The-Artist-64
"Set Phasers to Fun."
Good point. This is a pretty interesting conversation, though. We could continue it in a separate thread, if anyone else is interested.
Post-War Religions?
- Thread starter Ragemage
- Start date
The-Artist-64
"Set Phasers to Fun."
No, I'm definitely with you there. I don't want this thread going to the vats.
Back to the religious discussion, I'd say overall that it's pretty safe to say that most wastelanders are atheists. It would be hard for most people to have faith in such a dismal situation.
Ragemage
Wept for Zion
I agree that a lot of wastelanders are Atheist. It makes you wonder how these post-war religions/pre-war religions are managing to spread as much as they are? I guess the Church of Atom kinda makes sense in how popular it is, only because they believe the nukes were actually a good thing and make it sound like, to an outsider who has no idea about the past or about other religions, that the bombs were actually a miracle. Kinda like how people in Caesar's Legion believe the bombs fell because Mars dropped them from the sky so Caesar could take over. It honestly surprises me other religions that don't involve bomb worship are still out there. Honestly in post-apocalyptia, if a Mormon missionary came up to me and said there's a loving God that has a plan for all of us, I'd look at him like he's nuts and proceed to point to the Deathclaws and giant nuclear craters all around.
I doubt a lot of wastelanders even have a concept of life in the pre-war eras. They really only know the here and now. I would think that would basically halt a lot of old world religions and post-war religions right there outside of the basic concepts. Imagine you're a Wastelander who has no knowledge of pre-war life, you only know what you've seen, and someone starts talking to you about places like Babylon, Eurasia, Jericho, Jerusalem, etc, these people would have no point of reference for any of this and think it's simply a fairy tale.
On the other hand, depending on how they interpret it, they may think all those places missionaries are talking about took place here in America. Such as the Sorrows in Honest Hearts. When they were told about Jesus's birth they thought Daniel was referring to The Father of the Cave's deceased wife and child, just with the tacked on fact that the child died for everyone's sins. It's certainly interesting.
Heh, actually, I bet if you walked around with a cross necklace in the Mojave, people might think you're a Legion supporter because they would most likely equate the cross with Caesar's crucifixion tactics, not the Bible.
Honestly, I just think it's atheism by authorial omission, because Fallout doesn't want to deal in controversial topics. More likely, I'd think people have some concept of "God," but nobody reads anyway. I'd expect Vaults to preserve religious traditions from the Old World, as well as a smattering of the more established communities that managed to survive through the nukes. Otherwise you just get tribals that form their own idiosyncratic beliefs in a few generations (e.g. the Arroyo tribals).
The Bishops are implied to be puritanical religious types when you back their family in New Reno. Their ending states that they turn New Reno into a place where you can raise a family and is known for schools, high standardized test scores and churches. It's probably some strain of Christianity.
I drive around and I suspect a lot of these blandly named church with glossy logos are some inoffensive strain of informal Protestantism. And it's pretty much what I expect from Christianity after the War unless some weird eschatology gets involved in that time.
I'd actually defend my last post on the basis of what you're saying here.
Religions mutate basically. And it doesn't really take long for tribals to form their own religion in that time. Apparently something like Arroyo would happen, as a real world sociological thing, despite the fact that their ancestors were Vault Dwellers not more than a few generations back. I'd be a little surprised if New Canaanites are actually any kind of Mormon that you'd recognize.
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Juza The Cloud
Nanto Goshasei
I would love to a God's militia type of group, but that would not fly in AAA bethsoft game but maybe a resurgent RCC in some places would be good and a node to Canticle. And lastly l'd like to see a small community of Jews hell I mean they are even in Dune.
The-Artist-64
"Set Phasers to Fun."
I actually found myself marveling at the resemblance of God's militia to the Children of the Cathedral. Great idea, but it would mean that we would be essentially copy-pasting the Children into a new game.
The Jewish people in the community wouldn't be orthodox, though, because of the decimation of Israel and the Great War. That would certainly change things up a bit.
Depends on how many bombs you say would fell on it and whether they could sustain themselves economically after. The EU tore itself apart well before the events of the Great War between China and America, so maybe not a lot? I expect the Vatican is a fairly low priority, unless the Papacy had little say in being near missile stockpiles.
The thing that's always bothered me about providing an excuse to why one place is not more blasted than another is that most of the lore explanations suck ass. The whole theory about MAD is that you destroy enough of their capability to strike back to limit damage. Sprinkle in a little bit of any Star Wars type missile defense or similar and you can easily make an excuse for why a low priority target survived. It's Fallout. Lasers work because you say they do. It's a little hard to believe that House was the only one to think of the bright idea of shooting down missiles.
The-Artist-64
"Set Phasers to Fun."
Very true! I would rather some things be left unsolved, lest Bethesda swoops in and ruins yet another good potential plot.
According to J.E. Sawyer, Italy was in anarchy by 2060. The anarchistic former European Commonwealth was a battleground decimated by conventional warfare and torn apart between surviving resource rioters, punks, gangs, communists, nationalist holdouts and warlords. I don't think the Vatican exactly survived unscathed.
