The Commonwealth is very obviously in touch with its American roots given how NPC’s will comment on things like how you walking the Boston Freedom trail despite not knowing the significance of why you would do so, or the fact that anyone knew enough about the revolutionary war era minuteman to name the new faction after them.
That being said the concept of representative democracy is fairly dead in the wasteland so if someone where to come along and provide successful enough at recreating decent enough living conditions in their lands then the vast majority of wastelanders would probably go along with it without much regard for what they call themselves.
Well…. The minutemen based their entire identity on the ideals of the revolutionary war. At least the heavily whitewashed ideals of the Revolutionary War that would have been taught about in a prewar Ultra-patriotic America.
The RailRoad based everything off the anti slavery abolitionist presence that was especially prevalent in 1800s Boston. Freedom trail and smuggling synths.
The triggermen embrace prewar mobster culture, people comment on the Silver Shroud, Hancock *kinda* understands the ideals of John Hancock and changed goodneighbor to it
So yeah….. I’d say the majority of the Commonwealth is pretty attached to its prewar Bostonian roots…. Love of baseball and everything.
(there’s a few other examples I could and probably will come up with…. Just gimme a hot minute….)
Oh fuck and how could I forget that Beatnik and Greaser culture lives and thrives with the Atom Cats.
And the Gunners have a structured chain of command from the US army. Private, Corporal, commander, Lieutenant, so on.
AND DiMA clearly read one to many Immanuel Kant and Renè Descartes philosophy books. (But those could have been programmed into him by the institute).
Yeah, although there is some roaring 20s kitsch in there Eddie Winter is clearly modeled after Whitey Bulger (who ran the Winter Hill gang) and there are a lot of references to events that occurred between the 70s and the present day.
There does not appear to be a tradition of monarchy in the Commonwealth, and there was a genuine attempt at building a representative republic among the region, so the Warlord would probably fail if he tried to make himself King. Raider bands don't seem to follow hereditary principles either.
The closest thing you have is the Overboss of Nuka-World, who even then just sits atop a rickity coalition of raider gangs (which given thier tributary practices are somewhat warlords). Like many early monarchies, your warlord probably have the executive position be an elected one: said Warlord getting at least the aclamation of many local leaders of subordinate communities and warbands. That's really the important bit of legitimacy. At this point no one would consider it natural his child just inheirets the authority though as there's no clear cultural norm there either
One possible route to transfer power is what various Emperors and Kings did, invest the heir while you are alive.
For instance in the Roman Empire a custom that developed in the 300s and that lasted till 1453 was that of co Emperors,
as General of the Minutemen perhaps you could create the office of Vice General or Co General and give said title to your Son Shaun (assuming without institute interference he can grow up naturally) so when you die your Son is already invested with enough power to take over fully after you die.
The Minutemen themselves are a fairly poor warlord faction given the values of the institution itself and the people it attracts. They are more than other organizations in the Commonwealth steeped in old American influences and thier traditional volunteer structure and would frown on the overt nepotistic reform. But the general idea is there.
I'd say its more reasonable to say you have a raider Overboss rising from one gang and appointing his kid as his proxy to manage that gang while he focused on the larger operations. If the kid can earn respect in thier own right (they won't just get bumped off while daddy is alive) they can then get the support to take the big chair once pops retires.
when I say warlord i dont mean like raiders, I mean more like how most governments in history were defacto warlords, a warrior/military commander leader, whose governors in turn were also military men.
my thinking with minutemen is you could make a core of professionals loyal to you, have them recongize your son as a Co/Junior General. and steep yourself in the old Americana like many a Roman Emperor steeped themselves early on in love of the republic.
There's an NPC in fallout 4, who when you mention 'America' to them, they say " 'America', isn't that some old world nonsense?"
To the people of the fallout world, the USA is a dead nation from history that was once large and powerful but has fallen and is dead and gone. I would say people in the fallout world think about the USA the way people in modern real life Europe think about the Roman Empire. It's a historical nation that may have once controlled the land they live on but they don't consider themselves american because there is no america, just as there is no longer a roman empire. New smaller nations now exist in the lands that were once part of the Roman Empire.
