The Fallout TV show has prompted massive discussion about the new events revealed to have occurred inbetween New Vegas and the date the show takes place... and some events that occurred before that. I'd say a bulk of this discussion has based around ideas of "canon" and fundamental impossibility. I understand why, but I think this misses the point
Now, the show REALLY baits discussions of canon. Attached is "The Fall of Shady Sands", which took place 5 years before New Vegas. No one seems to have told anyone that Shady Sands fell in that game. This is just one example, and another would be the stated intention by the showrunners not to canonize any ending of New Vegas, and to leave every faction "thinking they might've won". It's no surprise the question of "what the fuck happened, does this line up" is asked, and if one was conspiratorially minded, one could say it was intended to come up.
But, in my view, there's three levels to any decision that's being discussed here. First, can it fit in canon. Second, is it a good writing decision in abstract. And third, is it a good writing decision in practice, i.e. have we given it enough time and attention/ have we not shat the bed implementing the idea. Canon is the bottom most rung on this ladder, and I think that's not remembered often enough. For an example of rung two and rung three, I think Star Wars and GOT are apt.
For "is it a good writing decision in abstract", take the decision to have the entire New Republic evaporate post Starkiller in the hours inbetween Episode 7 and 8. Like, I guess we haven't actually seen anything to explicitly stop this, but, seriously? Should we really have the First Order be total galactic tyrants uncontested, and so quickly too? And for the "have we given it enough time and executed it well", take the Insanity Incident in GOT Season 8. There was a foundation to it, and hell, it might well have been how the books ended, though executed very differently. But, like, Jesus Christ lads you didn't leave it much turnaround did you? Just a switch flicked from sane to nutto, and now Kings Landing fries.
I think these other two questions are drowned out by the question of "is this actually at all possible?". Things like the NCR's fall, everything being dead post New Vegas, the Vault Tek conspiracy, the big controversies, all of these fall more aptly under "should we have done this, and in this way", and probably not "is this even possible". And that's not to drag importance away from those discussions.
Because "Chinese Scientists re-engineer the Enclave's doomsday weapon from stolen FEV and kill everyone that isn't them" is an actual technically possible thing. It would be a godawful decision, and one that's neither been set up nor one that facilitates particularly good stories, but it's possible. When making massive changes to the world, "does this directly contradict previous works in an irreconcilable way" is the actual bottom most concern. It's important, but you haven't automatically come out with a winner just because you fulfil the requirement of being possible.
TLDR: I wonder if we are so preoccupied with the question of if the writers can, we are forgetting to ask if they should
Oh no, I guarantee by referencing the chalkboard timeline half the people who come here to comment are going to be talking about how it fits into canon. Which is going to be very ironic considering the actual point of your post, lol
I've never seen a particularly satisfying answer as to why, in addition to the blackboard pretty clearly implying that the nuke was the "fall" there's multiple other sources for that date. If Lucy's mum died in the "Famine of '77" and that wasn't when Frank nuked her what exactly killed her, and why did her corpse get reanimated as a ghoul years later? Why is the last date we see a book was checked out of the Shady Sands Public Library 2276 if the town was supposedly still standing for half a decade after that? In a show set in 2296 why does Max remember the nuking taking place 20 years ago?
You can certainly come up with excuses as to why all these different data points all point to an incorrect value, but it would be bizarre writing to intentionally point to the same wrong date from multiple independent sources if you're not trying to set things up as a mystery. I would assume that someone on the writing team quickly searched the wiki for "Battle for Hoover Dam" for the end date of New Vegas and didn't realise they got the first battle. Bit of a whoopsie, but mistakes happen.
I believe todd howard/show runners have said the nuking took place on 2283, so 2 years after new vegas and when lucy would be like 7, which fits alot better but I feel they are willing to change the date when asked why, just leaving the 2277 date is dumb,
Im like 90% sure that the writers wanted the nuke to be the same year as NV's Hoover Dam, so they looked up "what year was battle of hoover dam fallout" without realizing there were 2 atp.
I feel like a few years from now, someone is just going to admit that they mixed up the dates for the second and first battles of the Hoover Dam.
I hope they just tell us that it was the date Moldaver came to Shady Sands since the NCR survivors in Vault 4 are all cultists to the Flame Mother. Even if its not the original intention, I beg them, just so we never have to have people debate over that chalkboard ever again...
I think the default assumption by people who are criticising the show is "they shouldn't write this way", but "it seems irreconcilable and that's bad" feels like a more objective argument.
Conversely, defenders probably fall into 2 camps. They are either new fans and don't have the context care one way or the other what should be written and what shouldn't they just like what they see and think the criticism is unwarranted. Or they have that context, or some of it, and either don't care what the writers should do or the agree with that direction in general.
