So what do people think of the characters?

[CT Phipps]

Not what I said, Phipps. A mystery box can be a legitimate tool in a writer's kit, it would be silly to say that it's always bad writing. I do think in this specific case that probably it was deployed due to a paucity in the rest of the setting's worldbuilding, but that is an inferrence on my part.

But in any case, the fact remains that it is a mystery box, and the writer didn't actually provide us sufficient evidence to draw any strong conclusions whatsoever.

Possibly, but it also seems like there's a major faction in the game that invades later and not any others.

Which is to say, "There's only one candidate."

Sort of like how the Pitt was eventually used to explain Paradise Falls. The writing may be weak at times in Bethesda but they're not UNAWARE of the plot holes. The Elder Scrolls shows they can do in-depth writing.

They just don't care to change it at will.

 

[Hardboiled Android]

Possibly, but it also seems like there's a major faction in the game that invades later and not any others.

Which is to say, "There's only one candidate."

Again, we can imagine any number of candidates. Could have been some planned salvaging expedition from Ronto, could have been someone in the Brotherhood looking to get info without risking scouts' lives, could have been someone in the Outcasts doing the same, could have been Calvert making some long term investment for his eventual world-domination, could have been the Zetans preparing for an invasion of the planet, could have been Vault-Tec checking in to see if there was any chance of a new sophisticated society arising, could have been the Institute scoping out potential safehouses for escaped Synths or places to establish safehouses for Coursers or looking for advanced tech to salvage, etc. etc.

Again, I agree that the Enclave is my preferred candidate, but it's not a matter of fact, not even close.

 

[Bradylama]

I'd argue it's completely worthless because nuclear energy is already cheap to the point of being limitless. The nuclear reactors that are still functional in the Wasteland are the things that are keeping the lights on even two hundred years later. The issues is the infrastructure doesn't exist to spread that power around and make use of it.

But I imagine that in-universe, the BOS will just use it for their own NEFARIOUS purposes.

You're majorly wrong on a few points:

1. Nuclear energy isn't cheap to the point of being limitless. The show even acknowledges that the transition to a nuke-based energy culture is causing shortages of uranium. Even with fusion reactions being ubiquitous, America's rate of material consumption was so high that it still drained the world of uranium.

2. There are no working fusion reactors left in the world. That's why the Hoover Dam is so critical to the NCR. Everything else is operating off of fusion batteries which won't be drained of energy for centuries.

3. the primary benefit of "cold fusion" is that it can theoretically happen at room temperature, which means a cold fusion reactor would only need to be as big as what we see at the Griffith Observatory, and still be capable of powering an entire city grid like the Boneyard's. It's basically the miniaturization of nuclear power that's far easier to set up, manage, and handle. Cold fusion is all theoretical, but if it works as advertised it'd be about what we see in the show. So long as you have enough fuel to keep the micro reactor going it could produce energy at an insanely high efficiency rate, with minimal waste.

e: I went back to make sure that the Gecko Poseidon reactor wasn't fusion but the wiki doesn't specify wether it was a fusion or fission reactor. I'm assuming it's a fission reactor because it was in disrepair and emitting tons of radiation without you know - burning the entire area with the power of a sun.

 

[Hassknecht]

You're majorly wrong on a few points:

1. Nuclear energy isn't cheap to the point of being limitless. The show even acknowledges that the transition to a nuke-based energy culture is causing shortages of uranium. Even with fusion reactions being ubiquitous, America's rate of material consumption was so high that it still drained the world of uranium.

2. There are no working fusion reactors left in the world. That's why the Hoover Dam is so critical to the NCR. Everything else is operating off of fusion batteries which won't be drained of energy for centuries.

