My review of Fallout 3

I guess this means everyone in Fallout is a raider and it's hypocritical of people in the setting to dub others to be Raiders. Time to go tell The Vault wiki to place every character in the Raider category then... /s

CT Phipps said:
It certainly didn't increase the net happiness of the women folk or those enslaved by the system. The nature of empires is they function perfectly well for the elite or centralized government which benefits from those they parasite from--which is what NCR is doing in the Mojave.

It's a massive land grab for their own citizens with settlements being propped up so they can build. They may bring a few benefits but the simple fact is they're there to seize territory.
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In return, the region is secure for all in it, its citizens don't kill each other on a daily basis, the Legion can sustain its people and the savage practices of the local cultures (that were all trying to kill each other for various other reasons, indicating that something like the Legion would have formed though more savage and disorganized if the more savage tribe had a hand in that hypothetical Legion) were replaced by a less savage way of life. While some of the less savage cultures were tragically taken in by the Legion, it would have stopped excessively violent groups like the Vipers and Jackals from even existing.

What you seem to suggest is that the world of Fallout is better as tiny city states but that would not last. Inevitably someone or a group will want to create order in all that anarchy and generally (and if no interference takes place), the bare beginnings of a nation will form if their efforts succeed which has happened in the setting. The NCR developed from a group of people in a small but stable village that grew and expanded. With the right people, it can last but as the setting establishes, problems inevitably emerge which need to be remedied to sustain a nation that has maintained an acceptable standard of living (when compared to living in a bunch of huts or dwellings without security). Even if it falls apart, the people with a taste of that stability will want to recreate it and even if the NCR/Legion falls apart, there will be people who will attempt to recreate the nations in a new form. It's why Tracer Tong's ending in Deus Ex 1 is so widely criticized since (among the many credible arguments) his solution of stopping control by creating anarchy only acts as a temporary solution to the problem.

It's why Fallout 4 even mentions an attempt to create a unified government in the Commonwealth which failed either due to the people being retarded or the Institute being a bunch of megalomaniacs who wanted to control the region themselves.
 
CT Phipps said:
s for water, Megaton has a problem with its water purifier and why it needs to be fixed. A clean abundant source of water would allow settling new locations without infrastructure built-in to handle it.
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I keep repeating myself over and over about the Megaton Water Purifier... Megaton does not have a water purifier! :falloutonline:
Doesn't anyone really understand what the game tell them right in the face? :-P
Risewild said:
This is a common mistake. Megaton does not have a water purifier, it has a water processing plant, it cleans water but it doesn't remove rads (just like the Food Sanitizer item does not remove rads from food). Any tap or water source in Megaton still give rads to the player if he drinks from them, and nowhere it is mentioned it purifies the water.
Rivet City also doesn't have a water purifier. The scientists manage to produce small amounts of it but only enough to grow a few vegetables and nothing more, no one drinks that water and they even warn the Lone Wanderer to not touch any vegetables because they are worth more than his life (which shows how hard it is for them to grow those).
Many Rivet City citizens and security guards will comment about a citizen dying from drinking river water and then comment that the city's water isn't any better, raising alarm over the quality of the water.
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If Megaton had a water purifier they wouldn't be pulling their hair about not being getting their aqua pura shipments that were [*SPOILERS* intercepted by the Holy Light Monastery].
 
Yeah, I don't believe you're correct @Risewild.

In return, the region is secure for all in it, its citizens don't kill each other on a daily basis, the Legion can sustain its people and the savage practices of the local cultures (that were all trying to kill each other for various other reasons, indicating that something like the Legion would have formed though more savage and disorganized if the more savage tribe had a hand in that hypothetical Legion) were replaced by a less savage way of life. While some of the less savage cultures were tragically taken in by the Legion, it would have stopped excessively violent groups like the Vipers and Jackals from even existing.
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Yep, in the end, my Courier decided he had to kill Lanius as letting him go would allow the Legion way of life to continue with a clear successor. By killing Lanius, he was able to make sure the Legion would (hopefully) disintegrate completely. The cost would be stability and order but the benefit would be a dissolution of the monstrous tyranny which was the Legion and the inability for it to recover. In short, killing Caesar was nothing if you could not kill the entire civilization.

Fallout not being magical happy land, the cost for this would be considerable. Potentially civil war, famine, and worse but the end of the Legion was the goal and that meant making a few sacrifices.

Take note that I'm not necessarily opposed to organized civilizations as a whole existing or even large states. I'm suspicious of these things existing in the Wasteland and basically consider them precarious but NCR is a state I don't mind actually existing within California. I just see no reason to grant it any special privileges in the Mojave as well as seeing numerous disadvantages. If the citizens of the Mojave wish to join NCR then that's their business but until that point, they should be repulsed.

It's also why I choose the Institute as killing Maxson means that the BoS would be restricted from their campaign of conquest.
 
