Anarchist Commune?

[Nick_Jin]

Personally, I think it is beyond absurd that the idea of Anarchism has not been touched on in Fallout 3....I mean I can sort of give Bethesda a pass, but not a single user created mod?

 

 

I think there should be an Anarcho-Syndicalist Commune....And By Anarchy, I dont mean chaos and disorder. Anarcho-Syndicalism is a hybrid between Anarchist and Soocialist ideas combined with radical grassroots democracy....Its sort of complicated. Everyone is equal, but there are responsible positions that are elected short term. Every neighborhood or office or union elects short term temporary representatives in council meetings and those representatives are chosen to participate in the next ring of decision making and so on....Monty Python was actually pretty close to what its really like, though they didnt get into the economics of collective ownership.

 

Instead of just a bunch of gutterpunk raiders, I think that it would be cool to see a happy and functional Anarchist Commune.

 

 

 

I am not a code guy, but I am willing to learn. I am pretty creative and am a decent writer.

 

I think it would be awesome to have references to 18th, 19th and 20th century Anarchists like Proudhon and Kropotkin and Malatesta and Rudolph Rocker and Noam Chomsky.....

 

 

 

I think this town should have some quests, and the Commune will either like you or hate you based on dialogue....If you are an authoritarian male without a father (lol, they change the words here? hahah) then they will shun you. If you get on their good side then you will get all kinds of perks by being part of the commune and get access to free stuff like junk weapons parts for making repairs and a free place to sleep...Also, if you join their faction there can be traveling Anarchists the pop up at random like scavangers or slavers, but they will always defend you if you get attacked and they are close by.

 

 

Maybe there could be a series of quests that involve killing slavers, or perhaps liberating a nearby town that was taken over by some turkey with a small personal army and you have to help the people by overthrowing him and his goons.

 

 

 

In this quest the Anarchists are obviously the good guys.....

 

If you happen to join the Enclave then you cannot join the Anarchists and they will kill you on site.....Perhaps you might have to fend off an Enclave assault.

 

 

 

An Anarchist Radio Station would be cool. I would be happy to do the voice for it or one of the voices for it as well as the dialogue and provide some of the music (Open source or friends who dont mind having their music used).

 

 

 

Anyone with better mod skills than me want to help make this happen? Im willing to learn how to code and I can do a lot of conceptual work and planning.

 

It doesnt have to start big....It can be simple to start with...just some buildings and people with dialogue options. The radio station and quests can come later, or people can add to the quest on their own.

 

 

 

Here is a great resource for learning about *real* political Anarchism. Its a lot more sophisticated than just running around screaming 'No government!'. They actually have some alternatives, sometimes including highly organized and hyper-democratic process. If you look at the short but multi-year success of the Anarchist-uprising in Spain it begins to look like a less far fetched idea....especially in the waste lands where everything is already small scale.

 

http://www.infoshop.org/page/AnAnarchistFAQ

[Tony the Wookie]

Calling it an Anarchist Commune in a wasteland that is a constant state of true anarchy seems a bit confuseing. When it comes down to it, most of the Post-Apocolyptic world is an anarchy, and an Anarchist Commune like you have described would be one of, if not the most organized government in the area. It sounds like it is more pro government than anywhere else in the wasteland.

 

I'm not saying it is a bad idea, just the name is a bit confuseing, being called anarchists and all, but haveing the most organized government in the area...

 

Now I am far from an expert in the different types of anarchy out there, but I would think the same would go for most of the modding community. When I see the word anarchy this is what comes to mind, and a picture of Fallout would go nicely beside it in the dictionary.

 

an·ar·chy [an-er-kee]

–noun

1.a state of society without government or law.

2.political and social disorder due to the absence of governmental control: The death of the king was followed by a year of anarchy.

3.a theory that regards the absence of all direct or coercive government as a political ideal and that proposes the cooperative and voluntary association of individuals and groups as the principal mode of organized society.

4.confusion; chaos; disorder: Intellectual and moral anarchy followed his loss of faith.

[Nick_Jin]

3.a theory that regards the absence of all direct or coercive government as a political ideal and that proposes the cooperative and voluntary association of individuals and groups as the principal mode of organized society

 

This is the definition we would be using. Not any of the other 3. Anarcho-Synidcalism is a hybrid philosophy anyway. Its not just about the absence of the state, its about a form of radical unionism that uses a hyper democratic process but lacks an elite class of professional politicians....The Mondragon Corporation is organized sort of like an Anarcho-Syndicalist union. There is a cool documentary about them on google video.

