Because Bethesda has two forms of story telling, skeletons in very specific poses and dead bodies/gore that is anywhere from fresh to seemingly 200 years old.
@@jimbothegymbro7086atleast fallout 2 lets you kill them. Bethesda is afraid to give players actual freedom and choice in their games, you're only allowed to be as evil as they say you can be and judging by fallout 3s linear story line you're almost not even allowed to be evil in the first place.
I think it’s clear that Beth has wanted to make an immediately post-war game for a long time. The use of gore and lack of the organization of any form of polity makes the wasteland seem cruel and desperate. Keeping gore in your living space isn’t sustainable for centuries, but for decades?
I cannot remember where, but in some interview it was mentioned that FO3 was written to be set maybe 20 years after the bombs, but management didn't want to make anything earlier than the original games, so they shifted it. Which explains a lot
Not even decades. Gore and filth will attract vermin like radroaches, bloatflies, mole rats. Full on corpses are going to draw larger predators and scavengers. Scare off random wastelanders, attract a yao guai.
You'd think that at some point someone would grab a mop. Even if you're living in a ruined building and killing people for money, I think there's still a fundamental mental need to maintain basic standards. Besides, what else are you going to do when you can't sleep from the jet and can't go outside because there's a rad storm?
Last time I played New Vegas I noticed the lack of gore and thought about Boone going to the capital wasteland and then having a new existential crisis of ‘wait, was the legion not actually the most savage people in this hellscape after all?’ after seeing all the raider ‘art’ Edit: I said SAVAGE, _not_ cruel. There's a difference
I think it’d suck to be a legion slave for years with no escape and being used as a baby generator if you’re a woman. raiders are more short term in comparison
@@jingleding9002Yeah the Legion are by far the worst and most scary faction in all of the games if you’re a woman. If a raider gets you, it’ll suck, it’ll hurt but it’ll be over with within days. But as a female slave or Legion woman? It means a living hell for decades. The men/husband would beat you regularly, you’d have to wait on him hand and foot, be raped by him every night until you’re visibly pregnant then be forced through the many unpleasant experiences of pregnancy then the agony and life threatening childbirth. Then maybe you’d get a few weeks to heal before the cycle begins again except now you have a baby to protect. Yeah, I’d pick the raiders.
NV really did well in portraying the people who victims of brutally from the Legion and Raiders. You hear from Boone, you can talk to people enslaved by the Legion, and hear from their victims in the NCR military. The same goes for raiders like Cook-Cook, who permanently scarred Spade and Corporal Betsy. You can talk to them and see the psychological scars they still have, and its portrayed by the voice actors so well. Compare that to static decorations like corpses or skulls and it just adds more of a Human element to the violence and inhumanity showed by the Legion and Raiders to people they view as little more than objects or resources to be exploited.
@@mikoto7693 Life wasn't any better for the men or the children. Being reduced to, essentially, a disposable brainwashed slave soldier who, if you were not murdered on the whims of your leaders, were expected to fight to the death often against foes with significant technological advantages by basically throwing yourself at them in the hopes of overwhelming them with numbers. As for the Legon's treatment of women that is another of the many reasons the Legion was doomed to fail. In a survival situation in terms of replacing people who are lost every woman counts. In simple pragmatic terms, mistreating and neglecting women, especially their physical health, means those women are less likely to produce as many replacements for those you lose. A women who produces only a single child because she has been so physically brutalized and then dies in childbirth, has, at best, been a neutral towards the Legion and, at worse, a drain of resources. Probably one reason the Legion relied on expansion to survive, capturing new slaves by integrating conquered tribes. The flaw in this, as was pointed out in the game, is it's not sustainable. Eventually you run out of other people to conquer (which is not a very efficient process to beginning with). Even Caesar came to realize this, hoping that his conquering of the NCR would "change" the Legion into something more sustainable. If this failed it was very likely the Legion would barely outlast himself. So I would say the Legion is the worst and most scary faction in the game for anyone, man, woman, and child.
@@inhumanfilth681 At the cost of making raiders nothing more than mindless baddies and making all these small groups look and feel exactly the same. Plus it makes 0 sense to keep dead bodies all over your living space
Bethesda rarely puts thought into anything and mostly does it because "it look cool lol", why else would the Brotherhood of Steel nuke the Institute instead of confiscating their technology?
I'd assumed that the Raiders of Fallout 3 used the mutilation and brutality were a method used to control and ensure that members stay loyal to the group, if a Raider wants to leave the group and desert to a settlement (as we see Jericho has prior to the game) then a way to stop that would be to have all members commit atrocities so they cannot leave since no one in their right mind would let someone who has done such things into their home. A good real world example would be some gangs that require their members to commit or take part in a murder in order to be considered a full member, with such a crime hanging over them, the chance of desertion or turning to the law is lessened.
The raider gangs fight amongst themselves for territory, as real life gangs do, and they leave the corpses of their fallen foes as warning to other would be attackers.
That makes more sense than just using bodies and parts as indoor decoration. It's unsanitary, it probably stinks to high heaven, and it has no use as fertilizer since raiders don't grow any food of their own. They just steal everything. Or maybe they're all just drug addled psychos.
I have a theory: In urban areas it may be common because in more tightly enclosed spaces it is harder to control your territory. In the mojave you can see people coming from a mile away, in boston a rival gang could be less than a block away. You have to be threatening and show people that you mean business.
@@NiCoNiCoNiCola I mean with the lack of snuggle buddies, maybe sometimes you just need a corpse to hug to keep you warm at night or something like that, I don't know, ask the Raider.
The super mutants use a lot of gore too, there could be an incentive to make their hideouts look sorta like a super mutant base at a distance. Sorta make the outsiders second guess if they’re about to walk into something more dangerous
Also I like how “gore” has definitions and uses outside of just flesh, they don’t get used too much by comparison but it’s a nice bit of versatility in language
I can't remember where this was said specifically but mutants have so many gore bags because it apparently makes the meat inside taste better. It's never explained why it makes the meat taste better but a theory is that it's because the fluids gets drained making it less saturated in blood, therefore making it more palatable.
Bathesda relied heavily on using copy-paste decorations to help fill out Fallout 3, so from a pure resource management standpoint, the decision to lean heavily on the "sadism" decorations makes sense. They primarily utilize models already found elsewhere in the game (bodies), they immediately communicate "evil raiders" to the player, and you can easily put them in spots that won't impede gameplay, which is very important when decorating a combat area.
People often go crazy deep trying to come up with lore reasons for some things in these games when it can often just be resource management and making things easier for the dev team. I mean it's not an exciting answer but often true.
@@falcoon_f_zero9450 Except it clearly wasn't just resource management. New Vegas shares a huge amount of assets with Fallout 3. The raiders not just leaving bodies, guts and gore lying around was clearly a deliberate choice.
@@Fusseliko I mean nobody knows for sure except the devs themselves. I understood resource management in a way where they wanted to communicate to the player from a distance that a place is taken over by raiders, so the player should be prepared. But they didn't create many assets for that so they just put the usual spiked poles and hanging bodies everywhere. Same way as you start seeing gore bags strewn everywhere you know there's super mutants around. Just an easy indicator on what you're going to go against.
Something I liked about Nuka World is how they gave the raider gangs a unique aesthetic and theme, and I think It was more noticeable when they are more organized.
My homie is a cop and he has a nurse gf, we played 76 and both gave 40 reasons why sleeping outside at a campfire would be better in every way imaginable
In Fallout 3 the raiders and the world in general was horrorish as hell, it fitted with the vibe, but i don't support it being the base for every raider group out there.
Most of the raider gangs in fallout 3 were subordinate to the biggest gang at Evergreen Mills, like how it work in real life with real life gangs. You kinda have to do some digging to find this out but Jericho pretty much tells you it if you ask him. There's also the cut mechanic where if you had very evil karma raiders would become friendly and you would've been abel to use Evergreen Mills as another base/town. There's a trader in there that will imply a little more about how the raider in the capital wasteland operate.
@@thestrangah9690 It could also be seen as example of just how bad the CW is even after 200 year to have 80% of its human population scrounging around out in the wasteland fighting for survival, fighting each other, fighting mutants, etc.
my head canon is the radiation gave them brain tumors and drove them mad, does it work for every raider? no but it's easy enough to slap that bias in your head and tune out the goofiness
More cannibalism in Fallout 3 makes sense given there's no functional agriculture in the Capital Wasteland given the radioactive water problem with the river. Fallout 3's communities are still living as hunter gatherers, and 'other people' are the most plentiful food source to hunt.
It's still safer to consume irradiated agriculture than humans - NOT because of the medical issues, but because you're going toe-to-toe against an armed, tool-using, sentient predator. It would be safer to hunt mirelurks. Hell, it would be safer to hunt deathclaws.
And cannibalism isn't TOO too dangerous so long as you avoid eating the brain or spinal cord. Still more dangerous than eating other animals, since we van get a lot more diseases from our fellow man than a rabbit
11:19 The Legion’s usage of crucifixions might also count as some gore Also the white legs had some “metal gore” made of old campground equipment feels sorta similar to the robot gore from the rust devils or the toaster gore from the lobotomites
7:50 I'm not sure if you weren't aware of this or were aware but disqualified them because of their distance, but the khans do have several skull totems set up around their territory, but nowhere near their living areas. If you approach red rock along the paved roads from Vault 19, Chance's Map, or the maksshift Khan village, they have them set up overlooking the road and all have a human skull
Reminder that Bethesda just casually has skeletons in an active shop and a for rent hotel room in F4. It’s just representative of Bethesda not understanding how long 200 years after the apocalypse is.
if fallout was realistic to 200 years of time passing most if not all the buildings would have collapsed, rotted away, or burned down by now, fallout isnt realistic
@@Pigness7it should still be grounded. Just because there are dragons in a setting doesn’t mean it’s fine for the narrative if someone can just randomly fly.
@@Pigness7 hey it's everyone's stupid fault for making it real game and have a cult follow it since everything about in the fallout universe including new vegas isn't realistic because there's lots of guns that we usually find in real life but since humanity hasn't really invented them or haven't had the time to make them a reality due to the great war, it's both unrealistic and historically inaccurate.
@@BloodwyrmWildheart Yep. Look at Pripyat: Few buildings have outright collapsed (despite shoddy construction and no maintenance for 38 years), but the city has been overgrown with foliage, kept in check only by the roaming animals who feast upon it.
The raiders would go around and... raid then leave the bodies up as a way to mark their territory. It's also implied the raider gangs fight amongst themselves because of the presence of seemingly fresh raider corpses at a lot of these camps. Basically the CW is locked in one long, bloody, and big gang war.
So before watching the video I'm going to put forth my theory: 1. Intimidation. Raider camps always give you the feeling that this is not a place you should be. If you weren't a power-armored wasteland badass, you'd probably just turn and run at the first sight of a flayed body. 2. Desensitized to violence. Raiders kill and butcher so much they don't really care about corpses strung up around their base. And it probably helps to fast-track newer recruits into being just as desensitized as the rest. Now to see if RadKing comes to similar conclusions....
"raiding" isn't a viable long term strategy. if you murder and rob the few groups making food and resources you quickly run out of those groups. so if they are trying to desensitise new recruits they probably aren't going to exist long enough to warrant it. raiding groups would get the most mileage from making a big show of force but doing little actual violence to scare farmers into offering a portion of their crop. the raiders in question might even go so far as to protect the farmers from other threats to ensure ongoing offerings. bethesda just doesn't seem to understand how time works and thinks it's reasonable for nobody to disturb a vending machine for 210 years
@@MrOsmodeusyou realize that scaring and taking supplies and protection money is exactly what the raiders in fallout 4 do right? Like there are multiple missions where the focus is taking out raiders who are intimidating settlements. Not to mention of course other immoral things they can do to get by. Like fallout 3 raiders selling and purchasing slaves. We don't know if they do, but they could. Which would allow for some to actively trade and work with the slavers from the Pitt and the other place near little lamplight (I forgot the name) and also of course, multiple instances of the kidnapping and ransoming of people or selling them off. Creating and selling drugs which they might do, we already know they extort settlements, not to mention the multiple instances of them attacking caravans and supply routes across all of the games, and of course it seems that large, long term raider gangs do have some form of self sustainability. Like the Pitt raiders, the nukaworld raiders, evergreen mills which shows them actively trading and working together, not to mention other things. Aka, They actively do and participate in the things you say they don't. And it can be reasonably assumed they also have other forms of sustainably that isn't just robbing people. And hell, it seems those that do survive on robbing people just shack up between common routes people take and force them to pay a toll. Most likely when word comes around that people are being robbed there, they pack up and find a new spot to repeat the process. I wouldn't be surprised if there are gang wars for prime robbing positions along caravan routes. Few raiders are gonna attack major outposts, their gonna attack the supply routes. Like we've seen them do. Across every game besides 76
The Winter of Atom book retconned some of the raider lore for Fallout 4, actually... It attempted to explain why there are so many raider gangs in the game, and it came to a tragic answer: famine. Most of the raiders we meet in Fallout 4 were once settled people before a harsh winter destroyed their crops. They turned on their neighbors to survive when there wasn't enough food to go around, and quite a few likely did turn to cannibalism.
