Game Theory: Why FALLOUT's Society is DOOMED!

You'd think that in Fallout, if scientists could create household robots and power armor, they would have at least discovered color television by now, right? I mean, really, good job creating a "fictional universe." Hey guys, subtitle writer here. Since Mat didn't give any, this one is for all Fallout

game

s. Not major spoilers, but spoilers nonetheless, especially for Fallout 4 and 3. You have about 5 seconds. Enjoy the video! HELLO Internet! Welcome to GAME THEORY Buying all the Ramen in preparation for the Great War. Actually, that's a lie. I bought six hundred boxes of Ramen noodles because they are delicious. And they had a good deal at Costco *cha-ching* But in all seriousness, have you SEEN the news lately?

I mean, 2016 was a scary year, full of terrorist attacks and the world on edge. 2017... well, it's still early, but I think it will be more of the same. Remember when your Twitter account WAS NOT people arguing about politics? Pepperidge Farm remembers him. Me too, I remember, those were the good old days, all this pessimism DID have something positive coming out of it: it made me revisit Fallout. And not only that, I'm determined to keep 2017 positive, so instead of an episode calculating the odds of a nuclear holocaust that would wipe out 99% of humanity, today's episode will focus on REPAIR

society

Fallout.

Rebuild civilization from its own ashes. Out with the old, sad, scary theories about heroes being villains or heroes being dead. It's the beginning of a new day, improving fictional virtual worlds, one

theory

at a time. Game

theory

2017 for a better future. Now, there's always been a nagging issue in the back of my head about the Fallout series that never sat well with me. It has been more than TWO HUNDRED YEARS since the bombs exploded. And in the real world, two hundred years is a REALLY long time. Two hundred years is about the time it took from the invention of the steam engine until we could fly!

After THAT, it took less than sixty years to put a man in space! Alan Turing first proposed his Turing machine in 1936, laying the foundation for modern computers: computers that, when first built, took up 72 square meters (775 square feet), weighed 27 tons (54,000 pounds), and They cost millions of dollars. And now, just eighty years later, we have smartphones like the Vivo Max, currently the world's thinnest phone at literally 4.5 millimeters (0.177 inches) thick. Without exaggeration, it is forty MILLION times smaller, costs fifteen thousand times less and is one thousand, three hundred times more powerful, IN EIGHTY YEARS! And yes, I get it, the world of Fallout has suffered a HUGE catastrophe.

But as bad as the Great War was, there are still functioning robotic servants and suits of power armor lying around the Wasteland. Surely with that level of technology, humanity could have rebuilt SOME level of infrastructure. Added to this is the fact that there were groups of people prepared for the next nuclear war. We all know that the Great Fallout War occurred in October 2077, but according to the Fallout Bible, the United States government was fully prepared for a nuclear attack from China eight months BEFORE! Back in MARCH 2077. This was all done by the Enclave, made up of the President of the United States and all the government and corporate officials who made up the secret shadow government that pulled the strings behind the scenes.

They were exchanged to remote sections around. around the world and made contingency plans to continue the war against the Chinese. Operating under the belief that as long as America's important people survived, they could quickly regroup and end communism once and for all. And as we see in Fallout 2, the Enclave was established on the abandoned Poseidon Energy oil drilling platform off the coast of California. One that was completely protected from the nuclear storm of 2077. They CLEARLY should have had the knowledge and leadership to stop the United States, even after the nuclear devastation. Then there's the city of Las Vegas: or New Vegas in the

game

s, which escaped the nuclear attack relatively unscathed thanks to Mr.

House's defense system. A city that could take its technology and serve as a new center for the country's growth and recovery, but it just... ....doesn't...really. And those are just two quick examples. In short, between the technology still operational, the preservation of pre-war knowledge found in places like New Vegas, and the world leaders still alive in groups like the Enclave, two hundred years from now, the world of Fallout should be in a much better condition. then where it is in the game. The New California Republic is the closest thing there is: it's a functional democracy, with a dollar backed by water reserves and all, but let's be honest, how successful is it REALLY when it can't even kill a bunch of guys?

