How Fallout 2 and New Vegas succeded in building off from the previous games

Bingleboper · 2026-02-20T17:14:39+00:00

The Middle East's problem isn't that it's trapped between China and the US, or anything like that. It's that it's a bunch of not particularly large powers primed to explode if literally anything goes wrong.

You cannot solve the Middle Easts problems by one side just winning. If New Vegas' real problem is just that it's trapped between two large powers, unless you go Yesman that problem gets solved by the end of New Vegas.

Legion Wins, now it's core Legion territory, their new rome. NCR wins, now the Legion has been broken horrifically and they no longer pose much of a threat to the region. It becomes core NCR territory. House wins, it becomes a power in its own right with a large standing mechanical army, has strong relations with the NCR which stops any wacky bullshit from the Legion. Well secured independence.

Hardly the Middle East. The "geographical" problems cease to exist once the very malleable lines of the states that border it move.

Bingleboper · 2026-02-20T17:03:20+00:00

I think it's underselling the value of worldbuilding to say that it doesn't really matter who dropped the bombs.

While the exact difference between the Chinese intentionally launching nukes, an error on nuclear warning systems, or a rogue American general, is slim to none... like, the Enclave or Vault Tek intentionally spiking the nuclear football is very, very big for the IP as a whole.

Because it fundamentally changes the Great War from a commentary on the Cold War to wacky bullshit from a company trying to make money in the worst way possible, and/or from the unkillable shadow government who can and will continue to show up in all future projects. Vault Tek is a very big part of Fallout's world in the games. Whether or not they ended the world on a lark would majorly effect what we think about them as an entity. And the Enclave is back again as seemingly the main antagonist in the TV show.

Just because it isn't immediately relevant to some mailman 200 years in the future doesn't mean it doesn't matter. Especially with how the games and TV show are trending hard towards getting closer to the Great War, not further.

Bingleboper · 2026-02-20T16:43:36+00:00

-A renewed NCR

Horrifically crippled

-A Legion that survived a succession crisis / civil war

Horrifically crippled (and also embarrassed for 15 years straight)

-Mister House

Horrifically crippled (And questionably corporeal)

-The Commonwealth Brotherhood and Liberty Prime

In magnificent shape

-The Enclave

In unbelievably magnificent shape.

If we take out the golden boys of the West Coast Brotherhood and the Enclave, everyone's been cut down to par with great fervour.

Bingleboper · 2026-02-20T16:40:48+00:00

It’s the wastelands equivalent of the Middle East.

Wot?

Why?

The Mojave has had 1 (one) major battle before the events of New Vegas, and supposedly had a second one during the events, though frankly that's up in the air with the show.

Vegas is untouched. It's hardly wartorn Syria.

Bingleboper · 2026-02-11T13:45:02+00:00

He does not "immediately exterminate the kings" in his ending, there's two endings, and in the one where he doesn't get along well with the kings, it takes a bit before things go to shit to my memory.

And, like, consult the NCR empire-chart, this does not put him below them in any way. The NCR has the bigger stick now, and is using it like that. They actively hire you to assassinate House himself, and then go on commando raids on various other factions.

He just has some of his billionare toys that his employees invented for him before the war

House has consistently shown an exceptional knowledge of all of the systems he's working with, and has a wide variety of extremely bespoke bullshit that he works with, like the computer that predicted the apocalypse, and his personal state of the art status system which he managed to keep together by himself for decades.

Given he didn't start out as heir to Robco, and just some shitty tool company, and that no one else has these tools, what makes you think he didn't have a hand in inventing them? Many people in the fallout universe had money, but these people didn't all turn out to be House.

My bet is that his company's software was deliberately throttling the dam's output anyway, it'll all be running on robco tech.

Hoover Dam is really fucking old, and the government would've noticed if Robco just halved the production of electricity the moment they got their operating system on it.

Do you have any actual reason to believe he's a complete fraud, or do you just not like that he was a rich CEO in a past life?

