Post-War Religions?

Ragemage

Ragemage

Wept for Zion
Right, so since a lot of you guys here are Fallout buffs, I wanted to know, what kind of religions were made Post-War? This isn't about Pre-War religions since we can assume most if not all of those still exist, but I wanted to ask about post-war ones. I know there's the Church of Atom, the Kings' literal worship of Elvis, and the Master's church/religion/thing, but what else is there? I haven't played Fallout 2 or Tactics yet, so I'm curious, are there other religions created after the world went to shit? If there are any, list them below! If there are any you'd like to see in maybe a future installment or something, you can also put that below!
 
In fallout 2, the player´s village believes in the vault in the sky, akin to heaven. In point lookout the tribals worship the telephatic brain (carver?) and the swapfolk has a lovecraft like cult.
 
Theres The Sorrows in Zion National Park who worship "The Father". Who comes from this guy http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Randall_Clark
There religion is kind've a combination of Christianity and Religion based on deification of that figure due to the Mormons teaching them about the Bible. They view Clark as the Father (filling in for god) and Jesus as his child.

The Fallout 2 main character comes from a group of tribals started by the Vault Dweller from Fallout 1 who revere him as an important figure and believe theres an afterlife based around the Vaults.
http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Arroyo

Point Lookout has Tribals that worship a holographic and telepathic brain of a wealthy pre-war man named Calvert.
http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Calvert_(brain)

Swampfolk have weird Cthulhu-esque lovecraft worship.

Caesar's Legion at least believe in the ancient Roman god Mars and assumingly all the others as well.

New Cannanites are Mormons through and through.

EDIT: Also the Church of Atom seems to be spreading somehow as you can find them all the way up in Boston in fallout 4
 
Last edited:
The Church of Atom was one of the more interesting pieces of Fallout 3; shame it didn't really develop.

It's interesting to note that, as far as I've seen, Christianity has separated into several more sects; Rivet City's church comes to mind and, if I recall correctly, there's a missionary from a (yet to be seen) Commonwealth church in Point Lookout.

Hubologists are still going strong, as is Hinduism; I believe Buddhism is too, as Aradesh is Buddhist if I remember right, but don't quote me on that.

In terms of Post-War, technically speaking the Followers are a religion, despite not worshipping a deity, and The BoS (the Midwestern chapter and the Lost Hills one in specific endings) have a similar deal going on.

Tribal religions are a lot more common; Arroyo worships its ancestors (one in particular), Vipers had a whole snake-cult going on and the Oasis guys worshipped Harold; not to mention the Legion, which believes Caesar is the son of Mars.
 
Ragemage said:
-snip-
Click to expand...
I mean the real reason they are in Boston is because The Church of Atom has become a meme among new-fallout fans so Bethesda shoved them in there cause they don't really give a fuck about cohesion or story telling. That's pretty much the explanation for every faction that Bethesda puts in their Fallout games though.
 
It really is a sad state of affairs that a company that gave us such rich and nuanced religions like in Morrowind can't even make one cult be anything more than a goofy "lel they worship dah nukes isnt dat wackY?".

Also I would have loved to see more of the New Cannanites and their interactions with others in regards to their faith. Honest Hearts really was just too damn small and short.
 
Vergil said:
snip
Click to expand...

Yeah, you're right actually! Morrowind has fantastic religions, and joining either the Temple or the Imperial Cult usually leads to a pretty fun adventure either way! I like how in order to even get quests from the Temple, you have to first make the Pilgrimage to all their saint statues and actually learn their history before they let you in.

Fallout: Van Buren was actually going to take place in New Canaan I believe. Or at least have a lot to do with New Canaanites and the Mormons. Too bad that game'll never see the light of day.
 
Hubology is a parody of Scientology, it has some odd beliefs about wheels or something (?) here's the wiki post:
http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Hubologists
there's also the followers of Plutonius from Tactics, they're similar to the children of the atom but are more directly inspired by the cultists from "Beneath the planet of the apes".
You also have the children of the cathedral, the pillars of the community, the people who worshiped the mole-rat from Gecko, the abbey and, the bright brotherhood, just to name a few more.
 
peadar87 said:
Some Super Mutants still seem to be pretty into the Unity
Click to expand...

In fallout 2 there were still a few remnants roaming the wasteland, attacking humans they encountered.
In new vegas the only thing resemble the unity it´s Tabitha and her racial superiority ramblings.
 
Ragemage said:
Wait, Hubologist? What's that?

And apparently, at least by New Vegas's time, a lot of Followers of the Apocalypse are Mormon. I keep hearing about the BOS worshipping technology, but where is the proof of that? It certainly doesn't seem like they worship tech to me, just want to preserve it.
Click to expand...

