My complaints about the series

[CT Phipps]

I grade on the balance. Some idiots who I consider to have absolutely worthless shit opinions believe that numerical reviews should represent a aggregate of how good something is with several separate categories. Like if you had a video game with 10 Visuals, 10 Gameplay, and 1 Story that it should be a seven. I've never been particularly fond of this method as it just gives people an extremely uneven sense of how I feel about games. Like, it's how Fallout 4 gets a seven from me despite the fact I hate how much of a downgrade it is from Fallout 3 in terms of storytelling and world-building.

So, know that I prefer to judge something by saying how much I got pleasure out of it and then list how much complaints detract from that pleasure. So, I love Fallout: The Series. It's a 9 out of 10 because few other shows induce such giddy joy inside me. Nevertheless, I have some issues with the show and wanted to share them.

1. Essentially the show feels incomplete at eight episodes. It should have been at least ten episodes long or they should have just sliced away the filler and made it into a two hour movie. They could have done either by removing the Vault 4 subplot. The show feels simultaneously a little underbaked while also being a little too long. I give it a lot of praise and I think said praise is well deserved but I do have criticisms--I just prefer to be happy about the parts I like over negative.

2. Moldaver's character never really comes together and that's a big mistake. She's a cold fusion scientist from before the war who is out for revenge for her possible lover/best friend that's Lucy's mom and was also accused of being a communist. The fact so many questions like, "How is she still alive 200 years later" and "why did she let Hank's kids be collateral damage" aren't things that I believe the show doesn't have answers for but they are sort of left hanging.

3. I don't doubt we're going to get to see Point A to B to C with Cooper with the show implying that he'll go after Vault-Tec, divorce his wife, get blacklisted, and lose everything. The show gives us enough to know he ends up doing birthday parties and gets labeled a pinko. However, that not happening is another part of the element that prevents us from getting really as far as we could have with the show.

4. The "surprise" revelation of Vault-Tec as the big bad is something that I don't have much to say about because there's not much to say. Basically, it provides a non-political answer to the story that has always been political. The fact they barely mention the Enclave when Vault-Tec is a major part of it seems silly.

5. Speaking of which, the fact that I don't think the fact that China is ever mentioned by name is noticeable. I don't think Fallout was ever going to be shown in China given all the media they've banned but the fact that they so studiously avoided mentioning who exactly was holding the other nukes is eye-rolling.

It's cowardly.

6. Hank Maclean is a character that isn't much of a character so much as a plot device. He's shown to be a loving father and willing to die for his children as well as sacrifice his fellow Vault dwellers but also nuked a city because his wife stole his kids/work for Vault-Tec to wipe the surface clean. I feel like there's a lot to sound down that square peg to fit a round hole. It's not that I can't believe it's a character but it's such a 180 that I don't get what it is. Loyalty to Vault-Tec over the Enclave is a lot harder to buy.

7. The "Maximus doesn't know what sex is" scene is just stupid even if we assume he's high as fuck (which I do).

8. The lack of the US government's culpability or the Pre-War government is also frustrating as we could at least have a crooked Senator or two. They make nods to the government being under the corporate thumb and that WestTek and Vault-Tec are part of the Enclave anyway but it feels like they present Vault-Tec as the bad guy as an independent section versus the Enclave.

9. I am fine for disaster economics and Atlas Shrugged predicted that the end of the world would be a good thing for capitalism. They could have written it smarter, though. Like mentioning they planned a limited nuclear exchange or otherwise showing that their continued support of hawkishness led to the retaliation. In other words, Vault-Tec shouldn't be perfectly geniuses but because they're idiots. Show their plan going completely off the rails.

10. NCR's destruction is also something that only really feels like a tragedy for those who played the games. It's also something brought about by an outside third party versus all of the issues that had been brought about by New Vegas.

11. Sinclair being the head of Big MT seems to be a continuity error. Big MT was a think tank, not a company. He's also very different looking but I don't mind this part because he looked far too much like Mr. House in Dead Money.

12. I feel like they seemed to indicate America was far more idyllic than it should be at the end of the war.

 

[eissa]

11. Sinclair being the head of Big MT seems to be a continuity error. Big MT was a think tank, not a company. He's also very different looking but I don't mind this part because he looked far too much like Mr. House in Dead Money.

He is big patron and the meeting function is to gather funding/to sell vaults, Sinclair is might be trusted enough by Big MT for financial affair. And Think Tank...I think I have know enough stuff about RAND Corporation for an institution like it to be organized like company. And RAND is nonprofit oriented. Big MT is also private institution, it's like hiring mercs that consisting of eggheads.

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

10. NCR's destruction is also something that only really feels like a tragedy for those who played the games. It's also something brought about by an outside third party versus all of the issues that had been brought about by New Vegas.

