My review of Fallout: the Series Season One 9/10

[TheGM]

but the thing is you can’t really claim socialism while allowing private ownership of capital.

Depends on how far you want to go into the socialism well. there is nothing in baseline socialism that says people can't own property. Once you start getting into the weeds that is when shit starts getting silly.

I’ve read that the Nazis actually tried to apply the capitalist idea of competition to their own government by creating multiple departments in charge of the same thing. The idea being that the competition between departments would result in the most efficient coming out on top. It went about as well as expected…

Oh it is far more retarded than that. I give you Hitler's own personal touch, Bureaucratic Darwinism! Redundant Branches of the government butting heads to see which one will rise to the top through strength and perseverance, in reality an absolute cluster fuck since they spend more time and resources undercutting their competition than getting anything done. Which was also part of Hitler plan since it meant less time to scheme about him when they had to scheme about each other.

 

[CT Phipps]

Nice review but...

But the way i see it, it's either the manchild himself or someone at Beth management, who has been jealous of New Vegas success, resentful toward some chunks of the fanbase, and went deliberately on a petty revenge with it. Like the kid who cannot put up a decent sandcastle and will go out of his way to destroy the sandcastle of that other kids whom parents just complimented.

The showrunners confirmed that it was their idea to nuke Shady Sands and Todd was initially against it. Then again, Todd loves New Vegas and thinks (correctly) he owns it.

https://www.ign.com/articles/the-bi...n-answer-our-burning-questions-about-season-1

It's not even Bethesda who did it, though. Graham Wagner (show runner) and Geneva Roberston Dworet was the one who wanted to do it and Bethesda just gave permission.

Was there any pushback on making a show that was extremely loyal to the lore in art design of the games?

Howard: I mean, there were lots of conversations. Things come up. Look, every time we do a game, we want to push the story forward as well. We're looking at things and how do we add? And so the show does that as well, as they had story elements that they wanted to do. It's like, oh, that's really interesting. Let's find a way to make that work...

So Graham and Geneva wanted to blow up Shady Sands. The first time they bring that up, you're like, "what do you want to do?" I had actually an emotional reaction to it given the history of that location in the franchise from Fallout 1. And we talked through it, and it was, "this will be a pretty impactful story moment that a lot of things anchor on." And just so people hear it, we're careful about the timeline. There might be a little bit of confusion at some places, but everything that happened in the previous games, including New Vegas, happened. We're very careful about that.

And so when they brought that up, threading that needle to make sure that that was a moment that landed in the show, that also moved things forward in terms of what's going to be happening in the world of Fallout. That was a big one that we talked about.

So it's not Bethesda who wanted to destroy NCR but Jonathan Nolan's writers and production company.

 

[The_Time_Master]

Spoiler

I'm not sure how we'll have answers.

Flashback sequences, duh!

 

[R.Graves]

hings come up. Look, every time we do a game, we want to push the story forward as well. We're looking at things and how do we add?

i might believe this if i hadnt played his games. cool lie tho

nd just so people hear it, we're careful about the timeline

lmao

There might be a little bit of confusion at some places, but everything that happened in the previous games, including New Vegas, happened. We're very careful about that.

clearly not or there'd be no confusion

And so when they brought that up, threading that needle to make sure that that was a moment that landed in the show, that also moved things forward in terms of what's going to be happening in the world of Fallout. That was a big one that we talked about

deleting the NCR is regression and not moving things forward unless they replaced it with something else

So it's not Bethesda who wanted to destroy NCR but Jonathan Nolan's writers and production company.

bethesda had the power to veto it and didnt. theres a reason you can be convicted of murder by negligence.

either way this is all PR speak and a lot of it is verifiably unrtue or at the very least not at all reflected in any of his conrtibutions to the series so i dont really know what you expect us to get out of this

 

[Hassknecht]

I don't get why they must compulsively push the timeline forward. At this point we have 200 years and a whole continent to explore.