I guess there are two other camps too but they don't really fit in this conversation. The camps of reflexive contrarians, who are either going to criticize or defend the show no matter what just to stick it to the other side.
I've been trying to reframe the criticism about the reset the show is outlining. The issue is NOT the reset itself. The issue is that the direction of the reset is leading back to all the same old things BGS always leans on with the series. Like the turtles, it's BoS, Super Mutants, Deathclaws, Daddy Issues, and 50s Music all the way down. And that is the direction they "shouldn't" go, but are. You just can't build the argument for why they shouldn't write it that way without illustrating why.
>The issue is NOT the reset itself. The issue is that the direction of the reset is leading back to all the same old things BGS always leans on with the series.
I wouldn't say that. The problem with the reset is that it isn't explained.
We shouldn't be speculating about the current state of the NCR in a show that has plotlines with massive geopolitical ramifications on the West Coast. The last time we saw them the NCR had plenty of issues, but was still by far the largest and most powerful faction in the region the show takes place in.
Season 2 straight up has a BoS civil war plotline going on and the NCR isn't even on the background map.
What the hell happened to them? You can't just ignore the proverbial elephant in the room.
This isn't a new IP setting new ground. It is a story taking place in an already established setting.
Well sure that's a huge problem, but deleting the NCR kind of falls under what I mean by taking everything back to the highly marketable iconography that BGS leans on. The NCR doesn't fit in their post apocalyptic vibe check because the NCR is a post-post-apocalyptic thriving nation that spanned a couple states with a functional government. That is outside the bounds of BoS paladin fighting deathclaws to the tune of a 50s classic, and so it has to go.
If the NCR disappeared in a way that makes sense and led to a world that wasn't just more BoS and Super Mutants, it could be extremely interesting, especially if some new society is the one that supplanted the NCR.
It certainly seems like the goal was to reset California back to the franchise default. In my opinion that's a pretty huge misstep, the NCR was basically the only large nation in the setting. If you don't want to tell stories with large nations, just tell it anywhere else on the whole continent, but leaving them intact means that you still have them around to tell stories that can only be told with large and powerful nation states. For one story you need nations to tell, as I've pointed out in other threads, for the tagline of the series being "war never changes" New Vegas was the only game that actually featured an actual war in it.
Beyond that, there were plenty of flaws with the NCR that could have been used to tell and interesting and timely story of their downfall. Politicians being in the pockets of the ultrawealthy, the ultrawealthy using those connections to push of deregulation that allows them to amass even greater fortunes, the environmental impacts of overexploitation of their nation's natural resources, the political blowback of waging multiple unpopular wars to secure resources for their nation, there's plenty of potential to any of those narratives. But they would all need the show to spend time explaining 23rd century Californian politics, so instead we get a show where a nation that's been around for over 100 years and has a history that stretches back to the very first settlement you encounter in the very first game just goes away one day so the show runners can tell a generic story of Fallout stuff that could have happened anywhere.
Yep. These are the more convincing reasons you need to trot out when you think about OPs point about the difference between "can" and "should" in terms of the writing. Its not enough to point out they shouldn't write this way, you have to illustrate why.
Fallout today is just memes. And I mean that both in terms of the modern internet joke-y kind of way and also the recognizable transferable token idea kind of way. Its all vibes. BoS, Deathclaws, Nuka Cola, mid-century music and hair styles and clothing, daddy issues, and super mutants. That's what fallout is. It doesn't matter where BGS sets a game or story. It doesn't matter where in the timeline. It doesn't matter if it contradicts previously established lore. Fallout will contain those things so they can be plastered on advertisements and printed on the boxart. So they can parade these things out in front of the viewer for immediate recognition reactions.
War never changes
there’s your explanation for the reset, the same one for every game every in the franchise.
It’s a post apocalyptic setting no one wants to see a movie or show or play in one where society rebuilds too far. Then it’s no longer post apocalyptic and it’s fallout anymore.
There was never 100% explanations for the resets that must occur before each entry. You need to start in hell an work through it to improvement in the games you don’t ever start out with good circumstances you need bad ones to overcome.
>War never changes
This pathetic attempt at a thought terminating cliche again?
"War never changes" means people are going to always fight wars for similar reasons. It does not mean civilizational collapse is permanent and that previous civilizations disappear without a trace.
>It’s a post apocalyptic setting no one wants to see a movie or show or play in one where society rebuilds too far. Then it’s no longer post apocalyptic and it’s fallout anymore.
Speak for yourself. The post-post apocalypse of Fallout on the West Coast is extremely interesting. It is actually like the one area in the universe that can conduct activities which can be considered a war.
If the writers wanted a post-apocalyptic world and wild wasteland then they could:
A) Set the show a few years after the nukes dropped.
