Fallout: Why am I doing this?

Overview

(In which I talk about what led me to FALLOUT: NEW VEGAS as my first game of choice)

So my main inspiration for this blog came about when I first tried out Fallout: New Vegas. It's old by now. I'm the kind of person who buys games a long time after they come out, and only gets to play occasionally, amassing a collection of games I mean to get around to eventually but getting attached to one for a really long time instead. I've only had any sort of real gaming system in the last couple of years, but was at university, so I was far too distracted to get involve myself too heavily. I played a few of the earlier DOS games and some Nintendo, but you can list me down as a causal gamer.

I'm pretty much going to presume the readers have an understanding of popular games and characters. And obviously there will be spoilers!

My first Xbox game was Skyrim. This was for me an introduction to what gaming could be like. I loved the worlds, being a massive Tolkien fan, and as someone who likes pretty environments. I loved the character creation as someone who loves the Sims, and also as someone who likes to play as as a female character who defies gender norms. I loved the gameplay as someone who liked point and clicks and visual novels, and doesn't like being told there is only one way to do things. I literally played this game for years, as a couple of different characters - often, having completed the game, not to do any missions, but just to walk around and look at the scenery. I absolutely love this sort of Northern European mountainous aesthetic, so I would come home after a hard day of work, and wander around the snowy woods and lakes, looking up at the clouds and moons in the sky etc.

Why would I actually go outside?

However something was lacking for me, in the main story line. My choices. The Nords and the Imperialists. Winston Churchill or Nick Griffin. Most of my liberal minded friends chose the Imperialists after run-ins with the Stormcloaks in Windhelm and their explicit racism and xenophobia. Never mind that these Imperials were conquering all the nations and destroying cultures under an apparent well-meaning aim at unity, and false pretence of progressiveness nor that they were working with the actual racial supremacists, the Aldmeri Dominion of the Thalmor in order to do so! I thought I had better grin and bare it and follow the working class Nords just protecting their lands from invasion. Unfortunately I couldn't make a point by killing or knocking out this bastard for good, or change ignorant attitudes within my faction, so that was something I was already unhappy with.  

Don't scapegoat the Dunmer. Bring down Ulfric!

There was this typical classist depiction which involved "white trash" alcoholic jobless people complaining about foreign scroungers and the sense of 'irony' supposedly involved, because the immigrants are productive members of the capitalist society, whereas the racists are "inbred, thieving chav scum". This is somewhat of a problem in the middle-class Liberal Left and Right. They do not take into consideration what led these people into this position where they turn to racism to find a cause to rail against. But I digress!

  I was not especially impressed, even as a Nightingale, member of the Thieves Guild and the Dark Brotherhood (and all factions ever at the same time) that my decision meant basically installing a crime mafia boss in Riften, but was far less impressed to find that the Nords had gone a long way into wiping out another more indigenous culture. The Forsworn are a strange culture which sacrifice animals and chill with Hagravens and attack the player on sight. But after being arrested and learning more about them you come to understand why so many of them are resisting the Nords. Unfortunately there is but one Forsworn lair  you can make friends with. You will still be attacked on site after this, which creates a bit of cognitive dissonance. 

BUT I'M TRYING TO PROTECT INDIGENOUS PEOPLE!!

Also, as well as verbal racism, you will see in Windhelm that an underclass of Dark elves has been created. The ignorant understanding about them, and about immigration in general, has left them in actual lower social positions and housing and alienated from everybody. I was also upset that despite appearing neutral, I overthrew the Jarl of Whiterun and replaced him with a stubborn old man, and created war and chaos in a place which I loved for being so independent of the fighting in the first place.

Essentially you are given the options between a rock and a hard place. I think there was supposed to be some kind of statement in there, that in all wars there is no good or bad team, and both sides have points and weaknesses. The problem is that in reality, the points are strong enough by both sides that people do sympathise with one side or another very often, and many people are in between. As a player, I can make a few concessions, but ultimately I must choose, and both sides make me unhappy. What's more, there are Skyrim inhabitants who seem to feel the same as me, but are largely privileged enough to try and ignore whatever these factions are doing, and hoping to just go on as before under whichever side wins. None of them consider doing anything else. Most of them seem happy enough with the Imperials wiping out their culture and if anything appear to feel safer with them around, which honestly is fairly unusual. I wanted so badly to side with those people who were saying "fuck you all, trying to rule over us!" and start a movement to separate ourselves from both the king system and the empire, without these figureheads.

But whilst there was a message of pacifism, it was largely drowned out by the message of inevitability. Just run with the Nords taking over the Forsworn lands. Just run with the Imperials wiping out the old feudalism and turning it into one NWO empire. Just run with neoliberal global capitalism. It's the future. I'm not even sure why the Dragonborn got involved at all. We were clearly not supposed to be able to truly relate to one side and fight for it whole heartedly unless we truly believe ourselves to be superior to the other inhabitants of Skyrim.

