Miracles of SCIENCE! in Fallout

[General Garbage]

SCIENCE! in Fallout: How, why, good, bad?

You can't just throw a bait like this and then say, nah back on topic .

Obsidian devs love Star Trek and wanted to reference it, which resulted in the technologies of Dead Money and thus the Think Tank. I doubt teleportation will make a comeback (it was just a transportation device after all, albeit silly) and neither will the replicators. Still a bad move to introduce such things into the setting imo.

I was actually thinking we could start another thread.
Loving another franchise and actually referencing it in the universe, not just in an easter egg, is a bad move, and part of the reason why Fallout canon is as shitty as it is.

Yeah, good idea.
I generally agree. I have no problems with the Holograms though.

Enclave created a virus that could kill all human life on earth, which is quite 'advanced', along with the respective vaccine. They also created a biomechanical killing machine. They also were not primarily researchers, just a department (ok, the Think Tank were 5 individuals, but they were quite crazy for Mentats, plus they weren't exactly human anymore).

Is the Curling virus really advanced? I thought it was pretty straightforward, just modifying an existing virus. Also the biomechanical killing machine was half an accident. I guess only being partly focused on research is a good excuse, but then again there were probably a lot of people in that department and also had acces to any resource in post-war US. Well, in theory, anyway.

It definitely is imo. The FEV itself is something that is already extremely ridiculous when you think of it and basically impossible to create (essence of SCIENCE!). I'm not a fan of the wild FEV + radiation created mutated wildlife theory by the way. I prefer radiation only and FEV being responsible for the more gruesome mutations (as developed by MCA in the last Fallout bible).

Now modifying that already extremely complicated virus into something that perverts it's purpose into eradicating only the human genome is certainly a 'great' achievement. The respective serum might not seem like much coming from that, but it is.

The resources weren't necessarily that abundant in accessibility (they enslaved 'mutants' and dealt with mainlanders) and the Enclave was just as isolated as Big MT (which brings us to the question of possible other Enclave bases which I don't believe in, since I don't like that approach. There are outposts in Chicago which were installed after the migration of Autumn senior's chapter, let's drop any other possibilities).

And the Institute of the New England Commonwealth managed to develop life-like androids. Which we'll probably see more of in the future.

How lifelike they are is very much up to question. Not even Bethesda would create androids that can eat, shit and fuck and actually reproduce that way. Why would they even want to create androids like that anyway? Isn't genetic engineering practically the same thing - achieves the same results I mean - and probably easier to boot? Of course, I'm no scientist, so why do I even speculate, right.

Harkness was the epitome of the Institute's anvancement. There definitely were links between purely anorganic human-like robots to partly organic synthetic humans. There are definitely things that I'd like to see confirmed. Let me testify some things:

Harkness can not reproduce, he can shit, he can fuck, bleed and even heal wounds automatically (anything else would have made him question his humanness). He's immune to mutation. He doesn't age. He's immune to sickness, which would have definitely brought up some questions in the future.

How and why create something like that? First, MIT was a prime actor of robotics. One of their graduates was the founder of RobCo and revolutionized the world. They definitely did further research and development post-war. I hope they developed from a mens et manus mentality into a 1984 like enclosed society with an overbearing ideology that mystified idols like Mr House. The foundation of AIs was laid before the war already. As to thew how.

The why lies in darkness. I assume that they wanted to overcome human fragility without sacrificing human needs and wants. A Robobrain or something like the Think Tank transcends humanity into a state our brain isn't capable of withstanding without (at least psychological) damage. A body that doesn't age, die or succumb to illness, yet at the same time preserves our humanity is a goal that's worth to strive for. Testing these bodies with artificial brains first leads to implementing true human ones later.

