So what do people think of the characters?

Traeger91 said:
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.
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There's a good argument that video games have so many baddies who want to wipe out the world because they want to create enemies who no one would want to join.

But I actually watched a Low Intelligence playthrough that had a compelling reason why his character joined the Master.

"Wow, everyone treats me like complete shit. The Master has some dumbasses but at least they're recognized as heroes. I'm going to fuck over my Vault. Screw those guys."

Good RP.
 
CT Phipps said:
There's a good argument that video games have so many baddies who want to wipe out the world because they want to create enemies who no one would want to join.

But I actually watched a Low Intelligence playthrough that had a compelling reason why his character joined the Master.

"Wow, everyone treats me like complete shit. The Master has some dumbasses but at least they're recognized as heroes. I'm going to fuck over my Vault. Screw those guys."

Good RP.
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I don't even mean for Role Playing reasons; more as an optional "bad ending", where you think you've joined but end up getting knocked out and wake up in front of a firing line.
 
Not relevant to the preceding conversation, justing musing on general Enclave 'vibes': While I think 2nd Gen Super Mutants were poorly executed on several levels, I have always loved the idea of the Enclave excavating Mariposa, a big dig archaeological dig out in the desert. It's very "Raiders of the Lost Ark". It would have been cool if instead of arriving there well after the Super Mutants had rebelled, the player arrived on the day that the rebellion happened and could see it transpire.
 
It's kinda pointless to think too hard about all the politics in the show, because the writers certainly didn't, either.
 
IMO the writers not understanding politics, history, or philosophy is what makes it so fascinating in the first place, and why I feel compelled to write a thesis on it. They made a show where liberal eugenicists are the bad guys, but also ghouls are a race of zombies now and 2 months of ghoul sentience translates to an entire human body's worth of organs. It's as if the show thinks the problem with eugenics is when it's carried out without consent, and it performs post-racism but does the most racist thing in the world by turning ghouls into an actual boogeyman - which is an ironic reflection of how super mutants in the Bethesda games are all submental orcs who eat raw organs and live in squalor.

I'm not going to respond to CT because he can bake up anything based on nothing and this conversation will just go around in the same tautological circles over and over again. Just have to let some people have the last word sometimes.
 
Thing is, though, the show doesn't think that, it's just you thinking way too hard about a show that is the equivalent of dangling keys for Fallout 3 and 4 fans :D
But I know what you mean, as I said before I also think way too hard about the scientific aspects because that's just what I do.
 
Hassknecht said:
Thing is, though, the show doesn't think that, it's just you thinking way too hard about a show that is the equivalent of dangling keys for Fallout 3 and 4 fans :D
But I know what you mean, as I said before I also think way too hard about the scientific aspects because that's just what I do.
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I wouldn't be thinking about this at all if it weren't for arguing with strangers and realizing that they all accept as given everything the show presents to them. Like the idea that the Vault-Tec conspiracy was about profits even though none of the conspirators express any anxiety about their profitability and blowing up the world is the biggest profit loss proposal you could possibly conceive. There's a fundamental misunderstanding of the ideologies depicted even from people who nominally believe in them, and I think that mindset is exemplified by the show.
 
Bradylama said:
I wouldn't be thinking about this at all if it weren't for arguing with strangers and realizing that they all accept as given everything the show presents to them. Like the idea that the Vault-Tec conspiracy was about profits even though none of the conspirators express any anxiety about their profitability and blowing up the world is the biggest profit loss proposal you could possibly conceive. There's a fundamental misunderstanding of the ideologies depicted even from people who nominally believe in them, and I think that mindset is exemplified by the show.
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I feel the problem you're running into is the fact that they're not accepting it unquestionably, they note that they have looked at their leaders and decided, "Yes, they're the kind of people who would do that."

It works as satire on the complete disregard for the environment, fundamentalist lack of fear of the apocalypse, and utter nonsensical care toward self-destructive policies over the long term.

Your arguments fail to persuade others that believe, "Yes, we think corporate bigwigs are that fucking insane and/or stupid."
 
