The wasted GECK

[3rdtryguy]

@gsmanners-

 

So, then, you think that sacrificing the GECK's full potential to restore a large area fully in order to instead just make an unlimited supply of clean water for the whole vast region was the better move?

 

You know what? I agree. A perfect little garden spot on an otherwise poison planet doesn't sound all that great after all compared to eventually restoring life to the whole Potomac, tidal basin, and Chesapeake bay area. I guess dear old Dad wasn't so dumb after all. My only real problem with it now is that he, or the Enclave, should have instead studied the GECK in an effort to try to make more of them before expending it on the purifier. After 200 years, what's the rush for water?

[Andaius]

I'm not really buying this. It's a divergent universe as you say, if the radiation is still having this much of an effect 200 years later, then I'd say it's a little bit different than radiation from our world. This is also as you say, it doesn't always kill, it can mutate. Basically, it's based on the old perceptions of what the aftermath of a nuclear war would be like. It's realistic because it makes sense in the universe it takes place in.

 

So project purity is a way of making a large amount of radiation free water that can be freely distributed. Of course it's a plot device. That's what plots need.

 

You do know in Fallout 1 the radiation was all but gone? Only a few spots had high concentrations. In Fallout 2 Aside from dumps and a few prewar locations, it was pretty much not at any levels to cause major mutations anymore. The west coast was hit first so I think after what you see in FO2 the east coast would be pretty radiation free. If you take into account the relatively intact building in the city it wasn't hit nearly as hard as the major cities on the west coast. What it comes down to is bethsoft just failing to make stories that keep to the Lore, and continuity of the series. There's no other way to explain the giant plotholes and continuity differences. Also in part it was them trying to shoehorn the three previous games stories into one.

 

FO1 = water chip

FO2 = Enclave threat

FOT = Bad guy is a Robot

 

@gsmanners - yeah and you should too, its not consistent with what GECKS are in lore. Thats the problem, it a magical plot device that breaks previous lore.

[Nagaoka]

You do know in Fallout 1 the radiation was all but gone? Only a few spots had high concentrations. In Fallout 2 Aside from dumps and a few prewar locations, it was pretty much not at any levels to cause major mutations anymore. The west coast was hit first so I think after what you see in FO2 the east coast would be pretty radiation free. If you take into account the relatively intact building in the city it wasn't hit nearly as hard as the major cities on the west coast. What it comes down to is bethsoft just failing to make stories that keep to the Lore, and continuity of the series. There's no other way to explain the giant plotholes and continuity differences. Also in part it was them trying to shoehorn the three previous games stories into one.

 

FO1 = water chip

FO2 = Enclave threat

FOT = Bad guy is a Robot

 

I'm not sure why that counts as an essential part of the lore. The games on the West Coast didn't bother with radiation much. The game on the East Coast does. It's not a giant continuity error, just a possible one. Since the game focuses more on radiation, it's in continuity that the plot would focus on it too. I don't really see why it's such a big deal that Bethesda has "grossly failed to uphold continuity". I'm pretty sure other stuff in FO3 might support that argument, but a difference in radiation not so much.

 

 

@gsmanners - yeah and you should too, its not consistent with what GECKS are in lore. Thats the problem, it a magical plot device that breaks previous lore.

 

No...no it doesn't. It's a magical plot device, yes, but it doesn't break previous lore because nowhere does it say that all GECKs are magical terraforming devices. You were acting like nobody knew what the GECKs from the previous games were like and that the game itself had it wrong.

[Andaius]

I'm not sure why that counts as an essential part of the lore. The games on the West Coast didn't bother with radiation much. The game on the East Coast does. It's not a giant continuity error, just a possible one. Since the game focuses more on radiation, it's in continuity that the plot would focus on it too. I don't really see why it's such a big deal that Bethesda has "grossly failed to uphold continuity". I'm pretty sure other stuff in FO3 might support that argument, but a difference in radiation not so much.

