Review MCA Wades in to the Wake of the Fallout TV Show

[CthuluIsSpy]

For example, there's a scribe that was talking about his childhood and says he worked as a "shitter" on a fly farm. The farmers would feed him so he'd shit, and that attracted the flies which were collected and sold for protein. Seriously.

wtf lol

Modern writers get paid a lot of money for this. It's not fair, I write better shit posts, why aren't I getting stupid amounts of Bezos money?

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

Modern writers get paid a lot of money for this.

Which is why I no longer care if AI takes their jobs. Keep preaching communism, writers, because there's AI that can do your job better than you in a lot of cases. It will free you up for that manual labor the state will need to keep functioning should you get your way.

There's a lot of bad writing in this. I think everyone at this point knows that the company that is contracted to make the vaults, Vault-Tec, gets together with a bunch of it's competitors in order to win capitalism by destroying all their customers, their infrastructure, their production facilities, and the value of all their liquid assets. Apparently the writers don't know shit about how a company like Vault-Tec would make their money. They don't make their money by having a nuclear war. They make their money because people would think there might be a nuclear war. They're like a government funded insurance company, and the vaults are nuclear war insurance. They only make them bucks so long as the government functions to pay for a new vault or pay for them to maintain the vaults that already exist.

But there's also the matter of Maximus. He's shown to be a horrible person through the majority of the show, as is the Ghoul. It's vaguely obvious the writers want to show that Lucy inspires these two to be better people. The reason I say "vaguely" is because there's so much time until the pay off of this that you lose sight on it once it happens. There's also too many scenes of Maximus in situations where he does something stupid or horrible and almost none of them show any sign of him ever considering anyone else but himself. The same thing goes for The Ghoul, who kills nearly an entire settlement for no real reason other than to establish he's good with a gun and he's ruthless. This is also the one scene where Maximus does something that's not selfish, and steps in to save Lucy, which comes out of no where considering everything he's done up to that point - or after either. He spends most of the show being a complete retarded, selfish dick until he hangs out with Lucy for a while.

After killing most of the town, The Ghoul spares Lucy and captures her. Why? So the plot can happen. While he has her captured, he uses her as bait for a gulper, cuts off her finger, and sells her to slavers. Lucy spares him and leaves some Ghoul serum with him, and he has a change of heart. Keep in mind, this guy's personality has been shaped for 200 years at this point, but Lucy sparing him and giving him his medication turns him good. Well, there's also a scene after this where he watches himself as an actor before the war on TV and that also seems to make him remember who he was, but how is the TV working? What's broadcasting his movie 200 years after a nuclear war? It's not the NCR, because they've been blown up.

The characters in this show are so poorly written and the circumstances that they face and how things are handled are absolute crap. Most of the stuff they're intending get ruined by their own writing.

 

[Decado]

Modern writers get paid a lot of money for this.

Which is why I no longer care if AI takes their jobs. Keep preaching communism, writers, because there's AI that can do your job better than you in a lot of cases. It will free you up for that manual labor the state will need to keep functioning should you get your way.

There's a lot of bad writing in this. I think everyone at this point knows that the company that is contracted to make the vaults, Vault-Tec, gets together with a bunch of it's competitors in order to win capitalism by destroying all their customers, their infrastructure, their production facilities, and the value of all their liquid assets. Apparently the writers don't know shit about how a company like Vault-Tec would make their money. They don't make their money by having a nuclear war. They make their money because people would think there might be a nuclear war. They're like a government funded insurance company, and the vaults are nuclear war insurance. They only make them bucks so long as the government functions to pay for a new vault or pay for them to maintain the vaults that already exist.

But there's also the matter of Maximus. He's shown to be a horrible person through the majority of the show, as is the Ghoul. It's vaguely obvious the writers want to show that Lucy inspires these two to be better people. The reason I say "vaguely" is because there's so much time until the pay off of this that you lose sight on it once it happens. There's also too many scenes of Maximus in situations where he does something stupid or horrible and almost none of them show any sign of him ever considering anyone else but himself. The same thing goes for The Ghoul, who kills nearly an entire settlement for no real reason other than to establish he's good with a gun and he's ruthless. This is also the one scene where Maximus does something that's not selfish, and steps in to save Lucy, which comes out of no where considering everything he's done up to that point - or after either. He spends most of the show being a complete retarded, selfish dick until he hangs out with Lucy for a while.