It's also really, really stupid. They wipe out the NCR because Hank's wife left him for a woman. Also, care to take bets that they never bring up all the problems with that which should be problems if the writers were competent? Like you don't think Vault-Tec is aware of how many nukes they should have on hand and they're going to notice one is missing? Hank was a middle manager, so I doubt he has the authority to nuke a settlement without a really good reason. But hey, I doubt they'll ever mention any of that and just offer up some memberberries instead.

 

[CT Phipps]

It's also really, really stupid. They wipe out the NCR because Hank's wife left him for a woman. Also, care to take bets that they never bring up all the problems with that which should be problems if the writers were competent? Like you don't think Vault-Tec is aware of how many nukes they should have on hand and they're going to notice one is missing? Hank was a middle manager, so I doubt he has the authority to nuke a settlement without a really good reason. But hey, I doubt they'll ever mention any of that and just offer up some memberberries instead.

I mean I assume Hank had their permission. NCR going down benefits Vault Tec.

 

[Bradylama]

The Brotherhood is an even bigger threat to Vault-Tec's interests and they're impossible to nuke. They're distributed across the continental US. The whole premise for the show is undermining itself. If you tug on a single plot thread the whole thing comes unraveled.

9. I am fine for disaster economics and Atlas Shrugged predicted that the end of the world would be a good thing for capitalism.

Atlas Shrugged is pseudointellectual nonsense written by someone with no understanding of material sciences or capitalism. The "creatives" of society like Hank Rearden all fuck off to Galt's Gulch to let the normies collapse without the strength of their guidance, but Galt's Gulch fails to even consider the question of who exactly is supporting their lifestyles. Where does the laboring class come from if you're only letting industrialists and architects into the commune?

Now you could say, "Galt's Gulch is a commune, they're all tilling the soil." But why would anyone want that? The novel characterizes state intervention as something that violates the very soul of the entrepreneur, but nobody in real life actually cares about that. People become capitalists because they want security and power. It's the exact same problem as the Vault-Tec conspiracy. Why would capitalists want to destroy capitalism so they can go live in a commune? In both Atlas Shrugged and Fallout TV it depends on purely ideological propositions that don't make any sense and has no real appeal to anyone that can't finance a think tank.

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

The Brotherhood is an even bigger threat to Vault-Tec's interests and they're impossible to nuke. They're distributed across the continental US. The whole premise for the show is undermining itself. If you tug on a single plot thread the whole thing comes unraveled.

It's also interesting that they seem to flip flop on Fallout Tactics being canon, so there's the real possibility of a Midwest Brotherhood Empire on the other side of the Legion. What Bethesda has done with the Brotherhood in Fallout 4 and the TV show basically puts them well above any other faction that we've seen to this point.

It also makes zero sense that nuking Shady Sands would get rid of the NCR. It would be a set back at best. The United States Capitol was captured and burned in 1814, and we're still around. We even had a two armies to get rid of at that point as well. Hanky just nuked the city and went back to his hole.

I mean I assume Hank had their permission. NCR going down benefits Vault Tec.

You think he asked the Roomba?

Where does the laboring class come from if you're only letting industrialists and architects into the commune?

My understanding was that they were just doing the labor themselves. At the time the book was written, Rand had examples of people like Henry Ford who left his home at the age of 16 to head to Detroit where he worked as a mechanic for several years, and built his own engines. Ford could do the work because he'd done the work. You can see this in the books where Hank Readen started off as a miner, working until he was able to buy a mine and start his business.

 

[CT Phipps]

Now you could say, "Galt's Gulch is a commune, they're all tilling the soil." But why would anyone want that? The novel characterizes state intervention as something that violates the very soul of the entrepreneur, but nobody in real life actually cares about that. People become capitalists because they want security and power. It's the exact same problem as the Vault-Tec conspiracy. Why would capitalists want to destroy capitalism so they can go live in a commune? In both Atlas Shrugged and Fallout TV it depends on purely ideological propositions that don't make any sense and has no real appeal to anyone that can't finance a think tank.

Because they will be able to live in absolute luxury like the Sierra Madre and all of their enemies will be completely burned to ash. They will also be able to dictate the form of the new world.

 

[Bradylama]

Because they will be able to live in absolute luxury like the Sierra Madre and all of their enemies will be completely burned to ash. They will also be able to dictate the form of the new world.

Except they're not living in absolute luxury, Galt's Gulch is a farming commune in the Rocky Mountains that's obscured by a cloaking device powered by an "infinite energy generator." A generator they don't use for anything other than the cloaking device. Conservapedia acknowledges that the Gulch strikers had to accept jobs that were beneath their qualifications.

https://www.conservapedia.com/Galt's_Gulch#Economy

The economy of Galt's Gulch began simply and grew more complex as the community grew more populous. At first it was, of necessity, agricultural. Francisco d'Anconia worked a mine in the Red Mountain Pass in anticipation of a larger economy to come. But aside from him, Midas Mulligan alone lived full-time in the Gulch at first. He said that he "stocked this place to be self-supporting." Specifically, he built a house, cleared some land, grew wheat, and intended to raise cattle.