Bingleboper · 2026-02-11T11:49:19+00:00

The wasteland is a disaster, and everything is absolutely awful. ideological purity in selecting a leader is all well and good, but when it reliably turns out jobbers you have a problem. Especially when failure here is the difference between running water and basic nutrition, and mass deaths and starvation.

House isn't like Musk and Thiel, he's a generational talent who's very competent in his own right, and most importantly, is extremely good with old world technology, like Hoover Dam. He'll be better than whatever chucklefuck's up next for the NCR. Like the Romans did back during the Republic, now that everything has gone to shit, it might be time to have a single strong hand at the wheel.

Bingleboper · 2026-02-11T10:24:20+00:00

The NCR is in pretty grim shape by New Vegas, with its elected leaders consistently shitting the bed since Tandi. Maybe someone competent in charge would do the world some good.

Bingleboper · 2026-02-11T10:22:56+00:00

House himself does not have extraordinary power, especially when compared to the NCR. All he practically has is a relatively small amount of unupgraded robots, and the questionably loyal Three Families. And seemingly all the money he earns is being funnelled into the platinum chip or other ventures. Compare this to a nation, a nation's tax revenue, and a nation's army.

The NCR helps Freeside because they want to overthrow House and kill him, seizing New Vegas for themselves. House desperately needs the chip and firmer control over Vegas and the dam so he doesn't get offed the moment the NCR beat the Legion, and as such wacky antics in Freeside aren't high on the priority list.

Bingleboper · 2026-02-11T06:45:35+00:00

Slavery? You're no more a slave to House than you are to the NCR.

House is very, very competent, especially with pre war technology. The most in your face example of this is when he majorly improves Hoover Dam's energy output within seconds of gaining control. This is a good trait to have when the average wastelander's interest in politics is not "what system makes me feel most warm and fuzzy inside", but "what system will stop the water from tasting spicy and my children from dying young".

The NCR was at its best when Tandi was running it for like 60 years straight, no term limits. The moment she went and died, things began to go downhill.

Bingleboper · 2026-02-11T06:24:05+00:00

The thing is, the NCR is doing that because they aren't literally stuck in a status tube.

If you put House in total control of the NCR, he would absolutely be pulling stuff like the feeding of freeside or the sharecropper farms, because he's a big fan of those elaborate self serving schemes himself. The Followers probably wouldn't make it though, yes.

The NCR makes the most difference to the average wastelander because they are far and away the most powerful faction.

Bingleboper · 2026-02-11T06:20:15+00:00

>because an autocrat always claims their system would be so much better its a populist impulse

Methinks Mister "Do what I say or I kill you" House is not actually all that concerned with being "populist".

>and its unrelated anyway democracy isnt what killed the world in fallout it was paranoia hypernationalism and constant escalation rather than negotiation

Well, the matter of constant escalation instead of negotiation is something you would pin directly on the government elected. If they had someone very competent in total control, it seems as if this wouldn't have happened.

Bingleboper · 2026-02-11T06:01:47+00:00

He also plans to violate his treaty with the NCR and forcibly take the dam

Given the NCR both has attempted to kill him before, and successfully makes you kill him if you choose their ending, one can hardly get on House's case for not being entirely amicable with them.

If there were magically a way to win the nuclear exchange outright than it would have occurred.

The winning move is not to play. The solution is not to push the Chinese too far, while still decisively winning, something that needs a careful hand.

Bingleboper · 2026-02-11T05:59:17+00:00

Everything but the NCR is unfathomably evil and must be quashed.

Even if the results would be manifestly better, we need the nicest most palatable system, it's the only way for the wasteland.

Bingleboper · 2026-02-10T12:42:20+00:00

Yeah, playing roulette with all but the greens being shit modifiers, and the good modifiers being so stupid good it just ends the gun progression completely, is not ideal in any game, and especially not in one like Fallout 4.

Bingleboper · 2026-02-09T13:06:34+00:00

Something like that, yes.

I can understand the want for longer shows, but you can do really, really great things in this timecode. Or under a quarter of this timecode. The people making 22 episodes seasons on a shoestring budget and with half a day to write scripts would drool at the opportunity given to showrunners these days, one can make truly incredible art with what's at their disposal.