If all the farmers turned bandit then they'd starve within the year because there'd be nowhere near enough food to go around. The kind of manual low tech farming you see in Fallout 4 isn't going to be operating at much above subsistence level, definitely not enough to support a population of thieves that don't contribute in any way and outnumber everyone else 10:1.
@@512TheWolf512 well yes and no... It's entirely different writers, and they have a job to do. They have to fix the shoddy job that Fallout 4's writers did, and they have to write their own story in the setting. Bethesda's teams have this philosophy where anybody on the development team can make a quest and put anything they want in the game- and they don't maintain a design document capable of coordinating that style. So their quests aren't particularly consistent and their stories rarely link up with one another. The tabletop writers likely use an entirely different approach, and focus most of their effort on writing with a much smaller team. That forces a lot more cooperation, and creates a more cohesive interconnected story. And since they're making a more cohesive story out of a shoddy disconnected one... They're going to connect plot threads that were never there in Fallout 4. If I could compare it to anything... It's less like an author altering their work after the fact, and more like a fanfiction writer. I'm not sure if the tabletop games are even considered entirely canon. They miiiight kinda be, because they're licensed and fanfiction is unlisensed... But I don't know. They made numerous other additions to the Story too, but famine was just one of the bigger ones. They also focused on the Children of Atom, and I think all of the children of atom bases in Fallout 4 come up as major locations in their main story.
@@Graknorke I don't understand your comment... I completely agree with it, all of what you said was completely correct- but what's it for...? I didn't write the Winter of Atom. It's just something else that exists. I don't even understand why it's necessary to state that... Even in this fictional story, the raiders aren't behaving rationally. They think that they're going to die if they don't steal from their neighbors, and the Winter of Atom said that all their crops died, and that's probably an effort to explain why the fields are so small. Supposedly, they had to restart from next to nothing. Buuut that's... Purely inference. Are you doing okay...? I didn't piss you off, did I?
Khans, Powder Gangers, and White Legs: Have a culture, aesthetic, and way of things. Fiends: Savage, but organized. Vipers: Broken nomads. Bethesda: Blood, guts, drugs!!!
Fiends: blood, guts, drugs! 3/4 Raiders: blood, guts, drugs! *but why* Fiends: we're long-term chem addicts who mostly recruit people who can't pay for their drugs any other way. We use brutal violence for the thrill, because we're doped on psycho, and (when we can think straight) to threaten people into giving us what we need without risking ourselves. Also we eat people because Cook-Cook is an insane genius and figured out how to make it taste real good. 3/4 Raiders: a e s t h e t i c
76 unironicly gave its raider gangs unique identities as did Nukaworlds gangs and the rust devils. Its not like bethesda cant do unique and intresting raider groups and not just generic drugged murder hobos
It makes some sense why raiders in 3 and 4 are so savage, brutal, and unorginized. Think of it like this, in Boston and DC there aren't any major groups to stand against raiders, so they wouldn't really have much need to improve or organize themselves to survive. The Bos in DC only arrived fairly recently and didn't have much of a foothold there yet. Most of the people in Boston haven't even heard of the Bos until their airship arrived. And even then their goals in Boston didn't involve going out of their way to clear out raider gangs anyway. And the minutemen were also starting to fall apart even before the SS woke up. Making it easy for more raiders to rise up and take control of wherever they go.
@@brandenhauser1635 Except it's been 200 YEARS! There should be SOME form of organized SOMETHING by now. Even if it's ex-Raider gangs that have coalesced into a type of tribal Clan system, there would be something ... instead, Beth didn't read the cliff notes and just figured the post-apocalypse collapse state would continue for ever without people seeking to organize their system to maximize their effect on the world.
@@Minalkra Yes, a lack of any rival power *should* lead to the raider clans centralising under a single great warlord or similar, *not* to endless stagnation.
It's obvious that Bethesda was inspired by Mad Max 2 and 3 when they made the Raiders in Fallout 3, 4 and 76 but the other games made by Interplay and Obsidian were also inspired by it as well. Which is one of the reasons why so many Raiders have mohawk hair styles and wear spiked armor. As for the gore, it's probably just a show of force and intimidation. But I wouldn't rule out the possibility of cannibalism amongst certain Raider groups if they can't find anything else to eat.
While 50s stuff was the primary influence, stuff from the 80s and 90s like Mad Max, City of Lost Children, Hardboiled, and The Day After were also major influences on the original Fallout. Mad Max is the only one Bethesda kept. (I think it's interesting to ponder how Gundam X and especially Fist of the North Star would have influenced Fallout had they been known in the US at the time)
@@kanrakucheese I call it the Star Wars effect. The original was inspired by pulp noir, westerns, samurai films, WWII films. The later films were inspired by.. Star Wars. Fallout was inspired by a lot of classic cinema, the later games were inspired by.. Fallout, and Elder Scrolls. You end up with an ever shrinking pool of ideas that's increasingly cannibalistic, because you lose the ability to add anything new that fits *cough*Institute*cough*
Fallout 2 had several different types of raiders. You had slavers raiding tribal villages. Robbers, Highwaymen, Cannibals, and Press Gangs. The Press Gangs were dangerous as they had energy weapons, G11s, super sledgehammers, and power fists. Fallout Tactics had some unique raiders. The Reevers were raiders looking for any technology, the mirror opposite of the Brotherhood of Steel. The Beast Lords were a mix of raiders and tribals that were telepaths that could control animals.
It would be interesting to see more peaceful settlements surrounded by skeletons and corpses or art of such things, During the medieval period in the midst of the black plague there was an art movement called Momento Mori depicting people dancing together in various states of decay and other macabre imagery. This portrayed a fact of life during plague of being surrounded by death at all times, and I could see that sort of thing speaking to people in the wasteland.
@@DeetexSeraphine upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/84/Dance_of_Death_%28replica_of_15th_century_fresco%3B_National_Gallery_of_Slovenia%29.jpg/800px-Dance_of_Death_%28replica_of_15th_century_fresco%3B_National_Gallery_of_Slovenia%29.jpg en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memento_mori Momento Mori is linked to the dance of death or danse macabre, which is the specific trope/genre I was describing. You should read into it, it's really interesting
The differences in game developers can be attributed (imo) to wanting to tell different stories. Interplay/Obsidian want you to join a society already in motion. Bethesda wants you to fix a society that is barely there. Personally, I hope Fallout 5 is a bit of both.
I love the thought of being able to play Fallout 5 while being young enough to remember it, but I do think it is a unrealistic viewpoint considering Bethesda has recently found the CTRL+C and CTRL+V combo.
@@insomniagobrrr5542 the prion found that causes kuru is almost exclusively found in human brain matter. The documented cases of it were caused by people eating human brains. It also has all sorts of weird behaviors in those affected. There's also things like wendigo psychosis which is also caused by cannibalism. In other words the idea that people pushed to cannibalism have a multiple possibilities as to why they would develop sadistic or psychotic behaviors, isn't unrealistic and does have some reality to it.
I mean non-feral ghouls have been around for centuries, like the parents of the boy in the fridge, but still live in half-decayed houses. They could have easily repaired and started to rebuild society while everyone else was still stuck in the vaults.
@@olddirtymongrrelI think the commenter was referring to ghouls in general. Sure, a single ghoul wouldn’t be able to, but a group of irradiated humans that can make it through hundreds of years with their memories more or less intact and having adapted to the worst sides of radiation, one would expect them to rebuild civilization up to a point
One thing that occurs to me about the Mohave Mohaving (sorry) more brutal Raider activity than the West Coast, but less than the East.... I wonder if Mr House may have encouraged the activity of the Fiends outside of Vegas proper in order to make his regime look better. Either directly (by having his catspaws tell somone like Motor Runner to go hog wild, but stay outside the walls of Vegas) or indirectly (by making sure they had a steady supply of chems). Which would explain both why it's not in Vegas proper, and why it gets less bad the further you get from House's directly controlled territory. ... And, it occurs, why it seems to be worst in territory the NCR either controls or is trying to encroach into.
It could also be that House civilising the local tribes into the casino families has pushed the savage elements out into the nearby regions and they've fallen in with groups like the fiends
@@anon9469 that literally makes sense looking at it active-war-wise, the enemy of my enemy is my friend situation, and you also see fiends fighring ncr near mccaran so its proof
Doubtful. Gamblers and NCR citizens need to pass through outer vegas to reach the strip, and House wouldnt risk losing his Golden Goose for a little PR, especially when he's the sole proprietor of the strip and doesnt depend on votes to remain in power.
Hi RadKing, I'd like to add my grain of sand to answer your question. First of all, I loved the video. Love how you analyze stuff in the Fallout Universe. I really think that another possibility for the mental breakdown and decay has to do with radiation and centuries of poor breeding, pregnancy and birth conditions. These two factors can have heavy repercussions on the mental development of a human being, adding the lack of society and an education system. And if affected individuals reproduce without control, we're left with genomes that cause grave psychological situations that can't be cured or control effectively due to them being part of the genetic makeup of the individuals. So it's like a genome epidemic, almost no escape and there's a high percentage that those born outside of "semi-controlled" environments like cities, settlements or vaults are affected of an unavoidable upcoming mental condition.
Raiders in the OG Fallout and Fallout 2 were menacing to low level players, but once you hit anything beyond those they are weak and you can easily just take them out no matter what you spec into for late game clearing the first 2 they just make sense and go with the post apocalyptic themse, the rest are just... I don't know how to put it, clearly on drugs and their intelligence has dropped leading to those shoddy outfits lmao
Fallout 3 "raiders" are nomadic and fight amongst themselves more than they fight the normal people of the CW. They mention this in The Pitt, calling them undisciplined rabble basically.
I think Obsidian/Interplay were big into making sure the raiders still resembled people and can be related to in some capacity, but Bethesda wants them to be monstrous.
Almost like Obsidian/Interplay knows how to tell an intricate story with complex characterization and Bethesda only knows how to make things cool on the surface but with no depth
Raiders in FO4 mention needing to feed their kids. Some are at grave sites mourning people they lost. It's interesting what you can see and hear if you pay attention and use your eyes. 😐
@@fburnsDubstepEnderFox A random voice line that can be said by any raider and a single raider at an unmarked grave in the open world who is still hostile on sight isn't storytelling. It's not even close to being able to speak to and ally yourself with different "raider" groups, listen to their motivations and values, who their enemies and allies are etc. New Vegas alone has 4 different groups that you can speak with, and 3 of them you can actually join (Caesar's Legion, Powder Gangers, and Great Khans.) The others are just the basic open world enemies, and even some of those have dialogue from other characters describing who they are and how they operate. ALL bethesda raiders, minus Nuka-World and the Pitt, are just rabid psychos with guns and drugs, but sometimes they crouch at a grave, or have a random voice line about their kids that don't actually exist, or use flamethrowers and change their name to the Forged, or they're ghouls who speak Norwegian (they're all still the same)
Not to mention most people stop raiding after awhile since its not a working system in the long run. To make raiding work you need to like, limit the raids to like...i dunno, once a year, like the vikings did, so you give people time to rebuild their shit, not to mention non-killing rules since if you go brutal kill-all style you actually decrease the stuff to raid over time.
Ever seen a college dorm or a homeless encampment? Most survivors wouldn't give a damn. This is one of the most stupid "Bethesda bad" arguments out there.
@@Fortune.06 Right. Because people can live in filth that means that everyone would live in filth in the post apocalypse. It’s realistic that they intentionally impose dramatic health risks on themselves and others despite being advanced enough to have schools and sanitation. Just because it’s the post apocalypse doesn’t mean everything has to look like mad max.
Ive always seen it as a way for raiders to mark territory. Like, you know, gangs does with tags and such. I think the main drive is to warn of any settlers of trying anyting, but especially to show other raiding gangs, that this area is taken and you either conform or go to war. I get that theres also many instances of sadism, but for one if anyone likes sadism, raiding is surely where they will go, so seeing more raiders who are sadist seem logical. And if the practice of marking territory is by hamging up wrecked bodies, id say that would drive anyone sane insane, so maybe its an acquired taste😂. Anyway great vid as always, keep it up !
I’ve always put it down to territory marking, cannibalism, chem use, gang initiation (if you’re really one of us, string up this gore), and potential radiation induced mutations or tumours all rolled up into one.
