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[this-is-fallout]

In real life, there is this thing in stem where majors refuse to say the name of the classes they take because people don’t really take well to hearing things like differential equations and modular systems. Instead we tend to say “phy 153” or “Mat 231” because it’s easier to explain.

I bring this up because don’t think that there are 1000 vaults. I think there are a thousand experiments. I think that there are more than a 1000 vaults with multiple vaults per experiment.

[this-is-fallout]

Tags

Headcannon - mostly made up, what I believe about fallout

Tim Cain: any time I mention Tim Cain

Analysis: analysis of the game.

[this-is-fallout]

Themes

There are a few themes that the original game hints at but never truly asks the player about

Humanity

This game is about humanity. What is it? What does it mean to be human? Who can be human? It asks the player to decide if gen 1 synths can be human while also asking the player about robots, ghouls, and supermutants.

It allows the player to play as these people to imbue perspective about each type of person as well as to give them a textured view of the world. Because humanity is not one perspective. Nor is it two or three or four. It is everyone’s perspective and a complete view of humanity is only attained through seeing all perspectives even if you disagree with some of them.

War never changes

War has always been a huge part of fallout and here it’s no different, but the nature of the idea shifts lenses to crimes against humanity. Some of them are gendered, some of them are based on who you are, some of them don’t care that your human or not human just that you aren’t one of them. This game is about violence that wounds your, humanity or others humanity, or the humanity.

War always hurts all people and this is a game about how humanity is brutalized in war. Their is always a cost that humanity pays in war and we want to talk about it

Illness and disease

This is a natural consequence of war with dark ramifications. How do you deal with disease. How do people treat others with disease.

Art and culture

Any conversation about humanity must talk about art and culture. They way that the different humanities communicate with each other. The ways that art expresses itself in war and during the apocalypse. What are the conditions that spring up with art? Who makes new art and when? What about food and music and sculpture.

Note to self: use the granite mines to build sculptures

This should also weed its way into other aspects of creation. Cooking, weapons making. The player doesn’t have to engage with art if they don’t want to, but they have the option. The player should be encouraged to create, while also feeling the pressures of needing to eat and live and work.

Joy

The original fallout had a killer sense of humor, but here I want to depict what humans do for love and joy even with the amount of strife. While I do think this is also a necessary part of depicting humanity, I also think that it’s an important part in talking about the violence of war against it. Not just because that violence shapes the joy that we have but because the joy shapes the.violence.

Love

Love is love. This is about the interpersonal. The singular the private. This is about sex and love and romance but it can also be platonic. It is about intimacy. Do not think of this as love - the inter partner relationship, think of this as intimacy and vulnerability we experience from all relationships.

Procreation

I struggle to avoid this thematically even though I so desperately want to, because to do so would to avoid talking about the previous themes especially in relation to mutants and non-humans. Sure, it could be avoided, but I think it’s cowardice to avoid talking about how the FEV essentially makes you infertile or how ghouls have sex or the questions humans have about sex in the apocalypse.

What does sex ed look like in the apocalypse and what do people know about it.

Community.

Community is important. It’s the most evident part of society and this is not a fact challenged by the games. What is important to ask is how does community change? Not just under the constraints of war but also from other communities struggling to survive. What situations create communities and what situations destroy communities