 

[R.Graves]

I don't get why they must compulsively push the timeline forward. At this point we have 200 years and a whole continent to explore.

200 years and almost all history and hints of the greater world come from the 3 games they didn't make. Wierd.

 

[Homer2137]

God, Fallout is such a wasted potential of a franchise, it should've been given to many authors like Marvel, DC and Star Wars did with comics, books, games and other stuff. Such a great setting confined in a creatively bankcrupt company.

 

[Hardboiled Android]

But I see it the opposite way, why would China want to destroy the Oil Rig they really want and need so desperately that they start a war for it? If they were going to nuke the USA, I doubt they would also destroy one of the last oil deposits on the planet.

It's the end of the world. A big part of strategy in nuclear war is denial or put another way: "If I can't have it, no one can." Sure, China would like to have that lovely sticky oil, but given they're about to get blowed up they probably won't have the opportunity to get it. And, given that it's only 200 miles from American shores, the American remnants will probably have better odds of getting it than the Chinese remnants would. By destroying the oil rig, you're putting America on the same footing as you for re-building, which is exactly what you'd want to do in a nuclear war.

200 years and almost all history and hints of the greater world come from the 3 games they didn't make. Wierd.

Fallout 3 does have those hints too

 

[R.Graves]

Fallout 3 does have those hints too

Just the Pitt and the commonwealth tho

 

[Hardboiled Android]

Just the Pitt and the commonwealth tho

Ronto, the Erie Stretch, Broken Banks/Crater Banks, Great Lanta, Montana Chapter of the Brotherhood, and yes as you say, the Commonwealth (I wouldn't really count the Pitt since we actually get to see it in the game).

Fallout 3 generally did a very good job of throwing out these little hints and suggestions of a wider world by giving interesting names but taking them for granted. It's sort of a cheap strategy, but it's very effective.

Really Fallout 3 makes far more references to locations and regions outside the main world than Fallout 1 and 2 that have practically none at all. Fallout 1 I think has nothing in terms of post-War locations. Fallout 2 has... Lake LeBarge? But provides no intrigue, it's just an IRL location someone has to be from. Fallout 2 does also have it's mentioned-only discussions of the things going on in the territory of Fallout 1, though that's a little different given that's an area we've already seen, just now in the future and just offscreen.

Fallout 3 ends up undermining it's wider-world-building in it's local-world-building, however: Because the economics and dynamics of the Capital Wasteland are so poorly thought through and nonsensical, it doesn't feel like a cohesive part of the world in itself, and it can't be conceived of as having any relationship with a wider world. Names are just names, cast amid a void. Fallout 1 and 2, on the other hand, are fairly well constructed locally, so it is believable that there's a wider world out there, even if we hardly if ever hear it discussed.

Fallout New Vegas has both a very well constructed local worldbuilding, well thought out relationships with the areas just off screen (core NCR and Legion), and finally scatters in an absolute ton of references to even more far-flung locales and goings-ons. All of this builds an illusion of a wider world more effectively than any other title in the IP.

 

[R.Graves]

Dang guess I just gaslit myself because seeing those names I definitely recognize some of these

 

[CT Phipps]

By contrast, I generally just view everything in Fallout: New Vegas as building on what Fallout 3 did and improving on it. It's the Assassin Creed 2 of the franchise.

* Pre-War lore
* Pre-War locations
* 1950s aethstetics (Vegas this time)
* Much bigger focus on action and violence
* Wackinss crossed with seriousness

Fans try to make it different from F3 but it's not.

 

[SquidWard]

I don't get why they must compulsively push the timeline forward. At this point we have 200 years and a whole continent to explore.