@@skeletonbuyingpealts7134 That’s a decent idea. Another reason I like, at least for FO3 and FO4 is to try to intimidate the super mutants. We’ve all seen that most east coast Muties either take people to be infected with FEV (though not applicable to FO4) or eat, stringing up bodies, meat and gore bags around their camps. Perhaps the raiders do something similar to indicate to the Muties that they’re just like them, just as tough as them and that the Muties are better off finding easier prey? I confess that idea isn’t mine, I merely read it from someone else in this comment section. But I really, really like the idea. So, in my mind the raiders string up bodies everywhere around their camps to intimidate anyone who sees it, to mark their territory (as I doubt Muties or other raiders know how to read or interpret signs), cannibalism, chem psychosis, extreme desensitisation to violence, gang initiation rituals, psychotic breaks, mental illness, radiation or mutation induced sadistic disorders and raider “cultural norms.” Raiders have a distinct style, particularly in FO4 where they have an almost uniform way of decorating their camps, wearing clothing and style of armour. There’s plenty of evidence that there are different groups of raiders led by different leaders across the Commonwealth. They know each other-usually as rivals squabbling over territory. Tower Tom, Red Tourette, Bosco, Jared and so on. It makes me think that Raiders are a sorta faction with some very basic rules and cultural norms to distinguish themselves and gore-filled camps is one of them. Which brings us back to intimidation and territorial marking. Then there are the Rust Devils. Still raiders and recognised as such, but with the twist of being obsessed with robots. Note the twisted “robot corpses” they marked their HQ with. And the Forged. Raiders again but obsessed with fire, with their own style. Anyway it makes the most sense to me that all the factors are in play when it comes to gore decoration. Life is seldom simple. And on a totally different note, I really wish Bethesda had done something more with the Gunners other than basically being just another type of enemy to defeat. There was so much potential regarding a mysterious faction of mercenaries operating in the Commonwealth, yet their styling themselves after pre-war soldiers and setting up bases and camps strategically across the Commonwealth hints more than mere mercenaries. Ah well, can’t be changed now.
An example you skipped over in new vegas: the kahns in red rock canyon have these strange figures made of a mix of human and animal bones put up on the rock ridges around the entrances. I always thought they served as a border marker. like: "Khan territory. Turn back"
Look, at least they have mostly intact roofs above their head. Skyrim bandits will sleep in tiny wind-tunnel tents or roofless shacks and pretend everything is okay.
I could ALMOST buy that the explanation for the East Coast being worse because, as the home of the government and many of the largest cities and industrial centers (or former centers, like somewhere like Pittsburgh), it was hit harder. You could maybe add the factor that some of the largest slum areas are/were in the oldest cities, i.e, East Coast. This let's the craziest rise to the top, and I guess the crazier and grosser better? Some sort of raider mating signal? But really, I agree with some of the others: FO3 especially took place much closer to the Great War than Bethesda admits. Would also explain why there was still so many resources to scavange.... (I know this is mostly to facilitate game play, but it has always bugged me)... Though, really, the gore is only part of the problem.. in 200 years, nobody has managed to build anything that doesn't have holes in every floor, wall, and ceiling? Nobody is using any form of irrigation? Nobody has carts? That, in 20 years, let alone 200, there are no carpenters, seamstresses (or seamsters??), masonry workers, cobblers... Everyone is just using what can be found, as-is and hoping they find one in better condition somewhere? Even in the Pitt, where there's a working foundry, all that gets made are bullets? The Gun Runners (and I guess the Brotherhood, though we have yet to anywhere the power armor or energy weapons are actually made) are the only ones that discovered industrialization.
The only destroyed places on the west coast is the Bone Yard (Los Angeles) San Francisco(rebuilt soon after war) Necropolis( Bakersville) and DayGlow(San Diego)
I think the cannibalistic gore present in the east coast super mutant camps could be a good explanation. They probably leave quite a traumatic and influential mark on the people growing up in the wasteland who witness their horrors. So perhaps east coast raiders have a culture of trying to out-decorate and one-up their super mutant neighbors, to show that they’re as intimidating as the east coast super mutants, or perhaps they’re trying to intimidate the super mutants themselves.
That’s…. Actually a pretty good explanation. Of course chem use, radiation tumours, cannibalism, initiation rituals and whatnot play a part. But stringing up bodies and gore to deter super mutants by showing that they’re as tough as Mutants makes sense.
You'd expect to also see super mutants strung up, then. ... though, of course, they're *not* as tough as super mutants, so maybe that's just easier said than done.
@@basedeltazero714 Aye, it’s a lot easier to target near-helpless wastelanders with no armour and wielding crappy pipe pistols than a pack of heavily armed and armoured super mutants. Given that super mutants also hunt wastelanders, I wonder if stringing them up as gore says “We hunt the same prey as you. We caught this prey; therefore we are as strong as you. Go find easier prey” to any Muties that pass. I doubt that many raiders or Muties can read so putting signs up might be pointless. The other main theory I prefer is raider cultural norms and territory markers. Particularly in FO3 and FO4, raiders have a very distinct look. Their clothes and armour are instantly recognisable, as are their camps. The raider group leaders know each other and their territory. Red Tourette, Tower Tom, Jared and Gabriel to name a few, mostly rivals and squabbling with each other yet recognising each other as fellow raiders. It makes me think that the bodies and gore partially serve to say “raiders live here” to denote territory and intimidate Muties and wastelanders alike. This video and the comments certainly helped me make up my mind for my own personal headcanon. The gore is part intimidation, part territory marking, part of those loosely agreed “raider cultural tradition,” part cannibalism (probably less common in the Commonwealth due to the abundance of farms, but if times are hard I’m sure most raiders would turn to cannibalism,) part mental health issues-be they chem induced or the result of becoming desensitised to violence or psychotic, and part radiation or mutation induced tendencies towards violence and gore. All these different factors all rolled into one with different raiders doing it for different reasons since life is seldom simple. Though admittedly the biggest reasons would be “raider culture,” intimidation and territorial marking. At least that’s how I explain it.
Radiation and its affect on a "live fast, die young" mentality may have something to do with this behavior. If you're not going to make it past twenty or thirty years because of the local toxins, everything else falls to the wayside. On the West coast, people have been pretty fastidious about avoiding contaminated areas and creating entirely new settlements. Aside from the LA Boneyard pretty much all the settlements in Fallout One were created post-war and specifically distant from major targets like the Glow. (Necropolis, over a vault might be a special case) Fallout New Vegas involves one of the few cities with a functioning missile defense system, as well as small settlements in the middle of nowhere military wise that probably wouldn't have been attacked. People stick far closer to the former remains of civilization back east, often near places that are radioactive decades after the initial attack. Unmaintained and ruined buildings are going to be chock full of hazards like black mold, animal droppings, spilled chemicals, and asbestos. Sightlines, defense, agriculture, etc. are all more difficult when constrained to former structures.
I remember playing a game a few years ago called ATOM RPG. I was shocked when the first group of ‘bandits’ I met were running more of a protection racket. Yeah, they’ll kill people who get in their way, but if the nearby town pays them tribute they’ll left to their businesses. The gang even protects the village from pillagers at one point. Because that’s more realistic. Why would a gang want to kill the poor farmers and traders? Those are the people that produce all of their stuff
You know, it is an interesting question, but let me ask you a simple question, what gives more of an impression? A sign that saids "fuck off" Or a fresh head on a pike? Or how about someone who is skinned alive and strapped to the top piece above your front door? its about sending a messaging not to fuck around.
I remember that the 'raider' building options in Fallout 4 had a corpse theme to them too. Honestly, the New Vegas interpretations make more sense. The only other situations of freshish corpses being around are Legion based crucifixions and atrocities, and those are deliberate statements from Caesar himself to the Legion and to anyone else who can see. And even then they don't keep corpses in the living areas. But the Fiends who are almost all brain-warped chem addicts? That makes some sense. Some fresh corpses might even be Fiends that are dead but that no-one else has really figured out are dead yet.
So did the Megaton House and Tenpenny Tower Suite in Fallout 3, which raises some serious questions not only about the Lone Wanderer if they choose that but also how they get those bodies in and how nobody notices.
What I really like is the back and forth between the raiders and the so-called civilized . It's an excellent mirror to early bronze age civilization trying to get started . I'm not sure if that's deliberate or not but it's a nice touch regardless . *Reference Mesopotamia versus steppe horseman . *A lot of the problem could be heavy metal poisoning . It's known to cause psychosis and if coupled with heavy chem use and the paranoia that would naturally accompany such things plus living in the wasteland and I can definitely see this becoming a spiral . *Second reference ; mentally ill and has a long history with drugs ...
Being a raider is like being emo, goth or a metal head. Its albout image. That image invokves leather, severed heads and troughs of blood. And much like the groups i mentioned in real life...if youbdont "get it'" then you just dont get it
Except those groups exist _within_ society, they're counter-cultures lashing out at the status quo to express originality in the face of uniformity. Image is how you express yourself, and the more it contrasts the norm, the better. Can really only exist in a society that's moved past surviving, and can now actually thing about things like image and social status. It's a whole different world to surviving in a wasteland? Doubt you'd give a shit about your drip if you were starving and on your last mag of ammo.
I think the East Coast and Mojave either have regions or whole game maps that are at a level of human development lower than what was seen in Fallout 1. Fallout 1 has several settlements with decently robust agriculture and trade networks. Fallout 3 has a few small caravans fighting their way between the 5 or so spread out villages that could be considered civilized. Fallout 4 is in a region where the proto-civilization the Minutemen were building had _just_ collapsed recently, and New Vegas has developed civilization close to where House had been protecting it but a wild west outside of those regions, save the strongholds run by the NCR and Legion who are recent arrivals. If you squint and bend the kayfabe of the universe you can make the argument that the raiders being more degenerate in post-3 games than the originals actually does make sense.
That or the people who criticize 3 didn't properly dig into it expecting instead to be spoonfed lore through exposition. They also don't know how gangs in the real world act. It isn't like the Khans or any other west coast raider gang that's for sure. Fallout 4 is sort of a fluke, I feel like bethesda just stopped caring about the writing or worldbuilding and just wanted to create a fallout themed shooting gallery.
@@masteroutlaw100 The Khans in the original games are still raiders who kill people and kidnap them for money. They aren't civilized, they just don't live in absolute squalor and disease.
In both Fallout and Elder Scrolls games, there have been fairly prominent cases of cannibalism, often organised. I'm starting to think that someone at Bethesda has an unhealthy fascination for the eating of human flesh.
I liked how the raiders in NV always belonged to some type of group/gang and had some lore behind them (vipers, jackals, khans, fiends, etc.) So much more immersive and believable for world building and understanding the environment. In 4, they don't belong to any groups with backstories or anything, they're all just.... raiders. They basically only exist to be low level cannon fodder for the player. Their only personality trait is that they're obsessed with mutilated bodies, which is pretty cliche at this point.
Not entirely true. While they aren't coded to behave as separate raider factions, terminal entries and notes in raider camps clearly depict different gangs being led by different people with clear rivalries and alliances with eachother, while they don't interact as separate entities in gameplay, they do in lore.
@@generalrevelation8923 It's still bad storytelling, they're generic aside from the named bosses and the two raider groups they did right but woefully underused--the Triggermen and the Forged. So many missed opportunities. Honorable mentions for the all ghoul gangs on the FMS Northern Star and outside Vault 88 (Quincy Quarries), but you have to be paying attention to realize they're not just typical raiders.
@@generalrevelation8923I think a simple change would be to do what 76 did and at least give the different groups different paint jobs. Maybe Bosco’s gang wear the colors of DB Tech, the Forged are red, etc.
@@Sursion That's called "telling". I shouldn't have to read terminal entries to know that the different raider gangs aren't just random wastelanders whose brains have rotted out from huffing too much jet.
"Scrap that settlement" is a great mod for removing pesky skellies. Available on console and PC. Just check your mod load order once it's installed. :]
@@waytogo8014 I have a mod called "Commonwealh Cleanup". When I clean out a Raider camp, I literally clean it out. Almost everything but the structures go, and can be converted into materials for use in my settlements. I have often considered creating a character called "The Janitor" and doing an entire play through where the character does nothing but clean up the Commonwealth.
One thing that I don't think that you mentioned, but I kinda wish you HAD: is I personally find it somehow odd that we don't see various NON-Raider groups displaying skulls and other bones: but in a respectful and even reverential manner as "Memento Mori" for the honored dead. Like a church that has a wall full of niches with a single skull in each of them and a small plaque bearing the person's name and deeds with a votive candle in front of it to offer prayer to the honorable ancestors, or similar things.
