming the wastes to have long term consequences that affect their relationship to and interactions with the antagonist, which tends to be relatively fixed in most of the titles.
Heh, this thread is still going on huh
I still am searching for good ideas, especially for my own dream project.
I wanted to do something with a nature cult that worships a mutagenic jungle and seeks to make it spread around.
Problem with the jungle is is that a lot of the plants in it are predatory and some even can move.
The plants are also toxic. Animals that eat from it and that can survive the poison are mutated by it, but worse; animals that feed on these animals are also mutated by it, becoming even worse predator animals.
It could easily be said "Perhaps the mutant jungle has some kind of intelligence and it is "infecting" others, overriding their instinct (animals) or intelligence with its own."
But I don't want some major threat being a mutant plant hivemind that acts similar to the Borg Collective.
In the end I want the "threat" to be the result of human hubris or foolishness, not a non human aggressor.
Add. those are fine as more "low scale" or local threats but I don't want it to be the main threat to humanity throughout the world.
I also already have the Machine Intelligences of Robot City when it comes to non human intelligences.
And they are more indifferent to humans than actually hating them, finding it more irritating that humans keep bugging them in order to steal their property.
The Machine Intelligences could actually wipe out what is left of humanity if they wanted to. They are the threat the Master reserved a recovered nuclear bomb for, and they would have wiped out the Enclave should the Enclave have succeeded in their plan to gas the mainland and go to Texas.
Also a plant hivemind sounds too much like that Scorched thing in Fallout 76; fungus zombies and the mutant bats/repurposed Skyrim dragons that spread the infection.
If the jungle would have a "mind" its form of thinking would be so different from human thinking as well as its senses that it would barely notice humans.
I think it is an important recurring theme in the Fallout games that its always humanity is its own worst enemy, and not bringing in hostile non human intelligences such as Orcs, Mindflayers, evil gods, or aliens.
Otherwise Fallout 5 might as well be about an invasion of the wasteland by Martians.
That doesn't work as it doesn't fit.
Even the Calculator was the result of humanity's own mistakes. It was badly programmed, various budget cuts that led to backup systems being scrapped, bad choice in donor brains to complement its electronic systems. Skynet would have laughed at this thing.
Heh, not really what I was asking, did I?
I understand your thoughts and feelings though and commercial development wise Fallout is dead.
But I still hope that there might be some decent fan projects like Resurrection, Fallout Yesterday, Fallout Sonora, etc.
I still am searching for good ideas, especially for my own dream project.
I wanted to do something with a nature cult that worships a mutagenic jungle and seeks to make it spread around.
Problem with the jungle is is that a lot of the plants in it are predatory and some even can move.
The plants are also toxic. Animals that eat from it and that can survive the poison are mutated by it, but worse; animals that feed on these animals are also mutated by it, becoming even worse predator animals.
It could easily be said "Perhaps the mutant jungle has some kind of intelligence and it is "infecting" others, overriding their instinct (animals) or intelligence with its own."
But I don't want some major threat being a mutant plant hivemind that acts similar to the Borg Collective.
In the end I want the "threat" to be the result of human hubris or foolishness, not a non human aggressor.
Add. those are fine as more "low scale" or local threats but I don't want it to be the main threat to humanity throughout the world.
I also already have the Machine Intelligences of Robot City when it comes to non human intelligences.
And they are more indifferent to humans than actually hating them, finding it more irritating that humans keep bugging them in order to steal their property.
The Machine Intelligences could actually wipe out what is left of humanity if they wanted to. They are the threat the Master reserved a recovered nuclear bomb for, and they would have wiped out the Enclave should the Enclave have succeeded in their plan to gas the mainland and go to Texas.
Also a plant hivemind sounds too much like that Scorched thing in Fallout 76; fungus zombies and the mutant bats/repurposed Skyrim dragons that spread the infection.
If the jungle would have a "mind" its form of thinking would be so different from human thinking as well as its senses that it would barely notice humans.
I think it is an important recurring theme in the Fallout games that its always humanity is its own worst enemy, and not bringing in hostile non human intelligences such as Orcs, Mindflayers, evil gods, or aliens.
Otherwise Fallout 5 might as well be about an invasion of the wasteland by Martians.
That doesn't work as it doesn't fit.