I may have accidentally given the impression that Hubology is a real religion; it's not, but in Fallout lore it is a Pre-war one. They're basically a parody of Scientology.

Personally, I've always thought that the religious overtones of the BOS's attitude was in their fervour, not specifically technology. They're zealous in their dedication to their cause, especially in the newer title (and again, the Midwestern and some endings of the original chapter too); people probably simply misinterpreted this as technological worship or oversimplified it, leading to this popular idea.

EDIT: Whilst I agree that Morrowind's religions were cleverly crafted, I don't think it'd fit to have something similar in Fallout. Whilst one of the Elder Scrolls series' main strengths is its stupid amounts of lore, Fallout (or at least, the originals and New Vegas) has a message behind each of its games, a point to be made; the lore is built around events and locations, rather than the other way around.
 
Van Buren had lots of cool post-war religions that I am incredibly sad we didn't get to learn more about.

I believe its already been mentioned on this thread that Mormonism was going to be made a big deal in Van Buren with New Canaan and stuff. There were also lots of cool Shamanistic Religions, like Hecate a tribal doctor who persuaded people she was a Goddess, Diana a Computer with the ability to project Holograms, who is believed to be a God among a group of tribals known as the Twin Mothers.

There were also the Blackfoot and Hangdogs(Who they were considering merging together in to one tribe, a decision that if they had made it, I would have disliked) who had their own shamanistic beliefs. IIRC you would get a reputation as a racist if you called the Blackfoot "Savages" for their spiritual beliefs. What their beliefs were though, isn't mentioned anywhere. The Hangdogs however, believe that this huge mutant dog is the devil, so that's some Cool Shit(Which was by the way, the actual terminology used to describe the miscellaneous category of the design documents)

If Bethesda Softworks ever do decide to let Obsidian make another Fallout game, I think they should make a First Person Van Buren. I know it takes up a lot of space, but I reckon that if they made multiple instances to represent individual states they could just about do it. I would also love to see this because it would be pretty cool to learn about the culture of the Southwestern Tribes before Caesar annexed them all.
 
Dharma and The Unity are the only ones introduced in Fallout 1. Fallout 2 adds the stupidest one, but New Vegas adds the most.
 
Ragemage said:
And what religion would that be? Do you mean Hubology? I actually read up on that one and it seems pretty interesting, especially given that it's a parody of that crack-smoke Scientology. I think they pretty much parodied it down to a T, even over the fact that you can read on a terminal that it was made in the pre-war era as a money scam, just like real Scientology.
Click to expand...
It's well written but it's a joke, simple as that.
 
The thing that's always bothered me about religion is, "Do people like The Followers actually qualify as a religion?"
Because I don't really view Confucius or Epicurus as religions so much as ideologies formulated by philosophers. They have certain ideas about ethics and how you should live your life, but are largely unconcerned with supernatural explanations, worship or even tithing. It's like calling Marxism a religion, which is, well, extremely unsatisfactory.

Confucius viewed all superstition as "ungentlemanly," but grudgingly admitted that it has a function for the lower classes. Rituals only exist to enforce a certain state of mind. (Therefore, ancestor worship was not literal, but actually a way of paying respect to your roots.)
Epicurus actually formulated the problem of evil/theodicy. (If evil exists, why does a God who is omniscient-omnipotent-benevolent permit it? He cannot be all three things so long as it exists.)

The Followers just have this ideology centered around preserving knowledge and humanitarianism.
The Brotherhood of Steel also gets called a techno-cult, except that there's nothing innately special about their worldview. They don't have some unique idea of cosmology which is alien to any other wastelander or Pre-war person. They don't worship gods. They're more like an isolationistic military order that view themselves as the custodians of high technology. They're no more religious than Vault City, in spite of that city's belief in its own superiority over the common wastelander and isolationistic stance in FO2.
 
Last edited:
The Reavers worshipped technology in Fallout Tactics. They literally had a version of Satan called Satansoft. Saint Sony, and lots of other references to modern day companies.

People in Shady Sands, like Aradash, were Dharma. Correct me if I'm wrong.
Some people in The Pitt literally worshipped Ashur as their God.
 
It was funny realising that The Followers of the Apocalypse actually means people "following after the apocalypse" not a cult-ish group actually worshipping the apocalypse or something.

Sadly under Bethesda we will never see anyone as nuanced as Daniel Wyand and Joshua Graham anytime soon. They're populists. If a common trope is popular, they'll follow it, meaning mormons=lol, annoying weirdos and Children of Atom=lulz, crazy cult and apparently now in Fallout 4 TURRORISTS!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top