3. the primary benefit of "cold fusion" is that it can theoretically happen at room temperature, which means a cold fusion reactor would only need to be as big as what we see at the Griffith Observatory, and still be capable of powering an entire city grid like the Boneyard's. It's basically the miniaturization of nuclear power that's far easier to set up, manage, and handle. Cold fusion is all theoretical, but if it works as advertised it'd be about what we see in the show. So long as you have enough fuel to keep the micro reactor going it could produce energy at an insanely high efficiency rate, with minimal waste.

e: I went back to make sure that the Gecko Poseidon reactor wasn't fusion but the wiki doesn't specify wether it was a fusion or fission reactor. I'm assuming it's a fission reactor because it was in disrepair and emitting tons of radiation without you know - burning the entire area with the power of a sun.

Gecko was clearly a fission reactor, albeit a scifi styled one with lots of nonsense in it.
In my interpretation of the world of Fallout, large scale fusion reactors didn't exist. I'll go deeper into it tonight when I have some time.

 

[CT Phipps]

Gecko was clearly a fission reactor, albeit a scifi styled one with lots of nonsense in it.
In my interpretation of the world of Fallout, large scale fusion reactors didn't exist. I'll go deeper into it tonight when I have some time.

It doesn't have to unrealistic that the United States felt that fission would cover their economic needs and didn't feel the need to build large scale fusion technology, which they probably incorporated for their power armor because of the military usage.

 

[Hassknecht]

It doesn't have to unrealistic that the United States felt that fission would cover their economic needs and didn't feel the need to build large scale fusion technology, which they probably incorporated for their power armor because of the military usage.

My take is that they had a large fission infrastructure that was relying on a dwindling supply of uranium, and the microfusion technology came too late to fix the world. Even if the technology couldn't be made larger than a backpacksized 60 kW unit, those could be potentially produced en masses and put together. But it came too late, and the rest of the world didn't have the technology, so the war for resources wasn't going to end.
Also, I imagine that somehow they couldn't figure out large scale fusion, so grid scale power supply wasn't economical yet. This would tie in with Fallout 4, where the Institute had a large scale fusion reactor prototype. If that technology had been ready by the 2050s, things could have been different, I guess.
Based on the real world principles of cold fusion, I always assumed that the microfusion technology was basically cold fusion as we know it. It's not a real thing, but experiments had been and are still being made, even though it's often a bit crank science.
Ok, so here's how fusion works: you take two lighter elements and bring the nuclei cloae enough so they form a single one, and that releases a shitload of energy, coming from nuclear binding energy. The resulting nucleus is lighter than the original nuclei, so you're turning mass into energy. Fission does that, too, but the mass defect is lower per reaction. Fission is just much easier to accomplish, because the nuclei repel each other.
So typical hot fusion just means that the fusion fuel is so hot, dense, and confined long enough that enough fusion reactions happen for net energy gain. That's hard to accomplish, because the plasma is very hot and needs to be confined by magnetic fields usually, because otherwise it would touch the reactor walls and cool down. There are other confinement methods, but magnetic confinement is the most well known besides inertial confinement. The point is that you need to bring two nuclei close together and let them have enough energy to overcome their Coulomb forces.
In the original cold fusion experiment by Fleischmann and Pons, the confinement was theorised to be a rod of palladium or platinum. The metals in this period can absorb a lot of hydrogen, and they thought that hydrogen on interlattice spots would be packed closer together than they would be normally. Throw in a current to provide energy and hydrogen into the palladium, and Heisenberg uncertainty and they thought it'd be enough to get fusion reactions within thr lattice. This would work at room temperature, basically, heating the palladium rods in the heavy water up as the fusion reactions happen.
This isn't all that high energy density, as it is limited by the low melting point of palladium, so while it'd be very cheap, it wouldn't really be easy to scale up.
However, I assume that in the world of Fallout they found a way to cram something yielding 60 kW into a backpack, so that's pretty good.

Of course, nobody on the writing team, be it classic or modern, really thought this hard about it, but nuclear fusion is kinda my thing so I like to think about it.
And as a McGuffin in the show, it's just kinda the wrong kind of handwavium. They did it kinda right in Fallout 4, but I guess they thought they had to do something different, but the handwavium doesn't quite work as well anymore.