In November of the first year, Judge Narragansett joined the strike. Midas Mulligan invited him to come to the Gulch and live year-round. With this act, the truly co-operative economy began. Judge Narragansett raised chickens and dairy cows, and Mulligan kept growing and raising other agricultural products. Richard Halley would add fruit trees to the mix when he, too, obtained a year-round leasehold...

Still others learned to do work that was far beneath their original training. Richard McNamara hired three of them:

• A professor of economics who taught that no economic actor (or society) could consume more than he or it produced;
• A professor of psychology who taught that human beings could think; and
• A professor of history who refused to teach the Communist theory of history, and instead taught real history.

John Galt recruited each man after he got one rejection slip too many. Life in the Gulch was attractive enough for them that they would take "blue collar" jobs. The economics professor, for example, became an electrical lineman. (The economist's wife, who took the Strikers' Oath separately, opened a bakery.) The other two learned to lay water mains and even to install plumbing and heating systems in the log cabins that the strikers built.

Most strikers became farmers and gardeners. (One, Calvin Atwood, formerly of the Atwood Power and Light Company, became a shoe cobbler.)...

This all begs the question of where all the materials for a complex technological doodad like the infinite energy generator and the cloaking device came from, if all they've got to start with are three guys trading food with each other, a local mine, and a bunch of strikers coming to the Gulch after abandoning all of their capital and wealth to live like peasants.

My understanding was that they were just doing the labor themselves. At the time the book was written, Rand had examples of people like Henry Ford who left his home at the age of 16 to head to Detroit where he worked as a mechanic for several years, and built his own engines. Ford could do the work because he'd done the work. You can see this in the books where Hank Readen started off as a miner, working until he was able to buy a mine and start his business.

Ford and Rearden could only do that because places like Detroit were already integrated into a national market economy, where they could simply source their inputs from market providers. Galt's Gulch can't do that because it has to be occluded from the rest of the world to stop the IRS from knocking. It's literally based on the resort town of Ouray, Colorado. So Galt's Gulch only has local materials to source from. They're basically building up a whole economy with nothing but the knowledge they bring with them, and most of that knowledge is wasted as the strikers have to retrain themselves for menial labor.

It also makes zero sense that nuking Shady Sands would get rid of the NCR. It would be a set back at best. The United States Capitol was captured and burned in 1814, and we're still around. We even had a two armies to get rid of at that point as well. Hanky just nuked the city and went back to his hole.

It does make sense that it would cause the NCR to collapse when it loses its metropole. Shady Sands was the seat of government, almost all the senators resided there, as well as the most powerful political interests in the Republic. What doesn't make sense is that everything would go back to Terra Nullius, with nobody trying to reclaim the mantle of the Republic, nobody doing their own thing with their own ideas, and the vestiges of civilization having no laws or security. How does a town like Filly even exist without any law enforcement? Shady Sands is the first community you encounter in the franchise, and they have armed guards. Junktown has a police force.

The Bethsoft games have communities of like a couple dozen people and even they have armed guards.

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

It does make sense that it would cause the NCR to collapse when it loses its metropole. Shady Sands was the seat of government, almost all the senators resided there, as well as the most powerful political interests in the Republic. What doesn't make sense is that everything would go back to Terra Nullius, with nobody trying to reclaim the mantle of the Republic, nobody doing their own thing with their own ideas, and the vestiges of civilization having no laws or security. How does a town like Filly even exist without any law enforcement? Shady Sands is the first community you encounter in the franchise, and they have armed guards. Junktown has a police force.

The reason I don't think it would fall is because as of Fallout 2, the NCR had six states. They might have had more at the time of New Vegas(or the 2277 nuking). I would assume those six(or more) states would have their own government and still have an interest in there being a republic. We're passed the founding stage, and they'd already had several Presidents beyond the line of Aradesh. I would also assume they'd get pissy enough about that nuking in order to actually cement their allegiance to the republic like when any country is attacked. It makes little sense that they'd get attacked, shrug their shoulders, and go back to subsistence living.

And I completely agree with you that it wouldn't reset the area either. Most of the towns you see in Fallout had their own police force, with The Hub being the closest to a modern idea of one - and that was a few decades before the NCR. After the NCR, it would make absolutely no sense that towns wouldn't have sheriffs and a dedicated police group. There'd still be trade, since the Crimson Caravan, unless I'm wrong, is still based in The Hub.

 

[Bradylama]

It's just as likely that those states would either go their own way or be incapable of reunifying the republic on each others' terms. The important thing we're getting at though is that those states existed. All the regional capitals mattered and they're, as far as we can tell, gone.