An explanation for Fallout 4's lack of rebuilding?

[stebbinsd]

A common criticism about the worldbuilding in Fallout 4 is why 99% of the Commonwealth geography looks like it was right after the bombs fell.

 

One guy who puts it succinctly is at 1:35:48 – 1:38:44 of this video:

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WrQs9ugQiOA

 

 

how exactly is it that there are still piles upon piles of garbage and muck in a place like Diamond City? ... it causes sickness and infestation of insects ... people haven't gotten up off their asses and become garbage collectors ... but not one person has bothered to get a trash bag and clean some [censored] up?

 

Actually, there IS a reason why the Commonwealth looks so destroyed. It's not a SCIENTIFIC explanation, but it is there. It's because the trash is important to the main themes of the story in Fallout 4!

 

When you're telling a story, imagery and symbollism doesn't have to make sense in-universe. For example, in Disney's “Beauty and the Beast,” the director has freely admitted that he used the color blue to represent good and the color red to represent bad. Gaston is dressed in red the whole movie; Belle and Maurise are dressed in blue the whole movie. The Beast wears red initially, purple while Belle is teaching him to be good, and eventually wears blue by the end of the movie.

 

In-universe, this color scheme is entirely coincidental. The characters are wearing these colors because … that's just what they happen to be wearing at the moment.

 

But that's just it: When you're TELLING A STORY, imagery and symbolism doesn't have to be coherent in-universe. You can get away with these kinds of contrivances because it adds to the story.

 

Similarly, the trash in Fallout 4 may not make sense in-universe, but it doesn't have to. It's essential to the story they're telling, so the contrivance is excusable.

At the end of that video I provided at the start of this OP, this guy complains that the Institute claims to have humanity's best interests at heart, but their repeated actions consistently suggest the complete opposite.

Well, there's a reason for that. It's because they're Knight Templars.

Here's a webpage describing what a Knight Templar is: tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/KnightTemplar

You will find that this trope defines the Institute almost to a tee. The Institute meets nearly every criteria to be a Knight Templar!

- Wanting to remove that pesky free will? Check. That's their stated goal with Gen 3 Synths!

- Arguing that their collateral damage is a necessary evil? Check. Shaun defends his own mom's murder as an unfortunate, but necessary,b it of collateral damage!

- You're either with them or against them? Check. After meeting Shaun for the first time, if you don't agree to join the Institute right then and there, you'll be send back through the relay and be declared an enemy of the Institute. By contrast, Paladin Danse, after coming out of Arcjet Systems, will keep his offer to join the Brotherhood of Steel open indefinitely if you refuse initially … and he certainly doesn't give you the ultimatum that refusal to join will make you a target of the Brotherhood!

Ok, so their Knight Templars. What does all this have to do with all the trash on the ground?

 

Well, if you continue reading that webpage, you'll find this next bit:

 

 

 

“they tend to be the villain who believes that the "dark" characters are evil and must be destroyed.”

 

In other words, they see literal darkness as being one-in-the-same with being evil. Conversely, they see physical light (as in … photons) as being one-in-the-same with good.

 

Now, knowing this, think about what the inside of the Institute looks like. It is, hands down, the most well-lit location in the entire game, and by a wide margin at that. This large amount of light is further exaggerated by the crystal white walls and the white lab coats. It is probably the only place in the entire game that is entirely devoid of garbage (at least in places where garbage shouldn't be, like on the floor).

 

So what does all this have to do with the themes of the story? Well, after the Battle of Bunker Hill, you meet Shaun on top of the CIT Ruins. According to Shaun, this is the first time in his entire life that he ever set foot outside the Institute.

 

Shaun takes only a single look at the wreckage on the surface, and without even so much as interacting first-hand with any surface dwellers, he concludes that the Commonwealth is doomed, and that humanity's only hope for a future lies underground.

 

You can try and explain to him that people are indeed rebuilding, slowly but surely. But Shaun is having none of it. The wreckage he's seen has convinced him that the surface rebuilding itself is impossible, even though he's only spent a few fleeting moments on the surface.

