One America. Now and Forever: Fallout and the New Millennium

 

One America. Now and Forever:

Fallout and the New Millunium.

Malcolm McDowell, the voice of John Henry Eden

Reactionary Leaders Have Achieved Popularity across the West in the 2000s.

The fateful Battle of Hoover Dam is the most significant geopolitical event since Stalingrad 

The Fallout series takes the technologies that bind us to a globalized industrial capitalist system and eradicates our dependence on them with the post apocalypse sub genre of Sci fi. There are no smart phones and no internet because they were never invented. The timeline is a retrofuturistic alternative history that resembles the early cold war. Even the impressive technology that does exist looks like something they might imagine in the 1950s. The remains of big, bulky, atomic powered super suits and rocket cars litter the radioactive wastes.

Imagine Washington DC, but it’s now a warzone of ruined monuments that once stood for America’s promised liberty. The Congress is now fortified by a race of Super Mutant cannibals who feast on the bones of the fallen survivors of nuclear war. It’s no accident that in the dawn of the New Millennium the generation following the end of the cold war welcomed the promise of a post apocalypse. It was called Fallout 3, and in 2008 it blew the hinges off the post apocalyptic genre. Ever since then, a post apocalyptic dystopia has been the prominent setting for video games, movies, novels, tv shows, and there is no end in sight. The Fallout video game series is an experience in which its audience confronts concerns over the instability of the 2000s, the merging of devices that bind our lives to tech companies, and the rise of Reactionary political parties across Western Democracies.

The Cold War ended 30 years ago. The Berlin Wall went down. Soviet leaders drained Vodka in hidden bunkers and committed suicide as one East European republic after another declared it’s independence from the USSR. The promise of a glorious socialist future never came true. Communist countries like China opened up their markets and joined the globalized industrial capitalist system.

Many believed a bright future of peace and prosperity now awaited them. Instead the 2000s gave us meth, 9/11, wars, economic decline, oligarchy, the reemergence of Nationalism, outbreaks of deadly diseases, riots, social isolation, distrust and division of society, the theft of our private information by tech companies, and limited job opportunities that often fail to cover the ever rising expenses of living, most of which involve soul sucking long hours, no weekends off, in industrial dungeons, while AI programs make art and write poetry. The effect has divided people, caused the birth rate to drop, and wrought havoc to the globalized industrial capitalist system that not so long ago looked like it would last for one thousand years.

That is why in 2008, a mere sci fi video game became a hit, and it was no accident. It was Fallout 3. Despite it’s dreadful tone of a future without a social contract, morals, terrorized by monsters and deformity, and juxtaposed destruction with wholesome imagery of the American 1950s, many people welcomed it. The series provided an escape from the swift transitions of the New Millennium. No debt, no health insurance payments, and no anxiety created by the volatile era.

The re imagining of a world where we can start over and carve our own destinies became a popular fantasy in the New Millennium. Fallout not only brought the science fiction genre to its next phase, it also merged technology with the fear, anxiety, and promise that even in the Post Apocalypse, we can overcome these issues. We see this throughout the entire Fallout series. “War never changes,” is the first line spoken in every Fallout game. New societies emerge with their own social contracts and visions of the future, but just like today, these partisan factions won’t stop fighting, and they seldom address the needs of the people they claim to serve.

The only manufacturing that seems to exist is small scale, independent “chem” labs that keep the bottle cap currency alive. Drug use is rampant, if not depended on, among the people. The player gets a chance to end the faction conflicts, gets opportunities to help addicts, but at times the drug use seems to be the right thing to do when encountering injured people who can’t go on with broken limbs without a dose of morphine or “Medx.” These player actions are a reflection of social problems that members of modern society can face in real life. In Fallout, as today, we turn to technology for answers.

By the 2010s, technology had been merged into the lives of the New Millennium like nothing before it. Smartphones, pocket sized computers, had been merged with their jobs, their food, their friendships, their money, even their love lives. They weren’t just using technology, that began to depend on it, and it created a huge changes in their culture and imaginations. This assemblage challenged long held traditions, and arguably had as negative of an effect on their society as it had created positive changes. On one had, smart phones stole user’s information and sold it without their knowledge, on the other hand, they ended phone booth kidnappings.

Technology only helps us as much as it hinders us. It’s convenient to believe that any technological progress is good, welcomed, or miraculous. Elizabeth Holmes convinced billions of dollars worth of people to invest her “technology” which she made sound like it was destined to change the life of every single diabetic forever. Really it was a box that spilled their blood in a warming tray. A microwave!

It may seem to be a cruel joke, but this relationship the New Millennium has with technology is reflected in the Fallout series as well. They don’t have the internet, smart phones, or AI dance clubs, but they do have strong messages about technology and its (mis)use. Fallout is world where that hyper connection to Silicon Valley Technology is removed from our lives. We are still experiencing this on a video game console, but it is a liberation from these technological confinements nonetheless.