Medieval Europe also employed gibbets - vaguely human-shaped, hanging cages they'd just stuff a prisoner into and just leave hanging up outside. That's it, nothing more, just let time and the elements take their toll. I can picture raiders doing that.
it's pure rule of cool. If being realistic, having corpes around like that is simply inviting every vermin and scavenger animal to swarm you. In a world where giant bipedal lizards exist, having corpses around is like having a big add which says "FREE FOOD HERE". These raiders are getting wiped by roaches, scorpions, deathclaws or wolves. After a few decades of radiactive megafauna, even raiders would have learned that a key to survival is to keep camps clean and put all food inside containers. Much like how campers know they must not leave food outside if they don't want to wake up to a Grizzly tearing their tent.
In fallout new vegas, there aren't as many raider gangs with long standing settlements-places they have claimed and maintain as such. We do see people on crosses and tire fires and to a certain extent, there are places where dead bodies were left out specifically to draw in the wildlife, like cazadores. There was that little spot where, I believe you gun down a small cadre of raiders that will eventually become a nest to them. So it becomes a matter of just what the true intent is. Dracula, the man, was said to have made a forest or the dead with soldiers on wooden stakes, impaled. Stood up. It was a show of force. It was to intimidate. It says that I don't fear you. I have an army that can and will so this. I have the time because your advancement means nothing. My men are hardened and will do this for me and I shall offer unto you exactly the same with the difference being that you will know it is coming and that there will be no one after that will see what has been made of you, save the birds. People do that to show that they are dangerous. Usually not next to their beds. Not near their food. Around a perimeter yes, so those that try to enter that territory shall see the truth. It shows they have been there, they aren't leaving. They get bored and want something to do. Are prepared to eat you. They can hoist you up and nail you to surfaces. They will forget who you were and never think about you they were. If they go around picking up old bones to decorate with, they have time. But that doesn't scream intimidation. Only that they did a sweep of the place. Might stay might fight for it, but a skeleton from pre war just means it's fair to question their commitment to the bit. Doesn't scream experience.
I gotta give it to you, this is one hell of a good video! The time you spent researching must have been absurd - playing all the Fallout games over again, putting the raiders' conditions into charts, and editing this amazing video. You definitely answered the question in the title! Also, one more thing: the East Coast did try to make a provisional government (you mention this later), but the reason it didn't work was because of the Institute. Maybe there was some kind of issue with their synths because the guy who requested to use synths as part of the provisional government seemed to have good intentions. He wanted the Institute to not abandon the people above. That didn't work well, as the synth they sent to represent them killed every representative at the talks. They should have made a special synth, one where the director could hear and see through it, and when he spoke, it would use the synth's voice - like remote-controlling the synth. Maybe if they did this, the provisional government wouldn't have fallen apart. The Institute is evil for sure, but most incidents seem to be accidental. Just because they didn't mean to cause harm doesn't make it right, and they never make amends for the damage they cause, or even try to be transparent with the Commonwealth. Hence, the bad reputation.
I also think that it's the Donner effect. The weather on each coast is wildly different. The cold and short growing season in the northern areas would cause significant food shortages. Though I may be overthinking it 😂
I'd like for a mix of both sadistic raiders and organised gangs in a game. Pull a bit of a Nuka-World raider factions but place them in a world space like vanilla Fallout 4 where there's inter-raider politics and feuds but you can recognise pretty quickly which gang you're dealing with by HOW they utilise their displays of violence
I love how in NV there isn't just a blanket faction of savage bandits known collectively as "raiders" Powder gangers, Fiends, Khans, Vipers, Jackals, Scorpions, even Legion and White Legs etc all could be considered "raiders" but they each have their own quirks and personality, not all of them are fine with sleeping on a gore soaked mattress next to flayed remains. Bethesda's raiders are so 1 dimensional. They tried a bit more with the moral ambiguity in the Pitt but even then it still sucked
It's the lack of any story behind them that really sucks. The Powder Gangers are the direct result of the NCR being sloppy, bringing convicts in for forced labour and then screwing up, creating a new problem. The raiders in 3 are just.. there.. you learn nothing about them
It may be that the Raiders are secretly following some cannibal/sadistic cult. Given that Bethesda has already made multiple Lovecraft references, this may be an iteration on Lovecraft's usual 'ancient cult hidden in the dregs of society' stuff (cult of Cthulhu, cult of Ghathanotoa, Red Hook demon-worshippers, etc.).
I'd say you hit the nail right on the head, especially with east coast raider groups. I remember in 3 Raiders were especially sadistic: their every voiceline made it clear that they love every moment of what they do. The Fiends are the only west coast raider group that I know of that even comes close, though I remember hearing a lore bit that the Jackals were known to be cannibalistic as well. Though there isn't much evidence of it that I remember: most of them hang out on roads and such, without much in the ways of defined bases.
I would venture a guess that, after 200 years of radiation induced genetic mutation and decades of living in wasteland squalor, the immune system and general constitution of a person in the Fallout universe is overall more robust and resistant to complications of an unhygienic lifestyle. I mean, it's not like the average waster in Rivet City or Goodneighbor is living THAT much more cleanly than your garden variety raider, right? It's probably also why debilitating illnesses that would put ua on meds and in bed for a week today amount to just an annoying debuff in survival mode, and why the only person we ever see in 4 with debilitating illness is a Vault-dwelling child.
Alright, subscribed AND Notifications ON. I was first brought to your page for The Lore on Power Armor, and I expected you to leave out FO 1 and 2. But wow, I am super impressed at your research level into some of these videos. FO 1 and 2, along with New Vegas (Interplay, basically) are my favorite FOs so I love that you include them (tactics too). I was pretty depressed today, and these videos made me feel better. Let me look into the FO Bible and ask you some really specific questions lol. Thanks, RadKing, and thanks to Atom!
I really think the reason for the gore in fallout 3 was because it was the first 3D game in the franchise and the use of gore was used for shock value to juxtapose it against the neo futuristic 1950s utopian architecture and style. It was then toned down because it’s not actually shocking and a bad guy who is Saturday morning cartoon villain evil isn’t a very good bad guy. Good bad guys need to have at least some plausible justification so there can be an argument that they’re the hero of their narratives. Without that it’s just shock for shock value. It’s fun to speculate though.
I can understand marking your place, keeping the fear factor up, and exemplifying that others should not mess with you. But there is such illness associated with corpses. And the stench...
You can get disentary from being around decaying corpses too long which for raiders who dont have reliable medicine would be a death sentence. Not to mention corpses would attracts death claws and whatever mutant predators are in the area.
I was hopping you’d show and comment on more examples, you should make a fallow-up video where you do tours of the worst raider camps like a fucked up version of those interior decoration shows or mtv cribs
I always kind of assumed that cannibalism was common among raiders, though there is not a ton of direct evidence. My reasoning was that cannibalism seems common enough in the post-apocolyptic world, in fact I became a cannibal myself in my first playthrough, simply because I was burning through stimpacks too fast
Very interesting topic! I always thought about it. And about the world in general to be honest. After 200 years, things would be reconstructed much more than how they are. Hell, I think the world would be almost back to normal - but the Fallout world is in this constant decay, almost as the bombs just dropped. I understand it's a art-style choice, but it always bugged me in some way.
Completely agree, I think all the crazy shit would definitely happen for a couple decades but guaranteed by the end of 100 years it wouldn’t be neeearly as bad
@@mackiemark5149 For sure. That's why always gravitated towards Metro more. You have the same decay of the world there, or even more, but it is only just 20 years after the global conflict. But again...different cultures, different artistic visions. Perhaps because I'm from Eastern Europe, I am pulled towards the more realistic side, rather than the pin-up, happy go lucky, nuclear-punk style.
My favorite comparison on this front is Jamestown's founding in 1607. 210 years after that, the east coast had been pretty built up, formed a united government, sent scouts to chart the way to the west coast, gave the world's most powerful navy some serious black eyes (before getting blockaded), developed and built the world's first steam warship, and even starting laying railway. 210 years after the Great War in Bethesda Fallout, people still haven't cleaned their room or built decent new shelter.
@@kanrakucheese it's not a valid comparison because the North American colonies were established by European EMPIRES. In Fallout, there is no support network, everyone is rebuilding with what they can find and not much more. Progress would be much slower, similar to early civilisation. Progress isn't linear, we've jumped ahead the past couple centuries, early history is much much slower. Not Fallout 3 slow, that's just.. absurd, like they're not even trying. But Fallout 2 feels not crazy far off.
East Coast is also more resistant to change for a variety of reasons, such as The Institute. People are so afraid of deviations from the status quo, as signs of The Institute replacing someone with a Synth.
I think to an extent, the Obsidian/interplay guys try (imo) to differentiate between your average raiders, who might do some drugs here and there, rob some people, and people that are either purely sadistic or psychotic and do it for fun.
@@OperatorMax1993 Which I think is an underused and underutilized idea compared to 90+% of human enemies being generic "Raider (Rank)". STALKER and even NV in places (Legion vs. NCR's choices of projectile weapons) showed that just giving factions different leveled lists for guns gives them a huge amount of personality. Fallout 4 kinda sorta attempted it with the Gunners, Triggermen (who you basiclly only see during a few Goodneighbor quests and the unfinished vault in the main quests) and generic Super Mutants, but since the game had only 20 or so guns total it didn't really work, at best just meant factions had a few signature weapons.
I prefer the "cleaner" aesthetic as it makes the areas that still do have all that gore much more impactful. Otherwise you just get numb to all the gorebags and corpse kabobs and they lose their desired effect.
One thing i like about Metro Exodus is even the cannibals have a bit of decency (although in twisted manner) They kept the "meat" in cold storage, a bit neatly. Their living quarters weren't littered with bodies and blood, thus keeping it "rather clean of human remains" and the best part= they kept a doctor to check every human they want to eat! Everyone wanted food, but good food! Even if it's human flesh! Hell, the doctor is so damn important he becomes the leader of the cannibals! Fallout's cannibals would've died long ago due to eating a man with 100 STD's, animal transmitted disease and mutations!
In Fallout 3 it made sense, the raisers sounded like madmen, the kind you easily imagine r*ping each-other on a daily basis and doing stuff because their crazed minds just told them to. But in Fallout 4, they very clearly have dialogues and banter that depicts them as pretty normal people behaving like outlaws, so it feels weird they would live among severed limbs and mangled corpsed strung around. But lets not pretend Fallout 4 has a well-written world (neither did 3 really, but at least it was somewhat trying).
Yea - theses also the quest t9 get the kid back from the Forged. Who looked at a cult of raiders amd went "yea they seem like reasonable people to join up"
I have another theory for the mutilation aspect: Based on what scientific studies reveal about psychopathic murderers, there is often a traumatic experience in their past, most often their childhood. Killing and mutilating their victims gives them a feeling of control over their lives and the life of their victim. Some Raiders could have a similar case. Growing up in the wasteland, often abused by other people, probably in more than one way, possibly traumatized them. Killing others and mutilating them, could give them a sense of control, that they do on a regular basis to get that feeling of control over their own lives and others. This would apply to any Raider victim or other Raiders.
It really just hones in the Obsidian/Interplay considers raiders to be actual humans. They can still be cruel and violent but that's true of any group, now or in the fallout of nuclear war. But for most people that doesn't turn them into mindless, unfeeling husks, and those who do would struggle to find community even among the most brutal. Considering the different ideological position Bethesda often supports it's hardly surprising, though.
@@johnahrens3214HERETIC! HOW DARE YOU talk like this about Holy Atom and his divine glow?! You will be punished! Brothers, throw him to The glowing ones. -high confessor Cheese
another thing to note--supermutants surround themselves with gore, particularly gore bags. It might not be out of the question for raiders to either hole up in a site abandoned by muties or are using displays to try to ward off enemies. I suspect an extreme overabundance of human remains would actually work to _deter_ wild irradiated predators if they've learned to associate that with getting their hides kicked by big green men
Look, when you commit to being a raider, you've gotta COMMIT. There's a certain vibe to these things.
This one gets it
An aesthetic even
Sometimes you just gotta drink your Nuka cola Quantum out of your enemies' skull. And that's a good thing
Dare I say, ettiquete and standards
This guy raids
Because Bethesda has two forms of story telling, skeletons in very specific poses and dead bodies/gore that is anywhere from fresh to seemingly 200 years old.
Don’t forget the teddy bears
@@LotsOfThoughtsI'm gonna elaborate for the dudes who don't know, teddy bears symbolize kids since Bethesda refuses to directly show dead kids in game
Bethesda thinks the bombs fell 200 days ago vs 200 years
Read the terminals
@@jimbothegymbro7086atleast fallout 2 lets you kill them. Bethesda is afraid to give players actual freedom and choice in their games, you're only allowed to be as evil as they say you can be and judging by fallout 3s linear story line you're almost not even allowed to be evil in the first place.
I think it’s clear that Beth has wanted to make an immediately post-war game for a long time. The use of gore and lack of the organization of any form of polity makes the wasteland seem cruel and desperate. Keeping gore in your living space isn’t sustainable for centuries, but for decades?
It's not green architecture that's for sure.