 

[Bradylama]

I'm admittedly cheating and pulling this from the Fallout Wiki's page on nuclear fusion, but the United States DID have some industrial-scale commercial fusion reactors. None of those are working anymore, obviously, which is why it was so important for the Institute to get theirs up and running. But commercial scale nuclear fusion never fully supplanted fission as America's main power source.

 

[CT Phipps]

I'm admittedly cheating and pulling this from the Fallout Wiki's page on nuclear fusion, but the United States DID have some industrial-scale commercial fusion reactors. None of those are working anymore, obviously, which is why it was so important for the Institute to get theirs up and running. But commercial scale nuclear fusion never fully supplanted fission as America's main power source.

I feel like the most gamebreaking WEIRD thing in all of the modern Fallout games was definitely Dead Money's introduction of replication technology and other super-tech that is said to have been something that could have solved America's Resource issues had it been introduced sooner. I wonder if this is meant to be on the same lines.

"We COULD have saved America but we were too greedy to do so.'

Mind you, I'm a big promoter of environmental nuclear energy (and being from coal mining country, amusingly F76 land) so I'm biased in its favor.

 

[Bradylama]

Replicator technology wouldn't have saved America because it still requires energy to convert into matter. That's ultimately another demand on uranium, plutonium, & etc. They were coming up with all sorts of applications for fusion technology, but weren't as interested in focusing on how to bring fusion up to scale. If say, the resources and intellects of the Big Empty were focused on practical commercial applications of fusion and achieving a full transition off of fission then the Great War could have ultimately been averted. Yet these resources were wasted instead on military and civil applications, or flights of high scientific fancy that couldn't scale up industrially or have practical use without a high energy producing economy. They produced weapons and energy shields, instruments of death and containment. Advancements in the capacity for control over the American public and the world itself. American imperialism misdirected the revolutionary potential of America's best and brightest towards fascist ambitions. A capitalist system that would continue accumulating profit and power indefinitely, until it inevitably ended the world as it reached material exhaustion and the threat of social revolution.

The Enclave made the great war happen because an apocalyptic confrontation was necessary to guarantee America's security and the restoration of capitalism in a post-apocalyptic world. That was the original purpose of the vaults, and why there are still control vaults even after the Enclave conceived of the behavioral studies. A pure race of American volk would rise from the ashes and seize the world. They refused to end the war with China while they were winning and forced them to take the nuclear option.

Yet the Enclave was too alienated to achieve anything. They despised the fact that the hoi poloi survived the nukes without the need for vaults. Their world cleansing genocide was incomplete and it was up to the President to finish the job. Ultimately it wasn't even the Enclave who restored capitalism, but the NCR. A fact they certainly despised. An incidental consequence of a vault failure producing refugees who would go on to be the core of a new national identity.

The show undoes all of that, because it turns out it wasn't American imperialism all along. It was actually a shadowy cabal of big business (bad bourgeois) corporate heads conspiring to destroy capitalism so they can live in an underground commune where they have to live austere lives of regulated consumption compared to the lifestyles they already enjoyed. All so they can run dumbass research that they could already do if they wanted to with their own facilities, without destroying the United States. It's the Protocols of the Albinoids of Babylon.

 

[CT Phipps]

Eh, speaking from a scientific perspective, the Control vaults were never meant to have any role in the rebuilding of America either. The purpose of a Control sample in any scientific experiment is to simply have them as a baseline to measure any changes in an environment. You have two frogs, one of them you leave alone and the other you inject with FEV to find out what the effects of FEV are against the original.

I imagine Vault-Tec/The Enclave considered all Vault dwellers completely expendable in their activities. Given our opening encounter with the Enclave is them murdering the entirety of a Vault's population when they open their Vault door, it's clear they don't consider the descendants of vaults to be any more human than anyone else. Which is obvious given they kidnap the Chosen One's Family and the survivors of Vault-13 in order to do their own FEV modifications.