Bradylama said:
I wouldn't be thinking about this at all if it weren't for arguing with strangers and realizing that they all accept as given everything the show presents to them. Like the idea that the Vault-Tec conspiracy was about profits even though none of the conspirators express any anxiety about their profitability and blowing up the world is the biggest profit loss proposal you could possibly conceive. There's a fundamental misunderstanding of the ideologies depicted even from people who nominally believe in them, and I think that mindset is exemplified by the show.
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I mean, they nearly literally say that they're worried about their profits, and that they quite literally want to win capitalism.
And that's all the writers wanted to do, too, they certainly didn't go around in their writing meetings going all political theory on it. They're writers, that's even dumber than the average philosopher, and only marginally above journalists and lawyers.
 
At what point is a writer being stupid versus a writer writing stupid characters?

Because you need stupid self-absorbed characters to believe nuking the world is a rationale choice of action
 
Hassknecht said:
I mean, they nearly literally say that they're worried about their profits, and that they quite literally want to win capitalism.
And that's all the writers wanted to do, too, they certainly didn't go around in their writing meetings going all political theory on it. They're writers, that's even dumber than the average philosopher, and only marginally above journalists and lawyers.
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I've gone over the conspiracy line by line and they "literally" don't say anything about profit. "Profit" or "Profits" doesn't come up a single time. House says he wants to know how they're going to get results on investing in a hypothetical, but again that's not a profit motive. Barb says that the objective is to realize a "true monopoly" but achieving it means 200-500 years of stasis and decline. Basically pitching them on killing themselves so future generations (or unfrozen Vault Tec executives) can start over from scratch based on their gameplan.

In the showrunner's perspective "winning the game of capitalism" doesn't mean exploiting your advantages to secure your position in the market and maximize profit, winning capitalism is like winning a 4x game where your company is the only one left on the map.
 
Bradylama said:
I've gone over the conspiracy line by line and they "literally" don't say anything about profit. "Profit" or "Profits" doesn't come up a single time. House says he wants to know how they're going to get results on investing in a hypothetical, but again that's not a profit motive. Barb says that the objective is to realize a "true monopoly" but achieving it means 200-500 years of stasis and decline. Basically pitching them on killing themselves so future generations (or unfrozen Vault Tec executives) can start over from scratch based on their gameplan.

In the showrunner's perspective "winning the game of capitalism" doesn't mean exploiting your advantages to secure your position in the market and maximize profit, winning capitalism is like winning a 4x game where your company is the only one left on the map.
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Winning capitalism is exterminating all other powers and controlling the ashes.

Pretty typical fascist/imperialist mindset.
 
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CT Phipps said:
Winning capitalism is exterminating all other powers and controlling the ashes.

Pretty typical fascist/imperialist mindset.
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The neoliberal project is not about "exterminating" other powers but incorporating them into the franchise of the international bourgeois, so their markets can be open to exploitation by your own national bourgeois. It's losing capitalism to engage in self-destructive imperial contests where you waste labor, resources, and energy on military efforts that actively destroy economies and massacre laborers. We're only backsliding towards vulgar imperialism again because the markets opened up by the fall of the Warsaw Pact have given up almost everything of value already, so now all that's left is to pick apart the remains. It makes sense for a nation-state to seek world domination because national chauvinism is compelled to assert the nation's apparent superiority over everyone else. It makes no sense for a corporation to do it, because all corporations care about are their fiduciary incentives.

Why try to rule the whole world when you're already part of the world's ruling class? Boredom? The Enclave had a genocidal ideology because it was a representation of all stakeholders in the US government, with their own national idea and vision for the future. It was a patriotic deep state invested into the office of the president who thought America had failed them, the same way Hitler thought the Germans failed him. A boardroom of corporate suits only has vision for quarterly returns.
 
The link between nationalist imperialism and corporate policy is something that requires a strange view of capitalism to exist in as corporations routinely exist as extension of the hegemony of nation-states even when such activities are contradictory to the larger national interests. I live in Appalachia and our local mythology is of coal mines repeatedly destroying themselves insisting on maintaining their power over the working class and destroying all potential rival businesses even when it would be more profitable in the long term for its efforts.

I suppose it's a regional thing as the churches, local governments, and corporations (coal, tobacco, and oil-- are all based around exploitation of natural resources) are all heavily intertwined that they share a fundamental ideology. Which is to say that Marxist theory requires the corporate overlords to be purely self-interested materialists as well when plenty will devote vast amounts of their resources to maintaining a heirarchy of racism and culture for reasons beyond.