B) Set the show on the East Coast.
C) Set the show in an entirely new location where they can world build it however they want.
D) Actually explain why the West Coast is back to being a civilization-less wild wasteland again.
The option they went with is just bad writing, because they reverted the West Coast to a wild wasteland again without explanation.
Warning, giant effort post incoming, proceed at your own risk.
For the first time I've actually listened to all the intro cinematics that use the phrase "war never changes" back to back to see if there's a consistent theme expressed by them.
"War. War never changes. The Romans waged war to gather slaves and wealth. Spain built an empire from its lust for gold and territory. Hitler shaped a battered Germany into an economic superpower but war never changes. In the 21st century war was still waged over the resources that could be acquired only this time the spoils of war were also its weapons, petroleum and uranium. For these resources China would invade Alaska, the United States would annex Canada, and the European Commonwealth would dissolve into quarrelling, bickering nation states bent on controlling the last remaining resources on Earth. In 2077 the storm of world war had come again. In two brief hours most of the planet was reduced to cinders and from the ashes of nuclear devastation a new civilisation would struggle to arise. A few were able to reach the relative safety of the large underground vaults, your family was part of that group that entered Vault 13. Imprisoned safely behind a large vault door under a mountain of stone a generation has lived without knowledge of the outside world. Life in the vault is about the change..." Fallout intro cinematic.
"War. War never changes. The end of the world happened pretty much as we had predicted, too many humans, not enough space or resources to go around. The details are trivial and pointless. The reasons, as always, purely human ones. The Earth was nearly wiped clean of life, a great cleansing, an atomic spark struck by human hands quickly raged out of control. Spears of nuclear fire rained form the skies, continents were swallowed in flames fell beneath the boiling oceans. Humanity was almost extinguished, their spirits becoming part of the background radiation that blanketed the Earth. A quiet darkness fell across the planet lasting many years. Few survived the devastation, some had been fortunate enough to reach safety taking shelter in great underground vaults. When the great darkness passed these vaults opened and their inhabitants emerged to begin their lives again. One of the northern tribes claims they are descended from one such vault. They hold that their founder and ancestor, one known as the Vault Dweller, once saved the world from a great evil. According to their legend this evil arose in the far south. It corrupted all it touched twisting men inside, turning them into beasts. Only through the bravery of this Vault Dweller was the evil destroyed but in so doing he lost many of his friends and suffered greatly, sacrificing much of himself to save the world. When at last he returned to the home he fought so hard to protect he was cast out, exiled. In confronting that which they feared he had become something else in their eyes and no longer their champion. Forsaken by his people he strode into the wasteland. He travelled far to the north until he came to the great canyons. There he founded a small village, Arroyo, where he lived out the rest of his years. And so for a generation since its founding Arroyo has lived in peace, its canyons sheltering it from the outside world. It is home. Your home. But the scars of the war have not yet healed and the Earth has not forgotten..." Fallout 2 intro cinematic.
"War. War never changes. Since the dawn of human kind when our ancestors first discovered the killing power of rock and bone blood has been spilled in the name of everything from God, to justice, to simple psychotic rage. In the year 2077, after millennia of armed conflict, the destructive nature of man could sustain itself no longer. The world was plunged into an abyss of nuclear fire and radiation. But it was not, as some had predicted, the end of the world. Instead the apocalypse was simply the prologue to another bloody chapter of human history for man has succeeded in destroying the world but war, war never changes. In the early days thousands were spared the horrors of the holocaust by taking refuge in enormous underground shelters known as vaults but when they emerged they had only the hell of the wastes to greet them. All except those in Vault 101. For on that fateful day, when fire rained from the sky, the giant steel door of Vault 101 slid closed and never reopened. It was here you were born, it is here you will die, for in Vault 101 no-one ever enters and no-one ever leaves..." Fallout 3 intro cinematic.
"War. War never changes. When atomic fire consumed the Earth those that survived did so in great underground vaults. When they opened their inhabitants set out across the ruins of the old world to build new societies, establishing villages, forming tribes. As decades passed what had been the American Southwest united beneath the flag of the New California Republic, dedicated to old world values of democracy and the rule of law. As the Republic grew so did its needs. Scouts spread east seeking territory and wealth in the dry and merciless expanse of the Mojave Desert. They returned with tales of a city untouched by the warheads that scorched the rest of the world and a great wall spanning the Colorado River. The NCR mobilised its army and sent it east to occupy Hoover Dam and restore it to working condition but across the Colorado another society had arisen under a different flag. A vast army of slaves, forged from the conquest of 86 tribes, Caesar's Legion. Four years have passed since the Republic held the Dam, just barely, against the Legion's onslaught but the Legion did not retreat. Across the river it gathers strength, camp fires burn, training drums beat. Through it all the New Vegas Strip has remained open for business under the control of its mysterious overseer Mr. House and his army of rehabilitated tribals and police robots. You are a courier hired by the Mojave Express to deliver a package to the New Vegas Strip. What seemed like a simple delivery job has taken a turn for the worse..." Fallout: New Vegas intro cinematic.