..unless you decorate your crib w dead super mutants
To be fair, with a bit of natural decay they're probably pretty good fertiliser
I cannot remember where, but in some interview it was mentioned that FO3 was written to be set maybe 20 years after the bombs, but management didn't want to make anything earlier than the original games, so they shifted it.
Which explains a lot
Not even decades. Gore and filth will attract vermin like radroaches, bloatflies, mole rats. Full on corpses are going to draw larger predators and scavengers. Scare off random wastelanders, attract a yao guai.
You'd think that at some point someone would grab a mop.
Even if you're living in a ruined building and killing people for money, I think there's still a fundamental mental need to maintain basic standards.
Besides, what else are you going to do when you can't sleep from the jet and can't go outside because there's a rad storm?
Last time I played New Vegas I noticed the lack of gore and thought about Boone going to the capital wasteland and then having a new existential crisis of ‘wait, was the legion not actually the most savage people in this hellscape after all?’ after seeing all the raider ‘art’
Edit: I said SAVAGE, _not_ cruel. There's a difference
I think it’d suck to be a legion slave for years with no escape and being used as a baby generator if you’re a woman. raiders are more short term in comparison
@@jingleding9002Yeah the Legion are by far the worst and most scary faction in all of the games if you’re a woman. If a raider gets you, it’ll suck, it’ll hurt but it’ll be over with within days.
But as a female slave or Legion woman? It means a living hell for decades. The men/husband would beat you regularly, you’d have to wait on him hand and foot, be raped by him every night until you’re visibly pregnant then be forced through the many unpleasant experiences of pregnancy then the agony and life threatening childbirth. Then maybe you’d get a few weeks to heal before the cycle begins again except now you have a baby to protect.
Yeah, I’d pick the raiders.
NV really did well in portraying the people who victims of brutally from the Legion and Raiders. You hear from Boone, you can talk to people enslaved by the Legion, and hear from their victims in the NCR military.
The same goes for raiders like Cook-Cook, who permanently scarred Spade and Corporal Betsy. You can talk to them and see the psychological scars they still have, and its portrayed by the voice actors so well.
Compare that to static decorations like corpses or skulls and it just adds more of a Human element to the violence and inhumanity showed by the Legion and Raiders to people they view as little more than objects or resources to be exploited.
@@mikoto7693 and it's so much worse if that kid is a girl.
@@mikoto7693 Life wasn't any better for the men or the children. Being reduced to, essentially, a disposable brainwashed slave soldier who, if you were not murdered on the whims of your leaders, were expected to fight to the death often against foes with significant technological advantages by basically throwing yourself at them in the hopes of overwhelming them with numbers.
As for the Legon's treatment of women that is another of the many reasons the Legion was doomed to fail. In a survival situation in terms of replacing people who are lost every woman counts. In simple pragmatic terms, mistreating and neglecting women, especially their physical health, means those women are less likely to produce as many replacements for those you lose. A women who produces only a single child because she has been so physically brutalized and then dies in childbirth, has, at best, been a neutral towards the Legion and, at worse, a drain of resources.
Probably one reason the Legion relied on expansion to survive, capturing new slaves by integrating conquered tribes. The flaw in this, as was pointed out in the game, is it's not sustainable. Eventually you run out of other people to conquer (which is not a very efficient process to beginning with). Even Caesar came to realize this, hoping that his conquering of the NCR would "change" the Legion into something more sustainable. If this failed it was very likely the Legion would barely outlast himself.
So I would say the Legion is the worst and most scary faction in the game for anyone, man, woman, and child.
My guess is that Bethesda thinks it just looks cool
It objectively does
It makes the raiders look like monsters.
@@inhumanfilth681 At the cost of making raiders nothing more than mindless baddies and making all these small groups look and feel exactly the same. Plus it makes 0 sense to keep dead bodies all over your living space
Bethesda rarely puts thought into anything and mostly does it because "it look cool lol", why else would the Brotherhood of Steel nuke the Institute instead of confiscating their technology?
Great contribution bro! He may as well have not made the video!
I'd assumed that the Raiders of Fallout 3 used the mutilation and brutality were a method used to control and ensure that members stay loyal to the group, if a Raider wants to leave the group and desert to a settlement (as we see Jericho has prior to the game) then a way to stop that would be to have all members commit atrocities so they cannot leave since no one in their right mind would let someone who has done such things into their home.
A good real world example would be some gangs that require their members to commit or take part in a murder in order to be considered a full member, with such a crime hanging over them, the chance of desertion or turning to the law is lessened.
The raider gangs fight amongst themselves for territory, as real life gangs do, and they leave the corpses of their fallen foes as warning to other would be attackers.
Fucking raiders doing cartel tactics.
Like US politicians and Epstein's island.
That makes more sense than just using bodies and parts as indoor decoration. It's unsanitary, it probably stinks to high heaven, and it has no use as fertilizer since raiders don't grow any food of their own. They just steal everything. Or maybe they're all just drug addled psychos.
@@SOLARITY333More like ALL politicians AND MOST, IF NOT ALL CELEBRITIES.
I have a theory: In urban areas it may be common because in more tightly enclosed spaces it is harder to control your territory. In the mojave you can see people coming from a mile away, in boston a rival gang could be less than a block away. You have to be threatening and show people that you mean business.
Yes, but that doesn't mean putting gore, corpses and blood near your resting places
@@NiCoNiCoNiCola I mean with the lack of snuggle buddies, maybe sometimes you just need a corpse to hug to keep you warm at night or something like that, I don't know, ask the Raider.
@@quirinoguy8665 fair point
The super mutants use a lot of gore too, there could be an incentive to make their hideouts look sorta like a super mutant base at a distance. Sorta make the outsiders second guess if they’re about to walk into something more dangerous
Also I like how “gore” has definitions and uses outside of just flesh, they don’t get used too much by comparison but it’s a nice bit of versatility in language
I can't remember where this was said specifically but mutants have so many gore bags because it apparently makes the meat inside taste better.
It's never explained why it makes the meat taste better but a theory is that it's because the fluids gets drained making it less saturated in blood, therefore making it more palatable.
Just looked it up and it was Strong that mentioned flesh tasting better when hung up.
@@deftomnivore215 yeah Strong or Dog would’ve been my guesses, there’s not a lot of random conversations you can pick up when sneaking
The implication was that they were eating people i think
Bathesda relied heavily on using copy-paste decorations to help fill out Fallout 3, so from a pure resource management standpoint, the decision to lean heavily on the "sadism" decorations makes sense.
They primarily utilize models already found elsewhere in the game (bodies), they immediately communicate "evil raiders" to the player, and you can easily put them in spots that won't impede gameplay, which is very important when decorating a combat area.
People often go crazy deep trying to come up with lore reasons for some things in these games when it can often just be resource management and making things easier for the dev team. I mean it's not an exciting answer but often true.
Fallout 1 and 2 reused assets as well. Don't get me started on New Vegas' assets.
@@falcoon_f_zero9450 Except it clearly wasn't just resource management. New Vegas shares a huge amount of assets with Fallout 3. The raiders not just leaving bodies, guts and gore lying around was clearly a deliberate choice.
@@Fusseliko I mean nobody knows for sure except the devs themselves. I understood resource management in a way where they wanted to communicate to the player from a distance that a place is taken over by raiders, so the player should be prepared. But they didn't create many assets for that so they just put the usual spiked poles and hanging bodies everywhere. Same way as you start seeing gore bags strewn everywhere you know there's super mutants around. Just an easy indicator on what you're going to go against.
@@falcoon_f_zero9450Also marking territory in lore
Something I liked about Nuka World is how they gave the raider gangs a unique aesthetic and theme, and I think It was more noticeable when they are more organized.
The Disciples are the best 😊
Operator supremacy
The pack is shit
@@aydencahoon6557 I'm in full agreement there. Personally I favour the Operators due to just liking the aesthetic.
@@aydencahoon6557 u wish u had swag like the pack
My homie is a cop and he has a nurse gf, we played 76 and both gave 40 reasons why sleeping outside at a campfire would be better in every way imaginable
Okay, but how would attaching burnt human nuggets to ceiling be equal to that? Asking as Fallout 3 home decoration enjoyer.
@@rainbowprism6242 I think you missed the point, it'd be SAFER to sleep outside with a campfire than inside with a bunch of corpses everywhere.
what about mosquitos?
@FuntimeByzantium fire actually repels mosquitoes
what about all the bugs rats and other best atracted to the human remains?@@FuntimeByzantium
If they had "smell-o-vision" for Fallout, it would be a really hard game to play. Imagine how a sewer filled with ghouls smells.
I’d probably actually be able to tolerate it as I have a very weak sense of smell. My maternal grandmother had no sense of smell at all.
I imagine ghouls smell like really strong chemicals because thats what i imagine radiation smells like
@@Cushla-np4ptthat plus rotting flesh
@@Cushla-np4pt Ghouls would probably actually smell really nice since the radiation would have burnt the smelliness away
As one wise man has said, it smells like a mirelurks taint
In Fallout 3 the raiders and the world in general was horrorish as hell, it fitted with the vibe, but i don't support it being the base for every raider group out there.
Most of the raider gangs in fallout 3 were subordinate to the biggest gang at Evergreen Mills, like how it work in real life with real life gangs. You kinda have to do some digging to find this out but Jericho pretty much tells you it if you ask him. There's also the cut mechanic where if you had very evil karma raiders would become friendly and you would've been abel to use Evergreen Mills as another base/town. There's a trader in there that will imply a little more about how the raider in the capital wasteland operate.
This also fits with the fallout 3 theory of its supposed to be earlier in the timeline imo too
@@thestrangah9690 It could also be seen as example of just how bad the CW is even after 200 year to have 80% of its human population scrounging around out in the wasteland fighting for survival, fighting each other, fighting mutants, etc.
my head canon is the radiation gave them brain tumors and drove them mad, does it work for every raider? no but it's easy enough to slap that bias in your head and tune out the goofiness
@@thestrangah9690no it doesn’t
More cannibalism in Fallout 3 makes sense given there's no functional agriculture in the Capital Wasteland given the radioactive water problem with the river. Fallout 3's communities are still living as hunter gatherers, and 'other people' are the most plentiful food source to hunt.
It's still safer to consume irradiated agriculture than humans - NOT because of the medical issues, but because you're going toe-to-toe against an armed, tool-using, sentient predator. It would be safer to hunt mirelurks.
Hell, it would be safer to hunt deathclaws.
And cannibalism isn't TOO too dangerous so long as you avoid eating the brain or spinal cord. Still more dangerous than eating other animals, since we van get a lot more diseases from our fellow man than a rabbit
11:19 The Legion’s usage of crucifixions might also count as some gore
Also the white legs had some “metal gore” made of old campground equipment feels sorta similar to the robot gore from the rust devils or the toaster gore from the lobotomites
Eh, they're still alive.
This is a list about dead people sticking around. Not sticking people around till they're dead.
I think the main argument here is that the Legion aren't really "Raiders" they are just a violent civilization
@@kazmark_gl8652 “no raiders on legion roads” yeah and they don’t attack Nuka world either
@@lyntonflemingSkeletons are kept up
@@lyntonfleming Bunker hill has a couple of skeletons on crosses, but your point still stands.
7:50 I'm not sure if you weren't aware of this or were aware but disqualified them because of their distance, but the khans do have several skull totems set up around their territory, but nowhere near their living areas.
If you approach red rock along the paved roads from Vault 19, Chance's Map, or the maksshift Khan village, they have them set up overlooking the road and all have a human skull
I think the captured NCR helmets would also count
Reminder that Bethesda just casually has skeletons in an active shop and a for rent hotel room in F4. It’s just representative of Bethesda not understanding how long 200 years after the apocalypse is.
if fallout was realistic to 200 years of time passing most if not all the buildings would have collapsed, rotted away, or burned down by now, fallout isnt realistic
@@Pigness7it should still be grounded. Just because there are dragons in a setting doesn’t mean it’s fine for the narrative if someone can just randomly fly.
@@Pigness7 hey it's everyone's stupid fault for making it real game and have a cult follow it since everything about in the fallout universe including new vegas isn't realistic because there's lots of guns that we usually find in real life but since humanity hasn't really invented them or haven't had the time to make them a reality due to the great war, it's both unrealistic and historically inaccurate.
@@Pigness7 At that point they'd actually be overgrown and the landscape would be much more lush.
@@BloodwyrmWildheart Yep. Look at Pripyat: Few buildings have outright collapsed (despite shoddy construction and no maintenance for 38 years), but the city has been overgrown with foliage, kept in check only by the roaming animals who feast upon it.
Imagine the psychological trauma they inflict on themselves living like this. Forget their victims, someone help the bandits.
And if I remember right there were also things like beheaded corpses tied on wall with legs open, simply unthinkable.
