Fallout: The Series now the most successful Amazon show ever

[Bradylama]

The super mutants can't maintain the culture of the Unity without the Master, which is why the Nightkin are so thoroughly screwed. Dumb super muties can always follow smart super muties with the brain power to find a new purpose for the mutant diaspora, but the Nightkin need stealth boys to help manage their psychosis and all of their interests revolve around that addiction.

Also as an aside - You say that ghouls and Super Mutants are so different as to not even be considered humans. While it's true they might pass outside of the human species, neither can represent a species in and of themselves: Neither can reproduce themselves by organic means or pass on their genes. They're mutants in the truest sense of the word, evolutionary dead-ends.

Another viable, speciated human mutant I thought of: Trogs from Van Buren, as opposed to the ones from Fallout 3. I don't know if we're every explicitly told how they reproduce, but it seems pretty clear from context it would have to have been organic.

You're massively overthinking things bringing up the tunnelers and stuff like this. I said that ghouls and super mutants aren't humans "per se" because for all intents and purposes they are still human; it's just their genetics that have been scrambled. Practically speaking there's no difference between a super mutant and a mule. Mules aren't viable themselves, yet as a hybrid they're also not a horse or a donkey. Tunnelers are irrelevant because they have no ambitions and can't hold a conversation. They're dumb animals who will likely never leave The Divide. I know Ulysses says they could threaten the outside world since their tunnel networks are constantly expanding, but we're probably never going to see them again anyway.

The important thing about the Vault 4 natives is that they're people who can reproduce like normal humans can and pass on what are presumably radioresistant genes. Those mutants are the most desirable breeding partners in the entire wasteland. They should be able to pick and choose whoever they want from the surface to expand their population and form settlements on the surface, but they're fine with staying underground despite everything they knew about the NCR. They're a big huge deal for the setting and they're wasted on a bad joke.

 

[TheGM]

Turns out The Master being originally from Vault-City was Vault-Tec the entire time.

 

[Norzan]

I didn't mention this in my notes, but the mere existence of Vault 4 breaks the setting. Vault 4, like Vault 33 has its entrance door sticking right out of the ground as the most identifiable landmark in the area. Everybody would have known about it, including The Master. The Master would have cracked it open thinking he's gonna be able to dip some prime normals, when lo and behold there's an entire vault of viable reproducing mutants. No first generation FEV and no dipping required. They're even radiation resistant. The Master could have used the research from Vault 4 to make the Unity actually viable, but instead of everyone being a dumbed down or smarty pants super mutant they'd be relatively normal people with a weird feature or two. Big deal. Would have actually saved the world.

I don't think the showrunners know what The Master even is because they only played Fallout 3. They just googled some easily recognizable iconography in a fallout wiki for easy references to games outside of Fallout 3 but only did it for like half of those things.

 

[Bradylama]

I don't think the showrunners know what The Master even is because they only played Fallout 3. They just googled some easily recognizable iconography in a fallout wiki for easy references to games outside of Fallout 3 but only did it for like half of those things.

Hey now buddy, you're being unfair here.

They played Fallout 4 too.

 

[Norzan]

They played Fallout 4 too.

That makes things worse.

 

[R.Graves]

im playing fallout 4 now and it seems just so disinterested in its own setting its mindboggling. finally found a town with a character in it. one character. ive put in 7 hours and found one town with a single guy in it.

 

[Bradylama]

In Fallout 4 a town and a farm are the same size, with the same population, and people farmstead as far away from protection as they can get, surrounded on all sides by ghouls and flesh devouring critters.

 

[CT Phipps]

I thought you'd already conceded on this "Why Didn't The Master Do Anything About the Vaults in LA" point.

I did, I was chiefly referring to 33, 32, and 31. I think my argument earlier was the Mutants of Vault 4 would probably be Master allies.

No it's not, it's a shitty village descended from Vault Dwellers. That's not a Vault lol.

I mean they left their Vault voluntarily because they had their own version of Reclamation day.

C'mon man. They live far outside the mainstream of human culture due to mutual incompatibility and hostility. Jacobstown is up in the mountains for a reason. They're isolated physically and by intention. And in what was until a decade go a very primitive and lightly populated area. Of course they have their own culture. It's not right smack dab next to Shady Sands.