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Risewild said:
I keep repeating myself over and over about the Megaton Water Purifier... Megaton does not have a water purifier! :falloutonline:
Doesn't anyone really understand what the game tell them right in the face? :-P

If Megaton had a water purifier they wouldn't be pulling their hair about not being getting their aqua pura shipments that were [*SPOILERS* intercepted by the Holy Light Monastery].
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To be fair the game causes confusion. Walter refers to it as a water processor and then a purifier.

Walter said:
Well, people've been sayin' that the water purifier's about to go
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He also calls it the water purification plant as well as a processor.

Keep in mind that I don't agree that it is a purifier, just pointing out the confusion.
 
The more I think about it, the more I believe that the Legion won't actually collapse unless the player kills all their leadership and roundly trounces them. If Caesar dies, Lanius takes over. If Lanius dies, Caesar chooses someone else. If both Lanius and Caesar dies, Lucius could argue his own leadership as the bodyguard of Caesar and head of his guards (ironically, the Praetorian guard killed an emperor and then crowned one of their own as ruler).
 
Dr Fallout said:
The more I think about it, the more I believe that the Legion won't actually collapse unless the player kills all their leadership and roundly trounces them. If Caesar dies, Lanius takes over. If Lanius dies, Caesar chooses someone else. If both Lanius and Caesar dies, Lucius could argue his own leadership as the bodyguard of Caesar and head of his guards (ironically, the Praetorian guard killed an emperor and then crowned one of their own as ruler).
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Plus, whoever is running Flagstaff.
 
CT Phipps said:
Yeah, I don't believe you're correct @Risewild.
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How am i not correct? It is said ingame that it is a water processing plant, not a water purification plant. All water sources in Megaton radiate the player, they get angry and even risk annoying the BoS by complaining they aren't getting Aqua Pura, never it is said ingame it purifies water, we can't find any purified water bottle in the entirety of Megaton, no one sells purified water in Megaton (not the Salloon, the Restaurant, the doctor or even crazy Moira Brown). There is literally no purified water in the entirety of Megaton. Not to mention that if Megaton had a water purifier that could purify enough water for a town of more than 30 people (28 named NPCs and several named just Megaton Settlers) to live from it then what was the point of James? Why would he even need a GECK when he could have just studied Megaton's purifier and just build a bigger version?
The game never says Megaton has pure water or means to purify it.

If you play the game and still think that Megaton is purifying water then it is not my fault you are using headcanon to believe something in the game is not as it is actually represented in the game.
 


0:25

3:40

"Water treatment plant."

"Keep the town in fresh water."

Also, game mechanics aren't canon.

Walter says it treats the water and keeps the town in fresh water. It's Bethesda's mistake, not yours, however.

Not to mention that if Megaton had a water purifier that could purify enough water for a town of more than 30 people (28 named and several named just Megaton Settlers) to live from it then what was the point of James? Why would he even need a GECK when he could have just studied Megaton's purifier and just build a bigger version?
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In real life, you can purify radioactivity from water with a bag of sand and a plastic bag. I know how to do it and it doesn't require technological expertise or a Science Skill of 50+. James machine IS a gigantic water purifier and presumably IS just a giant version of the one in Megaton.

It's just that it's a thousand times more efficient and designed to purify the entire Capital Wasteland bay.
 
CT Phipps said:


0:25

3:40

"Water treatment plant."

"Keep the town in fresh water."

Also, game mechanics aren't canon.

Walter says it treats the water and keeps the town in fresh water. It's Bethesda's mistake, not yours, however.



In real life, you can purify radioactivity from water with a bag of sand and a plastic bag. I know how to do it and it doesn't require technological expertise or a Science Skill of 50+. James machine IS a gigantic water purifier and presumably IS just a giant version of the one in Megaton.

It's just that it's a thousand times more efficient and designed to purify the entire Capital Wasteland bay.
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Do you realize that water processing plants make the water fresh so it can be drink? It does not remove radiation... That is how it works in the real world too, it gets dirty undrinkable waste water and treats it into fresh drinkable water, it is not made to remove radiation from it. Removing radioactive isotopes is different than just filtering water in a plant to remove non radioactive contaminants. Also again, how is it that Megaton has non-radioactive water but any tap we drink from is radiated? Where are they getting this radiated water from? Again, they never say in the game it removes rads from their water.

EDIT: I just remembered something. If you want a place in the wasteland that was never mentioned about having a water purifier but it seems like it does have one is Tenpenny Tower. Even though no one mentions they have a water plant or purifier all of their taps have pure water that doesn't give any rads. Also if Megaton had a purifier there would be no point in Bethesda go the extra mile to make the Robot Butler give purified water by using it's condensation collectors when he could just say he filled some bottles from the tap...
 