• Fallout 76 - Year: 2102-2104 - Loactions: West Virginia, The Pitt (Pennsylvania), Atlantic City (New Jersey)
• Fallout - Year: 2161 - Location: Southern California
• Fallout 2 - Year: 2241 - Location: Northern California and a bit of Nevada through New Reno
• Fallout 3 - Year: 2277 - Locations: Washington D.C., The Pitt, a small area of Maryland with Point Lookout
• Fallout: New Vegas - Year: 2281 - Locations: New Vegas and surrounding area in Nevada, a casino near the Grand Canyons (Arizona), Zion National Park (Utah), Big MT and the Divide (California/Nevada border area).
• Fallout 4 - Year: 2287 - Locations: Boston (Mass-a-two-shits), Nuka-World in the same state, and Far Harbor is a dock/island in Maine.

So there's East Coast about 25 years after the bombs, then we jump over to the West Coast in another 60 years then we stay relatively close to that location in the next 80 years. Then we jump back to the East Coast 36 years later then back to the West Coast somewhat close by the other West Coast locations 4 years later. Then we go back East again 6 years later. At that point it's been 210 years since the bombs fell.
I know BoS covers Texas and Tactics covers expanses of the Midwest.

But 210 years to cover about 2-3 full states (not entirely but California, Nevada, and West Virginia get pretty decent ground covered). And a bunch of random locales not in those states like Washington DC, Pittsburgh, Boston, some oceanfront areas, a national park in Utah, and some non-real world places like Sierra Madre, Big MT, Nuka-World, and the Divide.

There's still the whole midwest that could use some zoomed in focus on their locations and what's been happening for 210 years. There's the Southeast which we really haven't seen or heard much about at all either.

But no, keep pushing the timeline forward but also erase the civilizations that get built up. I get that they don't want to take it too far with building civilization so they can keep making wasteland centric games. But you can literally do that without doing this so soon. What is their plan for what comes over 210 years later in the storyline that needs to importantly dismantle the NCR right now? Why can't we get a game set in fucking Louisiana in 2120? A game in Washington in 2200? What about Iowa in some random year before 2250? Fallout 76 is practically this idea. "What was going on 25 years after the Great War in West Virginia?" Well, 76 is the answer.
Why are these things they don't want to explore beyond their only live-service game? It's not like they really have much of an overarching plotline going on besides the Brotherhood showing up everywhere and being tonally different. Is the Brotherhood of Steel to Bethesda what Shady Sands and the NCR were to Fallout 1, 2, and New Vegas?

 

[CT Phipps]

Yeah, Fallout 76 is right at the beginning of things and a lot more reasonable timeline of events because no one is playing that game for its worldbuilding. I know, because I'm from West Virginia and lived there fifteen years.

But most people don't give a shit.

 

[R.Graves]

Fans try to make it different from F3 but it's not.

But why lie tho what do you gain?

 

[Traeger91]

I don't get why they must compulsively push the timeline forward. At this point we have 200 years and a whole continent to explore.

Also, if Bethesda wanted to keep the world in a perpetual state of the Apocalypse, they could have just set their games in the earlier years of the Fallout timeline.

 

[R.Graves]

Also, if Bethesda wanted to keep the world in a perpetual state of the Apocalypse, they could have just set their games in the earlier years of the Fallout timeline.

They could've just made a different series instead of reusing an old one just to fuck it up apparently in perpetuity

 

[Traeger91]

They could've just made a different series instead of reusing an old one just to fuck it up apparently in perpetuity

Yes, Apocalypse Road, which if we take the Fallout timeline into consideration, sounds like it would have been a never ending road.

 

[CT Phipps]

They could've just made a different series instead of reusing an old one just to fuck it up apparently in perpetuity

Instead, they wanted to introduce Fallout to millions more fans and have successfully done so.

The original Fallout sold 600,000 copies.

Fallout 3 sold 12,000,000 copies.

And Fallout: The Series will reach a far far bigger audience.

 

[Traeger91]

Instead, they wanted to introduce Fallout to millions more fans and have successfully done so.

The original Fallout sold 600,000 copies.

Fallout 3 sold 12,000,000 copies.

And Fallout: The Series will reach a far far bigger audience.

I very much doubt that was their reason for purchasing the IP, companies like money after all.