The show undoes all of that, because it turns out it wasn't American imperialism all along. It was actually a shadowy cabal of big business (bad bourgeois) corporate heads conspiring to destroy capitalism so they can live in an underground commune where they have to live austere lives of regulated consumption compared to the lifestyles they already enjoyed. All so they can run dumbass research that they could already do if they wanted to with their own facilities, without destroying the United States. It's the Protocols of the Albinoids of Babylon.

Bluntly, this is bizarre as the link between the worship of the apocalypse and looter capitalism is not only well-documented but frankly a standard of American ideology in many places. Fundamentally, looter capitalism demands the destruction of all governments and the trigger of an apocalyptic reset because it is an ideological imperative that there cannot be any restrictions on unlimited economic growth and the accumulation of wealth.

This is a particularly American sentiment but one that ties together due to the worship of fundamentalist eschatology, Adam Smith economics, and Randian values. In a sense, the American Right economically has made a religion of their hatred of any form of government control and that only absolute freedom from government regulation can be tolerated. I mentioned "Atlas Shrugged" as the Bible of certain economic freedom absolutists and the central premise is that the destruction of traditional society is necessary.

"The Great Reset" was spoken of during the Covid-19 pandemic as there was hopes of continuing the trend to an apocalyptic event that would allow American society to be reshaped and restructed with the destruction of effectively any barriers to absolute economic rule by the individual. In the case of the television show, Vault-Tec is already the largest company on Earth and have presumably made vast amounts of wealth diversifying their investments and whatever contracts they have made with the government preparing for nuclear war.

However, the depiction of the show is one of a fundamental contempt for the IDEA of government and a desire to see it fully annihilated to continue its full transformation of a public society to a free for all pure capitalist one where the wealth of the individual trumps all other law and society. It is a reinstituion of slavery as well wirth the Vault Dwellers given as literal prizes to serve as the kingdoms of the investors involved and with the exception of Mister House, serves as an aphrodisiac to all of them.

I don't see a conflict between the Enclave and Vault-Tec because I believe the Enclave being born from this sentiment of absolute freedom in capitalist accumulation of wealth to reinstitute feudalism to be a natural outgrowth of the series themes.

Communist ideology must be destroyed by the true believers of the religion of free market economics. Democracy is a fundamental foe to this even in a corrupted and corroded system as the Pre-War America.

 

[Hassknecht]

I'm admittedly cheating and pulling this from the Fallout Wiki's page on nuclear fusion, but the United States DID have some industrial-scale commercial fusion reactors. None of those are working anymore, obviously, which is why it was so important for the Institute to get theirs up and running. But commercial scale nuclear fusion never fully supplanted fission as America's main power source.

Funny enough, the wiki also mentions that the Institute, even after 200 years of research, still considers cold fusion impossible. That is, of course, now because Vault-Tec buried the research, even when done independently on the other side of the country, to win capitalism.

The lore on nuclear power is a mess, of course, always has been. It's SCIENCE! and not science, and it's not written to appease scientists, but just as flavour to explain why some old things still have power. I just can't help it as I'm a physicist who has worked the past year in nuclear power plant engineering and is now working on laser systems for inertial confinement fusion. Nuclear power has always been a huge interest of mine, so it's a pet peeve when stuff is wrong or nonsensical. In the case of the TV show it's just a boring McGuffin. Could have just brought back the ol' GECK plot device, which tbh would have been a much better fit here than in Fallout 3. Cut out the pre-war background of Moldaver and her genius cold fusion research, and just let her be looking for a GECK to restore Shady Sands or something.

 

[CT Phipps]

Funny enough, the wiki also mentions that the Institute, even after 200 years of research, still considers cold fusion impossible. That is, of course, now because Vault-Tec buried the research, even when done independently on the other side of the country, to win capitalism

The Institute pisses me off on so many levels because it can have a very straight forward goal that makes perfect sense but they never bother articulating it.

SS: "What is your goal, Shaun?"

Father: "blah blah blah Mankind Redefined, secret plans, science discovery--"

SS: "No, seriously."