Ragemage
Wept for Zion
Hm, interesting! I wish we could learn more info about Europe in the Fallout world but it just isn't meant to be. I already have a very high suspicion that Fallout 4 will have some DLC where you go to China, mainly because of the Chinese submarine captain and how his sub never leaves the harbor even if you help him fix it. It'll probably be about you going to China with him, finding it's mostly decimated, and then invoking the settlement system whereupon you "rebuild" China while fighting off some Chinese radiation monsters or something. If nothing else I guess it would give the settlement system some purpose.
Juza The Cloud
Nanto Goshasei
[QUOTE
The Jewish people in the community wouldn't be orthodox, though, because of the decimation of Israel and the Great War. That would certainly change things up a bit.[/QUOTE]
umm lots of Jewish people live in the US ? Not every Jewish person was in Tel Aviv when the dirty bomb went off / resource wars. So that is a bit a false binary. Hell you even run into a few npc's with Jewish last names. The Great War wouldn't stop the few faithful, they'd keep going along surviving. Hell Las Vegas history is intertwined with Jews (both gangster and legit) Moe Green anyone? Just saying.
The Jewish people in the community wouldn't be orthodox, though, because of the decimation of Israel and the Great War. That would certainly change things up a bit.[/QUOTE]
umm lots of Jewish people live in the US ? Not every Jewish person was in Tel Aviv when the dirty bomb went off / resource wars. So that is a bit a false binary. Hell you even run into a few npc's with Jewish last names. The Great War wouldn't stop the few faithful, they'd keep going along surviving. Hell Las Vegas history is intertwined with Jews (both gangster and legit) Moe Green anyone? Just saying.
Juza The Cloud
Nanto Goshasei
Thanks dude, Im aware and played Tactics many times. Not trying to squash your honest helpful post. What I was asking for was a more literal Fundamentalist Christian militia.
The-Artist-64
"Set Phasers to Fun."
Orthodox. Not reform or conservative, but ethnic Jews who require a familial connection to be accepted. Remember that very few people survived the war. It's a statistical miracle, but you may be right. The Mormons got Vault 70, so maybe an orthodox Jewish community commissioned their own vault.
Dr Fallout
Centurion
I really want to see Dharma being expanded on and explained. It seemed really important to Aradesh, which is why I'm surprised it's not in the NCR.
Ragemage
Wept for Zion
It's not in the NCR because the NCR grew up from its tribal roots and started turning into pre-war America. I have a feeling they probably discovered a bunch of pre-war books about America and began basing their society around that, and thus Christianity replaced Dharma.
As for Dharma, that's just a tenent of Asian religion, such as Hinduism and Buddhism. It represents universal truth. So I guess Aradesh was a Hinduist or a Buddhist. It's most commonly found in Buddhism though, as Buddha was the one who invented the concept.
Dr Fallout
Centurion
It's pretty obvious even to me it's got something to do with Buddha, but it seems to have some differences... of course none of them are explained.
Aradesh is the leader of the NCR, I can expect him to try spread his religion across his followers. At least wouldn't the capital, Shady Sands be somewhat... Dharmist?
Ragemage
Wept for Zion
Dharma isn't actually a religion though. It's a system of laws that laid the foundation for Hinduist and Buddhist societies. Think the Ten Commandments from the Bible. That's basically what Dharma is to Buddhists and Hinduists.
So Aradesh believes in Dharma, and for all we know that could be put into NCR society somehow. We don't really know how their laws work. Aradesh's actual religion is something tribal however, as he specifically mentions thanking the gods when you save Tandi. So his religion is some type of polytheism. By the time the NCR becomes a nation we can assume he dropped his tribal identity and instead focused on making a nation with old world values and maybe some Dharmic laws mixed in during the early days of its formation.
Dr Fallout
Centurion
Interesting, so it's their code of law. However I'm not sure they're the same... Aradesh refers to someone called Dharma, or is that part of Dharma as well?
Hmm, you're good at noticing things. Yeah, sadly the NCR became a bit too mainstream... I would have liked a relatively modern yet held back by primitive beliefs type of faction.
Ragemage
Wept for Zion
Since I have a war history fetish I love the parallels between the NCR and World War II America. So I don't mind them being "mainstreamed" at all because I love World War II stuff.
Aradesh does mention someone called Dharma, you're right. In real life there's no actual person named Dharma, Dharma is a philosophy taught by Buddha that is used by Buddhists, Hinduists, and apparently Jainists. I believe this is because Aradesh possibly read about Dharma and thought it was talking about a person, not an idea. That, or he thought Buddha was named Dharma. It could simply be him misinterpreting what he was reading.
Think of it like Saint Monica's Church in FO3. The real Saint Monica and FO3's Saint Monica have many similarities, such as both of them were sold into slavery and their sons became slave masters, with the sons being forgiven by their mothers (in real life, Saint Monica's son became a saint himself), but there are differences. For example, the real Saint Monica had a relatively normal upbringing. In FO3, Saint Monica was a human woman that was birthed by a ghoul mother and a ghoul father. Little misinterpretations or addons like that are probably what made Aradesh think Dharma was a person and not an idea.