PaxVenire
Wasteland Peacemaker
Hello NMA, it's been a while since I've posted something on here and figured I'd rectify that.
I have recently fell into the rabbit hole of playing Fallout: Dust and falling in love with it's world, challenging gameplay, and the carefully crafted take on New Vegas' ending. While bleak and depressing, I have come to believe that Dust is a strong contender for what the West (or at the very least, the Mojave) could look like post-New Vegas.
But first, we have to get the obvious out of the way.
What is Fallout: Dust?
Dust is a total conversion mod for New Vegas, one of the earliest as a matter of fact, predating even New California. Whereas other total conversion mods take players to expansive new maps set in completely different parts of the world with completely new stories and characters to interact with, Dust is set in the Mojave itself, 20 years after New Vegas. This will be sacrilege to some, but Dust doesn't have a web of quests that intertwine into some grand finale, as a matter of fact there is only one quest in Dust, and that is to escape. The reason for this is because Dust isn't an RPG, it's a survival simulator. Dust is what Fallout 76 at launch wanted to be, a massive world filled with NPCs that are all trying to kill you while you are finding your next speck of food or water. While you try to find a way out of the Mojave, the lore you obtain is found via journals, notes, Holotapes, and terminal entries. I know that doesn't sound fun at all to a lot of people, nor is it worth trading the excellent game of New Vegas for a sandbox shooting gallery, but it's not the gameplay I want to talk about today, it's the world, the lore, the concept of how the Mojave got to the state its in.
Here is a really well-made in-depth video about the lore and setting of Dust if you're more of a visual consumer than a reader, though I will warn you it's long:
The world of Dust, it's set in 2301, two decades after the Second Battle of Hoover Dam. Within the timeline of Dust, the Courier uses the NCR to win the battle and crush Caesar's Legion only to betray them in the end for an ambiguous independent Vegas (intentionally vague so that either the House or Yes Man endings could be considered canon). Shamed and cheated out of their prize, the NCR immediately declares war on the Courier, annexing the Strip by force after a hard fought campaign against the Securitrons and labeling him a terrorist. The Courier is forced to flee into the Mojave, being mercilessly pursued by NCR assassins, none of whom return. Free from their worries of Caesar's Legion, the NCR now has more resources to spend and sends scouts to various corners of the Mojave, eventually finding the fabled Sierra Madre casino as well as the Cloud. They bring samples of the Cloud back to the Strip where the Lucky 38 and Vault 22 were converted into laboratories, and in an effort to weaponize the toxin, creates a strain five times more potent than the one at the Sierra Madre. All the while, tensions in the Mojave rise due to the NCR's brutal annexation, especially in Freeside where tensions between the locals and NCR were already at a boiling point even before the battle for the dam. With no Legion forcing them to spread thin, the NCR looked inward to Freeside, killing dissidents and abducting them for their experiments on the Strip. This would ultimately end up in the Mojave locals, now calling themselves the New Vegas Rebels, storming the strip in a mass organized uprising and waging a fierce battle in which the NCR's sample of the Cloud would wind up being leaked, swallowing the Strip and killing everyone unlucky enough to be trapped inside. To make matters worse, two horrors from the Divide would slowly be making their way to the Mojave: the catastrophic dust storms that flay the skin off men, and true to Ulysses' word, the Tunnelers. The NCR would organize a mass evacuation of military personnel from the Mojave, abandoning everything that was fought so hard over, and turning back to California. The dust storms of the Divide eventually do make their way to the Mojave, mixing with the Cloud to form a thick layer of orange haze that blots out most of the Sun. Without the Sun being an issue, the subterranean Tunnelers now roam the expanse of the Mojave, making the once proud region a living Hell. Over the years, factions would devolve into roaming bands of survivors, cannibals, and tribals. The Mojave by the year 2301 is an endless slaughter field, and you, the Survivor, have only one objective: Escape.
That is merely the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the lore of Dust, just a rushed recap of the setting. The world goes into a lot more detail, and I highly recommend checking out some videos on YouTube regarding the world such as the one I posted above.
Why do I consider Dust the canon ending to New Vegas?