I'm not inclined to defend it, just saying that you're describing a reason why they wouldn't integrate and would remain their own separate society until they took in refugees.

 

[Norzan]

m playing fallout 4 now and it seems just so disinterested in its own setting its mindboggling.

I think Bethesda genuinely dislikes the franchise, only got it because they wanted to make a game with guns but couldn't do it with Elder Scrolls because it would be too jarring to do it in a fantasy setting.

It's why they most of the time just recycle the same shit even when setting a game on the the other side of the same country they are recycling things from because coming up with new shit would mean you are actually invested in the setting, and when they actually create new stuff they do it because they want people to stop complaining about them constantly recycling and not because they actually care expanding on the franchise.

 

[R.Graves]

In Fallout 4 a town and a farm are the same size, with the same population, and people farmstead as far away from protection as they can get, surrounded on all sides by ghouls and flesh devouring critters.

I'm talking actual cities tho.

Concord, Lexington, Charlestown, Salem all just boarded up ghost towns full of buildings you can't enter. For why? Is diamond city the only city in this game? Did the settlement system really need to eat the entire map? Mind you I'm still really early in the game but it feels more dead than 3 or new vegas ever did.

 

[Bradylama]

I'm talking actual cities tho.

Concord, Lexington, Charlestown, Salem all just boarded up ghost towns full of buildings you can't enter. For why? Is diamond city the only city in this game? Did the settlement system really need to eat the entire map? Mind you I'm still really early in the game but it feels more dead than 3 or new vegas ever did.

Oh man. I don't know how to tell you this, but the DLC locations are more civilized than the Commonwealth. Diamond City is the largest settlement in the game and it's the same size as Goodsprings population wise. The next largest town is an old world neighborhood with a sewer. Some people insist that Bunker Hill is a settlement but it's really just a trading post that caravans pass through.

Spoiler

The secret Railroad base underneath Bunker Hill is bigger than the settlement and the Railroad HQ that you get all your quests from.

 

[R.Graves]

because it would be too jarring to do it in a fantasy setting.

it wouldnt tho

in fact its wierd that they DONT have fire arms in the elder scrolls by now especially after the 200 year time skip in skyrim

Oh man. I don't know how to tell you this, but the DLC locations are more civilized than the Commonwealth. Diamond City is the largest settlement in the game and it's the same size as Goodsprings population wise. The next largest town is an old world neighborhood with a sewer. Some people insist that Bunker Hill is a settlement but it's really just a trading post that caravans pass through.

Spoiler

The secret Railroad base underneath Bunker Hill is bigger than the settlement and the Railroad HQ that you get all your quests from.

god thats dissapointing. but bethesda's towns have gotten worse with every game since morrowind. first they kept getting scaled down until we had capitals that were two streets big and now its seems theyve damn near been removed entirely. makes me wonder what starfield is like.

but seriously compare project tamriel's karthwasten to the one bethesda made and it really says it all

bethesda:

people who actually care:

 

[AgentBJ09]

in fact its wierd that they DONT have fire arms in the elder scrolls by now especially after the 200 year time skip in skyrim

If you're willing to pay for Creation Club stuff, Skyrim does have a 'gun' now. A blunderbuss essentially. Loads exactly the same way the crossbow does, though.

 

[R.Graves]

If you're willing to pay for Creation Club stuff, Skyrim does have a 'gun' now. A blunderbuss essentially. Loads exactly the same way the crossbow does, though.

man im not even willing to play skyrim

 

[Hardboiled Android]

The super mutants can't maintain the culture of the Unity without the Master, which is why the Nightkin are so thoroughly screwed. Dumb super muties can always follow smart super muties with the brain power to find a new purpose for the mutant diaspora, but the Nightkin need stealth boys to help manage their psychosis and all of their interests revolve around that addiction.

In my earlier post I originally was going to point out to Phipps that there's no such thing as Unity culture among Super Mutants without the Master, but I decided against it as it was pretty obviously not what he was referring to.