Technology as seen in Fallout has led to the destruction of the world. War may never change, but the weapons did. The nuclear bomb feared in the mid 1900s was the ultimate symbol of how our creations could turn on us. In this world, the fears came true. Now humans must learn to grow food again. They must learn what water is good to drink and water isn’t again. They must learn to read again. They must learn to build shacks again.

One of the iconic factions, the Brotherhood of Steel, a knighthood that lives underground, dedicates their very lives to the principle that technology must not advance, and that people should be kept away from it. They however believe that with guidance and discipline, technology can be used. Another faction, Ceasar’s Legion, agrees, but to an extreme. They think that technology corrupted people and caused the war, but that all technology since the Bronze Age should be destroyed. They want to bring back a society that depends on slavery, pillaging, and magic spells.

The reactionary view that technology has harmed people is consistent throughout fallout, but it is challenged by the presence of the the PIPboy. A wristbound computer that can manage inventory, analyse health condition, play songs on the radio, generate a GPS mapping system, detect hostile entities, write notes, and detect radiation. It’s extremely helpful, essential to survival, and does nothing but support it’s user. In a world of technology gone wrong, it is a hopeful reminder that technology can be our friend.

Though it may seem to be inherent to the beliefs of the reactionary that technology should be removed in order to prevent the corruption of traditions and culture, one of the things that led to the rise of Right Wing parties in the New Millennium was technology itself. Since the early 1990s, far right political parties organized in small groups around the Netherlands, centered around deporting immigrants. After 9/11, the FBI took their thumb off far right groups and began to keep an eye on international terror, more than domestic threats. The result was the far right being free to assemble, spread messages on the internet, and to run for political offices.

They used the internet masterfully. A lot of them had already been communicating in codes and with inside jokes for decades. They were ready to spread their messages when Memes became popular. Far Right commentary shows popped up all over Youtube. Some of these people have been disgraced, but many are still on the air. They didn’t challenge technology, they saw what it’s power was, and they took the opportunity to use it.

Reactionary leaders in Europe, Brazil, Argentina have used the internet to achieve success in leadership. American President Donald Trump is famous for his effective Twitter posts. He even made alliances with Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook, Jeffrey Bezos of Amazon, and Elon Musk of the Cybertruck. It’s very reminiscent of the Far Right in Fallout. If there is progress in Fallout, there are elements that want it removed.

In the Lore of Fallout, before the war that ended the world, America was ruled by a Nationalistic government. They invaded Canada, sucked Europe’s resources away, and while it’s ambiguous who started the war that destroyed the world, signs imply that it was a political party called the Enclave.

The Enclave was the government, and they might have caused the war because they were ready to protect themselves when it happened. They already had the best bunkers ready to go. They made sure all the food had radiation and preservatives so they could eat it, and they made sure to flood the country with guns so they could use them. When they arise again, it’s to conquer the former United States, destroy any lifeforms “corrupted” by radiation. They mean to wipe anyone mutated from the war, or anyone living in it’s poverty, from the face of the Earth. They plan to do it by taking over the only known water purifier and hooking poison up to it.

The Enclave is led by President John Henry Eden. Though he is never seen, his speeches will sound familiar to anyone alive in the New Millennium.

“We live in an age of poverty, greed, violence, destruction. Indeed, the very seat of the federal government, Washington D.C., has been reduced to what is now known as the "Capital Wasteland." The Capital Wasteland... How did it come to this, America? How did your leaders allow the most powerful nation on Earth… to die? The answer is really quite simple: Incompetence. Incompetence at the highest echelons of power. We put our trust, our faith, in halfwits. Our intrepid leaders had everything they wanted! Power. Wealth. Prestige. And it made them lazy, America. Oh yes, and laziness breeds stupidity. Rest assured, I will not make the mistakes of my predecessors. When John Henry Eden builds a country, he builds it to last. The American way. Don't you, my darling America, deserve that? Don't you deserve a future free of war, and fear, and terrible uncertainty? Of course you do. As President of the United States, you have my solemn pledge that I will never rest, NEVER rest, until we all have what we deserve: A place to truly call... home.” (Enclave Radio. Fallout 3).

The players in Fallout must confront and defeat the in game Nationalism that is rising in the very real world around them. They overcome this threat by bringing peace to the waring factions, and getting them to join forces. They help the people of the wasteland, providing water, protection, medicine, everything the Enclave claims to provide but never does. They must use technology for the greater good, like turning on old power plants and distributing energy across the grid, getting Hoover Dam back online, by powering on the water purifier. The player always has a choice though with this power.

It may seem like black humor, but the option is always presented to the player to use technology for evil. You can launch a ship into space, or you can cause it to crash because it would be funnier that way. You can turn on the power plant for everyone, you can send it all to a satellite that aims a deathbeam back at the planet, you can send it all the Casinos so you can gamble 24/7. The reminder of how technology can be misused tempts us everyday in the New Millennium. What keeps the world alive and growing is the mindful use of the technology we possess. In the end of things, most will use it’s power for the greater good, if we fail, the world will bring destruction to us.