As depressing as the fate of the Mojave is in the world of Dust, I can't help but feel like it fits thematically with New Vegas perfectly. Of course we have the theme of not just New Vegas, but the series overall, being that war never changes. The consequences of the Courier shafting the NCR in Dust lore fits this theme perfectly, not to mention the ramifications of this crucial moment that eventually turns the entirety of the Mojave into a warzone. Another theme of New Vegas is greed, well befitting the city for which the game is set. When it comes to the theme of greed, I think an independent New Vegas is more than likely the thematically appropriate ending choice for the game, despite perhaps not being the best or brightest future (as Dust lore clearly shows). There's also the big theme of New Vegas, which is letting go of the past, and beginning again, something I feel none of the endings for New Vegas truly incapsulates. The grand conflict of the game centers around an Old World gem in the desert, a city frozen in time powered by an Old World dam. While each outcome may have its strengths and bright outlooks for the future of the Mojave, they don't necessarily fit the theme of rebirth, nor do the players truly let go of the past by siding with these factions. The NCR is rooted in Old World values of democracy, the Legion is rooted in the ideals and virtues of ancient empires and authoritarianism, House is literally from the Old World and driven by an aristocratic outlook on society and industry, Yes Man depends solely on the choices you make as the player and that can range from keeping the Mojave in a state of self-governing status quo or anarchy. The closest ending to fit the theme of rebirth in my book would be House, with his promises of revitalizing humanity and sending colonies to the stars, but then that leads me to my argument for why Dust's world is more fitting for Fallout.
It's no secret Chris Avellone prefers post-apocalyptic Fallout to post-post apocalypse. He's stated in interviews that if Fallout were to advance too far into the timeline and progress too much society-wise, the series would stray too far from it's post-apocalyptic roots. This is why in Van Buren, the game would ultimately end in the player choosing which society gets a hard reset, why in Lonesome Road you are forced to make a similar decision, and why even if you disable the nukes in Lonesome Road, Chris Avellone added the looming threat of the Tunnelers. It's not just Chris who argues this either, I've seen the post-apocalyptic debate regarding this series many times online. As for me, I tend to fall more into the camp of Chris Avellone. I think New Vegas was a very good look into what post-post apocalypse Fallout would look like, but I tend to prefer the bleakness and horror of post-apocalyptic Fallout. Others do too, there's a reason most Fallout 2 TCMs are set before Fallout 1 or in between Fallout 1 and 2. And before anyone brings up Bethesda's unwillingness to progress their settings as a counter, I will say that my problem with Bethesda isn't that the games are all post-apocalyptic, it's that the games are post-apocalyptic 200+ years after the bombs fell. In two whole centuries after the bombs, humans still raid grocery stores for pre-war food and drink miraculously chilled glasses of soda. Ironically, Fallout 76 has the most progressive and developed societies in the East coast series, despite it being set closer to the war than Fallout 3 and 4. But I digress. So. If I prefer post-apocalyptic Fallout but don't want to endlessly just explore the initial decades of the Great War, what must happen? Well my answer is Dust.
What choices are canon in Dust?
As with every continuation of a series, whether it be fan-made or official, a canon ending to what came before is usually hinted at if not outright confirmed. For Fallout 1, we know the Vault Dweller was 27 year old Albert Cole, he defeated the Master, and helped Shady Sands enough for them to establish the NCR and hail him a hero. For Fallout 2, we know the Chosen One was a 20 year old male, the grandson of the Vault Dweller, and a tribal of Arroyo who saved his village and defeated the Enclave. Fallout 2 confirms Fallout 1's ending, and New Vegas confirms Fallout 2's ending. Fallout fan mods such as Resurrection and Sonora also confirm Fallout 1 and 2's ending, you get the point. Dust does the same. It establishes that the Courier opted out of NCR and Legion, and instead joined either House or Yes Man. It also establishes that Elijah is alive in the Sierra Madre after the DLC is completed, meaning the Courier trapped him in the vault or snuck out without killing him, allowing Elijah to give the former Legion tribals now forced to work for the NCR the toxic cloud samples that would eventually plague them. Due to the dust storms of the Divide moving into the Mojave, it's heavily implied that the Courier nuked both the NCR and Legion at Long 15 and Dry Wells, giving rise to the flaying winds that would move slowly into the mainland. As for the conflict in Zion, the Courier sides with Joshua, waging war on the White Legs and reinvigorating Joshua's warlord spirit, who then goes on to teach the Dead Horses and Sorrows the ways of subjugation and warfare like he did with the Legion in the past.