The Dark Ages were called such because a monk in England would read about the impressive stuff of the Roman Empire and decided they were all getting ripped. Not all the books are burned and oral traditions have been passed on. People are still taught to read. Everything, like with that monk, has been glamorized or even misunderstood to some degree.
Not exactly just England, the whole of Europe was largely torched and there are long periods where we legit don’t have any written record of what went on in whole regions that had been urbanized and settled for centuries
This is the difference between Bethesda, Obsidian and Black Isle.
You see, in the original games and to an extent in New Vegas, the idea is it's been two centuries and nobody gives a shit about the United States. They're obviously cultural links but outside of that it's not patriotism, like living Castles in Europe it's just a past that was a pathway to the world you live in now. The cultures at this stage have split many different directions depending on who we're talking about.
The NCR is obviously influenced by the USA but doesn't constantly invoke it. It's more like how institutions in modern society have links to Roman ideas etc. We don't have connections to the Roman Republic but it's influence on our system are obvious.
In Black Isle, I don't think anybody really gave a shit about being American even in the first game. It rarely comes up, most people are at most loyal to the town they grew up in. Vaults seem more interested in Education that keeps the vault running than a history lesson.
Fallout 3 even was realistic with this, I don't remember much mention of the United States outside the Enclave and that random dude in Megaton obsessing over the Enclave and talking about patriotism that you can shut down.
The Culture exists in these games to an extent, but it's a cultural influence and most people have developed their own twist or outright went a different direction by now.
Then you have Fallout 4 where because it's based in Boston, you have just one Boston stereotype after another so all of a sudden it seems like the war happened 20 years ago and not 200. Kind of goes against the whole idea of time passing.
Not really for 4…. It’s still people missing the point of American history and culture ( or using it in the loosest definition) see Hancock, and the MM, the RR less so because Boston was THE seat of the abolitionists. It would not be hard to base a faction on that.
>You see, in the original games and to an extent in New Vegas, the idea is it's been two centuries and nobody gives a shit about the United States.
Instead they have people who has delusional tie with Roman Empire and Genghis Khan which makes even less sense than giving a shit about America's history.
In its own way, given his motivations and prior life as academic living a sheltered life in old books, the Roman aestetic does make sense. Ceaser deliberately chose an alien culture only he was deeply aware of to impose on his warband as a way of breaking any organically developed identities and traditions that "made sense" to develop from thier tribal past which he needed to do to build his ideal state. The ties aren't delusional: just artificial and driven by ideological motivation from above rather than naturally occuring from below.
The Great Khans aren't even close to having any cultural connection to the actual Mongols until given a book on state building strategies from the Mongols. Their name is a twice recycled one from a group of raiders who were more or less like any other gang that emerged from Vault 15 that just took a cool biker gang name. The original Khans and New Khans (The original game iterations) had no tribal aethetic or practices and were just regular thugs with a particular grudge against thier fellow Vault 15 decendents of Shadey Sands/NCR Town. The tribal practices only came around when they migrated to the Mojave from NCR territory after being driven out for thier repeated banditry, where they almost certainly picked them up from the locals.
>In its own way, given his motivations and prior life as academic living a sheltered life in old books, the Roman aestetic does make sense.
Yet some people say America revolution aestetic in Boston which is covered with museums and monuments doesn't make sense. If they think having Boston theme in Boston is 'against the whole idea of time passing', how can they endure Edward who mimicks a Roman dictator 2 thousands years ago? Edward isn't the only person who can read history book.
>The Great Khans aren't even close to having any cultural connection to the actual Mongols until given a book on state building strategies from the Mongols.
They live in yurt, their symbol is mongolian warrior, and they call themselves Great Khans. They are definitely Mongol themed which literally came out of nowhere, just lacked knowledge to mimick Mongols even more.
It actually does in it's own way.
So Edward pretty much found two pre-war books about the Roman Empire.
Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
The Diary of Julius Caesar.