You're massively overthinking things bringing up the tunnelers and stuff like this. I said that ghouls and super mutants aren't humans "per se" because for all intents and purposes they are still human; it's just their genetics that have been scrambled. Practically speaking there's no difference between a super mutant and a mule. Mules aren't viable themselves, yet as a hybrid they're also not a horse or a donkey. Tunnelers are irrelevant because they have no ambitions and can't hold a conversation. They're dumb animals who will likely never leave The Divide. I know Ulysses says they could threaten the outside world since their tunnel networks are constantly expanding, but we're probably never going to see them again anyway.

Well sure I concede that none of those example are listed are HUMAN species in the sense of being capable of participating in society, but my question is... so what? If reproductive mutants derived from humans are possible why, in principle, are intelligent reproductively viable humanoid mutants necessarily a setting breaker? I agree that they could be messy, sure, and would need to be implemented into the setting with care, but this just seems like an arbitrary bar.

The important thing about the Vault 4 natives is that they're people who can reproduce like normal humans can and pass on what are presumably radioresistant genes. Those mutants are the most desirable breeding partners in the entire wasteland. They should be able to pick and choose whoever they want from the surface to expand their population and form settlements on the surface, but they're fine with staying underground despite everything they knew about the NCR. They're a big huge deal for the setting and they're wasted on a bad joke.

Yes certainly, Vault 4 is wasted on Fo:TV, just as most ideas are wasted on Bethesda Fallout products.

But I don't think that the Vault 4 dwellers nescesarially have to be as big a deal as you say - It could be, for example, that only Gulpers have maintained radioresistance, other mutants having lost it. Or it's possible that they do possess some measure of radioresistance, but it's fairly modest and not a decisive evolutionary advantage. It's also possible that, even if they're biologically viable, their offspring can still suffer from congenital defects at a high enough rate that it outweighs a selective advantage over normal Wastelands. And it also seems like you're not considering that a social, aesthetic aversion to ugly mutant freaks is just as much a valid force in the selection of genes as anything ekse. It's also possible that socially the mutants simply don't have a desire to contact the outside world - indeed, they seem like given their history they just want to be left alone and get on with things.

My point here being that you're not wrong on any of these counts, these are all interesting questions and problems that could be destroyed, but nothing you note represents a fundamental fracture, lore-break, or error in writing. It's just bad writing.

For me, the only thing that really doesn't make sense at all is: How is it that Vault 4 escaped notice of Shady Sands for its entire history, despite being in visual distance of it? This seems like a basically irresolvable problem, and a pretty major one since, had it been a part of NCR, it probably wouldn't make sense for it to exist in the way it does. Ditto the Master, albeit not as bad.

I don't think the showrunners know what The Master even is because they only played Fallout 3. They just googled some easily recognizable iconography in a fallout wiki for easy references to games outside of Fallout 3 but only did it for like half of those things.

The ruins of the Cathedral appears in one of the credit sequences. So at least some VFX artist is aware of it.

I did, I was chiefly referring to 33, 32, and 31. I think my argument earlier was the Mutants of Vault 4 would probably be Master allies.

We never see the Master ally with the Ghouls, he occupied Necropolis, kidnapped ghouls, and then destroyed it.

I mean they left their Vault voluntarily because they had their own version of Reclamation day.

They left their Vault because it was getting fucked up by faction and/or race war.

I'm not inclined to defend it, just saying that you're describing a reason why they wouldn't integrate and would remain their own separate society until they took in refugees.

If you live in visual distance of a major modern metropolis you don't really have a say in the matter in most cases. It would be like if there were still a tribe of Lenape living in birch bark huts and hunting with bows and arrows in the middle of Yonkers, New York. And if they had a big sign saying "FREE REAL ESTATE".

The door makes it extremely implausible that the mutants could have kept themselves isolated from NCR until it got blowed up. I can imagine scenarios where this transpires but they would be complex and weighty enough to bear remarking upon, just inferring it does not suffice.

 

[CT Phipps]

Set was an involuntary ally of the Master but an ally he was, hence why they had troops stationed inside the place.

If you live in visual distance of a major modern metropolis you don't really have a say in the matter in most cases. It would be like if there were still a tribe of Lenape living in birch bark huts and hunting with bows and arrows in the middle of Yonkers, New York. And if they had a big sign saying "FREE REAL ESTATE".

A bunch of horrifying deformed mutants living in the sewers in an indestructible bunker is a bit different as a point.