After killing most of the town, The Ghoul spares Lucy and captures her. Why? So the plot can happen. While he has her captured, he uses her as bait for a gulper, cuts off her finger, and sells her to slavers. Lucy spares him and leaves some Ghoul serum with him, and he has a change of heart. Keep in mind, this guy's personality has been shaped for 200 years at this point, but Lucy sparing him and giving him his medication turns him good. Well, there's also a scene after this where he watches himself as an actor before the war on TV and that also seems to make him remember who he was, but how is the TV working? What's broadcasting his movie 200 years after a nuclear war? It's not the NCR, because they've been blown up.

The characters in this show are so poorly written and the circumstances that they face and how things are handled are absolute crap. Most of the stuff they're intending get ruined by their own writing.

I agree with most of this but the Ghoul, IIRC, watches a VHS/holotape of his old movie.

Maximus is the worst character in the show, by a mile. He is the most unlikeable character I think I have ever suffered through. Every single asshole on Succession is more likeable, and that show was a marathon of unlikeable assholes.

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

the Ghoul, IIRC, watches a VHS/holotape of his old movie.

It might have been a holotape. I believe it was already playing when he notices it, but it's pretty odd that they'd have a TV that works, the power to run it, a holotape player, and that particular movie on holotape.

Maximus is the worst character in the show, by a mile. He is the most unlikeable character I think I have ever suffered through.

You can also see the attempts to make him likable, but the writing is just such shit that it totally fails. The scene where his knight is dying from the bear attack and keeps insulting Maximus and says, "I'll tell them what you did. You'll be executed for this!" falls really flat when there were witnesses to the knight telling the vertibird crew to set down because he wanted to kill something. It's not only not sympathetic, but it also makes the Brotherhood look retarded. And then Maximus lets him die and steal the Power Armor when he could have just called the Brotherhood right then and there and said he died from his wounds. That would still make Maximus look like a shithead, but him stealing the Power Armor afterwards just makes that look worse.

And yes, I'm aware that the squire they send out to Maximus, who is pretending to be the dead knight, was the bully that beat Maximus up, but Maximus is a complete douche to him. Over the top levels of douchebaggery. He brands the squire, which I have a number of issues with the Brotherhood of Steel branding their squires, while pretending to be the dead knight. Him coming clean to the squire after branding the guy and then saying, "We need to get our stories straight." rather than trying to explain the situation(which he made more difficult with the branding). Then when the squire freaks out, with good reason, he breaks his foot and tries to kill him. Oh, and Maximus also branded that squire after that squire told him that before Maximus, he was the one that was being bullied and he wished that Maximus hadn't died and found someone to bully instead to take the heat off him. None of what Maximus did was justified by him being bullied, at all. In fact, the squire actually comes off way more sympathetic than Maximus, and Maximus ruined that guy's life.

 

[Luzur]

Are there any retcons that don't stem from Fallout 2?

For example, there's a scribe that was talking about his childhood and says he worked as a "shitter" on a fly farm. The farmers would feed him so he'd shit, and that attracted the flies which were collected and sold for protein. Seriously.

It shows the level of the show, and its audience

 

[Decado]

the Ghoul, IIRC, watches a VHS/holotape of his old movie.

It might have been a holotape. I believe it was already playing when he notices it, but it's pretty odd that they'd have a TV that works, the power to run it, a holotape player, and that particular movie on holotape.

Maximus is the worst character in the show, by a mile. He is the most unlikeable character I think I have ever suffered through.

You can also see the attempts to make him likable, but the writing is just such shit that it totally fails. The scene where his knight is dying from the bear attack and keeps insulting Maximus and says, "I'll tell them what you did. You'll be executed for this!" falls really flat when there were witnesses to the knight telling the vertibird crew to set down because he wanted to kill something. It's not only not sympathetic, but it also makes the Brotherhood look retarded. And then Maximus lets him die and steal the Power Armor when he could have just called the Brotherhood right then and there and said he died from his wounds. That would still make Maximus look like a shithead, but him stealing the Power Armor afterwards just makes that look worse.

And yes, I'm aware that the squire they send out to Maximus, who is pretending to be the dead knight, was the bully that beat Maximus up, but Maximus is a complete douche to him. Over the top levels of douchebaggery. He brands the squire, which I have a number of issues with the Brotherhood of Steel branding their squires, while pretending to be the dead knight. Him coming clean to the squire after branding the guy and then saying, "We need to get our stories straight." rather than trying to explain the situation(which he made more difficult with the branding). Then when the squire freaks out, with good reason, he breaks his foot and tries to kill him. Oh, and Maximus also branded that squire after that squire told him that before Maximus, he was the one that was being bullied and he wished that Maximus hadn't died and found someone to bully instead to take the heat off him. None of what Maximus did was justified by him being bullied, at all. In fact, the squire actually comes off way more sympathetic than Maximus, and Maximus ruined that guy's life.