"War. War never changes. In the year 1945 my great great grandfather serving in the army wondered when he'd get to go home to his wife and the son he'd never seen. He got his wish when the US ended World War 2 by dropping atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The world awaited Armageddon. Instead something miraculous happened. We began to use atomic energy not as a weapon but as a nearly limitless source of power. People enjoyed luxuries once thought the realm of science fiction. Domestic robots. Fusion powered cars. Portable computers. But then in the 21st century people awoke from the American Dream. Years of consumption lead to shortages of every major resource. The entire world unravelled. Peace became a distant memory. It is now the year 2077, we stand on the brink of total war and I am afraid. For myself. For my wife. For my infant son. Because if my time in the army taught me one thing, it's that war, war never changes." Fallout 4 intro cinematic.
Honestly I think seeing all these quotes in order like this might actually explain some of the disagreement about the very basis of what Fallout is about in the fan base.
The theme the intro cinematics of the west coast games keep reinforcing with the phrase "war never changes" is that the reasons wars are waged are always the same, the desire of nations for resources and territory. "Spain built an empire from its lust for gold and territory." "[...]too many humans, not enough space or resources to go around." "Scouts spread east seeking territory and wealth in the dry and merciless expanse of the Mojave Desert." Time and again the theme is that nations wage war with specific goals in mind. While there is mention of civilisation would struggle to arise from the "ashes of nuclear devastation" there's no suggestion that once it has risen that it's somehow doomed to inevitably fall apart again. By the time of New Vegas civilisations have managed to arise, and in rising they have come into conflict over the very things nations always war for, territory and resources. It's a very clear theme repeated through all of 1, 2 and New Vegas' intro cinematics.
In contrast it seems that Bethesda uses "war never changes" to explore a very different theme. From Fallout 3: "[...]blood has been spilled in the name of everything from God, to justice, to simple psychotic rage" not a focus on nations, but the violence inherent in individual human nature. Combined with the talk of life in Vault 101 being static and no mention of the world above having any civilisation, those that emerged only had "the hell of the wastes" to greet them, I could see how this intro's "war never changes" could be interpreted as meaning the world itself cannot move on because of the innate violent nature of mankind. I don't know if that was Bethesda's intent, although since their wastelands have been criticised for how little progress has been made in the centuries since the bombs fell it would seem that very well might be their thesis statement.
I have to admit I can't really pick out any thematic throughline for the Fallout 4 intro. It does world building to set the stage like the other intros, but it seems to just use the phrase "war never changes" to say that war doesn't change, because a Fallout intro has to say "war never changes". I guess it kind of says that nukes are cool, kind of.
It's actually been quite interesting going over each of the cinematics like this. Seeing how Fallout 3 spells out its intent behind "war never changes" in contrast to the three west coast games was actually really enlightening. I personally started with the first game, so the phrase always seemed to be talking about the inherent drives of nations that motivate conflict between them, but reading through 3's intro again does make it much clearer why those that entered the franchise there would see it as a phrase bemoaning the inherently destructive nature of humanity as a whole.
With that giga-post out of the way, to address your other points, to my knowledge before the show there's only been one explicit reset of civilisation after the bombs fell in any of the games, with the destruction of the Commonwealth Provisional Government by the Institute some time before the start of Fallout 4. The west coast games followed the slow but steady regrowth of civilisation, and the problems that come with it, while Fallout 3's Capital Wasteland never (that I can remember) explicitly said why everything was still in such a state so long after the bombs fell, but was implied to only be somewhat recently settled as DC was nuked so hard the radiation's only recently begun to dwindle.
Sure you can technically go far enough beyond an apocalypse to the point that it's not post apocalyptic any more, as I pointed out in other threads, Star Trek has a nuclear apocalypse in its backstory. I wouldn't want Fallout to develop all the way to post-scarcity utopian space exploration, but it's taken the NCR hundreds of years to get to somewhere around the 1800s with a few neat limited pieces of tech, and they're the most progressed there is out there, so I think the franchise has a few centuries more in that part of the world specifically before they get to that level.
