Bradylama
So Old I'm Losing Radiation Signs
It's not any more "Saturday Morning Cartoon" than the Nazis themselves, which is the point.
So what do people think of the characters?
- Thread starter CT Phipps
- Start date
So Old I'm Losing Radiation Signs
PaxVenire
Wasteland Peacemaker
I guess so, but Fallout 1 already had the master race angle going for it, I’d have preferred if the Enclave were more subtle with their plans.
Bradylama
So Old I'm Losing Radiation Signs
Fallout 1 is more nuanced than that. The Master's ideology is fundamentally fascist, not Nazi. The ultimate goal of Fascism is to seek national superiority so you can transform the world along the national idea. Italian fascists expressed this through the notion that they would turn Libyans and Ethiopians into proper Italians even while they were gassing them. The Master's Unity would incorporate everyone in the wasteland into the Master's vision, without discrimination. The Enclave is more explicitly Nazi but re-framed though an American lens.
Hardboiled Android
Vault Fossil
Eh, would be fine for the Enclave, but I sort of like keeping the Enclave (at least in Fallout 2) as the IDEOLOGICAL fragment of the old United States, just a deranged and completely alienated kernel of the Old World. It could be interesting to hand the ECONOMIC side to a different group, and who better than Vault-Tec?
Fossils of capital deep beneath the earth, remnants of a supreme geologic trauma, an entirely craven and inhuman rent-seeking intelligence bubbling up to the surface like the oil of Northwestern Pennsylvania that Rockefeller tapped, no idea what he was actually unleashing on the world... three centuries hence, an enterprising Daniel Plainview-type in the Boneyard is running a salvaging company, excavating the skeleton of the Boneyard, cracking it open and selling its meagre marrow to the parasitic industrial-carrion complex of the new California. He finds something, something that shouldn't be there. What's more: It speaks to him...
I like this concept, but in spite of it I'd still probably prefer not to have Vault-Tec be a major player in a Fallout story for the reasons discussed here. Instead, as you say, I think I would in the end agree with you that that role should be played by the Enclave, though not in Fallout 2; rather it ought be after the Oil Rig's destruction, ENclave personnel managing to insert themselves into NCR society and, unlike the remnants hanging out on the Mojave frontier, growing to be quite influential, conspiring with each-other, but not really strongly motivated by the Enclave's ideology anymore beyond what parts they've sublimated into their unconscious. Less like comic-book Hydra, more like what actually happened to a lot of fascists and Nazis after World War II.
OK, OK, I'll compromise a little further on what I just said: I think it would have been fine if, in Fallout 2, the Enclave had more dealings with the outside world, manipulating things to their advantage, though their goal still should have been total liquidation of mainlanders. I absolutely love the Enclave-Salvatore connection, I think it's so conceptually cool, more stuff like that would have been great.
PaxVenire
Wasteland Peacemaker
Vault-Tec as a villain is fine, and would make sense if given a fleshed out reason I don’t deny that. But I like the idea of post-war corporations taking Vault-Tec’s place which New Vegas seems to show us companies like Crimson Caravan is on track to do. If we’re talking about foreign insertion, I would have even settled for Enclave remnants being Paperclipped into the NCR after Fallout 2 and continuing their goals under their noses. For the longest time I thought Hildern was just that.
Hardboiled Android
Vault Fossil
Yeah, it would make things kind of fuzzy since it could be read as abdicating any responsibility of Wastelanders in repeating history. I don't think it has to be read that way, but it's the most apparent one and would take some real wowee writing to thread the needle of having this malign influence accelerating the process while still having it be an "organic" outcome which the wastelanders are responsible for.
Still my personal headcanon about Hildern, though probably not the writers' intent.
TheGM
The voice of reason
Reminder Big Mt invented Mater Replicators. You might have forgotten, the writers clearly never knew, but not I. NOT. I.