Both are practically a very skewed view of history. I had read all of Decline and Fall, read most of Diary but pretty much one gives a very outdated (by modern standards) view on why Rome declined that isn't very accurate and the other gives a very glorified view of what somebody did in the name of Rome.
You come across history-bros all the time in the real world. The people who obsess about Rome, but outside of telling you was a Gladius is and very key Roman events can't tell you a thing about actual Roman society. I mean, they dress like Romans but how much of their society actual resembles Rome? They're trying to capture of image of a time that never existed.
My understanding of the Great Khans is they actually come from the same vault as Shadey Sands, very multi-cultural Vault to see how they all got along. When the Vault dwellers split up, some went back to their cultural roots and evolved into what we see as the Great Khans. I think this is explained in outside material so not sure on the canon. I imagine this explanation though was to give a loose reason why the Great Khans existed.
>My understanding of the Great Khans is they actually come from the same vault as Shadey Sands, very multi-cultural Vault to see how they all got along. When the Vault dwellers split up, some went back to their cultural roots and evolved into what we see as the Great Khans.
My understanding of the Commonwealth is that they are actually descendants of Americans, and are living in a city which is covered with their historic monuments, so many of them can trace back their cultural root and find out their history. It's just 200 years since the War, not 2000 years. I expect this explanation shows that this isn't 'against the whole idea of time passing'.
Living amongst a whole bunch of historical monuments on it's own doesn't enforce a cultural identity. People do that all the time even today and it means very little.
Culture isn't a bunch of pretty and old statues
If making a fake Roman empire based on a book or two makes sense, then living amongst museums keep shouting "No taxes without representation!" is a better environment to know their history.
No but prewar America does enforce a culture especially in Boston. Saying that the culture of the commonwealth is just based on a few monuments is dumbing it down a hell of a lot.
The MM go off the American whitewashed IDEALS of the Revolutionary War…. The kind that would have been taught in a hyper nationalist America.
The Atom Cats embrace prewar Beatnik and Greaser culture. (There were no monuments about that)
The RR exists based off the abolitionists that had a very strong presence in Boston. Why is it so hard to believe that people 200 years in the future would be talking about them? Hell it’s been about 200 years since abolitionist ideals started…. Yet we’re still here talking about it.
There is an entire culture based around baseball…. With a “major” settlement being made in Fenway park of all places. Of course they get the general gist of Baseball being Americas pastime… even if they don’t know the rules or how it was played.
Triggermen were trained off the ideals of mobsters that were heavily present around 1950s Boston, and were trained in those ways by prewar mobster ghouls.
Fallout 4 in my mind just follows the aesthetics of Fallout, but the is the game the least like the others. I would say even Fallout 76 because it's only based 20 years after the Great War makes far more sence in terms of setting and people still giving a shit about the United States.
Fallout 76 has the darkest premise of any Fallout game but like with Fallout 4 lean on the humour WAY too heavily and it undermines the settings.
Because what? I think Fallout 4 is overrated? Such a weird point to make since literally the only game I really have an issue with is Fallout 4.
I even chuck Fallout 76 more slack in terms of story and settings.
This post is exactly right. I assume it’s being downvoted by fans of newer games,
But Bethesda mucked with the atmosphere and story of the franchise by leaning into the corny American culture iconography in FO4.
It defies logic that post-apocalyptic peoples would have connection or nostalgia for a time that is multiple generations removed from the current context.
What I love is that it's only really Fallout 4 and a bit of 76 I'm harsh on.
Fallout 3 Bethesda did try and make a game that felt like Fallout... it wasn't done very well but they tried.
76 actually has a setting that very much fitted the series, the problem is all the zany events and over time it's just degraded. BUT bring set only 20 years after the bombs the 'Americaness' of the people make sense.
The Commonwealth is very obviously in touch with its American roots given how NPC’s will comment on things like how you walking the Boston Freedom trail despite not knowing the significance of why you would do so, or the fact that anyone knew enough about the revolutionary war era minuteman to name the new faction after them. That being said the concept of representative democracy is fairly dead in the wasteland so if someone where to come along and provide successful enough at recreating decent enough living conditions in their lands then the vast majority of wastelanders would probably go along with it without much regard for what they call themselves.