Wearing skirts and wielding knives? Which means stopping Wasteland isn't external; but internal. It is the citizens, the people themselves, who are slowing down this progress and this recovery. Let me explain. For

society

to function, it needs rational, law-abiding citizens. If every person in the country woke up tomorrow and murdered twenty people, or decided that they were not respecting basic laws, you would likely be looking at what is called "a failed state." Basically, the Purge movies. At a very basic level, the primary rule of government is to sustain a system of trust. What is known as 'The Social Contract'.

We sacrifice some personal freedoms for a state of protection. You can go outside and your neighbor will NOT launch a nuclear warhead at you from a shoulder-mounted slingshot. But in the world of Fallout, it's hard to feel safe when your next-door neighbors are amassing a collection of human skulls on your front porch. The basic glue of society requires that the majority of its citizens be of sound mind. But in the Wasteland, that might not be so scientifically possible. And the main reason is in the title of the game: Fallout. Persistent radiation from bombs dropped during the Great War.

Hey oh man, I just realized! *ding* That moment when you realize that the game's title refers to both NUCLEAR Fallout and the fact that the game literally explores FALLOUT, or the aftereffects of a nuclear war. WELL DONE Bethesda, a round of applause for you. Still, when people talk about radiation, they usually focus on the physical effects associated with exposure. The horrible deformities and tumors, the classic "three-eyed fish." But even more frightening are the permanent effects that radiation poisoning can have on our brains! Studies have linked high doses of radiation to learning and memory problems. And survivors of the Chernobyl disaster, in which a nuclear reactor basically exploded and spewed radiation into the air for nine days, were up to five times more likely to suffer from schizophrenia.

Now, it is worth mentioning that people who suffer from schizophrenia often have "persecution delusions." They are convinced that someone or something is out to get them. It could be the government, aliens, Illuminati, whatever. And the people we see wandering around the Fallout Wasteland exhibit the same symptoms: They're CONVINCED that the Institute is out to get them. Tinker Tom, one of the Railroad agents in Fallout 4, swears that the Institute poisoned the air and launched the nuclear weapons that started the Great War. And throughout these games, time and time again, we encounter multiple characters troubled by their own delusions and conspiracy theories.

NPC: "Ghosts. Commie ghosts who don't know they're dead." In Fallout 4, we meet journalists who are convinced that the Institute is replacing humans with synthetic versions of themselves. The condition where you feel like your friends and loved ones are not who they say they are is a well-documented delusion called "Capgras Delusion." In this deception, people become convinced that someone has been replaced by an imposter. In other words, being convinced that your mother is not actually your mother, but rather a perfect robotic replica, falls squarely within the definition of "Capgras Delusion." And what is a common cause for 'Capgras Delusion'?

You guessed it: radiation poisoning. Now, yes, I know, while playing Fallout it's pretty obvious that The Institute IS actually replacing people with synthesizers. And that there is a shadow government that plans to kill everyone, and YES, we even encounter aliens that we can kill and loot and motherships that we can explore in different games of the franchise. Fallout gives us no reason to disbelieve the events we see, but they are all incredibly similar to the common paranoid delusions that accompany schizophrenia. So you have to ask yourself: "How much can we really trust the narratives of the protagonists of these games?" In particular, the Sole Survivor.

I mean, in the intro to Fallout 4, your character supposedly just doesn't receive the shockwave from the bomb, but the radiation travels at the speed of light. You're not going to dodge that! At that point, the Sole Survivor essentially received a huge dose of radiation directly to the brain, before being frozen for two hundred years. This, combined with witnessing the murder of his wife, the kidnapping of his son, and the collapse of the entire civilization!? That's enough to drive almost anyone crazy. So while playing these games you have to ask yourself: "How reliable are the events you are witnessing?" "How truthful are the perceptions of these narrators?" Talking about losing your loved ones and seeing the world collapse, that's the other big problem with rebuilding society in Fallout: PTSD or Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