 

This is why the garbage on the ground is so important. It helps to emphasize how the Institute – being knight templars – cannot fathom any hope for humanity that doesn't come from themselves … or at the very least, someone as equally “light” as themselves.

 

So what do you guys think?

Edited July 26, 2017 by stebbinsd

[ibldedibble]

The biggest reason is most likely that the people interested in a Fallout game want a post-apocalyptic game, not a more "modern" world game. While I'd prefer the inside of the settlements being cleaned, the rest of the world can stay as dirty as possible. I have no issues with something like Sanctuary being dirty, since no one has settled there yet (as of the start of the game). Same with all the trash on the beaches and stuff. If no one lives there, trash seems perfectly fine to me.

 

If the game was clean, everything rebuilt, and settled... then it would feel more like I'm playing a current day game, that suffered a nuclear war in the past, sure, but still a current day game. Not a post-apocalyptic one.

 

And while people probably would have put in more effort in cleaning, rebuilding, and settling after 200 years than what is being done in the Fallout universe... I personally feel like it wouldn't feel as post-apocalyptic anymore. (Don't get me wrong, I'd love if they made the game world larger and added more major pre-made settlements/towns. Like 2-3 "big" settlements/towns, instead of the 1.5 (DC + Bunker Hill) FO4 has pre-DLC. FO3 was slightly better in that regard, with it's 2.5 "big" settlements/towns (Megaton, Rivet City, and the ghoul one... Underworld? Possibly even Tenpenny Tower.).)

[stebbinsd]

Did you even read my OP? My point was that the garbage contributed to the story's main themes, not that it was part of a post-apocolypse motif.

[Ethreon]

Because it's the theme, regardless of your OP. Except it's taken too far here.

[skubblebubble]

You would think that after 200 years, they'd have some things cleaned up, and some kind of order going.

 

However, that wouldn't be what people are expecting in the game. Most still want it looking like the bombs fell not long ago.

 

Also, with raiders, mutant critters, etc, that would put a crimp in rebuilding, at least slowing it down.

We still have rad storms, annoying, but how bad have they been over the last 200 years? Could be they are now down

to nuisance levels vs brutal amounts. We just don't know.

 

I would expect that established settlements would at least pick up the trash in their areas (Bunker Hill for example).

Still using scavenged stuff, but a bit of cleanup would be good.

 

As for washing, since clean/purified water is apparently so scarce, bathing takes second place. (thing WW2 subs in this respect)

 

One reason I'm using as many pre-war models as I can in my mods is, the Player IS pre-war, so IS thinking about say, washing up, fixing things and then PAINTING them so they look a little better. (settler scrapes the rust off, another paints.)

 

I would like it so that eventually Sanctuary is at least partially repaired. (holes in roofs patched, falling panels fixed etc)

Oh, and yeah, clean up the garbage in the houses. (I mean how hard is it to sweep the leaves outta the house?)

Same for dragging dead bodies/skeletons out and dumping in a pit.

[MightyZ0G]

the problem for me is the amount of trash and litter that would be impossible after 200 years.

 

most of the trees are dead yet there are leaves everywhere. leaves decay within a year or two, so why haven't the leaves in Boston.

 

and the amount of paper and other biodegradable rubbish in the streets. why hasn't that degraded after 200 years of extreme weather.

 

I think Bethesda missed a trick though.

trash and rubbish would be a major resource. in settlements it would be collected and sorted. what couldn't be recycled would be burnt as fuel.

 

outside of settlements, the trash would be collected by scavengers, but these would have to pay protection to the raiders who controlled that area.

I'd imagine it to look something like waste pickers in the 3rd World but with raiders wandering around making sure that no-one kept anything valuable. Nuka World is almost there socially; raiders with scavenger/trader slaves doing all the work.

 

Fallout 3 and 4 don't feel as if 200 years has passed since the war. they feel as if only a few decades have passed at most.

Bethesda could have made the imagery fit logically into the game world by making the events take place closer to the end of the war.

the technology would be exactly the same for 20 years after the bombs as it is for 200 years.

[jdkzombie]

Its 200 years after the bombs fell, why is everything still dead and decayed? Chernobyl had animal life and plant life returned withing 20 years.