 

 

 

No...no it doesn't. It's a magical plot device, yes, but it doesn't break previous lore because nowhere does it say that all GECKs are magical terraforming devices. You were acting like nobody knew what the GECK's from the previous games were like and that the game itself had it wrong.

So east coast radiation magically take longer to dissipate with no outward sign of where or why it's there. I gotcha. It's been 200 years since the bombs dropped, FO1 was what like 80 years after the bombs and the radiation was pretty much gone aside from some special places. The way bethsoft made the wasteland it's more like the bombs hit 5 years ago. You still have empty craters that emit radiation for gods sake.

 

I say going and modifying a GECK with tech that pretty much doesn't exists in the games is a pretty good breech of the established lore. they specifically say that the Normal GECK's aren't replicators, and there isn't anything like the "genesis device" of star trek even mentioned as being possible in any prewar database. All this to me shows that they sucked when it came to lore and world continuity. they took what was established then rewrote it with something that didn't make sense with what is previously known.

[3rdtryguy]

In all fairness, I would bet that a high percentage of Fallout 3 players don't know the first thing about the first two games, or at least didn't before playing FO3. To them, things are perfectly fine.

This is the never-ending problem all literature faces, especially videogames; the new kids just want something fun to play and don't care about things that happened in games released when they were still in second grade. The fanboys are always going to complain no matter what, so alienating the new players in an attempt to appease the old timers is usually seen as a bad idea. Of COURSE you can say "but we want it all!" and deserve it, but the company has a fortune invested and can't stall and bog down production forever for the sake of loreporn.

I get it. Besides, there are often all sorts of irksome legal issues involved with moving a game from one company to another and most of them are just plain stupid. Sometimes the only thing that can be done is to change things and make a fresh new continuity. we all hate it, I know I do, but it beats the alternative of not having any new games.

 

By the way, with half-lives on the hundreds to thousands of years range, craters full of core fragments will keep emitting rads for a very, very long time. Ignoring physics because a previous game did it is kinda dumb in my opinion, and I can only guess that Beth saw it the same way when they decided to rewrite the rules of the universe.

 

Why fight over it? With any luck, we'll never know the answers to these burning questions anyway.

[Nagaoka]

Very nicely put, 3rdtryguy

[Andaius]

snip

See thats the thing, Since the "new guys" don't know the difference why not write it the "right way" to begin with? Bethsoft bought the rights to and fully own all things Fallout they had all the dev documents from all the games, they had everything. they payed millions of dollars for it as a matter of fact. why go and basically delete all that history alienating the folks that kept the game alive and kicking for ten years for the folks that don't even know or not if it was or wasn't "made up". You see this alot in the Bethsoft games. For any one that knows the Lore of TES will know Oblivion did massive retconning about the environments of the area. From what Recall the whole area was like swamps or something not rolling farm lands for the most part.

 

They could have made a story that both fit perfectly well with the old in place lore and continuity and would have been plenty "cool" for the newbies. That way if they like it they will actually LIKE the fallout universe. Not some FEV Mutation of it. thats what I don't get with your answer, IF they don't know anything different why not make it in line with the series as a whole? Then they can be "'perfectly fine" with the thing thats "perfectly fine" wit the series proper.

[gsmanners]

My theory is that they were too high and/or drunk at the time to care. Honestly, it should be obvious from playing the game that this is probably how it works at Bethesda.

[Raiden2]

So I guess everyone forgot about the fact that you can find nukes all over the wasteland then?

 

The way I had it rationalized is that once the first weapons were launched they did the damage but there were military survivor's who continually attacked with nuclear weapons to destroy the remains. Also last time I checked we only know the half life of radioactive materials from mathematical calculations there has been instances where they got things wrong. I remember seeing on destroyed in second where they miscalculated the power of an atomic bomb. So it is plausible.

[GETbacon]

I think vault 87 got screwed over with a crappy geck that was only able to make more trash and oblivion stuff.