But I'll be honest, the show's biggest failure is that it massively downplays the role of the government in what I assume is a deliberate attempt to be more marketable. Hence why there's no mention of China (Amazon Prime is available in China) and the US government is seemingly given a pass despite its reactionary leadership being behind it.

Which is to say I don't disagree the show is cowardly and misrepresenting the Fallout world.

Why try to rule the whole world when you're already part of the world's ruling class? Boredom? The Enclave had a genocidal ideology because it was a representation of all stakeholders in the US government, with their own national idea and vision for the future. It was a patriotic deep state invested into the office of the president who thought America had failed them, the same way Hitler thought the Germans failed him. A boardroom of corporate suits only has vision for quarterly returns.
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You're the one who pointed out the nature of the capitalist system is continuous expansion until it explodes. There is no stopping the running up the stair case as there's no "end state" where "enough is enough." In the case of the board room, they have to continue working to expansion of their stakes and resources. Vault-Tec is formulating an alliance of people to survive the apocalypse and maintain their position post-War.

I take the way it goes like this:

1. There's a 90% chance of a nuclear war

2. All of the people here have been invited to prepare for that at significant financial risk but guaranteeing their survival and the survival of their position post-war as the new/old ruling class.

3. One asks, "what happens if it doesn't happen?"

4. Mrs. Howard points out they can guarantee the war happens, meaning none of that effort goes to waste.

Now 4# seems insane but its perfectly understandable from a stock orientated perspective of controlling the market. There's still a 90% chance of the crash happening either way but this way guarantees that events will proceed as Vault-Tec and its conspirators want.

It's a controlled crash.
 
You're confusing class interests with national interests on the corporation issue. Corporations being instruments of national interests only further proves why they won't be interested in taking everything for themselves. Their livelihoods depend on the patronage network and we're talking about torching the patrons in exchange for less than what they have.

I don't think they're downplaying the government's involvement since the Enclave are responsible for the inciting incident, but everything about the Enclave was cut out of the season for time restraints. Why plan for an 8 episode run then if they knew they were going to do a bunch of goofy nonsense and cut out stuff that's plot and setting critical?

You're the one who pointed out the nature of the capitalist system is continuous expansion until it explodes.
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No, not until it "explodes," until it implodes. At a certain point the system reaches peak returns before entering into permanent decline due to a lack of exploitable resources. Capitalism fails during a contractionary cycle because it disincentivizes investments if there's only guaranteed losses. That's basically what happened to the United States in the games. It fully exhausted itself before the Great War triggered.

Now 4# seems insane but its perfectly understandable from a stock orientated perspective of controlling the market. There's still a 90% chance of the crash happening either way but this way guarantees that events will proceed as Vault-Tec and its conspirators want.
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No it's not. A stock-oriented perspective would look at all of the company's financial assets, estimate how much would be wiped out in the event of a nuclear war (practically everything) and decide it's a dumb as fuck idea. They're also being pitched on achieving a "true monopoly" even though the whole pitch for the vaults is that they would compete for the "best idea" to determine the shape of post-apocalyptic society. That means each conspirator would only have 20% of "market share" (no markets in this scenario), once the all-clear signal is given.
 
Bradylama said:
No it's not. A stock-oriented perspective would look at all of the company's financial assets, estimate how much would be wiped out in the event of a nuclear war (practically everything) and decide it's a dumb as fuck idea. They're also being pitched on achieving a "true monopoly" even though the whole pitch for the vaults is that they would compete for the "best idea" to determine the shape of post-apocalyptic society. That means each conspirator would only have 20% of "market share" (no markets in this scenario), once the all-clear signal is given.
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There's a 0% future for Vault Tec in a non-nuclear world. It's peddling fear and the moment there's no longer a threat of nuclear war or that recedes, it's fortunes will come crashing down. There's only so long they can peddle holding your breath. Vault-Tec has an absolute dominion over all of humanity's resources and all future rebuilding if they're successful as being the only game in town for rebuilding humanity and survivors.

And remember, Sinclair correctly assumes that Vault-Tec is hemmoraging money before Bud deflects.
 
Bud also denies that they need the money, and he doesn't ask for any. Vault-Tec's business model is based on the THREAT of a nuclear war. The government contracts are already paid. They don't get a payoff for starting the war. They're only doing this because Vault-Tec has some kind of dumbass ideological project they want to carry out.
 
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