Father: "To expand safely underground indefinitely with our fusion reactor providing for our power needs and to live in luxury attended by a bunch of clone slaves."

I mean, the plan above is what's implied and it may not be sexy like Caesar's but at least it's coherent.

But as for Vault-Tec burying it, that's fine. We already know that the Big Empty had discovered Star Trek weird science that broke all; laws of physics. The Institute wasn't nearly as smart a group of people as they gave themselves credit for.

it's a pet peeve when stuff is wrong or nonsensical. In the case of the TV show it's just a boring McGuffin. Could have just brought back the ol' GECK plot device, which tbh would have been a much better fit here than in Fallout 3. Cut out the pre-war background of Moldaver and her genius cold fusion research, and just let her be looking for a GECK to restore Shady Sands or something.

Why would we want them to recycle the GECK plot for a third time?

 

[Hassknecht]

The Institute pisses me off on so many levels because it can have a very straight forward goal that makes perfect sense but they never bother articulating it.

SS: "What is your goal, Shaun?"

Father: "blah blah blah Mankind Redefined, secret plans, science discovery--"

SS: "No, seriously."

Father: "To expand underground indefinitely with our fusion reactor providing power needs and to live in luxury attended by a bunch of clone slaves."

It's also their goal to remain perpetually underground, but if they win they will continue dicking around the surface world despite not having interests there. You're also made leader of the Institute but you have zero control over what they do. You can't tell them to stop wasting energy on making perfect slaves which are obviously not perfect. The player should have the option to tell them "look, you had to create a whole department and class of synths to deal with the problem of escaping synths. Clearly these guys can easily attain full sentience, so how about you get your thumbs out of your asses and instead focus your efforts on something useful? Build a better roomba if you don't want to sweep the floors. Also stop dicking around the surface world".
And you can't tell the surface world that you're gonna put a lid on the intense retardation spread throughout the Institute. "Hey Pesto Gravy, I know it looks weird that I supported the Institute, but I'm their director now so I will get them to stop being a menace to you guys".
It's all sorts of shit.
As the Director you should be able to tell them "Hey assholes, if you wanna mess with the surface instead of holing up down here, use your braincells to build a hyperefficient decontamination machine. Like a GECK in that bad piece of fanfiction, but on steroids. Or you take your anime body pillows and go to your crusty caves and stop fucking around".

 

[CT Phipps]

It's also their goal to remain perpetually underground, but if they win they will continue dicking around the surface world despite not having interests there. You're also made leader of the Institute but you have zero control over what they do.

That seems more like a New Vegas thing. The game is over but you don't get to see how things change in your rule. Basically, you don't get to say anything about ruling the Institute because the game doesn't reflect you ruling the Institute as that's not part of the game. The game ends when you defeat the Brotherhood or Institute.

So the only thing that even hints at what's expected is Piper's article (see below)

And you can't tell the surface world that you're gonna put a lid on the intense retardation spread throughout the Institute. "Hey Pesto Gravy, I know it looks weird that I supported the Institute, but I'm their director now so I will get them to stop being a menace to you guys".

Pipe actually writes an article explaining that she expects you will do this.

Fear the Future?
By
Piper Wright

We've all succumbed to it, at one point or another. No matter how brave, or how strong we actually are, the people of the Commonwealth have known Fear.

Ever since the "Broken Mask" incident of 2229, right here in Diamond City, when the first human-looking synth infiltrated and attacked a group of innocent settlers, we have lain awake in bed at night, terrified of the Institute and everything it represents.

Long have we dreaded the possibilities: Will someone I know be taken in the night for who knows what reason? Will one of my loved ones suddenly turn on me, because they are, in fact, a synth replacement? Or will the boogeyman finally step out of the closet and devour all who stand in it way?

We, the people of the Commonwealth, remember the past. We live in terror in the present. But must we also fear the future?