Their take on the Brotherhood is just lazy lib-shit brain rot. So many things they could have done and they went the completely predictable route of "GUESS WHAT, THAT FACTION WITH RELIGIOUS OVERTONES IS CORRUPT AND EVIL!" wow really, never saw that coming.

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

The Brotherhood were never even super religious anyway. They just had the trappings of one, they weren't full blown cultists.
If the writers weren't of <the current year>, you'd think they conflated the Guardians of the Citadel with the BoS.

 

[9ted6]

Are there any retcons that don't stem from Fallout 2?

The writing is completely retarded. For example, there's a scribe that was talking about his childhood and says he worked as a "shitter" on a fly farm. The farmers would feed him so he'd shit, and that attracted the flies which were collected and sold for protein. Seriously.

Just like Borderlands!! Isn't Borderlands funny? So random and weird! Lol! Hahahahah!

Ahahahah!

Hah...

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

Their take on the Brotherhood is just lazy lib-shit brain rot. So many things they could have done and they went the completely predictable route of "GUESS WHAT, THAT FACTION WITH RELIGIOUS OVERTONES IS CORRUPT AND EVIL!" wow really, never saw that coming.

It stems from Bethesda not having any idea of what the Brotherhood is or has ever been. Fallout 3 had Brotherhood of Steel and Brotherhood of Steel Outcasts. The main Brotherhood was pretty crippled when you find them, at least that's what you're lead to believe by what they tell you. They're also the "good guys" under the command of Elder Lyons which caused the schism and a group splintering off who didn't think Lyons was following the true purpose of the Brotherhood. Which is odd, because the Brotherhood of Steel Outcasts, supposedly traditionalists, decided to paint their armor black and red(totally not bad guys, am I right?) and change the name of their ranks to more militaristic ones a la "Protector", "Defender", and "Specialist". Lyon's group recruits, which isn't what the BOS does, while the Outcasts don't. The Outcasts also seem to be in a bit better shape than Lyon's group having patrols with fully power armored members as well as robots complete with their new paint jobs.

In Fallout 4, the Brotherhood, just a few years later, have gone full on tech zealot. They're not the Outcasts because they don't have painted armor and they have the scribe/squire/knight/paladin/elder hierarchy, even though they seem more like the Oucasts from Fallout 3. They've also gone from being somewhat crippled to being a major power complete with a "Fuck You" Flying Fortress. The Outcasts supposedly realized the error of their ways and went back to the main Brotherhood under their new leader, Maxson, which seems a little odd particularly with the log that details the events in between the two games. It doesn't really make sense that this guy was able to forge a peace complete with reintegration with the Outcasts at an early age given the interactions you have with him in the game. He's never come off as a "Wise Beyond His Years" charismatic leader. Everything with Maxson in Fallout 4 comes off as "This happened because the game says so" and that they got rid of the Outcasts because they no longer thought they were cool.

Flash forward to the TV show, apparently the Brotherhood surviving Fallout 4 is now the canonical ending because you see the Prydwen in the TV show. This also seems to suggest that there is no longer an East Coast and West Coast Brotherhood since the Prydwen is traveling back and forth between the coasts. It's unclear when they merged back together, since Maximus was recruited in to the Brotherhood of Steel in 2277 when Shady Sands got nuked so were they recruiting because the East Coast BOS took over or did the West Coast BOS independently start recruiting? Who knows. Does Maxson run everything? Who knows, because you never see him in the TV Show.

The problem is that Bethesda absolutely sucks at establishing and maintaining canon. The more they like something, the worse the canon gets because they'll use it more. This gets magnified when they hire shit writers like the writers of this show. They have to make Maximus sympathetic, so they have to make his knight a complete idiot and dick. They have to lean really hard in to that, because they're going to make Maximus do some shitty things like let the guy die and then steal his armor and identity. In the process of trying to make Maximus sympathetic, they shit all over the Brotherhood making them look stupid and inept, because the writers are stupid and inept.

 

[Sinder Velvin]

r/fallout are having another big thread about something Chris said:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Fallout/comments/1d4tavq/fallout_2_hurt_the_franchise_more_than_fallout_4/

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

r/fallout are having another big thread about something Chris said:

This says a lot:

-IShitTheeNay- • 4h ago​

Tim cain has a wonderful attitude to both playing and making games and I thoroughly enjoy his dev diary videos. ​

I can somewhat see Chris's point since Fallout 2 really opened the door for wacky shit in Fallout which you can see they went hard in on with the TV show. So hard, they forgot to be remotely clever about any of it.

Fuck me, reddit is tardtopia.

