Morality in Fallout. From a post I made on the BethSoft forums (my posts seem to disappear quick lately, hence reposting here)
I think people overdo idealising the supermutants themselves in the original Fallout. In the end, they were simply dumb brutes, not exactly much higher on the evolutionary scale than deathclaws, and bred and used only for killing.
But the clear dichotomy of good and evil that would be caused by having a dumb, irrational enemy that you can kill without any moral qualms would obviously not fit Fallout.
I think that's why the Enclave in Fallout 2 are a less popular enemy than the Unity. In the end, the head of the Unity was The Master. And while misguided, the Master is ultimately altruistic, to the point that if he were not stopped by the Vault Dweller, he might've just ended up destroying his own project when he found out FEV causes sterilization, for himself. The Enclave, in the meantime, were just wacko nutjobs with an irrealistic, illogical and megalomanic plan. There was not a single Enclave life I pitied to see die when blowing up the oil platform.
And that's wrong. This isn't your standard Christian-stemming good-vs-evil fantasy fair, with strong religious roots like the works of Tolkien or Lewis. A "dumb enemy" group as a major presence in the game would be...stupid.
As stupid as the unfinished Raider cave in Fallout 2. Stupid.
Not a bad thread. I agree with the OP, but with a bit of looking deeper into it:
I think the point of it, from (again) a W.I. Thomas-theorem standpoint, is that normal societal structures are broken down and convential morale simply no longer offers a viable base for a society structure. I think this is the reason Fallout 1 avoided political and religious commentary. Not because it would be controversial, but because the game was not so much about looking at our current temporal matters but more about looking at human nature tossed into a foreign situation in one go. The whole retro-50s offers a perfect background for this, because even the base of the post-apocalyptic future has a foreign morale.
And that's the whole reason conventional logic on good and evil is superseded by more practical matters and pragmatism. In the end, the only important issue when making a choice is "who will this help or hurt," the "why" which we always worry about has fallen to dust, and any justification for any act would be considered idiotic. This is also the reason why in the original design helping Gizmo would give a better ending for Junktown than helping Killian (marketing changed that for more conventional good and evil)..
This could also be seen as the reason the Master failed. His religious tendencies emphasised by the usage of a cathedral coupled with the ultimately good and altruistic goals he set for himself are simply "out-dated," and have no place left in the wasteland. The comparison to "Heart of Darkness" is an apt one, in that it is about a loner that tries to apply standards that are not viable to the people around him, though with the marked difference that Kurtz is "too evil" for the world, while The Master is "too good."
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I think people overdo idealising the supermutants themselves in the original Fallout. In the end, they were simply dumb brutes, not exactly much higher on the evolutionary scale than deathclaws, and bred and used only for killing.
But the clear dichotomy of good and evil that would be caused by having a dumb, irrational enemy that you can kill without any moral qualms would obviously not fit Fallout.
I think that's why the Enclave in Fallout 2 are a less popular enemy than the Unity. In the end, the head of the Unity was The Master. And while misguided, the Master is ultimately altruistic, to the point that if he were not stopped by the Vault Dweller, he might've just ended up destroying his own project when he found out FEV causes sterilization, for himself. The Enclave, in the meantime, were just wacko nutjobs with an irrealistic, illogical and megalomanic plan. There was not a single Enclave life I pitied to see die when blowing up the oil platform.
And that's wrong. This isn't your standard Christian-stemming good-vs-evil fantasy fair, with strong religious roots like the works of Tolkien or Lewis. A "dumb enemy" group as a major presence in the game would be...stupid.
As stupid as the unfinished Raider cave in Fallout 2. Stupid.
Not a bad thread. I agree with the OP, but with a bit of looking deeper into it:
I think the point of it, from (again) a W.I. Thomas-theorem standpoint, is that normal societal structures are broken down and convential morale simply no longer offers a viable base for a society structure. I think this is the reason Fallout 1 avoided political and religious commentary. Not because it would be controversial, but because the game was not so much about looking at our current temporal matters but more about looking at human nature tossed into a foreign situation in one go. The whole retro-50s offers a perfect background for this, because even the base of the post-apocalyptic future has a foreign morale.
And that's the whole reason conventional logic on good and evil is superseded by more practical matters and pragmatism. In the end, the only important issue when making a choice is "who will this help or hurt," the "why" which we always worry about has fallen to dust, and any justification for any act would be considered idiotic. This is also the reason why in the original design helping Gizmo would give a better ending for Junktown than helping Killian (marketing changed that for more conventional good and evil)..
This could also be seen as the reason the Master failed. His religious tendencies emphasised by the usage of a cathedral coupled with the ultimately good and altruistic goals he set for himself are simply "out-dated," and have no place left in the wasteland. The comparison to "Heart of Darkness" is an apt one, in that it is about a loner that tries to apply standards that are not viable to the people around him, though with the marked difference that Kurtz is "too evil" for the world, while The Master is "too good."
Someone get 4too to comment