In an almost unthinkable series of recent events, the Institute has destroyed anyone in the Commonwealth who could conceivably stop them, including longterm player the Railroad, as well as the newly arrived Brotherhood of Steel. What's more, the shadowy, sinister organization has completed work on an advanced nuclear reactor that will provide them with nearly unlimited power for the foreseeable future. This surely means greater underground expansion, as well as increased range of their teleporter technology (which, until recently, had been a closely-guarded Institute secret).

So what exactly does this mean for the Commonwealth, going forward?

"Nothing good" seems to be the consensus. In fact, most people assume the worst.

But isn't it possible these fears are unfounded? The Railroad may have opposed the Institute, but they also defended all synths - even those who would potentially infiltrate human society. And the Brotherhood's mighty airship may now lie a smoldering wreck - but was the neo-knightly order really interested in the Commonwealth's best interests anyway?

But perhaps the most compelling reason not to give up hope just yet is the fact that, if my sources are correct - and I know they are - the Institute is now under direct influence of someone many of us have already met - the Vault Dweller. That lonely figure who came into our settlement searching for a missing child, and clearly found something else entirely. And maybe, just maybe, the Institute is all the better for it.

So be wary as we go into a new tomorrow, my friends. But stay strong. And always, always remember that humanity lives and dies on the surface. Humanity IS the Commonwealth. And maybe, just maybe, the Institute can be a part of that now.

Mind you, they do seem to be working on decontamination experiments with their farming research. It's just incredibly stupid since they somehow made that evil.

"We need to do some farming research."

"Let's kill a guy and replace him to study farm crops versus....using any of the massive amount of unsettled land."

I hate Fallout 4's worldbuilding.

 

[Hassknecht]

That seems more like a New Vegas thing. The game is over but you don't get to see how things change in your rule. Basically, you don't get to say anything about ruling the Institute because the game doesn't reflect you ruling the Institute as that's not part of the game. The game ends when you defeat the Brotherhood or Institute.

So the only thing that even hints at what's expected is Piper's article (see below)



Pipe actually writes an article explaining that she expects you will do this.

Fear the Future?
By
Piper Wright

We've all succumbed to it, at one point or another. No matter how brave, or how strong we actually are, the people of the Commonwealth have known Fear.

Ever since the "Broken Mask" incident of 2229, right here in Diamond City, when the first human-looking synth infiltrated and attacked a group of innocent settlers, we have lain awake in bed at night, terrified of the Institute and everything it represents.

Long have we dreaded the possibilities: Will someone I know be taken in the night for who knows what reason? Will one of my loved ones suddenly turn on me, because they are, in fact, a synth replacement? Or will the boogeyman finally step out of the closet and devour all who stand in it way?

We, the people of the Commonwealth, remember the past. We live in terror in the present. But must we also fear the future?

In an almost unthinkable series of recent events, the Institute has destroyed anyone in the Commonwealth who could conceivably stop them, including longterm player the Railroad, as well as the newly arrived Brotherhood of Steel. What's more, the shadowy, sinister organization has completed work on an advanced nuclear reactor that will provide them with nearly unlimited power for the foreseeable future. This surely means greater underground expansion, as well as increased range of their teleporter technology (which, until recently, had been a closely-guarded Institute secret).

So what exactly does this mean for the Commonwealth, going forward?

"Nothing good" seems to be the consensus. In fact, most people assume the worst.

But isn't it possible these fears are unfounded? The Railroad may have opposed the Institute, but they also defended all synths - even those who would potentially infiltrate human society. And the Brotherhood's mighty airship may now lie a smoldering wreck - but was the neo-knightly order really interested in the Commonwealth's best interests anyway?

But perhaps the most compelling reason not to give up hope just yet is the fact that, if my sources are correct - and I know they are - the Institute is now under direct influence of someone many of us have already met - the Vault Dweller. That lonely figure who came into our settlement searching for a missing child, and clearly found something else entirely. And maybe, just maybe, the Institute is all the better for it.