 

I agree with previous sentiments, why isn't trash a resource? It is a fuel, if anything else at all. Settlements, once established, should prioritize cleaning up the settlement area. Trash, debris, dead bodies, skeletons, stuff like that.

 

You'd figure the less traveled areas of Boston would be teeming with trash and detritus, whereas the beaten path would be picked clean, or kept clean, because no use in surviving rad storms if you get cryptospiridium ( i think i spelled that wrong) or some other horrible illness from lack of basic cleanliness.

 

I don't think Bethesda appreciated just how into building settlements people would be, especially with mods, and it's evident when you have a thriving, well fortified base of operations complete with defenses, food, water, housing, and objects of happiness, yet settlers STILL complain about fingers being dirty, or ending a day with an empty stomach, or that somehow one of their own got kidnapped by a handful of raiders despite the person being equipped in combat armor, a nice M16A3 from a mod pack, and enough ammo to fund a guerrilla war in Chile.

 

Back to the OP. Trash is kinda key to the story I guess, but it really isn't. When I think of a fallout universe, I don't think of trash all over the place, I think of places stripped clean of items, looted bare, and only the places deemed too dangerous to go near due to flora or fauna would be ripe for the picking. Kinda like WaterWorld and the jar of dirt, cigarettes, and spam.

 

I hate the institute. I personally never side with them, and usually work with the Minutemen. Pretty much every faction in this game is some sort of fanatics fantasy. Institute think they are gods gift to humanity, and will be its salvation. Brotherhood ( oh how I miss FO3 brotherhood where they seemed to actually care) in fallout 4 are just as tyrannical. If you have any goods they want, like laser/plasma/prewar tech at all, they would prefer to simply murder death kill you to death until you died from it, and take it and hoard it, for whatever purpose, which I don't think is even typed/written down somewhere ingame as lore to find. Railroad is absurd. It's like a BLM group gone way off the deep end, except very choosy. Only type 3 get the luxury of being rescued it seems. No type 2 or type 1 synths get rescued, despite models like Nick and Dima existing, and who knows if any other exist in the universe that are like them. Railroad is for certain a either with them or against them entity, you can't simply be neutral with them.

 

The Cult of Atom, however, are leagues beyond all other groups and I would say THEY are the Knights Templar. Even worse so thna the Institute. The Atom guys have no regard for their own lives, their own people, and will sacrifice all of it in a moments notice by the word of whoever leads them to further their "religious" purpose. They are almost ISIS in nature or perhaps the Spanish Inquisition, where you either convert, or die. There is no other option.

 

The institute in comparison, is more like a secret order of wannabe do-gooders. A weird Illuminati type organization if you will. They have good intentions, but very poor, and unethical ways of enacting them. Kidnapping people to replace them with Synth copies? Taking brilliant and bright minds out of the commonwealth to "coerce" them into serving the institute, with you can probably imagine the outcome if you refused. Not too mention that its lore in FO4 that the Institute basically annihilated the commonwealths attempt at unifying and forming a semblance of Government.

[MightyZ0G]

The institute in comparison, is more like a secret order of wannabe do-gooders. A weird Illuminati type organization if you will. They have good intentions, but very poor, and unethical ways of enacting them. Kidnapping people to replace them with Synth copies? Taking brilliant and bright minds out of the commonwealth to "coerce" them into serving the institute, with you can probably imagine the outcome if you refused. Not too mention that its lore in FO4 that the Institute basically annihilated the commonwealths attempt at unifying and forming a semblance of Government.

the Institute have redefined humanity so that it only includes those in the Institute.

settlers, raiders, BoS, Minutemen, Supermutants are all sub species that must be eradicated before the Institute can return to the surface.

[dragonslayer2k12]

To answer the OP because the writing is terrible and beth doesn't care.

 

The next fallout game if they ever make one should have multiple starts each from a different location with a much better story. maybe some part of the world didn't get frozen in time for the sake of terrible writing and bad story telling skills.

[robhartman9]

i could only take 11 minutes of that drivel so i never made it to the part your talking about.