As the masses of text at the top of the post attests, the theme of the west coast games' use of the "war never changes" phrase was about the things that drive conflict between nations. For how much the phrase is used by the franchise, Fallout: New Vegas was the only entry that actually had two groups large enough to be considered nations going to war with each other. If you don't want to focus on those stories you have the whole rest of the country and centuries of history to explore other narratives. My disappointment with the show's destruction of the NCR is that it robs the franchise of the one corner of its world where the stories of large nations and the things that drive them could be told, and as much as I genuinely enjoy the show, the stories they replace them with could be told basically anywhere else at any time.
What are you talking about there is explanations and it only really reset between 2 and 3 and thats because 3 is on the other end of the nation.
I think 2277 was when the NCR started to decline, 2283 was when the nukes went off.
Yeah this is history written by Shady Sands refugees in the abstract.
Remember President Kimball made the Mojave a major part of his election campaign. Politics and all of the corruption in that is probably assosciated with that time, so they may see that as the beginning of "the fall".
City seemed pretty fine by the time the soldier brought the nuke in.
Yes. It's bizarre that this is just utterly ignored in the Great Chalkboard Debate.
A place can be happy and thriving and still have problems it needs addressed.
Shady Sands was humbled as hell.
Hypothetically this is true, but it's not really backed up by the way it's presented in the show.
What do you mean it isnt backed up.
The only confirmation we have is both the father being excited at finding a NEW WELL of PURE WATER to help with the crops and people, and the fact it tells you Shady Sands Fall began in 2277, and nothing else saying the latter lol
The Fall of Rome wasn't just instant like doom and gloom, it literally began being humbled, less trade, traffic, population moving out etc.
Shady Sands looks very humble in that, for what is the Founding City and First Capital, it didn't look like at that point before its destruction like what it would look at its height.
EDIT - I mean like you have no confirmation of anything saying the latter. Its pretty obvious its just more humbled from its heights. Like you don't exactly need the character to go "Wow Shady sands could be in such a better place" when he literally goes on about how finding that water was very important, and they confirm Shady Sands Fall began after the first battle of hoover dam in 2277 which we know is ALSO when a lot of problems began for the NCR in general lol
Every framing of Shady Sands by the show is that of a community that is thriving and growing. Half the thematic resonance from the last episode was that it was meant to be the new hope for the wasteland before the nuke
Yeah, and the NCR also had loads of problems and Shady Sands looked incredibly humble, there was also in that same scene of him excited about hitting water to help get crops going again.
They are not mutually exclusive themes at all.
Shady Sands could be doing BETTER, and FELL from its PEAK, it is more HUMBLE, but its still HAPPY and THRIVING.
A scene can be multifaceted dude, and throughout the entire series it's been told that while the NCR was great for people and a had a lot of hope, it had problems and the Shady Sands fell from its height which is why they moved Capitals from it eventually and its population fell slightly since New Vegas.
Again, it can be a happy thriving place that has problems, and it was obvious there were problems, but it doesn't mean it wasn't a literal utopia in the wasteland lol.
So many people think "problems" as like, death and poverty, or being raided, a plague etc. When it can be as something as a water crisis and less trade traffic.
I mean, it needs to be a pretty big fucking problem for it to be classified as "the fall" of the city. Like, no one living in Berlin missed "the fall of Berlin", that shit was obvious.
Especially when it is being described as "the fall of Shady Sands", when the nuclear obliteration of that city is competing for that title.
Falls are long term events, they don’t get called falls at the start. They always end in disaster. I’d say decline to the point it lost its title of capital and being nuked is viable enough for a decade event to be called a fall is very viable.
Shady Sands does not seem to have lost its title as capital in New Vegas, set several years after 2277.
Falls are not necessarily long term events, especially when you're slapping a clear cut single year date on them. The Fall of Berlin happened in 1945. It wasn't 1945 on to 1950, or 1940 to 1945. The nuclear bombing doesn't even have any bearing on the other issues, and as such it would be really weird to group them together.
yeah remember water shortage ?
I thought that was when they found Hoover Dam and set off for the Mojave? Is that that? 2277? They'd probably consider that quagmire the beginning of the end.
2274 is when the NCR found the Dam and signed the Treaty of New Vegas with House, but the NCR had been spreading to the east before that, as the Ranger Unification Treaty, which brought the Desert Rangers of Nevada into the NCR, was signed in 2271 at Mojave Outpost.
2277 is the First Battle of Hoover Dam.
An odd time to put the fall of the capital at, given it was a victory, and the capital was then nuked five years later unrelatedly.
Think of how differently Gulf War I (HW Bush taking on Hussein over Kuwait) and Gulf War II (W Bush taking on Hussein) were viewed over time. Desert Storm was considered a large success, later on politicians on both sides of the aisle were either saying we shouldn't have done it or it didn't go far enough. The War in Iraq (Gulf War II) was justified by 9/11, but many people knew it was for control over oil, etc, and it became an endless quagmire.
