What exactly defines the term "tribes"?

K

kaizenmx

First time out of the vault
In Fallout universe, what exactly defines them?

In the case of White Legs and Sorrows, they are called tribes because, well, they are. They are the reminiscent of Native American tribes or any other type of old world tribes with no technology to speak of, barely naked, and living like primitive people.

This is clearly not the case for Brotherhood of Steel, Boomers, or other "tribes" that uses technology and have laws. But they are still called tribes. Isn't more appropriate term for them should be "faction" or "organization"?

NCR started as bunch of confederation of tribes then formed into a one single group. Doesn't that also mean Caesar's Legion also considered a nation, and not a "tribe"?
 
Depends on your perspective. Tribals call all groups tribes. The Brotherhood never refer to themselves as a tribe-that is normally what the tribals say.
 
kaizenmx said:
with no technology to speak of
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Do Fallout tribals live in caves, eat fruit and plants they randomly gather or meat from animals they hunt with their bare hands?

No, some have agriculture, and they have spears, knives, know how to hunt, what to gather and how to build reliable tents to live in. In Arroyo, they had wells, pots, chests. They knew how to prepare healing powder from roots and flowers. They had means to create the sculpture of the Vault Dweller's head.

And I might even be forgetting some other details, but the point is, they do have technology. Techonology is not only about laz0r gunz and powah armar.
 
if I give a rude answer. it would be Tribe is game term of towns

if ignoring 'technical terms' used by game's developers. then 'tribes' usually means a society of wastelanders that DOES NOT directly descent from any of USA Officials, Nor being a member of an organization that remains active AFTER THE WAR OF 2077. rather formed out of the gatherings of the surviving populaces who aren't PROTECTED by Vaults or proper shelthers. they being referred to as tribals is due to the referrences to european Dark Ages. yes after Germanic barbarians conquered Rome and dissolved the 'civilized' Roman Empire. This perspective valids for, and viewed by both Enclave, and the Brotherhood.
if using Dark Ages as an example. Tribals usually referred to 'simple' social organization, viewed by social hierachy and its size, rather than technology. While in the 'civilized' old world. the society has a complex structural heirachy as reflexted by how the nation states run (the so cal' "Desk rules". ha! in french. Bureaucracy), and how a corporate works. Once the earth is nuked in 2077. Human civilization collapsed. but Mankind survives. but without the present of a big social organization called 'Nation states' to belonged to. the survivors soon gathered and banded together. given that the membership of each gathering is very small, the social hierachy is required to be simple. the founding members however, does not really leave their complex technology behinds them until they settled down and formed a basic rules and agreements. the newly founded social gatherings will judge whether will they accept or reject technology and which shall they keep or toss away. In dark ages. every barbarians in Europe can process Iron , and can even has, maintains, or even creates roman-grade armor and weapons. they have 'some' technology they've learned from Romans earlier, but they simply maintains much of their cultures, live a simple life (No pipeline waterworks, No aphrodite orgy, No Villae, No hot bathhouses) and not following Roman definitions of 'Civlilization'. the 'Princedom' . 'Kingdom'. 'Barony'. 'Duchy' was... by then, considered to be 'tribals'. King Arthur and his Roundtable Knights are also a tribe too! in tribal society. Law and Order is maintained by the tribe leaderships. (Either a chieftain, or an elder council), crime and dispuites are resolved in matter of hours, if not days. the correction system is rather draconian in some degree. but given that the wastelander of the FO world upholds different values, this brutality as we viewed, can be considered 'justice' by the wastelanders.
whatchu think of this criteria?
 
I think it's unaccurate, since there are plenty of towns which founders are not stated to be neither descendant from officials or members of any kind of organization, nor descendat from vault dwellers. I think it has more to do with the point of view they have about the world. Most tribals believe in sorts of polytheist religions. They might not actually venerate gods but spirits, but the idea is pretty much the same. But the simpler way of life might be the main point too.
 
This (paraphrased) quote from Honest Hearts provides the exception to such criteria.

"We may wear more clothes and understand tech better, but we're still a tribe- a linked family of families. When the walls come crashing down, you always have family, and the family always has tribe. New Canaan is destroyed, but the tribe lives on."

- Johsua Graham on whether or not the remaining New Canaanites are "Tribals."

If one were to take this point of view into account, being a Tribe is as much an identity as being affiliated with a particular faction, gang, or organization, but not necessarily to a fixed location such as a town.

This particular view would invalidate the idea that 'tribals' would be of those not descended from a pre-war organization, as Graham claims one of his tribe invented the .45 semi-automatic pistol 400 years ago - well before the Great War.

(Talking specifics, the New Canaanites are Mormons, and the inventor of the 1911 design we see in the game is John Moses Browning.)

Graham uses the word 'tribe' in much the same way any other tight-knit community would.
 
DevilTakeMe said:
This (paraphrased) quote from Honest Hearts provides the exception to such criteria.

"We may wear more clothes and understand tech better, but we're still a tribe- a linked family of families. When the walls come crashing down, you always have family, and the family always has tribe. New Canaan is destroyed, but the tribe lives on."

- Johsua Graham on whether or not the remaining New Canaanites are "Tribals."

If one were to take this point of view into account, being a Tribe is as much an identity as being affiliated with a particular faction, gang, or organization, but not necessarily to a fixed location such as a town.

This particular view would invalidate the idea that 'tribals' would be of those not descended from a pre-war organization, as Graham claims one of his tribe invented the .45 semi-automatic pistol 400 years ago - well before the Great War.

(Talking specifics, the New Canaanites are Mormons, and the inventor of the 1911 design we see in the game is John Moses Browning.)

Graham uses the word 'tribe' in much the same way any other tight-knit community would.
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Well, yes, but that's only his point of view. I think we are trying to discuss the most common point of view in the Fallout world about what tribes are.
 
Oppen said:
Well, yes, but that's only his point of view. I think we are trying to discuss the most common point of view in the Fallout world about what tribes are.
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So instead of defining what a tribe or tribal is, we are instead finding criteria to fit the stereotype of a tribe or tribal?

We would rather define a tribe as a community that does not qualify as a 'town', 'city', 'nation', or other 'faction' equivalents of groups.

The Boomers refer to themselves as a tribe (themselves being from Vault 22), but refer to outsiders as 'ignorant savages' instead of 'tribals'. They, like the New Canaanites, do not fit the mold for the stereotype/generalization of tribals.

The four major tribes of New Vegas continue to fit all the criteria of being tribes, in spite of their newfound affluence, and many still hold true to the simple social heirarchy that existed prior to 'civilization'. The same is true for the Vault 15 groups - which became the Great Khans, the Vipers, and the Jackals (and therefore, do not fit the criteria of not having been protected by a Vault). The NCR is the 'exception' in this case because they founded a town?

When does a tribal stop being a "tribal?" Benny is, by definition, a tribal warchief, with more clothes and more trappings than a 'stereotype" of a tribal leader living in a hut.

When does 'civilized beings' become primitive savages? If a small group decide to go "back to nature" a la Oasis, are they now tribals?
 
You got me, DevilTakeMe.
Also, I do consider most of The Strip families and The Kings as tribals too. I didn't said that they should dress like actual tribals to be tribals, though.

Maybe it's more like the hierarchy they follow. This is a pretty interesting discussion, but I'll need more time to think about it.
 
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