At least this Vault is hidden, mostly, despite the giant Vault-Tec symbol in front of it.

My biggest question with the retcon of its location being now in the Boneyard (or at least Shady Sands being in Los Angeles County--maybe the Valley), is whether or not its meant to be the same Shady Sands location as the original games or if the community moved ala Rome over a hundred years.

The door makes it extremely implausible that the mutants could have kept themselves isolated from NCR until it got blowed up. I can imagine scenarios where this transpires but they would be complex and weighty enough to bear remarking upon, just inferring it does not suffice.

Fair enough. Vault 4 doesn't appear to be the kind of group that would ever have been part of NCR.

 

[Bradylama]

Well sure I concede that none of those example are listed are HUMAN species in the sense of being capable of participating in society, but my question is... so what? If reproductive mutants derived from humans are possible why, in principle, are intelligent reproductively viable humanoid mutants necessarily a setting breaker? I agree that they could be messy, sure, and would need to be implemented into the setting with care, but this just seems like an arbitrary bar.

It's not an arbitrary bar, because if there's radioresistant human beings walking around and producing offspring who are also radioresistant, then the wasteland isn't really a threat anymore. The survivalistic tension of the post-apocalypse gets halved and all you're left with is killer critters. There also wouldn't be any hidden ruins full of prewar goodies left because radioresistant humans could clean them out no problem. No need for expensive and hard to acquire drugs or PPE.

I know you keep saying they may not be radioresistant, but we can't assume anything the show neither shows or tells us. If Vault 4 natives are directly descended from the gulpers then it's logical to conclude they're all radioresistant from gulper DNA. The problems and caveats you're thinking of should have been covered in the show itself, instead of contriving everything to set up a 2 parter joke with a literal punchline in the form of Maximus going on a rampage.

e: actually, you could even forget everything I said about the vault 4 natives starting a race of ideal survivalists. If they refused to leave the vault and the NCR knew about them, they would have been conscripted into excavation teams. They wouldn't have been allowed a choice.

And it also seems like you're not considering that a social, aesthetic aversion to ugly mutant freaks is just as much a valid force in the selection of genes as anything ekse.

Vault 4 dwellers are remarkably normal and their mutations are extremely minor. Why wouldn't anyone want to get with the black lady who has the eyes of ibad? Why is a well kept and washed guy with an ear on his forehead a dealbreaker compared to your average six-toed seven-fingered surface dweller who wallows in their own filth and smells like brahmin shit?

For me, the only thing that really doesn't make sense at all is: How is it that Vault 4 escaped notice of Shady Sands for its entire history, despite being in visual distance of it? This seems like a basically irresolvable problem, and a pretty major one since, had it been a part of NCR, it probably wouldn't make sense for it to exist in the way it does. Ditto the Master, albeit not as bad.

Vault 4 isn't really in visual range of Shady Sands but it's close enough. Vault 4 isn't even in the same biome as the hospital where the trap door is. Lucy and Maximus walk off stage right from the entrance door and straight into a dark forested area. Vault 4 is also way bigger than the management vaults, which were designed around maintaining a centuries long eugenics program. Vault 33 has only one level that we can see with 30 some odd people in it, while Vault 4 has at least twelve levels and two distinct populations.

I noticed when Cooper mentions Vault 4's model number that it was designed or constructed in 2065, over a decade before the Vault-Tec conspiracy and long before the management vault was conceived. Which means Vault 4 wasn't originally designed for its eventual purpose as a genetics lab. Only the management vaults seem to be designed for purpose, and they suck at it.

e: plus where did the wild gulpers come from? Did a Vault 4 scientist flush one down the toilet? Did they open the entrance door just to let all the animalistic gulpers run wild and free?

 

[CT Phipps]

There's also the assumption that the more human Vault 4s are radiation immune.

The Gulpers are but we don't have any sign the Vault 4ers are as there's a distinct difference between the two.

The more human like ones may simply have been deformed by the experiment.

 

[TheGM]

plus where did the wild gulpers come from?

we loosed them on the environment FOR SCIENCE!

 

[Bradylama]

we loosed them on the environment FOR SCIENCE!

Cousin Jeb couldn't be trusted around the school kids, so we had to "let him go."