Game Theory - Why Fallout's Society Is DOOMED!

Episode Date: May 14, 2024

Join former Game Theory Host MatPat as he explains that the civilization of Fallout will NEVER be able to rebuild!

You'd think in fallout if scientists could create house robots and power armor they could have at least figured out color TV by now, right? I mean really. Good job creating a fictional universe there guys. internet? Welcome to game theory buying up all the ramen in preparation for the Great War. Actually that's a lie. I bought 600 cases of ramen noodles cuz they're delicious and they had a nifty deal at Costco. But in all seriousness, have you seen the news lately? I mean 2016 was a scary year filled with terrible terrorist attacks in the world on edge. 2017, well, it's still early, but I think it's gonna be more of the same. Remember when your Twitter feed wasn't people arguing about politics?

Pepperidge Farm remembers? I do too. I remember that. Those are the good old days. But anyway, all this doom and gloom did have one positive thing to come out of it. It got me to revisit Fallout. And not only that, I am determined to keep 2017 positive, so instead of an episode calculating the odds of a nuclear holocaust that would wipe out 99% of humanity, Today's episode is gonna focus on fixing Fallout Society, rebuilding civilization from its own ashes. Out with the old, sad, scary theories about heroes being villains or heroes being dead, it's the start of a new day, making fictional virtual worlds better one theory at a time. Game Theory 2017 for a brighter future.

Now there's always been one niggling issue in the back of my head about the Fallout series that never quite sat right with me. It's been over 200 years since the bombs went off. And in the real world, 200 years is a really long time. 200 years is about the time it took from inventing the steam engine to getting us to fly. It took less than 60 years after that to get a man into space. Alan Turing first proposed his Turing machine back in 1936, laying the groundwork for modern computers. Computers that when first built took up 72 square meters,

weighed 27 tons and cost millions of dollars. And now, only 80 years later, we have smart, smartphones like the Vivo Max, currently the world's thinnest phone at literally 4.5 millimeters thick. No exaggeration, that is 40 million times smaller, costs 15,000 times less, and is 1,300 times more powerful in 80 years. And yeah, I get it, the world of fallout has suffered a huge catastrophe. But for as bad as the Great War was, they're still functioning robot servants and power armor suits just flying around the wasteland. Surely with that level of tech, humanity could have rebuilt some level of infrastructure. Add to that the fact that there were pockets of people prepared for the coming nuclear war.

We all know that fallout's great war happened in October of 277, but according to the Fallout Bible, the United States government was fully prepped for a nuclear attack from China eight months prior. Back in March of 2017, this was all done by the enclave, consisting of the President of the United States and all the government and corporate officials who made up the secret shadow government pulling the strings behind the scenes. They retreated to remote sections around the globe and made contingency plans for continuing the war against the Chinese Operating under the belief that as long as the important people of the US survived They could regroup quickly and wipe out communism once and for all

And as we see in Fallout 2 the enclave established itself on the abandoned Poseidon energy oil drilling platform off the coast of California One that was fully protected from the nuclear firestorm of 27 Clearly they should have had the knowledge and leadership to rain America back in even in the wake of nuclear devastation. Then there's the city of Las Vegas, or New Vegas in the games, which escaped the nuclear attack relatively unharmed thanks to Mr. House's defense system. A city that could take its technology and serve as a new hub for growth and recovery of the country, but just doesn't, really. And those are just two quick examples. In short, between the still operational technology, the preservation of pre-war knowledge found in places like New Vegas,

and the still living world leaders in groups like the enclave in 200 years, The Fallout world should be in a much better condition than where it's at in the games. The New California Republic is about as close as he gets. It's a functional democracy with a dollar backed by water reserves and everything, but let's be honest, how successful is it really when it can't even manage to kill a bunch of dudes wearing skirts and wielding knives? Which means that the problem holding the wasteland back isn't external, but internal. It's the citizens, the people themselves that are stalling this progress and recovery. Let me explain. In order for society to function, it needs rational, law-abiding citizens.

If every person in a country might just get up tomorrow and murder 20 people or decide they're not beholden to basic laws, chances are you're looking at what's called a failed state. Basically the Purge movies. At a very basic level, the primary role of government is to sustain a system of trust. What's known as the social contract, we sacrifice some personal freedoms for a state of protection. You can walk outside and your neighbor won't launch a nuclear warhead at you with a shoulder-mounted slingshot. But in the world of Fallout, it's hard to feel safe when the Jones' next door are amassing a human skull collection on their front porch. The basic glue of society requires that the majority of its citizens be of sound mind.

But in the wasteland, that might not be scientifically possible. And the biggest reason for it is in the title of the game, Fallout. The lingering radiation from the bombs that were dropped during the Great War. Oh man, I just realized. That moment that you realize the game's title is referring both to nuclear Fallout, as well as the fact that the game's literally explores the fallout or after effects of a nuclear war. Well done, Bethesda. Clap and a half to you. Anyway, when people talk about radiation, they typically focus on the physical effects

associated with exposure. The horrific deformities and tumors. The classic fish with three eyes. But even more terrifying are the permanent effects that radiation poisoning can have on our brains. Studies have linked high doses of radiation to learning and memory impairment. And survivors of the Chernobyl disaster, in which a nuclear reactor basically blew up and launched radiation into the air for nine days were up to five times more likely to suffer from schizophrenia Now, it's worth mentioning that people suffering from schizophrenia often have persecution delusions They're convinced that somebody or something is out to get them It could be the government aliens Illuminati whatever and the people we see wandering around the fallout

Wasteland exhibit these same symptoms They're convinced that the Institute is out to get them Tinker Tom one of the agents of the railroad and fallout Flaught 4 swears that the Institute poisoned the air and launched the nukes that started the Great War. And throughout these games, time and time again, we encounter multiple characters preoccupied with their own delusions and conspiracy theories. Ghosts, kami ghosts, but don't know they're dead. In Fallout 4, we meet journalists who are convinced that the Institute is replacing humans with synthetic versions of themselves. The condition where you feel that your friends and loved ones aren't who they say they are is a well-documented delusion called capgras delusion.

