Fallout Fallout General Thread - War, War Never Changes. Nor do game engines.
- Thread starter commanderkai
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Bassoe
Well-known member
Fallout China, aka, the New Warring States Period.
- Neo-imperial dynasty, aka, caesar's legion based on imperial china rather than rome.
- Mao's red guard personality cult turned into an actual religion like a more genocidal version of the Kings. Take every single nasty trait of every single communist regime and mash them together, plus a literal cult. Lots of trigger-happy commissars and gulag slave camps in mordorish industral wastelands.
- The Khanate transhumanist wuxia mongol horde. Before the war, china had their own supersoldier program to rival america's deathclaws and FEV. In some ways they were more successful, their bioengineered supermen kept their minds and fertility, were unaffected by the radiation, able to survive the most poisoned environments, consume anything organic, fight the radiation-spawned monsters and barbarian hordes, etc. Then the bombs fell, the merely human scientists died or were reduced to feral ghoulhood by the radiation and their prototypes were abandoned in a wasteland lethal to anything but themselves and the other monsters. The culture they built was some completely unworkable mess of Proud Warrior Race Guy-isms, deliberately since it was set up by the first generation of them who wanted to make a society in which strength, something they had in abundance would be the most valuable attribute. Their founder may have dressed this up in a propaganda narrative about how a world without science and engineering would mean a world where conflict was limited to 'safe' low-tech forms which only kill individual combatants instead of entire civilizations, but the actual intention was to make a society where their traits were the most valued, and prioritize smothering any developing rival civilizations in their cradle, since if they ever started technologically advancing, they'd inevitably curbstomp with superior weapons technology. Take some thematic inspiration from this December 1953 Mechanix Ilustrated magazine article "How Nuclear Radiation Can Change Our Race" by Otto Binder. The bioengineered supermen have approximately the same relation to wuxia heroes as bretonnians possess in regards to chivalric romance, specifically regarding their treatment of peasants. The Great Khan, their leader, is also the first of their species ever created, they just grow stronger with age.
Bassoe
Well-known member
Fallout China, aka, the New Warring States Period.
- Neo-imperial dynasty, aka, caesar's legion based on imperial china rather than rome.
- Mao's red guard personality cult turned into an actual religion like a more genocidal version of the Kings. Take every single nasty trait of every single communist regime and mash them together, plus a literal cult. Lots of trigger-happy commissars and gulag slave camps in mordorish industral wastelands.
- The Khanate transhumanist wuxia mongol horde. Before the war, china had their own supersoldier program to rival america's deathclaws and FEV. In some ways they were more successful, their bioengineered supermen kept their minds and fertility, were unaffected by the radiation, able to survive the most poisoned environments, consume anything organic, fight the radiation-spawned monsters and barbarian hordes, etc. Then the bombs fell, the merely human scientists died or were reduced to feral ghoulhood by the radiation and their prototypes were abandoned in a wasteland lethal to anything but themselves and the other monsters. The culture they built was some completely unworkable mess of Proud Warrior Race Guy-isms, deliberately since it was set up by the first generation of them who wanted to make a society in which strength, something they had in abundance would be the most valuable attribute. Their founder may have dressed this up in a propaganda narrative about how a world without science and engineering would mean a world where conflict was limited to 'safe' low-tech forms which only kill individual combatants instead of entire civilizations, but the actual intention was to make a society where their traits were the most valued, and prioritize smothering any developing rival civilizations in their cradle, since if they ever started technologically advancing, they'd inevitably curbstomp with superior weapons technology. Take some thematic inspiration from this December 1953 Mechanix Ilustrated magazine article "How Nuclear Radiation Can Change Our Race" by Otto Binder. The bioengineered supermen have approximately the same relation to wuxia heroes as bretonnians possess in regards to chivalric romance, specifically regarding their treatment of peasants. The Great Khan, their leader, is also the first of their species ever created, they just grow stronger with age.
- Pirate Kingdoms of Taiwan/Yankee Ironborn. Prior to the Great War, the Taiwanese and their American allies/advisors/puppeteers collaborated to build up Taiwan's military prowess as a defense against Chinese invasion/staging ground for invading China. During the War, this turned Taiwan into a nuclear battleground, leaving it largely unable to sustain its population off radioactively contaminated farmland, yet highly stocked with military equipment. The results were predictable. By the current period, Taiwan should be treated with the series' characteristic black comedy, officially of course, their fleet is for fishing and trading and anyone who decides to go a-viking against the mainland is just an outlier, unofficially, they've still got the jolly roger as their flag. There's probably a generational divide between the two views.