Ser_Twist•2h ago

Chris Avellone is not the “original developer” of Fallout, or even one of them. He worked on Fallout 2 and New Vegas, and had nothing to do with the original Fallout. He’s a weird libertarian type so it’s no surprise he would try to deny the anti-capitalist themes that are apparent to everyone else.

Even Tim Cain, the actual creator of Fallout, cites an intent to satirically critique defense contractors as an inspiration for a lot of the companies in Fallout. That in itself is an anti-capitalist critique, among others in the franchise. That’s not to say Fallout is Marxist, but denying its anti-capitalist themes is just funny because it makes you look like you’re covering your eyes and ears and going “lallalala.”​

Since when has Chris Avellone been anything other than liberal? I guess it's that overton window thing striking.

Furthermore, a critique of defense contractors has a lot more to do with the GOVERNMENT than it does to do with capitalism. Who is doing the contracting, moron? Who's paying the defense contractors? Who is giving out the contracts? You don't think Communist countries make weapons? Damn, these people are fucking dumb as dirt.

 

[Sinder Velvin]

Fuck me, reddit is tardtopia.

I wish you made an account there and debated them. It would be hilarious to watch.

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

I wish you made an account there and debated them. It would be hilarious to watch.

There's not much point. When you see "critique defense contractors" and see "anti-capitalist critique", you're such a special little retard that you only see and hear what you want to see. There's absolutely nothing "free market" about "government contracts". It's a government sponsored monopoly. It's no different from how the large companies in China operate, only with more narrow specialty.

 

[Roguey]

People call Chris a libertarian because Kreia lectures at the PC for giving money to a beggar. She also lectures at the PC for not giving money to the beggar. For some reason they take one and not the other as What Chris Actually Believes.

Additionally Chris's perception is influenced by his own personal animosity towards Feargus Urquhart and himself. He put in just as much or even more inappropriate pop culture references and fourth-wall-breaking lines of dialogue than anyone. Bethouts are incredibly stupid and 4 made things distinctly not Fallout with synths, but one can say it's in their favor they didn't treat the world like one big joke.

 

[TheKing01]

I fall in the camp of being an enthusiast for the Star Wars EU and not strictly the "film purists". Which is probably why I liked KOTOR 2 and the Darth Bane novels over anything else Disney/Lucasfilms have produced.

On the topic of Kreia, she was created as an antithesis to the protagonist. She isn't really ever meant to "agree" with you, which is why a lot found her grating and annoying. There really isn't any other deeper meaning to it outside of her being a personal commentary device for Avellone.

As for this discourse surrounding the TV show, I'm still internalizing anything involving the BoS as a possible Legion symptom (as in, the theory that the TV show's particular branch of the BoS absorbed the remnants of the Legion, which would explain things like the red flag and tribalistic aesthetics).

 

[Butter]

That BoS flag was in Fallout 3 at the Citadel.

 

[Sinder Velvin]

On the topic of Kreia, she was created as an antithesis to the protagonist. She isn't really ever meant to "agree" with you, which is why a lot found her grating and annoying. There really isn't any other deeper meaning to it outside of her being a personal commentary device for Avellone.

Apparently, she was meant to evoke his college professors:

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

People call Chris a libertarian because Kreia lectures at the PC for giving money to a beggar. She also lectures at the PC for not giving money to the beggar. For some reason they take one and not the other as What Chris Actually Believes.

This isn't libertarian at all. A libertarian would say that he's free to do with what he's earned what he wishes. The only thing a libertarian would have a problem with is if a member of government walked up to the player and told them they needed to give their money to the beggar.

Bethouts are incredibly stupid and 4 made things distinctly not Fallout with synths, but one can say it's in their favor they didn't treat the world like one big joke.

Synths, teleporters, and big FUCK YOU air fortresses, oh my! I can't decide which of those three annoys me the most. I would love to say Synths, but teleporters have a huge implication going forward. The TV show clearly shows that the Brotherhood is around, so you obviously didn't side with The Institute, which means that technology probably still exists. And if the Brotherhood still exists, they'd probably be looking for that technology.

This would also mean that the Minutemen are part of the Brotherhood now as well, or at least allied with them.

That BoS flag was in Fallout 3 at the Citadel.

It really was, here's proof:

https://fallout.fandom.com/wiki/Brotherhood_of_Steel_(Fallout_3)?file=Fo3_Citadel_flag_rev2.png

Also, this flag and the Prydwen are why I've said that there is no East Coast and West Coast Brotherhood in the TV show, since they're flying the same flag now.

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

The answer is obviously Railroad for most annoying. Fuck the Railroad.