The next big game I played was by the same developers. Fallout 3! My first attempt at this game I could not get into the world, or handle the fact that the levels were somewhat realistic and I could hardly roam out of Megaton due to the fact 7 or 8 gun shots would not kill a simple mole rat. As you need to explore and do things in order to level up it seemed rather impossible. I restarted the game when I had more time and energy to put into it, and I was not disappointed that I did. The world and its music and its humour and characters were great. The choices you made had more of an effect than in Skyrim, and once I decided to master my sneak kill skills, like in the other game, I was able to advance and complete the game. I had tried to play by my own morals. I began with a little petty theft, but no killing for fun. Cautiously, cautiously. I didn't have the speech points to play out Tenpenny Tower as I had wanted to, but after some reading I found out that the ghouls would kill everybody anyway, so with that in mind, I decided "kill the rich and prejudice" and sided with the maligned. I felt pretty awful, however, about killing the nice old ladies whose minds I had changed and well-meaning Herbert Dashwood. If only diplomacy had won out! I do worry what message it sends out about situations like, for example, Palestine or South Africa. That if you do manage to change people's minds and try to live in harmony, that it is just too little too late and the 'savage' maligned group will murder everybody eventually? Certainly whatever you choose, Mr Tenpenny is a man who blows up whole towns of civilians just to improve the skyline. Hrmm... 

Just on note about Tenpenny Tower, don't tell me none of you 'narkos out there didn't find this face far too familiar from the Trot and Tankie scene and do an eye-roll!

Not my Comrade

So much about the game and its lore felt real and continuous but the path of the Lone Wanderer from Vault 101 itself had a few issues. You really could make a lot of decisions which affected the outcome of the game. You could be wonderful or you could be horrible. But you couldn't affect the outcome of the game itself. You couldn't be in favour of the Enclave like a good little Patriot. You would, one way or another, deliver free clean water to the world. You would ally with the companions. It didn't matter if I would gather slaves for profit or kill slavers, if i would shoot ghouls on sight or become their ally. I would still be a socialist giver of water and life to the majority of the Capital Wasteland. It wasn't my problem. I wouldn't use water to seize control of a nation, or charge for it, but it must have been a problem for the assholes that would, or people who wanted an evil character.

But then, visiting a friend of mine, he whipped out Fallout: New Vegas for me to play. It wasn't quite as finished looking and personal as the previous game. Houses were just named "Primm House" and decoration was minimal. But the world was huge. And what's more, my actions actually mattered. This game could go in multiple directions and endings. A note flashed up on my loading screen saying that there was a group called the Followers of the Apocalypse, who identified as Anarchists! From the name I had presumed they were nihilistic bomb-throwers without goals and rules, as often we are depicted in the media. But no! It is a group largely mirroring Médecins Sans Frontières. I was pretty impressed by that representation to be honest. I realised after a little searching that there are various choices which I, or at least my character, could play comfortable as a fully realised anarchist. However, I would have to be very careful if I wanted choosing these paths to turn out in a positive way, or not to just reflect "Market Anarchism" or pure pacifism and fence sitting. 

"No Gods, No Masters" is actually a mission!

The first real mission I played around my friends' place involved the Powder Gangers. This gang was trying to kill a courier over money and gang turf issues. The nice town I was in was against them and in favour of the courier and for the most part, the NCR.

The NCR faction feels like the easy statist liberal protagonist group of imperialist do-gooders. I don't like these groups much, but usually this is my best option for my character to have a clear conscience in games. It felt like a fairly straightforward choice. Save this man from a violent gang and win favour of the town. However, the player quickly finds out that the Powder Gangers are escaped prisoners. You may find out that ringleader, Joe Cobb was convicted not just for theft, but for arson and murder, and think "fair enough". But my anarchist senses did not like the idea this NCR is going about creating prisons based on its own belief and justice system without consent of people regardless. I can see why in this world they would form some sort of crime control, and there is little room for rehabilitation centres et al, but I'm still essentially an abolitionist. What's more, you find out that the NCR were using the prisoners as part of a chain-gang, working them hard in slave labour. For a group which is against slavery and later tries to abolish it, you can't help but see the irony.

Of course there is logic in using prisoners as construction workers if ordinary workers cannot be controlled or kept safely in order to do so. However it still is slave labour. What's more, this game is set in America. Chain gangs built the USA, along with very poor immigrant people in poor working conditions, and slaves. And there is huge crossover between these groups. Race and class and intertwined in US in a unique way. African Americans and other POC are convicted of crimes far more often and with harsher sentences, if they are not being shot at for facial reasons. Prisoners were used in slave labour. and the Prison system essentially replaced slavery. There are more African Americans in prison today than were ever slaves. And their labour is still being stolen from them. This is not something you can take lightly as an anarchist. Also, Joe Cobb is listed as an African American.

I realised when I bought this game and started over an an anarchist character I would have to think VERY carefully about my choices.

Pt 1
Pt 2
Pt 3
Pt 4

First Post

Hey, just attempting this to see if I can make something interesting here.

I'm playing largely on Xbox 360 so for the most part, images of the games I play will be taken from other parts of the interwebs. A lot of the content will be verbal critique, particularly through the feminist lens, but hopefully on games where we are given a bit more choice I can walk through my experience of playing as an anarchist character to the best of my abilities.

I am expecting most games not to really allow me the full anarchist communist intersectional feminist vegan experience, but I really want to give games kudos where they make efforts not just so that we can play as ourselves, but where they offer a variety of different options or with a wide spectrum of ways to advance, rather than the false dichotomy of good and bad, this faction or that faction that are much the same, or two options which come across as 'as bad as each other' with no room for fence sitting or picking options outside of the box.

I've looked at various Reddits before of people trying to play games 'as a pacifist' and such on Skyrim and Fallout 3, but it was the options afforded to me on New Vegas that made me think I might get somewhere close to being a character I can really relate to. That will be my first project. The majority of my games are open world style, or at least involve multiple choice stories, as these tend to have the most developed route options, and often give more options for character creation, therefore usually leading the way with progressive characterisation of racial, gender and sexual minorities and female characters. Hopefully I will be looking at some point and click and visual novel style games too. 

Anyways, thanks for reading!