Earth
Vault Senior Citizen
The Khans were always minor villains in Fallout and Fallout 2, being the raider faction that you interacted with in each game. I appreciate the fact that they made the group more sympathetic in Fallout New Vegas. In the original games, you could always just massacre the Khans no big deal, but in Vegas they show the very real consequences "massacres" actually have, with the whole Bitter Springs fiasco. I like the fact that this time round we see the Great Khans in a position of desperation, not strength.
So that's all well and good, but I can't help feeling like this is still the Great Khans we're talking about. A raider group who peddle in drugs and believe ultimately in physical strength as the decision-maker of society. What do we see of this in New Vegas? We see some relatively nice people open to reason, a young man who doesn't want to go through the brutal rite of passage of the Khans and instead wants to become a poet, and drug manufacturers who are pretty chill and groovy, y'dig? The only violent Khans we see are when they take a couple NCR soldiers hostage and the sniper in Bitter Springs. They just don't come across as all that bad. When they're talking about keeping the Fiends coked up to attack the NCR it just doesn't compute with the relatively nice people we see with the Khans. Or maybe that's the point, maybe they're supposed to be more likeable, most of them having learned a hard lesson from Bitter Springs.
I'm wondering if they should have been presented more ambiguously. The Great Khans have had a lot of bad things happen to them yes, but they should still be presented as the violent group they are. Shouldn't they be more aggressive, more keen to stage raiding parties from Red Rock Canyon. Maybe they should still use slaves like they used to in the old games. Stuff like that. Anyway, after all that spiel, any thoughts from you guys? Were you happy with how the Khans were presented, or do you think they could have been handled better? What would you change about them?
So that's all well and good, but I can't help feeling like this is still the Great Khans we're talking about. A raider group who peddle in drugs and believe ultimately in physical strength as the decision-maker of society. What do we see of this in New Vegas? We see some relatively nice people open to reason, a young man who doesn't want to go through the brutal rite of passage of the Khans and instead wants to become a poet, and drug manufacturers who are pretty chill and groovy, y'dig? The only violent Khans we see are when they take a couple NCR soldiers hostage and the sniper in Bitter Springs. They just don't come across as all that bad. When they're talking about keeping the Fiends coked up to attack the NCR it just doesn't compute with the relatively nice people we see with the Khans. Or maybe that's the point, maybe they're supposed to be more likeable, most of them having learned a hard lesson from Bitter Springs.
I'm wondering if they should have been presented more ambiguously. The Great Khans have had a lot of bad things happen to them yes, but they should still be presented as the violent group they are. Shouldn't they be more aggressive, more keen to stage raiding parties from Red Rock Canyon. Maybe they should still use slaves like they used to in the old games. Stuff like that. Anyway, after all that spiel, any thoughts from you guys? Were you happy with how the Khans were presented, or do you think they could have been handled better? What would you change about them?