Even the Calculator was the result of humanity's own mistakes. It was badly programmed, various budget cuts that led to backup systems being scrapped, bad choice in donor brains to complement its electronic systems. Skynet would have laughed at this thing.
Heh, not really what I was asking, did I?
I understand your thoughts and feelings though and commercial development wise Fallout is dead.
But I still hope that there might be some decent fan projects like Resurrection, Fallout Yesterday, Fallout Sonora, etc.
My brilliant tribal (cybernetic modified human) wanted revenge on the "civilized" man for taking his people's lands and later forcefully converting his tribe's people to a religion that was alien to them.
After he was captured and cybernetically modified by machine intelligences he was turned into a supergenius and decided that he was going to stick it to civilized man and "chain them" with their greed and desire for pre war technology and riches by resurrecting Poseidon Energy and bring back a form of corporatism.
I'm not sure how I feel about the second half of the idea but the first half is a great concept. I think asking the question of "is moden civilization truly worth having" and "is the trend towards more complex societies that lead us to nuclear war in the first place truly progress?" is something that could really be interesting. There has been quite a bit of rebuilding in the series thus far, but honestly very little to ask if said rebuilding is really good.
Thing is I don't believe in the opposite.
Iprovidelittlepianos
Vault Senior Citizen
I’m really drawn to this idea of a non-sentient villain that was mentioned early in this thread. It’s original in the sense that it hasn’t been done in a previous game, and it fits right in with the sci-fi b-movie tropes that the series is built on. If anyone has any more twists on this subject I’d love to hear it.
Here’s one example: a giant (like city block sized) mutated undersea creature that crawls out of the ocean one day to terrorize the locals and wreak destruction, much like Godzilla. It would be good for a fallout game set in a wet coastal area like the Everglades or the Ozarks or even the San Juan islands/Puget Sound area.
Here’s one example: a giant (like city block sized) mutated undersea creature that crawls out of the ocean one day to terrorize the locals and wreak destruction, much like Godzilla. It would be good for a fallout game set in a wet coastal area like the Everglades or the Ozarks or even the San Juan islands/Puget Sound area.
caplanchy
First time out of the vault
I'm thinking a Vault specialized in performing experiments of either an extremist ideology or combat nature, and when the dwellers come out of their bunker, they all set up a coup in a nearby settlement/town. They may not make for a major threat, but they could be a minor faction like the Powder Gangers. There at least would be a justifiable reason for why they'd be particularly friendly to the player as well. Lets face it, every player character under Bethesda must be a Vault Dweller, so being a dweller yourself that faction would be inviting towards you, as they may assume all other Vault Dwellers in the wasteland are like themselves.
killafornia
First time out of the vault
Another BOS Faction, but this time they're all Ghoulified.
Slaughter Manslaught
Vault Senior Citizen
Funny, I am doing a similar premise (well, me and a guy) over at another forum, except its not the main villain (yet, its more like something in the "background"). My take on it is that the vegetal intelligence is a rising "god", a "god-in-waiting" akin to the Master - as in, its a god-in-waiting because its a creature not bound to normal mundane limits, and given time and materials, it might become something beyond human. Another comparison is to the Planetmind in Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri:
The Planetmind/Voice in SMAC is a networked emergent intelligence created by a planet worth's of xenofungus interfacing together and eventually acquiring enough processing power to become sentient. It actually does that every few hundred million years or so, becoming more and more intelligent, but it always "crashes" before the end, which results in a mass extinction and a "reset" of its own intelligence back to sub-sentience. Last time it did was around the age of the Dinossaurs.
In SMAC, the arrival of humans, their pollution and destruction of the xenofauna/flora and use of psionics, speed it up. It was never malicious, it was just programmed to seek out independent locuses of psi energy (aka independent thought) and destroy them, as it thought they were just defective nodes to prune, it had no idea those were sentient human beings.
In SMAC, the arrival of humans, their pollution and destruction of the xenofauna/flora and use of psionics, speed it up. It was never malicious, it was just programmed to seek out independent locuses of psi energy (aka independent thought) and destroy them, as it thought they were just defective nodes to prune, it had no idea those were sentient human beings.
Perhaps the real villains are humans using its power somehow? Say, in SMAC, human factions could control Mindworms after enough in-depth study and by giving humans the "empath gene" which made the planetlife see them as friendlies.