NCR refugees beleive the government started to fall when their foreign policy became explicitly about maintaining imperial power (i.e taking of Hoover Dam again).
Yeahhhhh, but it isn't "the government" that fell, it's "Shady Sands", the specific city that went on to be obliterated. This isn't something wishy washy like "the fall of the NCR"
Its the Capital city.
Yes. It's the capital city, not the entire nation.
To call the events of 1991 "the fall of Moscow" instead of the fall of the USSR would draw concerned looks from passers by.
There are 5 city-states
Even today when running for office people say "those morons down in Washington" when talking about the seat of power.
We are arguing semantics for no reason.
People began to see problems in shady sands in 2077. People from there wrote it on a chalkboard.
People saw problems in Shady Sands before 2277, though. Things began to go downhill after Tandi died. It's just that things stopped going downhill after the city got nuked.
And the stuff was written after the place got nuked. Which is why calling 2277 "the fall of Shady Sands" because the NCR as a whole had problems that neither started nor ended in 2277, and not because that was when city got nuked and it was a production error, is somewhat unbelievable.
FORMER capital city, the "first capital of the NCR" on the sign pretty strongly implies the capital had moved to a second location.
I don’t think there’s anything wrong with having information that is “odd” or “incomplete.” I don’t think we need to know all details about every thing the second that thing is presented.
Hanlon tells us the NCR is chasing “ghosts” in Baja. Literal ghosts? Enemies called ghosts? Metaphorical ghosts? It certainly is an odd statement. But something being “odd” doesn’t mean it’s incorrect.
Well, frankly, the date doesn't feel like the information is "incomplete". The date feels like they thought "let's nuke it just after the end of New Vegas", and they got the wrong Battle of Hoover Dam off of the wiki.
Yeah, I mean, it’s fine to feel a certain way, but ultimately feeling that way doesn’t mean that’s how it is, or how the developer intended.
Tim Caine talks all the time about how developers put things in games and then some gamers will go in and completely misinterpret it to the point they call it a lore contradiction when it’s not. And he states that misinterpretation problem lays at the feet of the gamers, not the developers.
Knowing the lore, we don’t know what it means and we may even never know what it means. But that doesn’t mean it’s wrong.
Saying someone is chasing ghosts is a very common metaphor, it’s not odd at all lol. Any other interpretation is reaching
It is a common metaphor, but what if I choose as a gamer to take it literally? Is that my mistake or is it the developer’s for not elaborating?
Similarly, if someone says the phrase “the fall of…” it’s a common phrase that does not represent an immediate collapse, but rather a lengthy decline. Is that the fault of the gamers for not knowing this, or the developers for not elaborating?
I’m disagreeing on the Hanlon comparison specifically. If you chose to take it literally, but that doesn’t make it a valid reading. If someone insists on a literal interpretation of a common phrase, that’s an error of interpretation. Idioms and metaphors would be pointless if they didn’t clearly communicate their intended meaning through common usage.
“The Fall” is different. “The Fall” is a generic term that doesn’t carry a specific timeframe, so there is legitimate wiggle room there. Multiple interpretations can reasonably coexist because the phrase is vague and can realistically apply to different situations without stretching or bending over backwards to interpret it differently.
The issue with the "fall" is that Lucy says her mum died in the "famine of '77", the last date a book in one of the end credits shots was checked out was in 2276, and Maximus remembers his home being destroyed 20 years ago in a show set in 2296. Combined with an event called a "fall" pointing to a mushroom cloud sure seems like the show was really heavily trying to suggest that Shady Sands fell when it was nuked in 2277.
You can twist and finagle each of them to explain why they point to that date for one reason or another, but it would be really weird writing to have 4 different sources all point to the same date and for that date to intentionally be incorrect. I assume that someone just made a goof in the writing and either remembered Fallout 3 took place in 2277 or they searched for the date of the "Battle for Hoover Dam" and got the date for the first battle without realising there were two of them. It's an unfortunate oversight, but I think that far more likely than the writer intentionally setting up some complex mystery that implies that Shady Sands was destroyed 5 years before it was for some reason.
Guerrilla warfare? some sort of radioactive monster that came out of Mexico, etc?
That's bullshit and you know it
I’m sorry you feel that way. If you can’t accept someone having a different opinion than you in good faith, that may be worth some self-reflection.
No you know that the expression chasing ghost can't mean literally chasing ghost from the way hanlon was describing the NCR commiting too many resources on the mojave and comparing it to Baja. You know it's bullshit and you are just making stuff to argue
You can cry about it all you want, but if people are too illiterate to understand “the Fall of Shady Sands” is a phrase to explain an extended period of time for something to fall (the fall of Rome, for example) then it’s completely understandable for those same illiterates to say “chasing ghosts in Baja sounds strange.”