😎
The raiders would go around and... raid then leave the bodies up as a way to mark their territory. It's also implied the raider gangs fight amongst themselves because of the presence of seemingly fresh raider corpses at a lot of these camps. Basically the CW is locked in one long, bloody, and big gang war.
@@ZOMBIEWOLF29Necroskullfuck time
Maaaaan you just recontextualized all of those hanging corpses into banging corpses and I kinda hate you for it
Fallout 4 raiders are just cartoonishly evil.
Yeah, it's Fallout
Well.. SOME are completely inane, some aren't.
They weren’t in fo1, fo2 or fonv
@@itsalwaysdarkestbeforethes1198 That's why I said Fallout 4. They're "normal" in the non-BGS games.
@@itsalwaysdarkestbeforethes1198 No, they were
So before watching the video I'm going to put forth my theory:
1. Intimidation. Raider camps always give you the feeling that this is not a place you should be. If you weren't a power-armored wasteland badass, you'd probably just turn and run at the first sight of a flayed body.
2. Desensitized to violence. Raiders kill and butcher so much they don't really care about corpses strung up around their base. And it probably helps to fast-track newer recruits into being just as desensitized as the rest.
Now to see if RadKing comes to similar conclusions....
"raiding" isn't a viable long term strategy. if you murder and rob the few groups making food and resources you quickly run out of those groups. so if they are trying to desensitise new recruits they probably aren't going to exist long enough to warrant it. raiding groups would get the most mileage from making a big show of force but doing little actual violence to scare farmers into offering a portion of their crop. the raiders in question might even go so far as to protect the farmers from other threats to ensure ongoing offerings.
bethesda just doesn't seem to understand how time works and thinks it's reasonable for nobody to disturb a vending machine for 210 years
@@MrOsmodeusyou realize that scaring and taking supplies and protection money is exactly what the raiders in fallout 4 do right? Like there are multiple missions where the focus is taking out raiders who are intimidating settlements. Not to mention of course other immoral things they can do to get by.
Like fallout 3 raiders selling and purchasing slaves. We don't know if they do, but they could. Which would allow for some to actively trade and work with the slavers from the Pitt and the other place near little lamplight (I forgot the name) and also of course, multiple instances of the kidnapping and ransoming of people or selling them off. Creating and selling drugs which they might do, we already know they extort settlements, not to mention the multiple instances of them attacking caravans and supply routes across all of the games, and of course it seems that large, long term raider gangs do have some form of self sustainability. Like the Pitt raiders, the nukaworld raiders, evergreen mills which shows them actively trading and working together, not to mention other things.
Aka, They actively do and participate in the things you say they don't. And it can be reasonably assumed they also have other forms of sustainably that isn't just robbing people.
And hell, it seems those that do survive on robbing people just shack up between common routes people take and force them to pay a toll. Most likely when word comes around that people are being robbed there, they pack up and find a new spot to repeat the process. I wouldn't be surprised if there are gang wars for prime robbing positions along caravan routes.
Few raiders are gonna attack major outposts, their gonna attack the supply routes. Like we've seen them do. Across every game besides 76
@MrOsmodeus uhh hello the npcs respawn of course they can keep looting and pillaging
Also possibly brain tumors
@@MrOsmodeus they literally do that in fallout 4, source is abernathy farm
The Winter of Atom book retconned some of the raider lore for Fallout 4, actually...
It attempted to explain why there are so many raider gangs in the game, and it came to a tragic answer: famine. Most of the raiders we meet in Fallout 4 were once settled people before a harsh winter destroyed their crops. They turned on their neighbors to survive when there wasn't enough food to go around, and quite a few likely did turn to cannibalism.
If all the farmers turned bandit then they'd starve within the year because there'd be nowhere near enough food to go around. The kind of manual low tech farming you see in Fallout 4 isn't going to be operating at much above subsistence level, definitely not enough to support a population of thieves that don't contribute in any way and outnumber everyone else 10:1.
bullshit. if the game does a crap job making itself believable, I don' t care if some book attempts a post-hoc justification for it
@@512TheWolf512 well yes and no... It's entirely different writers, and they have a job to do. They have to fix the shoddy job that Fallout 4's writers did, and they have to write their own story in the setting.
Bethesda's teams have this philosophy where anybody on the development team can make a quest and put anything they want in the game- and they don't maintain a design document capable of coordinating that style. So their quests aren't particularly consistent and their stories rarely link up with one another.
The tabletop writers likely use an entirely different approach, and focus most of their effort on writing with a much smaller team. That forces a lot more cooperation, and creates a more cohesive interconnected story. And since they're making a more cohesive story out of a shoddy disconnected one... They're going to connect plot threads that were never there in Fallout 4.
If I could compare it to anything... It's less like an author altering their work after the fact, and more like a fanfiction writer. I'm not sure if the tabletop games are even considered entirely canon. They miiiight kinda be, because they're licensed and fanfiction is unlisensed... But I don't know.
They made numerous other additions to the Story too, but famine was just one of the bigger ones. They also focused on the Children of Atom, and I think all of the children of atom bases in Fallout 4 come up as major locations in their main story.
@@Graknorke I don't understand your comment... I completely agree with it, all of what you said was completely correct- but what's it for...? I didn't write the Winter of Atom. It's just something else that exists.
I don't even understand why it's necessary to state that... Even in this fictional story, the raiders aren't behaving rationally. They think that they're going to die if they don't steal from their neighbors, and the Winter of Atom said that all their crops died, and that's probably an effort to explain why the fields are so small. Supposedly, they had to restart from next to nothing.
Buuut that's... Purely inference.
Are you doing okay...? I didn't piss you off, did I?
Khans, Powder Gangers, and White Legs: Have a culture, aesthetic, and way of things.
Fiends: Savage, but organized.
Vipers: Broken nomads.
Bethesda: Blood, guts, drugs!!!
Fiends: blood, guts, drugs!
3/4 Raiders: blood, guts, drugs!
*but why*
Fiends: we're long-term chem addicts who mostly recruit people who can't pay for their drugs any other way. We use brutal violence for the thrill, because we're doped on psycho, and (when we can think straight) to threaten people into giving us what we need without risking ourselves. Also we eat people because Cook-Cook is an insane genius and figured out how to make it taste real good.
3/4 Raiders: a e s t h e t i c
76 unironicly gave its raider gangs unique identities as did Nukaworlds gangs and the rust devils.
Its not like bethesda cant do unique and intresting raider groups and not just generic drugged murder hobos
It makes some sense why raiders in 3 and 4 are so savage, brutal, and unorginized. Think of it like this, in Boston and DC there aren't any major groups to stand against raiders, so they wouldn't really have much need to improve or organize themselves to survive. The Bos in DC only arrived fairly recently and didn't have much of a foothold there yet. Most of the people in Boston haven't even heard of the Bos until their airship arrived. And even then their goals in Boston didn't involve going out of their way to clear out raider gangs anyway. And the minutemen were also starting to fall apart even before the SS woke up. Making it easy for more raiders to rise up and take control of wherever they go.
@@brandenhauser1635 Except it's been 200 YEARS! There should be SOME form of organized SOMETHING by now. Even if it's ex-Raider gangs that have coalesced into a type of tribal Clan system, there would be something ... instead, Beth didn't read the cliff notes and just figured the post-apocalypse collapse state would continue for ever without people seeking to organize their system to maximize their effect on the world.
@@Minalkra Yes, a lack of any rival power *should* lead to the raider clans centralising under a single great warlord or similar, *not* to endless stagnation.
It's obvious that Bethesda was inspired by Mad Max 2 and 3 when they made the Raiders in Fallout 3, 4 and 76 but the other games made by Interplay and Obsidian were also inspired by it as well. Which is one of the reasons why so many Raiders have mohawk hair styles and wear spiked armor.
As for the gore, it's probably just a show of force and intimidation. But I wouldn't rule out the possibility of cannibalism amongst certain Raider groups if they can't find anything else to eat.
While 50s stuff was the primary influence, stuff from the 80s and 90s like Mad Max, City of Lost Children, Hardboiled, and The Day After were also major influences on the original Fallout. Mad Max is the only one Bethesda kept. (I think it's interesting to ponder how Gundam X and especially Fist of the North Star would have influenced Fallout had they been known in the US at the time)
@@kanrakucheese I call it the Star Wars effect. The original was inspired by pulp noir, westerns, samurai films, WWII films. The later films were inspired by.. Star Wars. Fallout was inspired by a lot of classic cinema, the later games were inspired by.. Fallout, and Elder Scrolls. You end up with an ever shrinking pool of ideas that's increasingly cannibalistic, because you lose the ability to add anything new that fits *cough*Institute*cough*
Fallout 2 had several different types of raiders. You had slavers raiding tribal villages. Robbers, Highwaymen, Cannibals, and Press Gangs. The Press Gangs were dangerous as they had energy weapons, G11s, super sledgehammers, and power fists. Fallout Tactics had some unique raiders. The Reevers were raiders looking for any technology, the mirror opposite of the Brotherhood of Steel. The Beast Lords were a mix of raiders and tribals that were telepaths that could control animals.
Tactics had some great ideas, really sad we haven't seen either group show up since
@@0lionheart I'd love to see the Beast Lords or Press Gangs make a return.
It would be interesting to see more peaceful settlements surrounded by skeletons and corpses or art of such things,
During the medieval period in the midst of the black plague there was an art movement called Momento Mori depicting people dancing together in various states of decay and other macabre imagery.
This portrayed a fact of life during plague of being surrounded by death at all times, and I could see that sort of thing speaking to people in the wasteland.
I gotta call a -Citation needed- on that one, because Momento Mori translates to YOLO
Danse Macabre?
@@DeetexSeraphine upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/84/Dance_of_Death_%28replica_of_15th_century_fresco%3B_National_Gallery_of_Slovenia%29.jpg/800px-Dance_of_Death_%28replica_of_15th_century_fresco%3B_National_Gallery_of_Slovenia%29.jpg
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memento_mori
Momento Mori is linked to the dance of death or danse macabre, which is the specific trope/genre I was describing. You should read into it, it's really interesting
I'd except to see Pickman _Lite_ behaviour for a well defended settlement.
Surrounded by Raiders who when defeated and made very public examples of.
@@MediumRareOpinionsPirates beware style
The differences in game developers can be attributed (imo) to wanting to tell different stories. Interplay/Obsidian want you to join a society already in motion. Bethesda wants you to fix a society that is barely there. Personally, I hope Fallout 5 is a bit of both.
If we live to see Fallout 5 that is, we aren't guaranteed another 10 years on this planet.
@@enescustovic1883 …fair point.
I love the thought of being able to play Fallout 5 while being young enough to remember it, but I do think it is a unrealistic viewpoint considering Bethesda has recently found the CTRL+C and CTRL+V combo.
@@nitwriter4804 Its modern Bethesda, their games just arent memorable straight up
You could be peak health and still forget it within a week
@@enescustovic1883 lmao no
As someone whos seen that f-ed up level of hardcore drug addiction - the scariest things you see come from an unnatural level of comfort.
What an interesting insight.
I saw a guy sleeping on the ground with his bare bald head on the concrete. Opiates can make even the hardest surface feel like a tempur-pedic
Fun fact practicing cannibalism can lead to mental disorders and disease like the kuru virus that will cause very bizarre behavior.
Kuru was a prion
@@insomniagobrrr5542 the prion found that causes kuru is almost exclusively found in human brain matter. The documented cases of it were caused by people eating human brains. It also has all sorts of weird behaviors in those affected. There's also things like wendigo psychosis which is also caused by cannibalism. In other words the idea that people pushed to cannibalism have a multiple possibilities as to why they would develop sadistic or psychotic behaviors, isn't unrealistic and does have some reality to it.
@@ryanadams2610 kuru doesn't exist it the US and as far as I'm aware has gone "extinct" as both cannibals and cannibalism are dieing out.
and the radiation can cause brain tumors that have a similar mental effect
@@ryanadams2610 I wasn't disagreeing with you, and was correcting a mistake. Prions and viruses spread differently.
I mean non-feral ghouls have been around for centuries, like the parents of the boy in the fridge, but still live in half-decayed houses. They could have easily repaired and started to rebuild society while everyone else was still stuck in the vaults.
Just themselves? Not possible, you underestimate how much of a gargantuan task it is to restart civilisation.
@@olddirtymongrrelI think the commenter was referring to ghouls in general.
Sure, a single ghoul wouldn’t be able to, but a group of irradiated humans that can make it through hundreds of years with their memories more or less intact and having adapted to the worst sides of radiation, one would expect them to rebuild civilization up to a point
Maybe they tried? Ghouls don't always stay sane. A ghoul society rising and falling would explain why there's so many ferals.