PaxVenire
Wasteland Peacemaker
Same here, it just lines up perfectly, Arcade even spiels to you about him if he's in your party when you take the Vault 22 gig.
CT Phipps
Carbon Dated and Proud
To be fair, the Enclave of Fallout 2 is something I feel was always meant to be something of a joke faction. They're like the nazis in that they're RIDICULOUS despite being incredibly dangerous. They claim to be the United States government but they're just a bunch of tribals on a Super Oil Rig with no territory beyond.
They're delusional about their importance as the world has long since moved on.
Making them a pan-US faction kind of misses the point that they're nothing but delusional nutjobs and gives credence to their silly claims.
They're delusional about their importance as the world has long since moved on.
Making them a pan-US faction kind of misses the point that they're nothing but delusional nutjobs and gives credence to their silly claims.
Hardboiled Android
Vault Fossil
I don't think anyone was really suggesting that in this exchange, were they? Or maybe I don't understand what you mean.
CT Phipps
Carbon Dated and Proud
I know it sounds crazy but sometimes I don't argue with the group but agree or just make non-controversial commentary.
In this case, that the Enclave probably shouldn't been made into this giant faction.
Hardboiled Android
Vault Fossil
Fair enough, starting it with "To be fair" suggested that you were either taking issue with something or at least saying something in regards to something that had been said already.
CT Phipps
Carbon Dated and Proud
My bad.
CT Phipps
Carbon Dated and Proud
I mean they're going to exterminate all Vault dwellers too. As we see with the opening and their other activities, they have no intention of allowing any Non-Enclave life to survive. Their ideology is like so much Confederate apologia in that it starts with the desired goal ("were the best, everyone else sucks") and finds reasons to justify that.
Looter capitalism is essentially the form of capitalism that has no sustainable growth model but complete unregulated pillaging of existing functional corporations and economies to sustain itself. IT is a perjorative but designed to be the dumbest and most "grabby" form of international and economic relations. It's less of an actual function than an ideology that exists on Zero Sum Games and constant expansionism.
I mean, that kind of runs head first into the reality of the Red Scare doesn't it? Hoover and McCarthy weren't going after real communists. McCarthy's list of Red Infiltrators were found by the FBI not him and the use of communism was an attempt to wage a culture war and power struggle not actually eliminate elements sympathetic to the Soviet Union. When Hoover went after black activists and Native Americans, it wasn't due to them working for Stalin or Krushchev.
You're getting a little too literal but fair enough, here I'm referring to a restoration of ownership of the public by the land owning economic ruling class--so oligarchy is correct even if it lacks the same level of punch of all wealth concentrated in one place. This would be closest to Ancient Rome's relationship in the final days of the Western Empire where the massive amount of slavery had effectively destroyed all economy save for the owners, leaving the citizenry starving.
The ancestry of feudalism really.0
Well the Vaults are not actually the refuges, the Vaults are the property. They are the currency that Vault-Tec is selling the oligarchy of the Pre-War World (Pre-Enclave?) in preparation for the nuclear apocalypse. They won't be living in the Vaults but living in their own refuges like New Vegas or the Sierra Madre. This seems to be a distcintion existing in-universe too as Mrs. Cooper says, "The Good Vaults."
Vault-Tec's plan clearly doesn't go off without a hitch as it's 200 years later and the Wasteland surface is covered in nations not ruled by them but the goal is essentially a Biblical one (though not just the Bible has a similar story): to provide an ark that provides absolute dominion over the Earth to its survivors.
When the nuclear war has washed away all of the rival businesses, communists, and governments then the new coporate elite will move to secure all the world's resources for themselves. They will then dictate terms to the survivors (who are expected to all be their property) and have all remaining global wealth.
If your worldview is all of the public are parasites but utterly obedient workers, this makes sense.
Is this a criticism or something the show is deeply aware of? The Vaults from Fallout 1 to Fallout 76 have all been full of absolute disasters and we see Vault 4 reinforce that the plans that they had for rebuilding society ended in total loss of life for Vault-Tec employees. Which is to say that Vautl-Tec's plan was to rebuild the world with their experiments but all of their experiments were fucking shit shows.