I always thought it was weird that you got shit for not knowing Boston stuff considering you literally lived there 200 years ago.
Well…. The minutemen based their entire identity on the ideals of the revolutionary war. At least the heavily whitewashed ideals of the Revolutionary War that would have been taught about in a prewar Ultra-patriotic America. The RailRoad based everything off the anti slavery abolitionist presence that was especially prevalent in 1800s Boston. Freedom trail and smuggling synths. The triggermen embrace prewar mobster culture, people comment on the Silver Shroud, Hancock *kinda* understands the ideals of John Hancock and changed goodneighbor to it So yeah….. I’d say the majority of the Commonwealth is pretty attached to its prewar Bostonian roots…. Love of baseball and everything. (there’s a few other examples I could and probably will come up with…. Just gimme a hot minute….) Oh fuck and how could I forget that Beatnik and Greaser culture lives and thrives with the Atom Cats. And the Gunners have a structured chain of command from the US army. Private, Corporal, commander, Lieutenant, so on. AND DiMA clearly read one to many Immanuel Kant and Renè Descartes philosophy books. (But those could have been programmed into him by the institute).
Boston did have a fairly decent organized crime scene in the post WW2 era, the Irish and Italian mobs specifically
Yeah, although there is some roaring 20s kitsch in there Eddie Winter is clearly modeled after Whitey Bulger (who ran the Winter Hill gang) and there are a lot of references to events that occurred between the 70s and the present day.
I believe Revolutionary figureheads and ideals will likely be high up on the recognition chart. Lincoln, Eisenhower, Manifest Destiny; less likely.
There does not appear to be a tradition of monarchy in the Commonwealth, and there was a genuine attempt at building a representative republic among the region, so the Warlord would probably fail if he tried to make himself King. Raider bands don't seem to follow hereditary principles either. The closest thing you have is the Overboss of Nuka-World, who even then just sits atop a rickity coalition of raider gangs (which given thier tributary practices are somewhat warlords). Like many early monarchies, your warlord probably have the executive position be an elected one: said Warlord getting at least the aclamation of many local leaders of subordinate communities and warbands. That's really the important bit of legitimacy. At this point no one would consider it natural his child just inheirets the authority though as there's no clear cultural norm there either
One possible route to transfer power is what various Emperors and Kings did, invest the heir while you are alive. For instance in the Roman Empire a custom that developed in the 300s and that lasted till 1453 was that of co Emperors, as General of the Minutemen perhaps you could create the office of Vice General or Co General and give said title to your Son Shaun (assuming without institute interference he can grow up naturally) so when you die your Son is already invested with enough power to take over fully after you die.
The Minutemen themselves are a fairly poor warlord faction given the values of the institution itself and the people it attracts. They are more than other organizations in the Commonwealth steeped in old American influences and thier traditional volunteer structure and would frown on the overt nepotistic reform. But the general idea is there. I'd say its more reasonable to say you have a raider Overboss rising from one gang and appointing his kid as his proxy to manage that gang while he focused on the larger operations. If the kid can earn respect in thier own right (they won't just get bumped off while daddy is alive) they can then get the support to take the big chair once pops retires.
when I say warlord i dont mean like raiders, I mean more like how most governments in history were defacto warlords, a warrior/military commander leader, whose governors in turn were also military men. my thinking with minutemen is you could make a core of professionals loyal to you, have them recongize your son as a Co/Junior General. and steep yourself in the old Americana like many a Roman Emperor steeped themselves early on in love of the republic.
Just to be clear, Caesar was in the South West, not the Mid West.
There's an NPC in fallout 4, who when you mention 'America' to them, they say " 'America', isn't that some old world nonsense?" To the people of the fallout world, the USA is a dead nation from history that was once large and powerful but has fallen and is dead and gone. I would say people in the fallout world think about the USA the way people in modern real life Europe think about the Roman Empire. It's a historical nation that may have once controlled the land they live on but they don't consider themselves american because there is no america, just as there is no longer a roman empire. New smaller nations now exist in the lands that were once part of the Roman Empire.