We have been controlling plants for eons. Cultivating, cross breeding, planting, etc. Did you know grass can communicate with other grass? Its the "smell of grass" you can feel when you mow it down, its communicating that its being attacked by predators. What's an intelligent plant but another plant but smarter?
Another alternative is that the villains are a cult dedicated to the Plant God, but the Plant God "speaks" in such an obtuse, weird, strange, space alien logic way, that its followers have no idea what is it actually saying. "Greetings, saplands. Time winds down, but from perspectives, it regresses. Seeds to plants, plants to seed. Fire destroys, but fire creates. Creates destroy creates destroy creates. Flower blooms, flower rots. The dream of spring." And the Cultists end up with some assine telephone game interpretation, like "We must burn the infidels and sprinkle their ashes into the soil!"
Hardboiled Android
Vault Fossil
MasterworkStone
Wasteland nobody
The Evergreen (Name not final)
Harold's plant mutation was sped up by the wanderer, eventually this killed him, but his mutation did not die with him, instead it only accelerated even further and fused with Harold's DNA grew to be an incredible threat to the wasteland population.
Plant life now rapidly spreads throughout the wasteland through concrete or steel to cover everything in vegetation, destroying all forms of manmade structures just by spreading through them, the only thing that can stop it is mankind.
But The Evergreen isn't just a plant, it's like a living body, though not entirely aware of it's surroundings or actions it has developed "antibodies" to protect itself. These antibodies take many forms, from hulking monstrosities that crawl across the crown and have enough strength to tear a man in half like wet paper, to plant people that have developed their own language and culture, ever protective of the green that gave them life.
The Evergreen is seemingly unstoppable, but it is not without it's weak points, the further it's nervous system spreads the less it can feel on the edges, so it develops "brain" pods that act as a signal relay, taking out one of these will render the area slow and weak until it can reform. Reformation takes it's time, this is prime opportunity for wastelanders to push it back with fire and chemicals, this is why it has developed antibodies, to defend itself from the forces that seek to destroy it, to protect it's brain pods and continue it's growth throughout the wasteland all the way west.
But even if it were to be eradicated from the surface, there's no telling how far it may have moved underground, it may never be truly defeated.
Harold's plant mutation was sped up by the wanderer, eventually this killed him, but his mutation did not die with him, instead it only accelerated even further and fused with Harold's DNA grew to be an incredible threat to the wasteland population.
Plant life now rapidly spreads throughout the wasteland through concrete or steel to cover everything in vegetation, destroying all forms of manmade structures just by spreading through them, the only thing that can stop it is mankind.
But The Evergreen isn't just a plant, it's like a living body, though not entirely aware of it's surroundings or actions it has developed "antibodies" to protect itself. These antibodies take many forms, from hulking monstrosities that crawl across the crown and have enough strength to tear a man in half like wet paper, to plant people that have developed their own language and culture, ever protective of the green that gave them life.
The Evergreen is seemingly unstoppable, but it is not without it's weak points, the further it's nervous system spreads the less it can feel on the edges, so it develops "brain" pods that act as a signal relay, taking out one of these will render the area slow and weak until it can reform. Reformation takes it's time, this is prime opportunity for wastelanders to push it back with fire and chemicals, this is why it has developed antibodies, to defend itself from the forces that seek to destroy it, to protect it's brain pods and continue it's growth throughout the wasteland all the way west.
But even if it were to be eradicated from the surface, there's no telling how far it may have moved underground, it may never be truly defeated.
caplanchy
First time out of the vault
I'm pretty sure people would shit themselves if this was actually in a Fallout game
PaxVenire
Wasteland Peacemaker
It's weird seeing this thread made before even New Vegas and the Legion not being in the OP hah.
Iprovidelittlepianos
Vault Senior Citizen
The legion isn’t really a “threat” in the sense that the Master or the Enclave were though. They’re kind of just another faction, no more of a threat than the NCR.
Atomic Postman
Vault Archives Overseer
I'd disagree. Whilst they're definitely the most sympathetic antagonists up to that point, I think they're still antagonists.
Iprovidelittlepianos
Vault Senior Citizen
I think that the fact that you can join them (and it doesn’t immediately result in a game over) separates them from the likes of the Master and Enclave (and theoretically Presper). For most playthroughs they are going to be the antagonists, but a Legion playthrough would see the NCR as the antagonist, and certain Independent playthroughs could see the NCR as the greater threat.