In this delusion, people become convinced that someone has been replaced by an imposter. In other words, being convinced that your mother isn't actually your mother, but instead a perfect robotic replica, falls squarely into the definition of a capgras delusion. And what's a common cause for capgras delusion? You guessed it. Radiation poisoning. Now, yes, I know, as we play Fallout, it's pretty obvious that the Institute is actually replacing people with sins, and that a shadow government exists and plans on killing everyone. And yeah, we even encounter aliens that we can kill in lieu to

motherships that we can explore across different games in the franchise. Fallout gives us no reason to disbelieve the events that we see, but all of these are incredibly similar to common paranoid delusions that come with schizophrenia. So you have to ask yourself, how much can we really trust the narratives coming from the protagonists of these games? In particular, the sole survivor. I mean, in the intro to Fallout 4, your character supposedly just misses the shockwave from the bomb, but radiation travels at the speed of light. You ain't Dodging that. In this moment, the sole survivor essentially got a huge dose of radiation straight to the brain before being frozen for 200 years.

This compounded with witnessing the murder of his wife, the kidnapping of his child, and the collapse of all civilization? That's enough to drive pretty much anyone crazy. So you gotta ask yourself, as you're playing these games, how reliable are the events that you're witnessing? How truthful are the perceptions of these narrators? Speaking of losing your loved ones and watching the world collapse, that's the other major problem. with rebuilding society and fallout. PTSD or post-traumatic stress disorder. Living in the wasteland and seeing people you know regularly getting butchered by death claws and raiders ain't gonna be too good for your mental health,

radiation poisoning, or no. In fact, we know from similar real-life disasters that anywhere between 25 and 75% of survivors can suffer from PTSD. In Fukushima, Japan, where an earthquake and tsunami caused the meltdown of three nuclear reactors back in 2011, around 50% of the survivors were believed to be suffering. from post-traumatic stress disorder. And if it's not the disaster itself that triggers it, the ensuing displacement of being forced out of your home,

the financial insecurity from losing your job, and all the effects of a disaster that continued for years on after, well, those will certainly do it for you. But at least the survivors of Fukushima had a society to return to. In Fallout, there's just nothing there. The entire world has been obliterated. When untreated, people suffering from PTSD can have a ton of problems integrating into society.

Aside from their brain, forcing them to constantly relive, the horrors that they survive, many people with post-traumatic stress disorder, per the anxiety and depression association of America, have, quote, persistent and exaggerated negative beliefs or expectations about oneself, others, or the world. People with PTSD can become irritable, reckless, self-destructive. Does any of that sound familiar to the world of fallout? It's also common for PTSD sufferers to seek refuge in drugs and alcohol,

something we see literally everywhere in the wasteland, with drugs like jet and psycho being pediment. all over the place or the empty whiskey bottles that just litter the ground. There's even a quest in Fallout, New Vegas where you have to retrieve a book on PTSD for a doctor. Carrington of the railroad describes this very situation when discussing the post-traumatic stress his agents are dealing with. So what can you do to save a society like this? Well, within Fallout's the solution given for solving this issue is pretty depressing. At the end of Fallout 4, Father comes to the surface to see if the wasteland was really as bad as everyone says it is. He concludes that the whole thing is doomed and the Institute is Humanity's best hope for progress. The same goes for John Henry Eden, the leader of the enclave in in Fallout 3. The irradiated inhabitants of the world had to be eradicated for

the world to be rebuilt. Fallout 2, again the same solution. And while all of these psychological issues and delusions make it incredibly difficult for the wasteland to rebuild itself, mass genocide isn't the only answer. It is an answer, but probably not the one most of us would actively want to choose and honestly one of the game pushes you away from. No, in order to rebuild the wasteland, the focus shouldn't be on rebuilding society on the macro level, but on fixing the people in the micro level. Instead of wasting time with worldwide genocide viruses or human replacement synths, the true solution in fallout is psychological treatment.

While there's no catch-all solution for PTSD or schizophrenia, doctors have proven several types of medication that can help improve these conditions, namely antidepressants for PTSD and antipsychotics for schizophrenia. Thus, the key to curing society in fallout isn't dependent on which faction you choose, whether you go with the Brotherhood of Steel or the Railroad or the enclave or whoever, it doesn't matter who's ruling philosophy you go with. They're all doomed to fail if the citizens don't get proper treatment first. In a game full of choices, the single best choice for ending would be helping the citizens self-medicate. Only by doing this, can the wasteland ever have a shot to not be the wasteland? No amount of free-flowing clean water is gonna change that. But hey, that's just a The theory, a game theory.

Thanks for watching.