Pragmatism vs. Nihilism
I've seen a lot of people summarize the world of Dust as the result of every bad, evil, or wrong choice being made in the game. This is untrue, and I would argue that if we follow the canon choices the Courier made according to Dust, the fate of the Mojave is actually more pragmatic than it is just nihilistic. The Courier betrays the NCR at the Second Battle of Hoover Dam, but also helps them crush Caesar's Legion. Now that the NCR doesn't have to deal with an organized Legion under Caesar or Lannius, they are free to divert their sole intention on the Strip. Realistically, this is exactly what would happen. I don't care if House or Yes Man had a million Securitrons, the NCR has gone toe to toe with the Jackals, Vipers, Khans on several occasions, they've warred with the Enclave, warred with the Brotherhood, and warred with Caesar's Legion. To think Securitrons would be enough to stop a vengeful California that's already expended innumerable resources and manpower for their gem in the desert is foolish. The Courier nukes both Long 15 and Dry Wells, which we see in game creates Marked Men, meaning the storms of the Divide are unleashed really close the mainland Mojave. The idea of the storms encroaching makes total sense, and when it mixes with the Cloud of the Madre, it results in a dusty, hazy world similar to what we see of the atmosphere in the Sierra Madre proper. Then of course we have the Tunnelers which Ulysses correctly points out are on their way to the Mojave. Without having to worry about the brightness of the Sun, the creatures are able to roam free. Life becomes Hell, and those left in the Mojave either leave, die, or kill. Its all cause and effect, with the cause being perfectly centered in the themes of greed and war, and the effect being a Mojave that's forced to let go of the past and begin again.
I have recently fell into the rabbit hole of playing Fallout: Dust and falling in love with it's world, challenging gameplay, and the carefully crafted take on New Vegas' ending. While bleak and depressing, I have come to believe that Dust is a strong contender for what the West (or at the very least, the Mojave) could look like post-New Vegas.
But first, we have to get the obvious out of the way.
What is Fallout: Dust?
Dust is a total conversion mod for New Vegas, one of the earliest as a matter of fact, predating even New California. Whereas other total conversion mods take players to expansive new maps set in completely different parts of the world with completely new stories and characters to interact with, Dust is set in the Mojave itself, 20 years after New Vegas. This will be sacrilege to some, but Dust doesn't have a web of quests that intertwine into some grand finale, as a matter of fact there is only one quest in Dust, and that is to escape. The reason for this is because Dust isn't an RPG, it's a survival simulator. Dust is what Fallout 76 at launch wanted to be, a massive world filled with NPCs that are all trying to kill you while you are finding your next speck of food or water. While you try to find a way out of the Mojave, the lore you obtain is found via journals, notes, Holotapes, and terminal entries. I know that doesn't sound fun at all to a lot of people, nor is it worth trading the excellent game of New Vegas for a sandbox shooting gallery, but it's not the gameplay I want to talk about today, it's the world, the lore, the concept of how the Mojave got to the state its in.