Living in Watseland and seeing people you know getting slaughtered regularly by Deathclaws and Raiders won't be too good for your mental health, radiation poisoning or not. In fact, we know from similar real-life disasters that between 25 and 75 percent of survivors may suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder. In Fukushima, Japan, where an earthquake and tsunami caused three nuclear reactors to melt down in 2011, about 50% of survivors were believed to be suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. And if it's not the disaster itself that triggers it, the resulting displacement from being forced to leave your home, the financial insecurity from losing your job, and all the effects of a disaster that continue for years, well, those will certainly trigger it. do it for you.

But at least the Fukushima survivors had a society to return to... in Fallout? There's just... nothing there. The entire WORLD has been destroyed. If left untreated, people with PTSD can have a lot of trouble integrating into society. In addition to their brain forcing them to constantly relive the horrors they survived, many people with PTSD - according to the Anxiety and Depression Association of America - have, quote, "persistent, exaggerated negative beliefs or expectations about oneself, others or the world." People with PTSD can become irritable, reckless, and self-destructive. Does any of that sound familiar to you in the world of Fallout?

It's also common for those suffering from PTSD to seek refuge in drugs and alcohol – something we see literally everywhere in the Wasteland. With drugs like 'Jet' and 'Psycho' being sold everywhere, or empty whiskey bottles just thrown on the ground, there's even a mission in Fallout: New Vegas where you have to retrieve a book on PTSD for a doctor. Railroad's Carrington describes this same situation when he talks about the post-traumatic stress his agents face. So what can be done to save a society like this? Well, within Fallout the solution given to solve this problem is quite depressing.

At the end of Fallout 4, Father surfaces to see if the Wasteland is really as bad as everyone says. He concludes that everything is

doomed

to failure and that the Institute is humanity's best hope for progress. The same goes for John Henry Eden, the leader of the Enclave in Fallout 3. The irradiated inhabitants of the world had to be eradicated in order to rebuild the world. Fallout 2, again the same solution. And while all of these psychological problems and delusions make it incredibly difficult for the Wasteland to rebuild itself, mass genocide is not the only answer. It's ONE answer, but probably not the one most of us would actively want to choose, and honestly, one that the game steers you away from.

No, to rebuild the Wasteland, the focus should not be on rebuilding society at a macro level, but on fixing people, at a micro level. Instead of wasting time on world genocide viruses or human replacement synths, the real solution in Fallout is psychological treatment. While there is no general solution for PTSD or schizophrenia, doctors have shown that there areseveral types of medications that can help with these conditions. That is, antidepressants for post-traumatic stress disorder and antipsychotics for schizophrenia. Therefore, the key to healing society in Fallout doesn't depend on which faction you choose, whether you choose the Brotherhood of Steel, the Railroad, the Enclave, or whoever, it doesn't matter who the philosophy rules with.

All are

doomed

to failure if citizens do not first receive proper treatment. In a game full of options, the best option for the end would be to help citizens self-medicate. Only by doing this will Wasteland have any chance of... not being Wasteland. No amount of clean, free-flowing water will change that. But hey! That's JUST A THEORY. AAAAA GAME THEORY. Thanks for watching! HEY! If you liked today's theory and are in the mood for more Fallout action, click this entry to learn about the philosophy and ethics of the Fallout universe. It's a video from my friends on the Wisecrack channel.

A channel that, like this one, specializes in fusing pop culture, learning and a little humor along the way. They also helped me a lot with the research I used in today's theory, so if you didn't hate this episode, then you probably won't hate THEIRS. If you've ever been curious about which of Fallout 4's main factions is "ethically right," then you'll want to click that button. And seriously, if you show them a little love, they'll like me. more and show them my value as a friend. Because isn't that the true meaning of friendship? Bribing someone to like you because you can provide them with a valuable service?

Aaah, it just tickles my heart. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to get to work on next week's theory, which is going to start to get a little... DARK. Until then!