I mean, if Sinclair hadn't fucked up the Sierra Madre by cutting corners and selling experiments on his residents, the Sierra Madre would have been a fucking awesome place to stay out the apocalypse.
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Bradylama
So Old I'm Losing Radiation Signs
The Enclave are nothing like tribals, that's part of why they're so racist in the first place. They got to maintain their bourgeois lifestyles on a seasteaded oil rig. In a cultural sense they're the most civilized people in the world. You really don't understand the Enclave at all.
I'm not gonna block quote your other post so I'll just run down all your points ok:
1. You're doing headcanon again. The Enclave aren't wiping out all the vaulters with their FEV strain because there are still vaults out there that haven't been opened. That's why they knew they could get the prime normal samples they needed from Vault 13. If they wanted to wipe out all the vaulters they could have done it themselves the hard way and taken every resource the vaults had to offer. They have the capability to crack open all the vaults like they did with 13.
2. There is no "sustainable growth model" under any form of capitalism. That's the essential contradiction of the accumulation drive and part of why there's a tendency for the rate of profit to fall. The more we grow the more diminishing returns we get. It's fated for systemic collapse. You say it's not an actual function but an ideology, and if that's the case then it's all abstract and not a real political economy. Did you just make this up yourself? Be honest.
3. No it does not run head first into the reality of the Red Scare. What was ridiculous about the Red Scare was the idea that communists needed to be feared in the first place, not that communists weren't real or that there weren't communists in Hollywood and the government. The Red Scare was the bourgeois reflexively defending itself from even the possibility of critical rhetoric. McCarthy effectively wanted to control what people think and say in the name of freedom and democracy. A lot like what's happening right now on campuses across the United States. You believe in the same self-serving liberal mythology that the showrunners do.
4. I don't know what to say about this other than that you're clearly reaching for straws. The history and ideology makes no sense. None of this logically follows. Earlier you said that the vault dwellers are like slaves, but they're not. Slaves don't share the same bounties as their masters. The executive-assistants do not profit from the labor of the vaulters, and they themselves labor to perpetuate the vaults. The vaults being a managed democracy and a secret dictatorship of middle-managers is a completely different matter.
5. the other conspirators don't need the vaults, and they wouldn't want them because the price for living in an underground commune is blowing up the world and all their things. All so they can play God in Plato's Cave. It's dumb as fuck.
6. The show isn't aware of anything, and apparently neither are you. Vault 8 was the control vault that founded Vault City. Just as ONE example. Why the fuck would Vault-Tec hatch a scheme to make sure that they were the only ones to rise from the ashes, if there were control vaults that didn't have Bud's Buds inserted? Vault 31 isn't even in contact with them, or else Bud would have heard from Vault City about the NCR and everything else that happened in the wasteland. It's not adding up, and even the headcanon you're conjuring up doesn't add up. Just accept that it's bad writing and they didn't care about the lore.
7. Yes, which is why Sinclair doesn't have any incentive to go along with the conspiracy. He already was constructing his own fortress of solitude as a love letter to Vera. We also know how he died so apparently he didn't care enough for the vaults to give up on the Sierra Madre. Practically speaking New Vegas never happened.
CT Phipps
Carbon Dated and Proud
Except the Enclave's culture is ridiculous. They have a guy pretending to the President of the United States and cosplaying as American government and pretending they have any credibility as actual representatives of a culture that died centuries ago. They're no different than the Gippers from Wasteland or Kings. They are a cargo cult of guys wearing passed down suits and pretending to ancient authority.
Like the Brotherhood of Steel, they have technology but are no less silly than the other weirdos of the Wasteland.