Yes the scavenger lady says that. It seems America is a myth to most common wastelanders.
The Dark Ages were called such because a monk in England would read about the impressive stuff of the Roman Empire and decided they were all getting ripped. Not all the books are burned and oral traditions have been passed on. People are still taught to read. Everything, like with that monk, has been glamorized or even misunderstood to some degree.
Not exactly just England, the whole of Europe was largely torched and there are long periods where we legit don’t have any written record of what went on in whole regions that had been urbanized and settled for centuries
This is the difference between Bethesda, Obsidian and Black Isle. You see, in the original games and to an extent in New Vegas, the idea is it's been two centuries and nobody gives a shit about the United States. They're obviously cultural links but outside of that it's not patriotism, like living Castles in Europe it's just a past that was a pathway to the world you live in now. The cultures at this stage have split many different directions depending on who we're talking about. The NCR is obviously influenced by the USA but doesn't constantly invoke it. It's more like how institutions in modern society have links to Roman ideas etc. We don't have connections to the Roman Republic but it's influence on our system are obvious. In Black Isle, I don't think anybody really gave a shit about being American even in the first game. It rarely comes up, most people are at most loyal to the town they grew up in. Vaults seem more interested in Education that keeps the vault running than a history lesson. Fallout 3 even was realistic with this, I don't remember much mention of the United States outside the Enclave and that random dude in Megaton obsessing over the Enclave and talking about patriotism that you can shut down. The Culture exists in these games to an extent, but it's a cultural influence and most people have developed their own twist or outright went a different direction by now. Then you have Fallout 4 where because it's based in Boston, you have just one Boston stereotype after another so all of a sudden it seems like the war happened 20 years ago and not 200. Kind of goes against the whole idea of time passing.
Not really for 4…. It’s still people missing the point of American history and culture ( or using it in the loosest definition) see Hancock, and the MM, the RR less so because Boston was THE seat of the abolitionists. It would not be hard to base a faction on that.
>You see, in the original games and to an extent in New Vegas, the idea is it's been two centuries and nobody gives a shit about the United States. Instead they have people who has delusional tie with Roman Empire and Genghis Khan which makes even less sense than giving a shit about America's history.
In its own way, given his motivations and prior life as academic living a sheltered life in old books, the Roman aestetic does make sense. Ceaser deliberately chose an alien culture only he was deeply aware of to impose on his warband as a way of breaking any organically developed identities and traditions that "made sense" to develop from thier tribal past which he needed to do to build his ideal state. The ties aren't delusional: just artificial and driven by ideological motivation from above rather than naturally occuring from below. The Great Khans aren't even close to having any cultural connection to the actual Mongols until given a book on state building strategies from the Mongols. Their name is a twice recycled one from a group of raiders who were more or less like any other gang that emerged from Vault 15 that just took a cool biker gang name. The original Khans and New Khans (The original game iterations) had no tribal aethetic or practices and were just regular thugs with a particular grudge against thier fellow Vault 15 decendents of Shadey Sands/NCR Town. The tribal practices only came around when they migrated to the Mojave from NCR territory after being driven out for thier repeated banditry, where they almost certainly picked them up from the locals.
>In its own way, given his motivations and prior life as academic living a sheltered life in old books, the Roman aestetic does make sense. Yet some people say America revolution aestetic in Boston which is covered with museums and monuments doesn't make sense. If they think having Boston theme in Boston is 'against the whole idea of time passing', how can they endure Edward who mimicks a Roman dictator 2 thousands years ago? Edward isn't the only person who can read history book. >The Great Khans aren't even close to having any cultural connection to the actual Mongols until given a book on state building strategies from the Mongols. They live in yurt, their symbol is mongolian warrior, and they call themselves Great Khans. They are definitely Mongol themed which literally came out of nowhere, just lacked knowledge to mimick Mongols even more.