So be wary as we go into a new tomorrow, my friends. But stay strong. And always, always remember that humanity lives and dies on the surface. Humanity IS the Commonwealth. And maybe, just maybe, the Institute can be a part of that now.

Mind you, they do seem to be working on decontamination experiments with their farming research. It's just incredibly stupid since they somehow made that evil.

"We need to do some farming research."

"Let's kill a guy and replace him to study farm crops versus....using any of the massive amount of unsettled land."

I hate Fallout 4's worldbuilding.

It's a writing problem. Pipers article is an ending slide, but if they make it playable after the end, the world should reflect your actions. Sure, have synth patrols. Make it so you open up the Institute more so that they actively help. But the thing is that you can't really change the amount of synth patrols and you can't for example let them work together with the Minutemen. Like many many things in Fallout 4, it's a missed opportunity.

 

[Hardboiled Android]

In the case of the TV show it's just a boring McGuffin. Could have just brought back the ol' GECK plot device, which tbh would have been a much better fit here than in Fallout 3. Cut out the pre-war background of Moldaver and her genius cold fusion research, and just let her be looking for a GECK to restore Shady Sands or something.

This is a really great point... I mean sure, anyone would want cold fusion tech and I suppose it would be helpful if you wanted to re-build any given society, but it's really not the narratively appropriate plot device, at all. It is as you say just a vague MacGuffin that doesn't really fit in with anything we've been shown about the circumstances of the region.

A GECK might have been too heavy handed as Phipps says, but something along those lines, something like the Miracle Wheat in Van Buren, would have made more sense.

 

[Bradylama]

Eh, speaking from a scientific perspective, the Control vaults were never meant to have any role in the rebuilding of America either. The purpose of a Control sample in any scientific experiment is to simply have them as a baseline to measure any changes in an environment. You have two frogs, one of them you leave alone and the other you inject with FEV to find out what the effects of FEV are against the original.

I imagine Vault-Tec/The Enclave considered all Vault dwellers completely expendable in their activities. Given our opening encounter with the Enclave is them murdering the entirety of a Vault's population when they open their Vault door, it's clear they don't consider the descendants of vaults to be any more human than anyone else. Which is obvious given they kidnap the Chosen One's Family and the survivors of Vault-13 in order to do their own FEV modifications.

They literally do view vault-dwellers as more human than anyone else. Vault-13 was rounded up because they needed baseline human subjects to specially target the FEV strain to kill only mutants, not understanding that Enclave members were already slightly mutated. So by their own logic the vault dwellers are the ubermensch and Enclavers the untermensch. The Enclave giving up on the plan to restore America because America was full of muties makes eminent sense and it's perfectly explained in-game.

Bluntly, this is bizarre as the link between the worship of the apocalypse and looter capitalism is not only well-documented but frankly a standard of American ideology in many places. Fundamentally, looter capitalism demands the destruction of all governments and the trigger of an apocalyptic reset because it is an ideological imperative that there cannot be any restrictions on unlimited economic growth and the accumulation of wealth.

"Looter capitalism" isn't a thing. Are you thinking of disaster capitalism? "Disaster capitalism" doesn't demand the destruction of "all governments" or an apocalyptic reset - because an apocalyptic reset makes it impossible to profit - which is the point of disaster capitalism. You go into someone else's country, make a mess of everything, then rake in lucrative contracts "rebuilding" all the shit you broke. Doesn't even matter if anything gets rebuilt because the point is to create a politically expedient way to funnel government funds into the hands of private contractors. The Enclave was annihilationist because they were racist and anticommunist.

In the show "anticommunism" isn't real because communism isn't real either. It's just a slur for sane liberals. A stand-in for "America's adversaries." It's the War on Terror reinterpreted by morons.

However, the depiction of the show is one of a fundamental contempt for the IDEA of government and a desire to see it fully annihilated to continue its full transformation of a public society to a free for all pure capitalist one where the wealth of the individual trumps all other law and society. It is a reinstituion of slavery as well wirth the Vault Dwellers given as literal prizes to serve as the kingdoms of the investors involved and with the exception of Mister House, serves as an aphrodisiac to all of them.