You're ignoring the game and forwarding your own theories. The Enclave destroy every Vault they encounter in-game. They destroy the one in the opening, they destroy Vault 13, and they destroy the Deathclaw Vault. You have yet to describe any Vault they have NOT destroyed and that's because they don't exist. You are attributing to them qualities they never display in the game remotely.
This is very much a telling revelation of your opinion on capitalism. Essentially unregulated and non-renewable resources lead to a collapse of capitalist systems and that ideology is self-defeating. I admit to being a Elizabeth Warren-esque capitalist in my belief the promotion of regulated trade and creation of wealth as well as its distribution is the necessary component of sustainable capitalism.
(And yes, I'd love a better alternative as an anarchist but we play the hand we're dealt)
This is an absurd caricature of actual culture in the United States and dismissal of the hysteria. It doesn't matter if the United States had any reason to be afraid of communists or not, the people persecuted WERE NOT communists. It's like saying, "Satanists shouldn't be persecuted, they have every right to their religion" when discussing Dungeons and Dragons. Fine or not, but it has shit all to do with the actual Satanic Panic. The Left in America was slandered as communists as the communist influence in America was dead in the United States by the end of WW2.
Neither do Vaulters. The Vaulters are subjects for the experiments of their owners and will either die or be valuable data. They are never meant to inherit the world and you can see in how the Enclave treats them. They're vermin to the people that consider themselves the TRUE inheritors of the Wasteland. In the original Fallout Bible, the Enclave would colonize other planets and the Vaulters would never see any benefit from their experimentation but in the revised version, they are still being tested to provide the product enough to know how to resettle Earth for the oligarchy.
Basically, Mrs. Cooper insists that the Vaults are cons for most of the residents and only a select few are truly being protected.
The world has a pretty big chance of being nuked either way, making sure it is means they control what happens to the world and aren't wasting their investment. There's nothing the oligarchy likes more than a sure thing after all.
Bud's Buds aren't the Illuminati. They're a bunch of middle managers that Bud saved from the apocalypse and aren't his secret master plan--the executives are elsewhere. He just protected his employees and oddly showed himself to be the most humane of Vault-Tec's executives.
The Enclave (or oligarchy assuming you don't see a difference) is the group that was meant to inherit the Earth. Also, Shady Sands was settled by Vault Dwellers. It wouldn't be one of the examples of a Wasteand power rising from the land but a Vault that had done so.
Except, the thing is that they were never meant to resettle the Earth. So NCR isn't something they want taking over.
I feel like you are missing this is a re-contextualizing of New Vegas versus a retcon. TV Sinclaire and House do the things they do because they get a heads up that the war is inevitable and presumably access to the technology as well as resources to make their refugees from the apocalypse.
Which is to say the Sierre Madre and New Vegas represent what House and Sinclair would consider the plans for surviving the apocalypse versus the Vailts, which are just experiment fodder.
It gives us an idea of what the super wealthy are planning for themselves.
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Bradylama
So Old I'm Losing Radiation Signs
No they're not pretending or cosplaying, the President of the Enclave and the President of the United States are literally the same office. There's a direct line of descent from pre-war presidents to Dick Richardson and John Henry Eden. I don't even know what to think with you, you throw out words and phrases that you don't understand. They're not like the Gippers or the Kings, they're not a "cargo cult" they're the continuation of the United States Government as it was constituted by the Enclave. The vault the Enclave destroys at the beginning of the game in the intro, IS Vault 13. They'd also, of course, wipe out the Deathclaws because they're mutant animals, not human beings! I don't understand how you can get straightforward facts wrong like this and extrapolate all these assumptions off of them.
This is why nobody can take anarchism seriously. What do you mean you're an "Elizabeth Warren-esque capitalist?" Regulated trade and creation of wealth? That's not going to stop capitalist systems collapse. It's inexorable, like entropy. Renewable sources of energy are not a solution for material demands, and the Earth only has so much material capacity to support various forms of culture and population. It's impossible to grow forever within a closed system.