 

Lol, and yes...The Anarchists would actually have the most organized system of "government" in the wastelaqnd. I think that might add to the irony, which is kind of the point....

 

 

I think it would be funny to do a play on Monty Python type interactions, only post apocalyptic.....

 

 

 

 

I propose calling it the Mondragon Commune.

[Tony the Wookie]

I like the irony of it, I just recomend sticking a name that doesn't cause confusion when people look at your mod.

 

Anything from Mondragon Commune or Anarcho-Syndicalist Union would work well im my opinion.

 

 

When it comes down to it, I guess the idea of anarchy is relative, as well as the words we use to describe it. What would be considered and anarchy by the standards of our current structured society is a whole different thing from what would be considered anarchy by the standards of the Fallout world.

 

 

 

 

I think the Fallout world has a lot of potential for playing with different ideas of social structure and alternate government forms far different from the ones we have today.

[Nick_Jin]

How difficult would it be to implement this kind of mod?

 

I would like to do as much of it myself as possible, but I have never dont a mod before. Are there are tutorials for mods that require scripting?

[Cipscis]

I've written a few scripting tutorials, including one that covers the basics of Fallout 3's scripting language for those who've never used it before - Scripting for Beginners

 

You'll probably find Bethesda's official "My First Vault" tutorial series helpful too - "My First Vault" Tutorial Series

 

Cipscis

[Tony the Wookie]

what it sounds like to me is that you arn't really going to need much scripting at all

 

your not changeing any systems of the game or implementing anything new that would require complex code or anything like that, you won't need new models or anything

 

All you are really going to be doing is makeing new NPCs, a new town, and then dialogue and quests to go along with it. Nothing all that difficult, time consumeing for sure, but nothing you can't figure out with few tutorials or whatever.

 

 

 

I would sugest you just get the GECK and start building your town and placeing NPCs and work your way from there

[woodrat]

Basically what Tony said. Nothing seems too overtly complicated in what you are planning to do. Questing might be a bit complicated, but feel free to ask questions here.

 

Only real major thing I could see would be, depending on the size of the commune you want to do, it could be quite time consuming. I'd recommend trying to devide things into smaller "bite sized" chunks. That way you don't get overwhelmed by the amount of work needed.

 

Plan small, think big!

[Nick_Jin]

The thing that I was imagining that might become difficult was some scenes that simulate a 'council'. It would be a unique multi-person conversation where different people might vote differently depending on how you treat them.

 

I guess I could use a series of regular conversations like in the Republic of Dave, but in the Syndicalist decision making model they are trying to reach consensus rather than just elect a leader, which makes the process more complicated but also more egalitarian.

 

I want to make it so that if you say the rights things people will love you or if you *ban me* up the commune might shun you. There might also be internal conflicts within the commune that you may try to help by being a peace mediator or might tear the commune apart into separate factions.

 

 

 

Please feel free to steal my ideas...otherwise I might eventually learn how to do it myself.

[Tony the Wookie]

http://geck.bethsoft.com/index.php/Three_W...sation_Tutorial

 

closest thing that I know of, but I don't really work with that stuff, I have someone else helping me out in the npc area of my mod

 

there is probably a way to link conversations back to back, but I am not sure

 

 

As far as getting points based on how much they like you it shouldn't be that hard. Again, I havn't done it myself, but the guy working with me on my mod has figured it out, so I know it is possible. You just need a variable that will add or take away points and then the number of points changes what conversation is unlocked next. The voteing thing would be a bit more complex, but it deffinatly sounds possible.

 

 

 

But anyways, in all honesty, the chances of someone else picking up this idea and makeing it are slim to none. Not many people are going to put in the kind of time required, and if they do put in the time they will be wanting to use their own political viewes as opposed to yours. And when you look at the odds of finding someone who will actually take a request (only about 1 in every 30 or so requests ever even gets attempted) that also supports the ideas of Anarcho-Syndicalist, you might as well give up on the dream of haveing someone else make it for you and bite the bullet and learn the GECK yourself.

 

I don't mean to discourage you or anything, just trying to save you some time. I know if I was wasteing my time waiting for something that had no chance of happening I would want someone to tell me, so that is why I feel like you should know this.