War Diary #8 – Change

fallout_vaulttec_boyWhile a lot of games involve war directly, there are several, including a few of those that I’ve taken a look at for the purposes of this blog, that deal with the aftermath of war. Fallout is a series that has been near and dear to my heart for years now. It has some of the richest, most interesting lore to be found in any imaginary universe, and it has some fun aesthetics as well.

As the name suggests, Fallout takes place after a hypothetical nuclear war between America and China. The circumstances of the war are mostly unclear, and nobody really knows who was the first to resort to the nuclear option, but what we do know is that America was prepared for nuclear apocalypse. In the early stages of the war, the government contracted Vault-Tec to produce massive underground fallout shelters capable of sustaining entire populations for years until the country became inhabitable again, these were known as Vaults. As a Vault Dweller, your mission in the original Fallout was to go out into this post-apocalypse world and find a certain something that your Vault needs to survive. What’s more interesting, though, and far more applicable, is how the game begins.

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War. War never changes. The Romans waged war to gather slaves and wealth, Spain built an empire from its lust for gold and territory, Hitler shaped a battered Germany into an economic superpower, but war never changes. In the 21st century, war was still waged over the resources that could be acquired, only this time, the spoils of war were also its weapons: petroleum, and Uranium…

Within this first section, brilliantly narrated by Ron Perlman, we have an interesting framing device for the rest of the game. War never changes, huh? More or less the central claim of the series, as every game’s opening narration begins with it. When we take a look at Handel and the works of Sun Tzu and von Clausewitz that he analyzes, we get the hint that there may be some truth to this, but what is it really saying?

In the Fallout games, we see a lot of bickering and combat (natural for a video game I would think). Various factions and tribes of different stripes all seek to preserve their meager shares of the wasteland that was once America. The wars that come up between them, as the introduction alludes to, are over resources, territory, power. There are certain things about war that never change, and the involvement of material concerns and resources is one of them.

Another angle that can be examined (and you’ve probably already picked up on from the advertisement pictures) is the satirical angle. Fallout is meant to take place in a fictional universe which is identical to ours up until World War II. After that, it essentially asks us to imagine an era in which the 1950s Cold War sentiment never ended. The mascot with the cheesy smile, showing everyone how to “Duck and Cover,” warning about the evils of Communism. Interesting imagery in that first image as well: identical smiling Vault Boy characters all marching into the distance and winking at the camera. Very soldier-like, no?

21985_2_1I believe that Fallout‘s inherent message of “War never changes” boils down to a more focused version of the old adage that “History repeats itself.” Wherever there are groups of humans in competition for resources, no matter what form they take or what the societal context is, there is always the potential for war. It’s a rather grim message, and one that the third game takes to an even greater level.

Since the dawn of human kind, when our ancestors first discovered the killing power of rock and bone, blood has been spilled in the name of everything: from God to justice to simple, psychotic rage.

In the year 2077, after millenia of armed conflict, the destructive nature of man could sustain itself no longer. The world was plunged into an abyss of nuclear fire and radiation.

But it was not, as some had predicted, the end of the world. Instead, the apocalypse was simply the prologue to another bloody chapter of human history. For man had succeeded in destroying the world – but war, war never changes.

No matter what technological auspices are added on to it, war remains the same thing: the shedding of human blood as means to an end. It is in this regard, above all, that war never truly changes. War, according to Fallout, is so strong that even the end of the world could not stop it. History repeats itself in the Fallout mythos, as new nations arise to mimic those of the old world, and then these nations in turn go to war. In a more dramatized way than that of our own world, every tribe and society in Fallout must be warlike to deter invasion, battles are common, and life and death struggle is a daily reality. In this way, the games begin to transcend war and move into the issue of human survival itself. In a world where might makes right, and violence is the law of the land, one must be prepared for war, or die. In that way, maybe war can never truly change.

But the tale of humanity will never come to a close, for the struggle of survival is a war without end, and war – war never changes.

 

2 thoughts on “War Diary #8 – Change

  1. Jeffrey Romano Post author

    @Billy: Personally, I loved New Vegas, but I felt what I said was fairly generic to the entire series. I was thinking of adding it in to be a more literal showing of what the series as a whole was trying to say. After all, in New Vegas, you have two new nations, both based on some separate Old World model (the Legion on ancient Rome, and the New California Republic on America) fighting to decide dominance. I’ve always thought that Fallout in general had the kind of cultural bent to it, since Fallout 3 takes place in Washington D.C., and D.C. landmarks feature prominently in the game. I think that’s where the uniqueness is to be found, the blending of the post-apocalypse mood with new settings. That, and a surviving Hoover Dam would be a natural point of contention in a post-apocalypse scenario, I think.

  2. Billy Saas

    What a way to end the series! I’ve very much enjoyed reading your posts, as much for your clever prose as for the content. I find games like Fallout both troubling and, erm, fun. It’s good to know others are having similar experiences with cognitive dissonance.
    As for this particular post, I wonder about the Fallout game that’s missing from your analysis–namely, Fallout: New Vegas. That’s actually the only one I’ve ever played, and I remember feeling that the ‘Vegas’ angle felt arbitrary, kitschy, and quite a bit short of profound. In fairness, the kitsch is what drew me to the title (as a Las Vegan displaced to central PA, I suppose I was looking for a little [post-apocalyptic] taste of home). Where do you think the New Vegas title fits in the series? Is it an outlier?
    The quote you ended with is quite powerful, and pertinent to our present situation of apparently endless war. It’s dispiriting, but also perhaps helpful, to think that war might be an eternal curse, a cruel trick that always pulls the prize away at the last moment. Maybe the prize just isn’t worth it. Where’s the Jedi counsel when you need them?

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