 

[Nas92]

About Harkness: I have argued for this in the Bethesda forums before - the fact that Harkness is said to be capable of all this, doesn't mean it's true. Maybe for some reason he imitates these behaviors and somehow believes that it's the real thing. This is not something that I'm pulling out of my ass - well, it is, partly - Pinkerton says that the Institute technology isn't as fancy as it seems. It was deliberately written in a way so that it can be easily retconned. I hope the average synth - if BGS makes a game featuring them - will look more like a synth from the Wasteland universe.

A body that doesn't age, die or succumb to illness, yet at the same time preserves our humanity is a goal that's worth to strive for.

All this they can achieve more easily if they focus on genetic engineering. And it would be more in-line with the Fallout universe.

(which brings us to the question of possible other Enclave bases which I don't believe in, since I don't like that approach. There are outposts in Chicago which were installed after the migration of Autumn senior's chapter, let's drop any other possibilities).

Yeah, I don't like that idea either. Even the idea of a Chicago outpost is dodgy.

It definitely is imo. The FEV itself is something that is already extremely ridiculous when you think of it and basically impossible to create (essence of SCIENCE!).

I guess if you put it that way, but then nothing should be a stretch for the setting, which is not a good approach. SCIENCE! is fine, but there should be certain limits, certain boundaries that we shouldn't cross. Yeah, like replicators, teleporters and magical holograms.
Also the FEV was more or less an accident, wasn't it? They didn't sit down and say "let's make a virus that makes super soldiers".

 

[BigBoss]

Something I always liked in Fallout (and one of the few things I enjoyed Bethesda incorporating back into Fallout 3) were the computers. Smaller computers based on vaccum tube technology, the larger ones looking like extremely similar to the first computers being made in the US in the early fifties.

Computer's that can fit in a single room!

However the computers seem to be able to hold much more memory than our own real-world counterparts (the larger ones, I mean, not the personal computers).

I still like the old Fallout's design of computers (even though we've only ever seen them close up once) better than Fallout 3's/New Vegas's.

Fallout 1

V.S.

Fallout 3/NV

 

[coldroll]

I think the old computer design was better, although the one in Fallout 3 and New Vegas wasn't that bad.

 

[Stanislao Moulinsky]

About Harkness: I have argued for this in the Bethesda forums before - the fact that Harkness is said to be capable of all this, doesn't mean it's true. Maybe for some reason he imitates these behaviors and somehow believes that it's the real thing.

Zimmer says the same thing.

"Androids have fake skin, and blood, and are programmed to simulate human behavior, like breathing. They can even eat and digest food realistically."

 

[Wumbology]

About Harkness: I have argued for this in the Bethesda forums before - the fact that Harkness is said to be capable of all this, doesn't mean it's true. Maybe for some reason he imitates these behaviors and somehow believes that it's the real thing.

Zimmer says the same thing.

"Androids have fake skin, and blood, and are programmed to simulate human behavior, like breathing. They can even eat and digest food realistically."

True, but Zimmer says nothing about healing, or growing hair. Who's to say Harkness isn't simply imagining or programmed to imagine certain things happening?

All this they can achieve more easily if they focus on genetic engineering. And it would be more in-line with the Fallout universe.

Genetic engineering always struck me as more of a 80s/90s science fiction trope.
Have you ever read Isaac Asimov's Foundation series? It's considered a classic of 40's, 50's and 60's science fiction. It features highly advanced robots that act, walk, think, etc, like humans, but to varying degrees. Some are indistinguishable at first sight, while others are blocky, chrome men.
Honestly? Putting arbitrary restrictions on where Fallout in terms of technology can go is a bad thing.

 

[Atomic Postman]

Ideally, though it would never happen since the current designs in Fallout have become "iconic" to the new generation, I would love to see designs from the first two games directly adapted into 3D.

The Art-Deco/Diesel-Punk style was just the perfect Aesthetics for Fallout's world and atmosphere, not that the new ones are bad, in fact there are some designs I feel that rival the old, but the old designs are just that much more suiting to the franchise as a whole.