Killzig's Kiddie Pool
February 10th, 2002
ITD: 1|2|3|4|5|6|7|8|9|10|11|12|13
Disclaimer: All of Killzig's ranting / raving is not necessarily the opinion of everyone else at DAC, so don't blame us if Killy's writing gets you all hot and bothered. Blame him!
Let's go out to the movies, let's go out to the movies and talk ourselves some smack (or Killzig thinks about Fallout way too much)
Explain Fallout's atmosphere to me...let's take an inventory of what we've got and what kind of things would be appropriate. Tell me something more than just 50's-ish, pulp, sci fi comic books. Show me why modernizing the Fallout atmosphere to evolve the story line would make it stray from the original atmosphere. A thought occurred to me while I was watching The Road Warrior on DVD (highly recommend picking up the DVD for those of you who don't already own it--say kreeg, where's that movie database?). Anyway, the thought was, "this isn't Fallout." Not at all. Transsexual bikers, amazingly rudimentary technology, and S&M gear.Since then I've spent the better part of the last twenty four hours obsessing over a catalog of movies that's confluence would create something akin to Fallout's atmosphere. Sitting in front of my DVD rack, root beer fighting it's way back up my esophagus culminating into a nearly orgasmic burp, my eyes found Pleasantville. Pleasantville, for those of you with absolutely no clue, is set in the very model of Americana, leave it to beaver type shit that gets turned up onside its head when people start showing their individuality and breaking social taboos. Fuck that, let's go back to the beginning when they're all pent up and repressed. Take all those pent up, repressed, naive yet absolutely anal retentive pricks and use them to populate a world. What does it get you?
"Welcome to Vault 13! Tobey Maguire at your service, please go watch Spiderman--I PROMISE I WON'T CRY IN THIS MOVIE!" Right Tobey, anything you say. Now that the populations within the vaults have been given a basis, let's take a trip at the population outside of the vault. Let's start with the raiders, miscreants, and other miscellaneous wastes of flesh. This is where Mad Max shines; no transsexuals, but plenty of greedy and ravenous types. Raider outposts decked out in skulls, raping and pillaging all things attempting to regain that sense of civilization. Slavers, now there's an absolutely fan-fuck-ing-tas-tic organization that would work just as well in the Mad Max films as it did in the Fallout series. Think of it, Max wandering through the wastes...ambivelent about the fate of others as he always starts out...when he notices a swarm of wasteland scourge circling around a village loading up the villagers into trucks all of them bound. Mmm, Mad Max 4 anyone? Aside from providing the scourge of the world, Mad Max also does a decent job of portraying the straights, the folks who are just trying to get by or get back to civilization. They've been through the shit, sniffed it, rolled in it, and they're still sticking around. The survivors. The Fallout universe's whipping boys, there's always something throwing them back down. Still, they're as integral as the vault dweller in this whole affair.
So what have we used to flesh out the fallout universe? Mad Max's world sans transsexuals (what's the matter Black Isle, scared of mean old Jerry Falwell?), the citizens of Pleasantville during the black and white period of the film for use in populating our vaults, and we've got our friendly neighborhood villains running amok. We've still got tech to cover, not the blade runner type tech that somehow took a shit in Fallout universe when that travesty Fallout Tactics was conceived, 50s pulp sci fi technology. Think about Forbidden Planet (1956, I think it was), think Lost in Space (not that awful movie that saw Gary Oldman piss on his own reputation, the original).
Are you picturing odd looking jumpsuits? Bulky robots that have more gadgets on them than actual uses? Computers the size of houses? Good, now separate most of that and destroy it. Smash it to pieces and give it to those runts living out in the wastes, the straights. Tell them; here's the tech, it's already been invented, if you see anything you need...find out how to fix it. And they have, as need has dictated. See: Brotherhood of Steel, Fallout, quest in the glow. Now that little bit of tech you didn't smash, give it to those repressed bastards in the vaults. The vaults are the apex of technology in the Fallout world. There shouldn't be anything greater than it, no one's going to be inventing on the outside world--they're just going to be rediscovering or adapting to meet their needs. This doesn't mean that 160 years, the estimated time of arrival for Fallout 3 judging from the time span between Fallout and it's first sequel, after the vault dweller first saw daylight the first time people should still be relying on whatever tech they've scavenged--nor does it mean we should see hover cars and a Blade Runner type city. It does, however, imply that the further along the time line we get from the great war the closer to prewar civilization the world should look. It's not getting back to normal, not by a long shot, the world will be forever scarred and populations will sprout again in different types of patterns. But in those patterns you'll still be able to recognize that old world. We've got our tech settled, now atmosphere and attitude.
Take a step back, look at this little world you've created in your head, the first word the comes to mind is absurd. The final ingredient in Fallout's confluence of worlds, absurdity. Satire. How did we get to this point? Why is it so absurd yet still so believable? Why am I getting visions of Major TK Kong riding that nuke down and ushering in this age of Fallout himself? Why do I see all of Fallout's efforts culminating into another great war just as Dr. Strangelove was preparing for? It's comedy, it's that little bit of pessimism in humanity that gives Fallout the swift kick in the ass into its own orbit. The way you just want to slap the living hell out Lynette and make her see what's really best for her city. The way you know The Master is absolutely wrong in his methods but you can still sympathize with his ultimate goal. This is Fallout, not just a post apocalyptic role-playing adventure. It's so much more than that, its so much more than Mad Max, and it's so much more than all I've listed above.
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MAIL BAG!
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No Mail today, you guys suck.
As a side note I'd like to thank a very spiffy helper over on IRC.GAMESNET.NET:6667 who helped me get my user name back and get back on the emperor's throne over in #Fallout. Thanks a lot Milon, may Jupiter grant you a wife with a big bossom and no vocal chords.
Thanks to anyone who bothered reading this, why don't you send some mail next time you lazy bastards.
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