One thing that occurs to me about the Mohave Mohaving (sorry) more brutal Raider activity than the West Coast, but less than the East.... I wonder if Mr House may have encouraged the activity of the Fiends outside of Vegas proper in order to make his regime look better. Either directly (by having his catspaws tell somone like Motor Runner to go hog wild, but stay outside the walls of Vegas) or indirectly (by making sure they had a steady supply of chems). Which would explain both why it's not in Vegas proper, and why it gets less bad the further you get from House's directly controlled territory. ... And, it occurs, why it seems to be worst in territory the NCR either controls or is trying to encroach into.
It's directly stated in-game that the Legion is actively providing intelligence to the Fiends to assist them in hamstringing NCR operations.
It could also be that House civilising the local tribes into the casino families has pushed the savage elements out into the nearby regions and they've fallen in with groups like the fiends
@@anon9469 that literally makes sense looking at it active-war-wise, the enemy of my enemy is my friend situation, and you also see fiends fighring ncr near mccaran so its proof
@@anon9469 This also explains why non-NCR endings assume the Fiends are defeated, regardless of Motor Runner's fate.
Doubtful. Gamblers and NCR citizens need to pass through outer vegas to reach the strip, and House wouldnt risk losing his Golden Goose for a little PR, especially when he's the sole proprietor of the strip and doesnt depend on votes to remain in power.
Hi RadKing, I'd like to add my grain of sand to answer your question.
First of all, I loved the video. Love how you analyze stuff in the Fallout Universe.
I really think that another possibility for the mental breakdown and decay has to do with radiation and centuries of poor breeding, pregnancy and birth conditions. These two factors can have heavy repercussions on the mental development of a human being, adding the lack of society and an education system. And if affected individuals reproduce without control, we're left with genomes that cause grave psychological situations that can't be cured or control effectively due to them being part of the genetic makeup of the individuals. So it's like a genome epidemic, almost no escape and there's a high percentage that those born outside of "semi-controlled" environments like cities, settlements or vaults are affected of an unavoidable upcoming mental condition.
Raiders in the OG Fallout and Fallout 2 were menacing to low level players, but once you hit anything beyond those they are weak and you can easily just take them out no matter what you spec into for late game clearing
the first 2 they just make sense and go with the post apocalyptic themse, the rest are just... I don't know how to put it, clearly on drugs and their intelligence has dropped leading to those shoddy outfits lmao
Fallout 3 "raiders" are nomadic and fight amongst themselves more than they fight the normal people of the CW. They mention this in The Pitt, calling them undisciplined rabble basically.
@masteroutlaw100 Basically roaming tribes of bloodthirsty Chem addicts and sometimes cannibals.
@@Th0rn5555 Pretty much, and they compose about 80% of human population of the Capital Wasteland.
This is also true in the later Fallouts, with the possible exception of them being menacing early game.
I think Obsidian/Interplay were big into making sure the raiders still resembled people and can be related to in some capacity, but Bethesda wants them to be monstrous.
Almost like Obsidian/Interplay knows how to tell an intricate story with complex characterization and Bethesda only knows how to make things cool on the surface but with no depth
Raiders in FO4 mention needing to feed their kids. Some are at grave sites mourning people they lost.
It's interesting what you can see and hear if you pay attention and use your eyes. 😐
@@SamanthaLaurier nah obsidian is mid frfr
@@jho7659 Have you ever even played an Obsidian game?
@@fburnsDubstepEnderFox A random voice line that can be said by any raider and a single raider at an unmarked grave in the open world who is still hostile on sight isn't storytelling. It's not even close to being able to speak to and ally yourself with different "raider" groups, listen to their motivations and values, who their enemies and allies are etc. New Vegas alone has 4 different groups that you can speak with, and 3 of them you can actually join (Caesar's Legion, Powder Gangers, and Great Khans.) The others are just the basic open world enemies, and even some of those have dialogue from other characters describing who they are and how they operate. ALL bethesda raiders, minus Nuka-World and the Pitt, are just rabid psychos with guns and drugs, but sometimes they crouch at a grave, or have a random voice line about their kids that don't actually exist, or use flamethrowers and change their name to the Forged, or they're ghouls who speak Norwegian (they're all still the same)
4% cannibalism, followed by 17% cannibalism... mmk
well one stat cannibalised the other
Listen, cannibalism is a very different thing from cannibalism, they are not the same
Tbh raiders in fallout four don't make sense since there aren't enough settlements to raid since you the player have build up 90% of them
Yep exactly, raider pop > diamond city + bunker hill etc. Its supposed to be like public workers, you need lotsa taxpayers to support em.
Not to mention most people stop raiding after awhile since its not a working system in the long run. To make raiding work you need to like, limit the raids to like...i dunno, once a year, like the vikings did, so you give people time to rebuild their shit, not to mention non-killing rules since if you go brutal kill-all style you actually decrease the stuff to raid over time.
almost like bethesda can't write a dystopian society that makes sense
Winter of atom book.
@@jimfortnite7810 lol obsidian fanboy copefest, the outer world was shit, black isles hasn't made a good game in 10 years
Forget the raider, everyone in Bethesda’s games lives in garbage that they haven’t bothered to sweep in 200 years.
Pretty realistic
@@skeletonbuyingpealts7134 its not realistic at all
@@xptaco2298 have you been to a city?
Ever seen a college dorm or a homeless encampment? Most survivors wouldn't give a damn. This is one of the most stupid "Bethesda bad" arguments out there.
@@Fortune.06 Right. Because people can live in filth that means that everyone would live in filth in the post apocalypse. It’s realistic that they intentionally impose dramatic health risks on themselves and others despite being advanced enough to have schools and sanitation.
Just because it’s the post apocalypse doesn’t mean everything has to look like mad max.
The fallout raiders secretly serve Khorne
"BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD!
SKULLS FOR THE SKULL THRO-" * instantly capped by 10mm *
MILK FOR THE KHORN FLAKES!
Ive always seen it as a way for raiders to mark territory. Like, you know, gangs does with tags and such. I think the main drive is to warn of any settlers of trying anyting, but especially to show other raiding gangs, that this area is taken and you either conform or go to war. I get that theres also many instances of sadism, but for one if anyone likes sadism, raiding is surely where they will go, so seeing more raiders who are sadist seem logical. And if the practice of marking territory is by hamging up wrecked bodies, id say that would drive anyone sane insane, so maybe its an acquired taste😂.
Anyway great vid as always, keep it up !
I know you mentioned it as a way of marking territory, I just think that's the main thing
I’ve always put it down to territory marking, cannibalism, chem use, gang initiation (if you’re really one of us, string up this gore), and potential radiation induced mutations or tumours all rolled up into one.
@@mikoto7693Also making people think you're even more crazy than you actually are
@@skeletonbuyingpealts7134 That’s a decent idea. Another reason I like, at least for FO3 and FO4 is to try to intimidate the super mutants. We’ve all seen that most east coast Muties either take people to be infected with FEV (though not applicable to FO4) or eat, stringing up bodies, meat and gore bags around their camps. Perhaps the raiders do something similar to indicate to the Muties that they’re just like them, just as tough as them and that the Muties are better off finding easier prey?
I confess that idea isn’t mine, I merely read it from someone else in this comment section. But I really, really like the idea. So, in my mind the raiders string up bodies everywhere around their camps to intimidate anyone who sees it, to mark their territory (as I doubt Muties or other raiders know how to read or interpret signs), cannibalism, chem psychosis, extreme desensitisation to violence, gang initiation rituals, psychotic breaks, mental illness, radiation or mutation induced sadistic disorders and raider “cultural norms.”
Raiders have a distinct style, particularly in FO4 where they have an almost uniform way of decorating their camps, wearing clothing and style of armour. There’s plenty of evidence that there are different groups of raiders led by different leaders across the Commonwealth. They know each other-usually as rivals squabbling over territory. Tower Tom, Red Tourette, Bosco, Jared and so on. It makes me think that Raiders are a sorta faction with some very basic rules and cultural norms to distinguish themselves and gore-filled camps is one of them. Which brings us back to intimidation and territorial marking.
Then there are the Rust Devils. Still raiders and recognised as such, but with the twist of being obsessed with robots. Note the twisted “robot corpses” they marked their HQ with. And the Forged. Raiders again but obsessed with fire, with their own style. Anyway it makes the most sense to me that all the factors are in play when it comes to gore decoration. Life is seldom simple.
And on a totally different note, I really wish Bethesda had done something more with the Gunners other than basically being just another type of enemy to defeat. There was so much potential regarding a mysterious faction of mercenaries operating in the Commonwealth, yet their styling themselves after pre-war soldiers and setting up bases and camps strategically across the Commonwealth hints more than mere mercenaries. Ah well, can’t be changed now.
An example you skipped over in new vegas: the kahns in red rock canyon have these strange figures made of a mix of human and animal bones put up on the rock ridges around the entrances. I always thought they served as a border marker. like: "Khan territory. Turn back"
They immediately reminded me of the effigies that the protagonists encounter as they approach the home of the raiders in "The 13th Warrior".
As a Floridian, I think the East Coast just does that to people
As a mainer who was born in mass, i can agree
If we applied Bethesda logic to real life, we'd still be recovering from the civil war and surviving off of rations and food stores from that era.
Look, at least they have mostly intact roofs above their head. Skyrim bandits will sleep in tiny wind-tunnel tents or roofless shacks and pretend everything is okay.
I could ALMOST buy that the explanation for the East Coast being worse because, as the home of the government and many of the largest cities and industrial centers (or former centers, like somewhere like Pittsburgh), it was hit harder.
You could maybe add the factor that some of the largest slum areas are/were in the oldest cities, i.e, East Coast.
This let's the craziest rise to the top, and I guess the crazier and grosser better? Some sort of raider mating signal?
But really, I agree with some of the others: FO3 especially took place much closer to the Great War than Bethesda admits.
Would also explain why there was still so many resources to scavange.... (I know this is mostly to facilitate game play, but it has always bugged me)... Though, really, the gore is only part of the problem.. in 200 years, nobody has managed to build anything that doesn't have holes in every floor, wall, and ceiling? Nobody is using any form of irrigation? Nobody has carts?
That, in 20 years, let alone 200, there are no carpenters, seamstresses (or seamsters??), masonry workers, cobblers... Everyone is just using what can be found, as-is and hoping they find one in better condition somewhere? Even in the Pitt, where there's a working foundry, all that gets made are bullets?
The Gun Runners (and I guess the Brotherhood, though we have yet to anywhere the power armor or energy weapons are actually made) are the only ones that discovered industrialization.
The only destroyed places on the west coast is the Bone Yard (Los Angeles) San Francisco(rebuilt soon after war) Necropolis( Bakersville) and DayGlow(San Diego)
No, the raiders at Saugus ironworks in fallout 4 use the quarry nearby to mine for materials. They are called the Forged
I think the cannibalistic gore present in the east coast super mutant camps could be a good explanation. They probably leave quite a traumatic and influential mark on the people growing up in the wasteland who witness their horrors. So perhaps east coast raiders have a culture of trying to out-decorate and one-up their super mutant neighbors, to show that they’re as intimidating as the east coast super mutants, or perhaps they’re trying to intimidate the super mutants themselves.
That’s…. Actually a pretty good explanation. Of course chem use, radiation tumours, cannibalism, initiation rituals and whatnot play a part. But stringing up bodies and gore to deter super mutants by showing that they’re as tough as Mutants makes sense.
You'd expect to also see super mutants strung up, then.
... though, of course, they're *not* as tough as super mutants, so maybe that's just easier said than done.
@@basedeltazero714 Aye, it’s a lot easier to target near-helpless wastelanders with no armour and wielding crappy pipe pistols than a pack of heavily armed and armoured super mutants. Given that super mutants also hunt wastelanders, I wonder if stringing them up as gore says “We hunt the same prey as you. We caught this prey; therefore we are as strong as you. Go find easier prey” to any Muties that pass. I doubt that many raiders or Muties can read so putting signs up might be pointless.
The other main theory I prefer is raider cultural norms and territory markers. Particularly in FO3 and FO4, raiders have a very distinct look. Their clothes and armour are instantly recognisable, as are their camps. The raider group leaders know each other and their territory. Red Tourette, Tower Tom, Jared and Gabriel to name a few, mostly rivals and squabbling with each other yet recognising each other as fellow raiders. It makes me think that the bodies and gore partially serve to say “raiders live here” to denote territory and intimidate Muties and wastelanders alike.
This video and the comments certainly helped me make up my mind for my own personal headcanon. The gore is part intimidation, part territory marking, part of those loosely agreed “raider cultural tradition,” part cannibalism (probably less common in the Commonwealth due to the abundance of farms, but if times are hard I’m sure most raiders would turn to cannibalism,) part mental health issues-be they chem induced or the result of becoming desensitised to violence or psychotic, and part radiation or mutation induced tendencies towards violence and gore.
All these different factors all rolled into one with different raiders doing it for different reasons since life is seldom simple. Though admittedly the biggest reasons would be “raider culture,” intimidation and territorial marking. At least that’s how I explain it.