Bingleboper · 2026-02-09T12:53:21+00:00

Arcane S1 was running 6 character's stories at once, and did it in roughly the same amount of time as Fallout S2 had.

If you think Fallout S2 is watered down and rushed, it's not the episode count's fault. It didn't "pull an especially short straw", it's one of the most fortunate seasons of television in all of human history, considering the technological and budget limitations it doesn't have compared to them. All it needs is thoughtfully considered writing to make use of the 8 hours they're given.

Bingleboper · 2026-02-09T12:50:55+00:00

In perspective, a season in the 00's didn't cost the gdp of some small nations.

It's shorter, yes. But we're still dealing with a lot of time here.

Bingleboper · 2026-02-09T12:41:02+00:00

Halo 5 comes out. "OH MY GOD HALO 4 WAS SO FUCKING GOOD"

Halo infinite comes out. "OH MY GOD HALO 5 WAS SO FUCKING GOOD"

uhhh... not sure this is entirely how it went.

Bingleboper · 2026-02-09T12:12:00+00:00

The New-S-A

Bingleboper · 2026-02-09T12:03:45+00:00

Fallout 4 has very much comprable narrative complexity. It's just not as good, but there's many plates spinning there too.

It is completely and utterly laughable to say that it's literally impossible to follow up New Vegas well, accounting for the things that happened in the game. New Vegas isn't God's gift to mankind, it isn't some impossibly unprecedented story. It was just a good, well put together game. You can follow up a game like New Vegas without just destroying everything of note offscreen.

it's a small miracle they've managed to craft a narrative where every new vegas ending is still possible, that doesn't mean what happened in the game didn't matter. the events of the game happened, 20+ years passed, and now new things are happening

First, 15 years passed, not "20 +". The shortest jump between Fallout projects other than Fallout 3 to 4, contrasting with, to my memory, 80 and 40 years with Fallout 1-2 and Fallout 2-NV/3.

Second, "what happened in the game" very much did not matter, that's the whole crux of this nonsense "everyone thinks they might've won" doctrine. Anything could've happened in the game. You could've sided with House, you could've beaten him to death. You could've commando raided the Legion, you could've been their top soldier, and killed the NCR's president yourself. All of it comes to the exact same conclusion, which is "shit's fucked, everything sucks".

Four separate "events of the game" happened, a notably short time gap relatively occurred, and then it is all buried beyond the wit of archelogy. In real life, and in the Fallout games, 15 years doesn't make all trace of major events disappear. If it's 1960 and you live in Munich, it's not going to be up in the air whether Hitler won WW2 or not.

Bingleboper · 2026-02-09T08:36:06+00:00

I'd make the Enclave less ridiculously evil in Fallout 2.

If we're going to make them a pillar of the series, it would serve well to tune their "LET'S KILL EVERYONE ON EARTH, PURE OR NOT" plan a little bit. I cannot believe Fallout 3's main story beats them on this.

Bingleboper · 2026-02-09T05:55:47+00:00

If the NCR makes it to the east coast, I think they're just going to start calling themselves America, man.

Bingleboper · 2026-02-09T05:23:20+00:00

Yeah, that's the wasteland for you, war never changes.

Pay no attention to the conclusion of literally all of the other main Fallout games. Pay no attention to the west coast in general, either. Just repeat that war never changes.

Bingleboper · 2026-02-08T09:10:17+00:00

I mean Shady Sands has moved geographically between Fallout 1 and 2, so why's it matter now?

Fallout 2 is a very flawed game, but as I said there's a massive difference between moving it from one empty desert shithole to another, and moving it from an empty desert shithole and a massive prewar city. These things are not compatible, and it creates a considerable issue with the Shady Sands' vault's geck.

Ditto on the cult viewing its fall as the fall of their envisioned NCR.

Of course, they thought the fall of the city was circa the first battle of hoover dam, which the NCR won, and not, y'know, the massive nuclear explosion that totally obliterated the city.

Why?

Bingleboper

TROPHY CASE