Hello Slaughter Manslaught,
Yes I was also thinking of SMAC when I mentioned this idea for an emerging plant based super intelligence.
Though I don't intend the Bloom and the possible nature cult to be the main antagonists or threat, they would more be another group with their own ideology/philosophy of what they think a new human civilization should be like.
I rather don't go with an emerging plant based "god" as I already have the machine intelligences which are pretty gods on their own.
And of course there is the Followers' leader ATLANTIS.
If I would include it I have the feeling that this would rapidly turn into a scenario about competing non human intelligences in which humans themselves are just pawns.
It is not a bad idea on its own as I do want to go with the idea of technology vs nature (or science vs religion) but I kind of feel or fear that this would perhaps stray from the Fallout atmosphere I want to go for.
Not a bad idea for a motivation of why the nature cult would be sending out armies and missionaries as I have been trying to come up with a reason why these people are considered a threat by communities.
RangerBoo suggested to me to take some inspiration from radical environmentalists or eco terrorists, believing that the War has given nature a chance to reclaim what is hers and that humanity should not grow (at least to its pre war numbers) and civilization should not spread.
They seek to prevent any new settlements from appearing/being founded, burning these all down.
I don't know which motivation or drive would be the best.
It definitely captures the idea what I think communication between humans and an emerging intelligence of a different nature would be like.
Yes, they are a more "standard" faction/organization in the wasteland. A competing ideology.
That doesn't mean that I don't think that they are not a threat but they weren't a force as bent on reshaping the world so drastically as the Master, the Enclave, or Presper.
BTW, I think Presper would have worked better as a "villain" that seeks to eliminate bad ideas (flawed concepts, ideologies, philosophies) that are spreading through the wasteland rather than the whole "reclaiming the Earth for pure humanity" as that made him sound too much like the Enclave.
Presper believing that these were the causes of the weaknesses and corruption that was killing the NCR and human civilization.
Yes I was also thinking of SMAC when I mentioned this idea for an emerging plant based super intelligence.
Though I don't intend the Bloom and the possible nature cult to be the main antagonists or threat, they would more be another group with their own ideology/philosophy of what they think a new human civilization should be like.
I rather don't go with an emerging plant based "god" as I already have the machine intelligences which are pretty gods on their own.
And of course there is the Followers' leader ATLANTIS.
If I would include it I have the feeling that this would rapidly turn into a scenario about competing non human intelligences in which humans themselves are just pawns.
It is not a bad idea on its own as I do want to go with the idea of technology vs nature (or science vs religion) but I kind of feel or fear that this would perhaps stray from the Fallout atmosphere I want to go for.
Not a bad idea for a motivation of why the nature cult would be sending out armies and missionaries as I have been trying to come up with a reason why these people are considered a threat by communities.
RangerBoo suggested to me to take some inspiration from radical environmentalists or eco terrorists, believing that the War has given nature a chance to reclaim what is hers and that humanity should not grow (at least to its pre war numbers) and civilization should not spread.
They seek to prevent any new settlements from appearing/being founded, burning these all down.
I don't know which motivation or drive would be the best.
It definitely captures the idea what I think communication between humans and an emerging intelligence of a different nature would be like.
Yes, they are a more "standard" faction/organization in the wasteland. A competing ideology.
That doesn't mean that I don't think that they are not a threat but they weren't a force as bent on reshaping the world so drastically as the Master, the Enclave, or Presper.
BTW, I think Presper would have worked better as a "villain" that seeks to eliminate bad ideas (flawed concepts, ideologies, philosophies) that are spreading through the wasteland rather than the whole "reclaiming the Earth for pure humanity" as that made him sound too much like the Enclave.
Presper believing that these were the causes of the weaknesses and corruption that was killing the NCR and human civilization.
Atomic Postman
Vault Archives Overseer
Perhaps a redundant point - but I don't think it would be that daft of an idea to flick through some 50's pulp sci-fi magazines for BBEG ideas. Mounds upon mounds of weird stories and wild ideas with a natural disposition for adaption to Fallout.
When I end up DMing a Fallout campaign again I plan to take a look for inspiration.
When I end up DMing a Fallout campaign again I plan to take a look for inspiration.
Are there any online places with such magazines that you can recommend?