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CT Phipps said:
Yep, in the end, my Courier decided he had to kill Lanius as letting him go would allow the Legion way of life to continue with a clear successor. By killing Lanius, he was able to make sure the Legion would (hopefully) disintegrate completely. The cost would be stability and order but the benefit would be a dissolution of the monstrous tyranny which was the Legion and the inability for it to recover. In short, killing Caesar was nothing if you could not kill the entire civilization.
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Not necessarily. Killing Lanius may mean that there is one less faction in a hypothetical Legion civil war situation that could arise if Caesar (Sallow) dies before expressly naming a successor. As you and @Dr Fallout pointed out, there are other leaders in place and I would presume that they could have interpreted Sallow's teachings differently from each other resulting in them seeking to be the dominant leader to keep the Legion going in accordance with their interpretation i.e pragmatic balance of Roman traditions and modern society with less emphasis on cruelty or even more barbaric and archaic to follow ancient Rome ideals even further.

It would make for an interesting game scenario as many have discussed here in other threads I can't recall at the moment where the player character of such a hypothetical game becomes involved in the aforesaid civil war and gets to decide what ideology succeeds to become the main ideology of this new Legion.
 
Do you realize that water processing plants make the water fresh so it can be drink? It does not remove radiation... That is how it works in the real world too, it gets dirty undrinkable waste water and treats it into fresh drinkable water, it is not made to remove radiation from it. Removing radioactive isotopes is different than just filtering water in a plant to remove non radioactive contaminants. Also again, how is it that Megaton has non-radioactive water but any tap we drink from is radiated? Where are they getting this radiated water from? Again, they never say in the game it removes rads from their water.
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Generally, I think it's a bug.

Dr Fallout said:
I'm for Lucius, if only as a fitting nod to Roman history.
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Alas, my method of Caesar usually involves Boone and the Forts' annihilation. It's a shame you can't rescue the slaves there.

Prone Squanderer said:
It's odd that there are people begging for pure water, yet everyone else appears to be just fine living off dirty water and irradiated food.
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How do you figure? In real life, plenty of people don't have abundant clean drinking water and I don't mean in the desert, I mean all over the world. There's a reason controlling the country's drinking water was the plot of Quantum of Solace.
 
CT Phipps said:
How do you figure? In real life, plenty of people don't have abundant clean drinking water and I don't mean in the desert, I mean all over the world. There's a reason controlling the country's drinking water was the plot of Quantum of Solace.
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What he means is that the people of Megaton have survived for 200 years without pure water, and other settlements seem to be doing reasonably well without pure water.
 
CT Phipps said:
It's a shame you can't rescue the slaves there.
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Free to where exactly? After you happened to rescue them, they have nowhere to go, only into the wastes eaten by wildlife or cannibals-fetishists...
I know only one Fallout that treated slavery with more than two dimensions and it's translation is far from end...
 
Dr Fallout said:
What he means is that the people of Megaton have survived for 200 years without pure water, and other settlements seem to be doing reasonably well without pure water.
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I suppose it actually comes back to the "Is the Enclave a danger" bit where the question of what the actual stakes are is there. Going with the idea Megaton has a leaky barely-functioning water purifier, it's in fact capable of surviving without James' Water Purifer and so are all the other settlements in the region because humans can't live without water for more than a few days.

James Purifier is, however, going to purify the Tidal Basin of Washington D.C. which will create an abundance of water which will serve as a resource which can be used for farming and trade with other areas. It's not perhaps the most singularly survival-orientated quest but it will change the Capital Wasteland as a whole.

It's like the difference between those little 3 Water Pumps in Settlement building or the 50 Water Processors you can put in rivers or puddles.

0wing said:
Free to where exactly? After you happened to rescue them, they have nowhere to go, only into the wastes eaten by wildlife or cannibals-fetishists...
I know only one Fallout that treated slavery with more than two dimensions and it's translation is far from end...
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Some of the other settlements nearby?

I confess slavery in media is something of a personal bugbear because I grew up in the rural South and it was a fairly nonstop set of apologetia for it until adulthood. One thing I appreciate in Fallout: New Vegas was they didn't shy away from the causal brutality and sexual assault which was innate to the system.

It's why I hope we get Fallout: New Orleans as I think you could do a lot with the battle against evil plantation owners in the Bayou. One of the biggest disappointments I had with the Institute was the Railroad vs. Institute plot was completely lacking in anything resembling real-life slavery parallels.
 
CT Phipps said:
James Purifier is, however, going to purify the Tidal Basin of Washington D.C. which will create an abundance of water which will serve as a resource which can be used for farming and trade with other areas. It's not perhaps the most singularly survival-orientated quest but it will change the Capital Wasteland as a whole.
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That's a pretty big assumption, because you do realize that the river flows for quite a distance and hence can be taken by pretty much anyone else further along the river (makes it a really limited trade source). Also, the only way large scale commercial trade (the one that matters) can occur is the towns join up to create a nation. But they're doomed. If the water is valuable then that means there may be invading armies, and seeing the size of Fallout 3 settlements...
 
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