The difference is the specific group of FNV illiterates will defend anything New Vegas to the death while being as maximally uncharitable to anything that is not New Vegas.
They start with a conclusion and then do everything they can to find evidence for it, flawed as that evidence may be.
If there wasnt any context i would perhaps understand it that way, but with the amount of details that point towards it makes me doubt it, but whatever, at the end of the day it's not like we could get a concrete answer until the writters decide to show more.
What i am saying is that its bullshit to compare it to hanlon because of the context you understand what it is being said, unlike the loose writting that is "The Fall of Shady Sands"
I would disagree, I would say it’s pretty much exactly the same, and the details make it pretty obvious the fall wasn’t immediate. There was a whole discussion on it where Todd had to come out and, as nicely as he possibly could, tell everyone that they’re idiots if they’re interpreting it in a way that it’s clearly not supposed to be interpreted, similar to if people were interpreting Hanlon’s line as literal ghosts (which I have seen people online doing…)
Vault tech and Hank could just be lying idk
I just watch the TV show to enjoy it. I don't really care if it's supposed to be like the games or different or whatever. I enjoy it as a TV show and the games as video games.
I love tv show. It feels like magoc that it axtually happened
This is one of the best comments I've seen on this sub.
Ya thats fine and fair but this show does affect the games so it should be held up to the games lore wise.
I do not care
Dont have to but people do so the show should try to keep with the lore.
I don't think they should try to "keep the lore," they should try to make an entertaining show.
They 1000 percent should try to stay consistent to the lore this is a show following up the games you can work around the lore to make an entertaining show instead of just blowing up all the factions people like. Like the ncr make a show about its fall and it would have been an entertaining show.
I really don't care about the factions, if it's entertaining I'll watch it. I'll play the game if I really miss something from it like that.
Other people that are not you do though
Okay good for them, I'd rather have an entertaining show that I actually want to watch and games I want to play
If I want a canon story with no plot defects I figure I’d better start writing.
I feel like the canonicity of the show fell flat with the premise of the 3 vaults alone, specifically where they are placed. These vaults are so close to the Master that it's hard to conceive of how they weren't cracked open for prime normals. I wouldn't even consider the 3 vaults "technically possible" in this regard.
4 vaults, don't forget Vault 4 built on a building covered in Vault-Tec branding was also in the same area.
Honestly it feels like they really should have set the show about 20 years
beforeafter the bombs fell rather than 220. They would avoid issues of how the Master missed all these vaults, they wouldn't have to wipe out the NCR or New Vegas to tell a story set in the areas where they should need to address all the plot elements from previous entries in the franchise, and they could have all the characters they wanted with such close ties to the prewar world without needing to add so many new immortals to the setting.Honestly I could forgive the show for most of this if it was in a separate canon, but tying it directly to the canon of the games feels forced and directly conflicts with established events. 20 years instead of the show’s many decades could maybe work, but unfortunately we’re far beyond that now lol
I always took the "fall of shady sands" as the city itself started failing and going to crap, and they moved the capital (hence the "first capital" sign), and the nuke happening later. Would make sense with Maximus's dad trying to find pure water - they would probably have that already if they were a thriving capital.
City seemed pretty fine and even prosperous by the time the Nuke was wheeled in.
We see a small section of the city for less than 5 minutes, idk if you can call it prosperous. Busy for sure buts that’s not the same thing
What else are we supposed to gleam from such limited scenes?
Nothing, that’s my point. I personally didn’t see anything in those scenes that implied it was prosperous or not. I would doubt it based on Max’s dad getting so excited about just getting a little bit of pure water out of the ground, but we don’t know
The water thing is weird, but so is Shady Sands being in L.A. We can't really assume how Shady Sands ought to be like from game knowledge because it the writers clearly aren't against doing their own thing.
One thing that you have to keep in mind is that the show is written for both people who played the games and for people who don't even know that Fallout is a video game series. Imagine for a moment you never played the games. What in that flashback would hint to you that Shady Sands was not prosperous? They have clean water, they are well fed, people are playing and talking happily, there is a public library of sorts on the street. The writers were very clearly trying to show that Shady Sands was a good place to live. If they wanted the audience to think the city had "fallen" they would have actually made it obvious for everyone watching that that was the case.
What is there to say about the Canon? Bethesda and the Amazon showrunners have completely made it meaningless. We just need to accept that the classic games and New Vegas have been completely decanonized by their inconsistent, hollow writing. All the New Vegas content in the show is thematically inconsistent and just boils down to prop and branding and fan service, no care for "canon".
Maybe the real cannon was the friends we made along the way.
This post is very confusing I don't understand what point you are trying to make.