I don't see a conflict between the Enclave and Vault-Tec because I believe the Enclave being born from this sentiment of absolute freedom in capitalist accumulation of wealth to reinstitute feudalism to be a natural outgrowth of the series themes.

Look, you're contradicting yourself with your own words. It's antithetical to the interests of capital to restore feudalism, because feudalism requires a level of social contract and noble privilege which directly places a ceiling over the amount of power that the bourgeois can accrue to themselves. It's why the Glorious Revolution happened, it's why the American Revolution happened, and it's why the French Revolution happened.

When all those companies blow up the world and move into the vaults, not only are they wiping out all of the wealth they already possess - there is no "profit" to be gained within the vaults. They're closed systems meant to support an isolated population long term. And when they come out of the vaults there's not going to be any "capitalism" either because for "capital" to exist there must first be laws and private property, which requires a powerful and complex state to maintain. Even markets require the intervention of authorities to exist since arbitration of disputes is a necessity for realizing enough trust in the market to engage with it in the first place. When they come out of those vaults it'd be a long uphill battle just to grow the population up large enough for a city-state. You'd have to go through every historical stage of development to meet the material conditions of the post-apocalypse before the conditions for capital to exist are achieved. The NCR bounced back from the ashes as quickly as it did because there was already a significant population of survivors who had formed their own communities for Shady Sands to integrate into the NCR's framework.

So none of the conspirators would be able to actually "enjoy" the fruits of their labor. Not unless they kept themselves in cold storage until "capitalism" is back - which is an idiotic way to plan for the future and we can see in the show that Vault-Tec didn't plan to control for survivors on the surface at all.

 

[Hardboiled Android]

So none of the conspirators would be able to actually "enjoy" the fruits of their labor. Not unless they kept themselves in cold storage until "capitalism" is back - which is an idiotic way to plan for the future and we can see in the show that Vault-Tec didn't plan to control for survivors on the surface at all.

All good points, just want to add: Ironic that Vault-Tec blew up the only society that was actually building a capitalism that they could have inserted themselves into and leveraged their knowledge of historical development to get on top of. Unless the Stockmens' Association was a front for Vault-Tec all along...

Thinking about my last comment, I am actually conceptually starting to like the idea of a schizophrenic Puppet Master Vault-Tec, an alien organization assembling capitalism from the future (*obviously the show didn't do anything that off the wall or interesting)

 

[Bradylama]

All good points, just want to add: Ironic that Vault-Tec blew up the only society that was actually building a capitalism that they could have inserted themselves into and leveraged their knowledge of historical development to get on top of. Unless the Stockmens' Association was a front for Vault-Tec all along...

Thinking about my last comment, I am actually conceptually starting to like the idea of a schizophrenic Puppet Master Vault-Tec, an alien organization assembling capitalism from the future (*obviously the show didn't do anything that off the wall or interesting)

Yeah that's an excellent point. There's nothing actually stopping the Enclave from inserting themselves as financiers and re-forming a new Enclave to control the NCR. Nothing except their herrenvolk ideology.

In the show Vault-Tec thinks common people are literally too stupid to survive, which is why Bud dismisses Leon's objection with "time." But they're also so confident in that assumption they don't even monitor any of the other vaults or the surface in 31 to make sure everything is going according to plan. The Enclave had a gameplan that makes sense in its own terms, while Vault-Tec is conveniently stupid so the plot can happen.

 

[PaxVenire]

Thinking about my last comment, I am actually conceptually starting to like the idea of a schizophrenic Puppet Master Vault-Tec, an alien organization assembling capitalism from the future (*obviously the show didn't do anything that off the wall or interesting)

I was thinking along these lines the other day but with the Enclave. I’d rather they have inserted themselves into the fledgling NCR and puppeteered them like Hydra in Marvel comics in an effort to drive economy to head to the stars rather than the Saturday morning cartoon plan of just genociding the Earth in Fallout 2.