Here is a really well-made in-depth video about the lore and setting of Dust if you're more of a visual consumer than a reader, though I will warn you it's long:
The world of Dust, it's set in 2301, two decades after the Second Battle of Hoover Dam. Within the timeline of Dust, the Courier uses the NCR to win the battle and crush Caesar's Legion only to betray them in the end for an ambiguous independent Vegas (intentionally vague so that either the House or Yes Man endings could be considered canon). Shamed and cheated out of their prize, the NCR immediately declares war on the Courier, annexing the Strip by force after a hard fought campaign against the Securitrons and labeling him a terrorist. The Courier is forced to flee into the Mojave, being mercilessly pursued by NCR assassins, none of whom return. Free from their worries of Caesar's Legion, the NCR now has more resources to spend and sends scouts to various corners of the Mojave, eventually finding the fabled Sierra Madre casino as well as the Cloud. They bring samples of the Cloud back to the Strip where the Lucky 38 and Vault 22 were converted into laboratories, and in an effort to weaponize the toxin, creates a strain five times more potent than the one at the Sierra Madre. All the while, tensions in the Mojave rise due to the NCR's brutal annexation, especially in Freeside where tensions between the locals and NCR were already at a boiling point even before the battle for the dam. With no Legion forcing them to spread thin, the NCR looked inward to Freeside, killing dissidents and abducting them for their experiments on the Strip. This would ultimately end up in the Mojave locals, now calling themselves the New Vegas Rebels, storming the strip in a mass organized uprising and waging a fierce battle in which the NCR's sample of the Cloud would wind up being leaked, swallowing the Strip and killing everyone unlucky enough to be trapped inside. To make matters worse, two horrors from the Divide would slowly be making their way to the Mojave: the catastrophic dust storms that flay the skin off men, and true to Ulysses' word, the Tunnelers. The NCR would organize a mass evacuation of military personnel from the Mojave, abandoning everything that was fought so hard over, and turning back to California. The dust storms of the Divide eventually do make their way to the Mojave, mixing with the Cloud to form a thick layer of orange haze that blots out most of the Sun. Without the Sun being an issue, the subterranean Tunnelers now roam the expanse of the Mojave, making the once proud region a living Hell. Over the years, factions would devolve into roaming bands of survivors, cannibals, and tribals. The Mojave by the year 2301 is an endless slaughter field, and you, the Survivor, have only one objective: Escape.
That is merely the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the lore of Dust, just a rushed recap of the setting. The world goes into a lot more detail, and I highly recommend checking out some videos on YouTube regarding the world such as the one I posted above.
Why do I consider Dust the canon ending to New Vegas?
As depressing as the fate of the Mojave is in the world of Dust, I can't help but feel like it fits thematically with New Vegas perfectly. Of course we have the theme of not just New Vegas, but the series overall, being that war never changes. The consequences of the Courier shafting the NCR in Dust lore fits this theme perfectly, not to mention the ramifications of this crucial moment that eventually turns the entirety of the Mojave into a warzone. Another theme of New Vegas is greed, well befitting the city for which the game is set. When it comes to the theme of greed, I think an independent New Vegas is more than likely the thematically appropriate ending choice for the game, despite perhaps not being the best or brightest future (as Dust lore clearly shows). There's also the big theme of New Vegas, which is letting go of the past, and beginning again, something I feel none of the endings for New Vegas truly incapsulates. The grand conflict of the game centers around an Old World gem in the desert, a city frozen in time powered by an Old World dam. While each outcome may have its strengths and bright outlooks for the future of the Mojave, they don't necessarily fit the theme of rebirth, nor do the players truly let go of the past by siding with these factions. The NCR is rooted in Old World values of democracy, the Legion is rooted in the ideals and virtues of ancient empires and authoritarianism, House is literally from the Old World and driven by an aristocratic outlook on society and industry, Yes Man depends solely on the choices you make as the player and that can range from keeping the Mojave in a state of self-governing status quo or anarchy. The closest ending to fit the theme of rebirth in my book would be House, with his promises of revitalizing humanity and sending colonies to the stars, but then that leads me to my argument for why Dust's world is more fitting for Fallout.