The point is that people talk about "canon", and whether something "breaks canon" too much. This is a lot more to writing something good than writing events that are possible.
I don't think that's what people are so upset about.
I said this in a different post but this is just a mistake. Simple as that. Not everything needs an in universe answer or excuse to explain a clear mistake.
A retcon that was retconned
I agree with you as someone that actually enjoys the show and how they did this. Too many people argue against what is happening because they say it’s not possible when they actually mean they just don’t like it. Would I do this differently? Yet, but it’s being executed better than Star Wars or Game of Thrones, as you mentioned.
I think the show needed something like this for it to be interesting. My first fear was the show going to be about a powerful NCR facing some doomsday weapon or a resurgent Enclave, à la First Order. It would’ve been frankly boring and had more canon arguments as writers tried to add onto the growth of a successful NCR.
I think the Star Wars analogy is interesting. Because yeah, the First Order was boring (though not least because the dynamic was still Rebels as underdogs, despite this being against any and all reason)... but it's not like just deleting the New Republic inbetween trilogies was on the table either, was it? That would be insane.
And I kind of feel like that's what they've done with the NCR. They've just up and died between projects. I think the total downfall of western civilization deserved its own thing, instead of being just a by-the-way fact dropped into a TV show that really could've been set anywhere.
Well, Fallout teaches that empires rise and they fall. That warfare itself didn’t change the inevitable fact of death and destruction. The NCR would have to be the underdogs of the show was about them vs a resurgent Enclave. FNV actually made them the underdogs when they made it only an expedition and I remember when people were upset at the notion that any side other than the NCR could win. That’s boring.
Honestly there's not a lot of empires falling contemporaneously in Fallout. Yeah, the Americans fell back in 2077, but beyond that things are kind of chugging along pretty linearly.
But besides that, the trick would be to not set the TV show in the middle of the NCR and use the west coast as bombed out vistas. You could make an interesting show about the NCR starting to buckle under its own weight, but it clearly isn't what Amazon wanted to tell.
When we're at the point where we've cleared a full season and the NCR's state is "maybe they're still up north? There's still hope, guys!", I must wonder if we wouldn't be better off in Canada or Ohio or wherever.
You don’t think there would be hordes of fans saying “oh my god! The NCR would not buckle under its own weight like this!” ?
Maybe, but there were plenty of issues the games established that could have been used to tell great stories about an empire's collapse, but they would have needed them to take the time to establish the setting as was. Instead they just go away one day (and apparently a country that's existed for 100 years just ups and vanishes because of a single terrorist strike) with nothing but a scattering of desperate holdouts hanging on for 20 years and weird cults worshipping "the Flame Mother".
There's of course ways the collapse could have been told poorly and unsatisfyingly and to be honest I'd probably not be happy for them to tell such a story anyway, I've been following the slow story of the growth of these guys (an propping them up) since 1997 killing them off would be disappointing, but at least it would be a story set up from what came before rather than a whole country just going away because of some guy we never heard of.
See my previous post where I said the writers could have done a better job writing the collapse. My point here is that no matter what, there would be a large, vocal group of people upset by the fact that the NCR collapses, no matter how it’s written. The same type of people were upset when FNV was released because they argued that the NCR could never lose and every other faction was dumb. They didn’t like the idea of a limited expedition. The GameFAQs, IGN, and GameSpot forums were unreal back in the day.
It's pretty clear by this point they don't care about New Vegas canon but I'm sure if things move to the east coast there will be much more care taken with the canon
The writers seem much more actually interested in the canon from the original games, which to me is refreshing. Its probably harder for them to keep up with canon exactly from previous games since the games are kinda ambiguous or open ended based on player decisions
I like following Oxhorn's YouTube channel, where he breaks down every episode and discusses possible endings according to the information presented in the episode and the show in its entirety.
At first he was outraged by the continuity error, but as the show has now doubled down on the error, he is eagerly awaiting more information.
Should the writers have authority in the lore? This is different from the Halo TV show. There was no cooperation or collaboration between the Halo TV show people and the game people, this time there is.
Therefore I believe that yes, the writers of the show should have authority in the lore as long as it is acknowledged and approved by Bethesda softworks; after all, the next game will be built with the TV show in mind.
This subject needs to be tabooed by the mods. Nothing constructive ever comes from this.
What subject?
People saying that we should talk less about canon?
That would be nice. Between this sub and the dedicated New Vegas sub getting recommended to me by Reddit constantly, there's basically a never-ending stream of people bitching about the TV show
The show is the only fallout content since 2018 and the only content that has continued the story further since 2015. Of course its going to be the main thing talked about in the fallout sub while its coming out
I don't mind talking about it, but right now is a lot of super cyclical jank that's not going anywhere