NO IT WAS NOT! YOU'RE WRONG ON ALL COUNTS! THE COMMUNIST PARTY WAS STILL GOING STRONG BECAUSE OF THE ALLIED COLLABORATION WITH THE SOVIET UNION! YOU'RE SO FUCKING FULL OF SHIT IT'S INFURIATING! Even if the US communist party was defunct by the 60s because of how it had been persecuted, communists persisted being a significant element of American politics until they were finally fully repressed by the 80s. People falsely accused of communism does not mean there were no communists. You're missing the forest for the trees and doubling down on liberal ignorance. You're acting like the premise of McCarthyism was just and that it would've been fine if only actual unambiguous communists were persecuted. Is that it?
The Vaulters are literally members of the Enclave's volk. According to themselves. Do you understand that? Do you understand why Vault-Tec's plan doesn't work if the control vaults exist? The Enclave thinks that only people who went through the crucible of the Great War are mutated. They don't understand that they've been exposed to atmospheric FEV. They'd make the same assumption of vaulters who resettled on the surface, like the residents of Vault City. Who basically share the Enclave's ideology almost line for line, they're just not cut into the franchise yet.
It's not their investment, it's the government's investment. The government paid for the vaults, and the experiments are being run without the need for a Great War. It's completely unnecessary to start it.
That is exactly what they are. Everything else you posted is a tautology. You're literally throwing my previous statements back at me as if that contradicts what I said. And you think Bud is humane? Bud? Really? The guy who let the T-45 roll out despite being aware of a critical manufacturing flaw that they never fixed, and the guy who masterminded an actionable plan for triggering the apocalypse. What is wrong with you?
No, this is headcanon again. You made it up in your head. They don't get any kind of heads up that war is inevitable, House's whole objection to the vaults is that there was no guarantee a war would happen (which is completely fucking stupid and not the actual problem with the conspiracy), and the conspirators were pitched on making it happen so the vaults could pay off for them. Vaults which they didn't build themselves and which there is no guarantee of Vault-Tec not reneging on.
Come the fuck on, dude, you can't keep acting like any of this makes a single goddamned bit of sense.
This is why nobody can take anarchism seriously. What do you mean you're an "Elizabeth Warren-esque capitalist?" Regulated trade and creation of wealth? That's not going to stop capitalist systems collapse. It's inexorable, like entropy. Renewable sources of energy are not a solution for material demands, and the Earth only has so much material capacity to support various forms of culture and population. It's impossible to grow forever within a closed system.
NO IT WAS NOT! YOU'RE WRONG ON ALL COUNTS! THE COMMUNIST PARTY WAS STILL GOING STRONG BECAUSE OF THE ALLIED COLLABORATION WITH THE SOVIET UNION! YOU'RE SO FUCKING FULL OF SHIT IT'S INFURIATING! Even if the US communist party was defunct by the 60s because of how it had been persecuted, communists persisted being a significant element of American politics until they were finally fully repressed by the 80s. People falsely accused of communism does not mean there were no communists. You're missing the forest for the trees and doubling down on liberal ignorance. You're acting like the premise of McCarthyism was just and that it would've been fine if only actual unambiguous communists were persecuted. Is that it?
The Vaulters are literally members of the Enclave's volk. According to themselves. Do you understand that? Do you understand why Vault-Tec's plan doesn't work if the control vaults exist? The Enclave thinks that only people who went through the crucible of the Great War are mutated. They don't understand that they've been exposed to atmospheric FEV. They'd make the same assumption of vaulters who resettled on the surface, like the residents of Vault City. Who basically share the Enclave's ideology almost line for line, they're just not cut into the franchise yet.
It's not their investment, it's the government's investment. The government paid for the vaults, and the experiments are being run without the need for a Great War. It's completely unnecessary to start it.
That is exactly what they are. Everything else you posted is a tautology. You're literally throwing my previous statements back at me as if that contradicts what I said. And you think Bud is humane? Bud? Really? The guy who let the T-45 roll out despite being aware of a critical manufacturing flaw that they never fixed, and the guy who masterminded an actionable plan for triggering the apocalypse. What is wrong with you?