- Tibet. Free of the Chinese occupation after the collapse of the CCP/Mao Dynasty and essentially reverted to their fifties theocratic politics. Also sokushinbutsu ghouls.
ParadiseLost
Well-known member
No way Microsoft will make a Fallout China.
I doubt anyone will make a Fallout: China or the like, if only because it's impossible to put super mutants and the BoS in China.
More relevantly, the 3D fallout games are very attached to American symbols and locations, there's a reason that the franchise is so prone to making major landmarks and locations involved in its quests, sometimes to an excessive degree (like having the first two minuteman quests taking place at Lexington and Concord. Real subtle, Bethesda).
Going overseas, you're going to hit the point where the entire landscape becomes completely unrecognizable very quickly. There's a reason that Fallout London mod is set in London, and not, like, Wiltshire-Upon-Fairgroundsville or some other British town no one in the US has heard of, namely that no one in the US has ever heard of it. The only parts of China that are similarly well known in the US is the forbidden city and the wall, and I'm not sure that's enough to build a game around.
ParadiseLost
Well-known member
Actually, my implication was that Microsoft would never make a Fallout: China for political reasons. China has a real hate on for alternate history, and a Fallout: China would REALLY make the CCP angry. I feel 100% positive any internal attempts to make a Fallout: China would get shut down from above. I don't even think the stuff that happened in Fallout 3 could happen today.
You have to eventually mix up the formula.
Locations don't have to be recognizable, you just have to have heard of them. How many people could ACTUALLY recognize Lexington and Concord? Not many.
Here's an idea:
Game takes place on China's southeastern coast between Hong Kong and Taiwan. The three primary factions are a group of ghoulified immortal Shaolin monks (think Boxers) who rule China and want to restore traditional values and kick out the Neo Colonial Europeans that have invaded China for its resources; these Neo-Colonials have advanced technology, and have managed to gain a foothold on the continent because of their needed more advanced food production technology.
Meanwhile, Taiwan is an isolationist dictatorship that has spent decades in bunkers, and hopes to reestablish a foothold on Taiwan.
All factions stare at the wealth of Hong Kong, where, due to a fluke, most of manufacturing district still stands. A restored Hong Kong has the potential to have a manfuacturing capacity equal to the rest of Asia.
You play an bad-ass American soldier sent to Hong Kong as part of a diplomatic mission to Hong Kong from the NCR. The idea was that the NCR would try to help calm the region and act as a neutral third party far enough removed to be impartial.
However, when you arrive, the rest of the diplomatic party is assassinated by a bomb, leaving you as the Sole Survivor. (You could even subtly imply that the lead diplomat was a version of the Courier was a Speech 100 guy who managed to solve Fallout New Vegas peacefully).
You end up being torn between all three factions, having to choose who to support, and trying to figure out who was responsible for the assassination plot.
For recognizable things, you've got Hong Kong, Taiwan.... You could even have irradiated hyper-aggressive pandas! There's Shaolin monks, neo-colonial soldiers (lets bring back Redcoats! Why not?), you could have an Opium War... There's plenty to reference.
You could even have a Vietnam DLC.
You have to eventually mix up the formula.
Locations don't have to be recognizable, you just have to have heard of them. How many people could ACTUALLY recognize Lexington and Concord? Not many.
Here's an idea:
Game takes place on China's southeastern coast between Hong Kong and Taiwan. The three primary factions are a group of ghoulified immortal Shaolin monks (think Boxers) who rule China and want to restore traditional values and kick out the Neo Colonial Europeans that have invaded China for its resources; these Neo-Colonials have advanced technology, and have managed to gain a foothold on the continent because of their needed more advanced food production technology.
Meanwhile, Taiwan is an isolationist dictatorship that has spent decades in bunkers, and hopes to reestablish a foothold on Taiwan.
All factions stare at the wealth of Hong Kong, where, due to a fluke, most of manufacturing district still stands. A restored Hong Kong has the potential to have a manfuacturing capacity equal to the rest of Asia.
You play an bad-ass American soldier sent to Hong Kong as part of a diplomatic mission to Hong Kong from the NCR. The idea was that the NCR would try to help calm the region and act as a neutral third party far enough removed to be impartial.
However, when you arrive, the rest of the diplomatic party is assassinated by a bomb, leaving you as the Sole Survivor. (You could even subtly imply that the lead diplomat was a version of the Courier was a Speech 100 guy who managed to solve Fallout New Vegas peacefully).
You end up being torn between all three factions, having to choose who to support, and trying to figure out who was responsible for the assassination plot.
For recognizable things, you've got Hong Kong, Taiwan.... You could even have irradiated hyper-aggressive pandas! There's Shaolin monks, neo-colonial soldiers (lets bring back Redcoats! Why not?), you could have an Opium War... There's plenty to reference.