 

[Hammer Of The Heretics]

People call Chris a libertarian because Kreia lectures at the PC for giving money to a beggar. She also lectures at the PC for not giving money to the beggar. For some reason they take one and not the other as What Chris Actually Believes.

This isn't libertarian at all. A libertarian would say that he's free to do with what he's earned what he wishes. The only thing a libertarian would have a problem with is if a member of government walked up to the player and told them they needed to give their money to the beggar..

A moral criticism of unearned charity is more Objectivist than libertarian. Either way, though, attributing a belief to a writer purely because he put it in the mouth of a character is retard-level analysis.

 

[Roguey]

Either way, though, attributing a belief to a writer purely because he put it in the mouth of a character is retard-level analysis.

Chris opened himself up to this when he said that Kreia is his mouthpiece for all his problems with the force.

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

The answer is obviously Railroad for most annoying. Fuck the Railroad.

Well, if you look at the show, the Brotherhood is still around, the Prydwen is still around. That means the Institute and the Railroad are gone. But yeah, I can't think of a more retarded faction in Fallout 4. They're stupid to the point of questioning why they made the final cut.

A moral criticism of unearned charity is more Objectivist than libertarian. Either way, though, attributing a belief to a writer purely because he put it in the mouth of a character is retard-level analysis.

It's clearly not libertarian, I agree. The problem is that these people have bias to the point of not being able to comprehend what they're seeing. There's a reason why they read "government contractor" and promptly jump to "capitalism". You can't equate the government taking people's money and handing it over to whatever company they pick to do whatever job the government has decided it wants and call that "capitalism".

I'll give you an example. As part of the trillion dollar Infrastructure Bill, passed in 2021, they allocated $8 billion for building electric vehicle charging centers. As of today, 7 have been built. Tesla budgeted $1.7 billion for Tesla charge centers around the country, and there's now 2000+ of them nation wide. The first is government contracting, the second is mostly capitalism. Guess which one probably has the most amount of corruption. Yet, if you tell these people this, they'd probably say something pissy about Elon Musk because he opened Twitter up to free speech, when they would have lined up to suck his dick before that because they all loved Tesla. In fact, there's quite a few huge corporations these people absolutely love to shill for when they're not talking about how great communism is over capitalism.

 

[Hammer Of The Heretics]

Most people don't have clear definitions for concepts at the level of abstraction needed to classify systems of social organization. They index on out of context concretes in place of understanding. In this case, the concretes are privately owned companies seeking profit. In their minds, any example of that equals "capitalism", and if they don't like the company then it means "capitalism is bad". It's non-conceptual emotionalism in place of actual reasoning.

 

[9ted6]

I wish you made an account there and debated them. It would be hilarious to watch.

There's not much point. When you see "critique defense contractors" and see "anti-capitalist critique", you're such a special little retard that you only see and hear what you want to see. There's absolutely nothing "free market" about "government contracts". It's a government sponsored monopoly. It's no different from how the large companies in China operate, only with more narrow specialty.

It only makes sense if you have the worldview of your typical r/antiwork reddit user. Anyone and anything bad is capitalism or religion. Anyone and anything good is socialism or atheism. Capitalism is always at fault for the bad and socialism is always responsible for the good.

Granted 4 and 76 are when the series gets openly pro communism but these people think it was always this way. The first game saying shadowy defensve contractors having huge overreach is bad gets translated to Capitalism Bad Communism Good in their soybrains.

So long as they think Fallout is the hecking wokest progmarxist game ever created they'll put up with anything and clap for all the truly wretched and worthless shit the IP holders keep throwing at them. A terrible show is getting overwhelming praise from reddit and similar places largely for that reason.

Sure retconning the nuclear war into being a braindead scheme by Vault Tec makes literally no sense no matter how you look at the story but the hecking strong girlboss told the dumb male that communism is for sane people and I clapped. And since Cain pulled a Stalin level rewrite and said the show's totally aligned with canon and he always meant it to be a socialist game and he always meant for ghouls to be zombies who need an antidote to live that means it's good. Take that you media illiterate chuds.

In fact, there's quite a few huge corporations these people absolutely love to shill for when they're not talking about how great communism is over capitalism.

The good old case of I'm going to use my brand new iPhone to complain about capitalism on reddit while my MCU funkos watch from the wall behind me.

 

[PunchYouInTheFace]

Since when has Chris Avellone been anything other than liberal?

Since he is openly Pro-Union and openly criticize Game Corpo occasionally. One step more to the left (like tweeting he openly support medicare for all, maybe) and some retard here gonna call him a Communist.

He is Liberal as in Richard Stallman kind of Liberal, not the usual retards right wing grifter on Xitter.