No, this is headcanon again. You made it up in your head. They don't get any kind of heads up that war is inevitable, House's whole objection to the vaults is that there was no guarantee a war would happen (which is completely fucking stupid and not the actual problem with the conspiracy), and the conspirators were pitched on making it happen so the vaults could pay off for them. Vaults which they didn't build themselves and which there is no guarantee of Vault-Tec not reneging on.
Come the fuck on, dude, you can't keep acting like any of this makes a single goddamned bit of sense.
Bradylama
So Old I'm Losing Radiation Signs
I just can't stand it when people make shit up about history just for the sheer sophistry of it. Reality is not a canvas for your fanon.
CT Phipps
Carbon Dated and Proud
They're not a continuation of the United States government since there's no elections, voting, or acting of the United States. They're a bunch of people on a fucking oil rig pretending that their titles have any meaning a century after the annihilation of their country.The ridiculousness of the Enclave's claims are part of Fallout's satire.
Yes, this is basically where the issues and we break. The difference between communist, looter capitalism, and sustainable capitalism is the belief that capitalism's benefit is not a zero sum division of wealth but that resources can be created with capitalism and to enlarge the amount shared by all.
And you're right, no one takes anarchism seriously at all. Yet it remains my ethical and philosophical system of choice.
Eh, it's a bit more complicated than that with the role of "Premature Anti-Fascist" being something that was created for the purposes of legitimizing communist support. But the issue of America's communist parties were that they sort of fucked themselves over during the New Deal period. Basically, taking orders from the Soviet Union during this period, they ended up making a number of mistakes that enormously hurt their role in society.
1. Their opposition to the New Deal: Essentially, they made the assumption that New Deal was to reform capitalism and would cause a communist takeover of America to be more difficult. As such, there was a massive split in the party. Roosevelt was regularly attacked as akin to Mussolini due to his use of the government to boost the flagging capitalist economy and since he was the most popular President in history, that really screwed them.
2. Race issues in America: The Communist party had made significant inroads in America by focusing on racial tolerance and civil rights but they proceeded to alienate a lot of those people with their policies regarding Nazi Germany that changed based on the brief Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. pact and whether America should engage in non-belligerence or support war. The American Communist Party had included a massive number of people who'd joined in opposition to fascism and had support from Spanish Civil War supporters too. So, they just left.
I recommend you check out, "A Radical Response to Roosevelt."
3. The communist party in America had numerous purges done internally due to the attempt by the Soviets to enforce orthodoxy. Earl Browder's allegiance to the Soviet Union got him expelled and he was essentially holding it up in America by sheer force of will. The attempt by the US communists to reaffirm their independence and loyalty to the USA just drove away his former followers.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earl_Browder (particularly the Molotov pact section)
https://www.jstor.org/stable/27547633
Do you know what "Control" means in a scientific experiment?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_control
They exist solely to serve as a baseline for the experiment.
But yes, the Enclave's ideology is nonsense and you can point that out to Dick.
Vault-Tec is also renting out spaces to the upper middle class as part of their efforts. Either way, if the government stops buying or funding the Vaults, Vault-Tec is screwed. They have prepared for nuclear war heavily and are continuing to leverage their assets to prepare for it and all of that will go to waste if they don't have a nuclear war.
Letting out badly done military hardware is a thing humans do in the real world all the damn time. See the Osprey, inspiration for the Vertibird.
It's a hypothetical that nuclear war may not happen. A hypothetical that House proposes.
Vault-Tec simply points out in that situation, they can and would drop the bombs themselves to do a controlled crash.
Traeger91
Still Mildly Glowing
I always wished there was a way to "join" the Enclave, the same way you can "join" the Master's army in the first game. At least as an optional ending.
Edit: Christ almighty these walls
Edit: Christ almighty these walls
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