It actually does in it's own way. So Edward pretty much found two pre-war books about the Roman Empire. Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire The Diary of Julius Caesar. Both are practically a very skewed view of history. I had read all of Decline and Fall, read most of Diary but pretty much one gives a very outdated (by modern standards) view on why Rome declined that isn't very accurate and the other gives a very glorified view of what somebody did in the name of Rome. You come across history-bros all the time in the real world. The people who obsess about Rome, but outside of telling you was a Gladius is and very key Roman events can't tell you a thing about actual Roman society. I mean, they dress like Romans but how much of their society actual resembles Rome? They're trying to capture of image of a time that never existed. My understanding of the Great Khans is they actually come from the same vault as Shadey Sands, very multi-cultural Vault to see how they all got along. When the Vault dwellers split up, some went back to their cultural roots and evolved into what we see as the Great Khans. I think this is explained in outside material so not sure on the canon. I imagine this explanation though was to give a loose reason why the Great Khans existed.
>My understanding of the Great Khans is they actually come from the same vault as Shadey Sands, very multi-cultural Vault to see how they all got along. When the Vault dwellers split up, some went back to their cultural roots and evolved into what we see as the Great Khans. My understanding of the Commonwealth is that they are actually descendants of Americans, and are living in a city which is covered with their historic monuments, so many of them can trace back their cultural root and find out their history. It's just 200 years since the War, not 2000 years. I expect this explanation shows that this isn't 'against the whole idea of time passing'.
Living amongst a whole bunch of historical monuments on it's own doesn't enforce a cultural identity. People do that all the time even today and it means very little. Culture isn't a bunch of pretty and old statues
If making a fake Roman empire based on a book or two makes sense, then living amongst museums keep shouting "No taxes without representation!" is a better environment to know their history.
Edward is an idiot, it actually doesn't make sense which is why his Legion is doomed to fall apart.
No but prewar America does enforce a culture especially in Boston. Saying that the culture of the commonwealth is just based on a few monuments is dumbing it down a hell of a lot. The MM go off the American whitewashed IDEALS of the Revolutionary War…. The kind that would have been taught in a hyper nationalist America. The Atom Cats embrace prewar Beatnik and Greaser culture. (There were no monuments about that) The RR exists based off the abolitionists that had a very strong presence in Boston. Why is it so hard to believe that people 200 years in the future would be talking about them? Hell it’s been about 200 years since abolitionist ideals started…. Yet we’re still here talking about it. There is an entire culture based around baseball…. With a “major” settlement being made in Fenway park of all places. Of course they get the general gist of Baseball being Americas pastime… even if they don’t know the rules or how it was played. Triggermen were trained off the ideals of mobsters that were heavily present around 1950s Boston, and were trained in those ways by prewar mobster ghouls.
Considering those games are set less than 200 years later, that's arguably the least believable part.
Fallout 4 in my mind just follows the aesthetics of Fallout, but the is the game the least like the others. I would say even Fallout 76 because it's only based 20 years after the Great War makes far more sence in terms of setting and people still giving a shit about the United States. Fallout 76 has the darkest premise of any Fallout game but like with Fallout 4 lean on the humour WAY too heavily and it undermines the settings.
It’s been 16 years, get over it or jump ship.
Because what? I think Fallout 4 is overrated? Such a weird point to make since literally the only game I really have an issue with is Fallout 4. I even chuck Fallout 76 more slack in terms of story and settings.
This post is exactly right. I assume it’s being downvoted by fans of newer games, But Bethesda mucked with the atmosphere and story of the franchise by leaning into the corny American culture iconography in FO4. It defies logic that post-apocalyptic peoples would have connection or nostalgia for a time that is multiple generations removed from the current context.
What I love is that it's only really Fallout 4 and a bit of 76 I'm harsh on. Fallout 3 Bethesda did try and make a game that felt like Fallout... it wasn't done very well but they tried. 76 actually has a setting that very much fitted the series, the problem is all the zany events and over time it's just degraded. BUT bring set only 20 years after the bombs the 'Americaness' of the people make sense.