You could even have a Vietnam DLC.
Yes, I got that. However, that's not the primary obstacle as I see it.
Really? What do you think would be too objectionable to include?
I'm not sure about that. Bethesda has this far shaken up the formula via gameplay changes or limited shifts in location, but they've never made a massive, fundamental shift like this. There's no sign the next Eldar Scrolls game is going to be set anywhere but tamerial, for example.
I don't think the list of landmarks the average American knows by name but not by sight is all that much longer then the one they know by sight, at least not in this context.
Bassoe
Well-known member
The main baddies being a conspiracy among the American wealthy, politically powerful and intelligence agencies with the aim of practicing inhumane medical and physiological Mad Science upon and killing off and replacing all the plebeians.
ParadiseLost
Well-known member
Actually, I was thinking of what China-related content there was in FO3, especially the Alaska part.
I don't think we'll ever see China as a villian in a mainstream video game again.
I don't think we'll ever see China as a villian in a mainstream video game again.
Bassoe
Well-known member
Fallout Four's Minutemen ending should've involved convincing Captain Ironsides of how your organization represented the resurrection of his beloved american colonial grandeur, repairing the Constitution's engines and having it fight the Prydwen instead of reprogramming Library Prime to shoot it down. Surprise at being attacked by a rocket-propelled sailing galleon ought to keep the Brotherhood distracted long enough for a few broadsides of cannon fire to send them to davy jones' locker.
That would have been my ending of choice...
Seriously screw both the Brotherhood and the institute.
Bassoe
Well-known member
It could also tie into the Fallout China ideas being tossed around earlier. Either the American characters arrived aboard the Constitution or midway through the game the Constitution shows up with absolutely no warning or explanation and starts attacking everything in sight as Red Chinese Communists.
Shooting it down with Prime is the emostitute ending. Minuteman ending is taking it down with a massive artillery barrage- with 19th century naval guns. It is a pretty good ending, I think, you take down a technological terror and utterly humiliate one of the most powerful factions in the wasteland, with technology that was hilariously outdated when the Sole Survivor was in diapers.
Well to be fair these techno-knights are flying a gasbag filled with hydrogen in an era of laser pistols, missiles, artillery, and flamethrowers..
And they never expected that someone might try to lay them low...ah hybris, hyrbis never changes.
Aaron Fox
Well-known member
Let's be honest here, there aren't a whole lot of factions that can pull what the Minutemen could. Most of them are still stuck in the small arms-only capability range... and most of the factions that do are either the Enclave, BoS, or on the West Coast.
The Minutemen having effective artillery systems would surprise the shit out of the BoS (or anyone for that matter).
Personally, I like the ending where the Minutemen don't murder the BoS... because, let's face it, Maxson isn't wrong.
The Minutemen having effective artillery systems would surprise the shit out of the BoS (or anyone for that matter).
Personally, I like the ending where the Minutemen don't murder the BoS... because, let's face it, Maxson isn't wrong.
About what precisely? Eden wasn't wrong that a world with Mirelurks, Super mutants, Feral Ghouls and Deathclaws wouldn't be able to reestablish society effectively is doesn't mean we should follow his plans or endorse his actions.
The Brotherhood has it's points philosophically, but through action they are next to worthless for the average joe of the waste at best and exist to his complete expense at worst.
About what precisely? Eden wasn't wrong that a world with Mirelurks, Super mutants, Feral Ghouls and Deathclaws wouldn't be able to reestablish society effectively is doesn't mean we should follow his plans or endorse his actions.
The Brotherhood has it's points philosophically, but through action they are next to worthless for the average joe of the waste at best and exist to his complete expense at worst.
I'm unclear on how the Brotherhood's actions are of no value/harmful to the average Joe. They have vertibird patrols out fighting various threats. They specifically focus on eliminating super mutants and the like that the average poorly armed watelander stands no chance of fighting, along with destroying the institute that's actively sabotaging settlements, which is beyond the capability of most anyone outside the Brotherhood. Outside of that, Brotherhood policy regarding recovering technology is to not use force, instead either getting stuff turned over from negotiation or just buying it, which can be very beneficial to the average person.
The only things the brotherhood have done thst are detrimental to wastelanders is that sidequest where you can choose to go around extorting food from people, and thier destruction of Arcadia. The first is clearly stated to be an unofficial, unauthorized action, and merely proves that in any large organization, corruption can happen, there's nothing unique to the brotherhood that let's it happen. Arcadia is indefensible though, based on what information the brotherhood has destroying it was not justified (that's not to say it's not justifiable at all, merely that it's shakey given the information the brotherhood have).