It's no secret Chris Avellone prefers post-apocalyptic Fallout to post-post apocalypse. He's stated in interviews that if Fallout were to advance too far into the timeline and progress too much society-wise, the series would stray too far from it's post-apocalyptic roots. This is why in Van Buren, the game would ultimately end in the player choosing which society gets a hard reset, why in Lonesome Road you are forced to make a similar decision, and why even if you disable the nukes in Lonesome Road, Chris Avellone added the looming threat of the Tunnelers. It's not just Chris who argues this either, I've seen the post-apocalyptic debate regarding this series many times online. As for me, I tend to fall more into the camp of Chris Avellone. I think New Vegas was a very good look into what post-post apocalypse Fallout would look like, but I tend to prefer the bleakness and horror of post-apocalyptic Fallout. Others do too, there's a reason most Fallout 2 TCMs are set before Fallout 1 or in between Fallout 1 and 2. And before anyone brings up Bethesda's unwillingness to progress their settings as a counter, I will say that my problem with Bethesda isn't that the games are all post-apocalyptic, it's that the games are post-apocalyptic 200+ years after the bombs fell. In two whole centuries after the bombs, humans still raid grocery stores for pre-war food and drink miraculously chilled glasses of soda. Ironically, Fallout 76 has the most progressive and developed societies in the East coast series, despite it being set closer to the war than Fallout 3 and 4. But I digress. So. If I prefer post-apocalyptic Fallout but don't want to endlessly just explore the initial decades of the Great War, what must happen? Well my answer is Dust.
What choices are canon in Dust?
As with every continuation of a series, whether it be fan-made or official, a canon ending to what came before is usually hinted at if not outright confirmed. For Fallout 1, we know the Vault Dweller was 27 year old Albert Cole, he defeated the Master, and helped Shady Sands enough for them to establish the NCR and hail him a hero. For Fallout 2, we know the Chosen One was a 20 year old male, the grandson of the Vault Dweller, and a tribal of Arroyo who saved his village and defeated the Enclave. Fallout 2 confirms Fallout 1's ending, and New Vegas confirms Fallout 2's ending. Fallout fan mods such as Resurrection and Sonora also confirm Fallout 1 and 2's ending, you get the point. Dust does the same. It establishes that the Courier opted out of NCR and Legion, and instead joined either House or Yes Man. It also establishes that Elijah is alive in the Sierra Madre after the DLC is completed, meaning the Courier trapped him in the vault or snuck out without killing him, allowing Elijah to give the former Legion tribals now forced to work for the NCR the toxic cloud samples that would eventually plague them. Due to the dust storms of the Divide moving into the Mojave, it's heavily implied that the Courier nuked both the NCR and Legion at Long 15 and Dry Wells, giving rise to the flaying winds that would move slowly into the mainland. As for the conflict in Zion, the Courier sides with Joshua, waging war on the White Legs and reinvigorating Joshua's warlord spirit, who then goes on to teach the Dead Horses and Sorrows the ways of subjugation and warfare like he did with the Legion in the past.
Pragmatism vs. Nihilism
I've seen a lot of people summarize the world of Dust as the result of every bad, evil, or wrong choice being made in the game. This is untrue, and I would argue that if we follow the canon choices the Courier made according to Dust, the fate of the Mojave is actually more pragmatic than it is just nihilistic. The Courier betrays the NCR at the Second Battle of Hoover Dam, but also helps them crush Caesar's Legion. Now that the NCR doesn't have to deal with an organized Legion under Caesar or Lannius, they are free to divert their sole intention on the Strip. Realistically, this is exactly what would happen. I don't care if House or Yes Man had a million Securitrons, the NCR has gone toe to toe with the Jackals, Vipers, Khans on several occasions, they've warred with the Enclave, warred with the Brotherhood, and warred with Caesar's Legion. To think Securitrons would be enough to stop a vengeful California that's already expended innumerable resources and manpower for their gem in the desert is foolish. The Courier nukes both Long 15 and Dry Wells, which we see in game creates Marked Men, meaning the storms of the Divide are unleashed really close the mainland Mojave. The idea of the storms encroaching makes total sense, and when it mixes with the Cloud of the Madre, it results in a dusty, hazy world similar to what we see of the atmosphere in the Sierra Madre proper. Then of course we have the Tunnelers which Ulysses correctly points out are on their way to the Mojave. Without having to worry about the brightness of the Sun, the creatures are able to roam free. Life becomes Hell, and those left in the Mojave either leave, die, or kill. Its all cause and effect, with the cause being perfectly centered in the themes of greed and war, and the effect being a Mojave that's forced to let go of the past and begin again.