@@basedeltazero714 Plus stringing up a Super Mutant would take a lot more work, kinda heavy.
Also, you’d think someone would think to pick up a broom and do some tidying up in general over the course of 200 years
Radiation and its affect on a "live fast, die young" mentality may have something to do with this behavior. If you're not going to make it past twenty or thirty years because of the local toxins, everything else falls to the wayside.
On the West coast, people have been pretty fastidious about avoiding contaminated areas and creating entirely new settlements. Aside from the LA Boneyard pretty much all the settlements in Fallout One were created post-war and specifically distant from major targets like the Glow. (Necropolis, over a vault might be a special case) Fallout New Vegas involves one of the few cities with a functioning missile defense system, as well as small settlements in the middle of nowhere military wise that probably wouldn't have been attacked.
People stick far closer to the former remains of civilization back east, often near places that are radioactive decades after the initial attack. Unmaintained and ruined buildings are going to be chock full of hazards like black mold, animal droppings, spilled chemicals, and asbestos. Sightlines, defense, agriculture, etc. are all more difficult when constrained to former structures.
I remember playing a game a few years ago called ATOM RPG. I was shocked when the first group of ‘bandits’ I met were running more of a protection racket. Yeah, they’ll kill people who get in their way, but if the nearby town pays them tribute they’ll left to their businesses. The gang even protects the village from pillagers at one point.
Because that’s more realistic. Why would a gang want to kill the poor farmers and traders? Those are the people that produce all of their stuff
You know, it is an interesting question, but let me ask you a simple question, what gives more of an impression?
A sign that saids "fuck off"
Or a fresh head on a pike?
Or how about someone who is skinned alive and strapped to the top piece above your front door?
its about sending a messaging not to fuck around.
If I had access to legally obtained skulls, I would definitely decorate with one or two. I kinda have one already, a fake one made out of red plastic.
I remember that the 'raider' building options in Fallout 4 had a corpse theme to them too. Honestly, the New Vegas interpretations make more sense. The only other situations of freshish corpses being around are Legion based crucifixions and atrocities, and those are deliberate statements from Caesar himself to the Legion and to anyone else who can see. And even then they don't keep corpses in the living areas. But the Fiends who are almost all brain-warped chem addicts? That makes some sense. Some fresh corpses might even be Fiends that are dead but that no-one else has really figured out are dead yet.
So did the Megaton House and Tenpenny Tower Suite in Fallout 3, which raises some serious questions not only about the Lone Wanderer if they choose that but also how they get those bodies in and how nobody notices.
@@zerrodefex not sure about Megaton, but Tenpenny Tower Suite definitely can do something
What I really like is the back and forth between the raiders and the so-called civilized . It's an excellent mirror to early bronze age civilization trying to get started . I'm not sure if that's deliberate or not but it's a nice touch regardless .
*Reference Mesopotamia versus steppe horseman .
*A lot of the problem could be heavy metal poisoning . It's known to cause psychosis and if coupled with heavy chem use and the paranoia that would naturally accompany such things plus living in the wasteland and I can definitely see this becoming a spiral .
*Second reference ; mentally ill and has a long history with drugs ...
Being a raider is like being emo, goth or a metal head. Its albout image. That image invokves leather, severed heads and troughs of blood. And much like the groups i mentioned in real life...if youbdont "get it'" then you just dont get it
Except those groups exist _within_ society, they're counter-cultures lashing out at the status quo to express originality in the face of uniformity. Image is how you express yourself, and the more it contrasts the norm, the better. Can really only exist in a society that's moved past surviving, and can now actually thing about things like image and social status. It's a whole different world to surviving in a wasteland? Doubt you'd give a shit about your drip if you were starving and on your last mag of ammo.
I think the East Coast and Mojave either have regions or whole game maps that are at a level of human development lower than what was seen in Fallout 1. Fallout 1 has several settlements with decently robust agriculture and trade networks. Fallout 3 has a few small caravans fighting their way between the 5 or so spread out villages that could be considered civilized. Fallout 4 is in a region where the proto-civilization the Minutemen were building had _just_ collapsed recently, and New Vegas has developed civilization close to where House had been protecting it but a wild west outside of those regions, save the strongholds run by the NCR and Legion who are recent arrivals.
If you squint and bend the kayfabe of the universe you can make the argument that the raiders being more degenerate in post-3 games than the originals actually does make sense.
That or the people who criticize 3 didn't properly dig into it expecting instead to be spoonfed lore through exposition. They also don't know how gangs in the real world act. It isn't like the Khans or any other west coast raider gang that's for sure. Fallout 4 is sort of a fluke, I feel like bethesda just stopped caring about the writing or worldbuilding and just wanted to create a fallout themed shooting gallery.
@@masteroutlaw100 The Khans in the original games are still raiders who kill people and kidnap them for money. They aren't civilized, they just don't live in absolute squalor and disease.
Well if it isn't El Presidente
@@doughboywhine Everywhere in America pales in comparison to Tropico's splendor. Even before the bombs.
In both Fallout and Elder Scrolls games, there have been fairly prominent cases of cannibalism, often organised. I'm starting to think that someone at Bethesda has an unhealthy fascination for the eating of human flesh.
RadKing walked into every raider camp and just went damn, ya'll live like this?
I liked how the raiders in NV always belonged to some type of group/gang and had some lore behind them (vipers, jackals, khans, fiends, etc.)
So much more immersive and believable for world building and understanding the environment.
In 4, they don't belong to any groups with backstories or anything, they're all just.... raiders.
They basically only exist to be low level cannon fodder for the player.
Their only personality trait is that they're obsessed with mutilated bodies, which is pretty cliche at this point.
Not entirely true. While they aren't coded to behave as separate raider factions, terminal entries and notes in raider camps clearly depict different gangs being led by different people with clear rivalries and alliances with eachother, while they don't interact as separate entities in gameplay, they do in lore.
@@generalrevelation8923 It's still bad storytelling, they're generic aside from the named bosses and the two raider groups they did right but woefully underused--the Triggermen and the Forged. So many missed opportunities.
Honorable mentions for the all ghoul gangs on the FMS Northern Star and outside Vault 88 (Quincy Quarries), but you have to be paying attention to realize they're not just typical raiders.
@@generalrevelation8923I think a simple change would be to do what 76 did and at least give the different groups different paint jobs. Maybe Bosco’s gang wear the colors of DB Tech, the Forged are red, etc.
If you bothered to read any of the in-world notes and terminals and stuff you'd realize how wrong you are.
@@Sursion That's called "telling". I shouldn't have to read terminal entries to know that the different raider gangs aren't just random wastelanders whose brains have rotted out from huffing too much jet.
They do it for the same reason my character is okay with (aka forced to) leaving skeletons lying around my settlements…😑
"Scrap that settlement" is a great mod for removing pesky skellies. Available on console and PC. Just check your mod load order once it's installed. :]
@@chzybean But how do we get the raiders to download that mod?
@@waytogo8014 Something tells me they would not so politely decline to accommodate such a request, haha.
I usually use explosives to move them out of the settlement. Works fine. Later on I added scrapping mods that allow you to scrap them away.
@@waytogo8014 I have a mod called "Commonwealh Cleanup". When I clean out a Raider camp, I literally clean it out. Almost everything but the structures go, and can be converted into materials for use in my settlements. I have often considered creating a character called "The Janitor" and doing an entire play through where the character does nothing but clean up the Commonwealth.
One thing that I don't think that you mentioned, but I kinda wish you HAD: is I personally find it somehow odd that we don't see various NON-Raider groups displaying skulls and other bones: but in a respectful and even reverential manner as "Memento Mori" for the honored dead. Like a church that has a wall full of niches with a single skull in each of them and a small plaque bearing the person's name and deeds with a votive candle in front of it to offer prayer to the honorable ancestors, or similar things.
9:23 you accidentally put 17% cannibalism on screen when talking about intimidation
Medieval Europe also employed gibbets - vaguely human-shaped, hanging cages they'd just stuff a prisoner into and just leave hanging up outside. That's it, nothing more, just let time and the elements take their toll. I can picture raiders doing that.
Fallout 3 has those cages. Most notably Paradise Falls entrance
it's pure rule of cool.
If being realistic, having corpes around like that is simply inviting every vermin and scavenger animal to swarm you.
In a world where giant bipedal lizards exist, having corpses around is like having a big add which says "FREE FOOD HERE".
These raiders are getting wiped by roaches, scorpions, deathclaws or wolves. After a few decades of radiactive megafauna, even raiders would have learned that a key to survival is to keep camps clean and put all food inside containers.
Much like how campers know they must not leave food outside if they don't want to wake up to a Grizzly tearing their tent.
In fallout new vegas, there aren't as many raider gangs with long standing settlements-places they have claimed and maintain as such. We do see people on crosses and tire fires and to a certain extent, there are places where dead bodies were left out specifically to draw in the wildlife, like cazadores. There was that little spot where, I believe you gun down a small cadre of raiders that will eventually become a nest to them.
So it becomes a matter of just what the true intent is. Dracula, the man, was said to have made a forest or the dead with soldiers on wooden stakes, impaled. Stood up. It was a show of force. It was to intimidate. It says that I don't fear you. I have an army that can and will so this. I have the time because your advancement means nothing. My men are hardened and will do this for me and I shall offer unto you exactly the same with the difference being that you will know it is coming and that there will be no one after that will see what has been made of you, save the birds.
People do that to show that they are dangerous. Usually not next to their beds. Not near their food. Around a perimeter yes, so those that try to enter that territory shall see the truth.
It shows they have been there, they aren't leaving. They get bored and want something to do. Are prepared to eat you. They can hoist you up and nail you to surfaces. They will forget who you were and never think about you they were.
If they go around picking up old bones to decorate with, they have time. But that doesn't scream intimidation. Only that they did a sweep of the place. Might stay might fight for it, but a skeleton from pre war just means it's fair to question their commitment to the bit. Doesn't scream experience.
I gotta give it to you, this is one hell of a good video! The time you spent researching must have been absurd - playing all the Fallout games over again, putting the raiders' conditions into charts, and editing this amazing video. You definitely answered the question in the title!
Also, one more thing: the East Coast did try to make a provisional government (you mention this later), but the reason it didn't work was because of the Institute. Maybe there was some kind of issue with their synths because the guy who requested to use synths as part of the provisional government seemed to have good intentions. He wanted the Institute to not abandon the people above. That didn't work well, as the synth they sent to represent them killed every representative at the talks.
They should have made a special synth, one where the director could hear and see through it, and when he spoke, it would use the synth's voice - like remote-controlling the synth. Maybe if they did this, the provisional government wouldn't have fallen apart. The Institute is evil for sure, but most incidents seem to be accidental. Just because they didn't mean to cause harm doesn't make it right, and they never make amends for the damage they cause, or even try to be transparent with the Commonwealth. Hence, the bad reputation.
I also think that it's the Donner effect. The weather on each coast is wildly different. The cold and short growing season in the northern areas would cause significant food shortages. Though I may be overthinking it 😂
This is my favorite fallout lore channel. Research, presentation, and organization of material is unmatched by all the other lore channels
I'd like for a mix of both sadistic raiders and organised gangs in a game. Pull a bit of a Nuka-World raider factions but place them in a world space like vanilla Fallout 4 where there's inter-raider politics and feuds but you can recognise pretty quickly which gang you're dealing with by HOW they utilise their displays of violence
I love how in NV there isn't just a blanket faction of savage bandits known collectively as "raiders"
Powder gangers, Fiends, Khans, Vipers, Jackals, Scorpions, even Legion and White Legs etc all could be considered "raiders" but they each have their own quirks and personality, not all of them are fine with sleeping on a gore soaked mattress next to flayed remains.
Bethesda's raiders are so 1 dimensional. They tried a bit more with the moral ambiguity in the Pitt but even then it still sucked
It's the lack of any story behind them that really sucks. The Powder Gangers are the direct result of the NCR being sloppy, bringing convicts in for forced labour and then screwing up, creating a new problem. The raiders in 3 are just.. there.. you learn nothing about them
It may be that the Raiders are secretly following some cannibal/sadistic cult. Given that Bethesda has already made multiple Lovecraft references, this may be an iteration on Lovecraft's usual 'ancient cult hidden in the dregs of society' stuff (cult of Cthulhu, cult of Ghathanotoa, Red Hook demon-worshippers, etc.).
I'd say you hit the nail right on the head, especially with east coast raider groups. I remember in 3 Raiders were especially sadistic: their every voiceline made it clear that they love every moment of what they do. The Fiends are the only west coast raider group that I know of that even comes close, though I remember hearing a lore bit that the Jackals were known to be cannibalistic as well. Though there isn't much evidence of it that I remember: most of them hang out on roads and such, without much in the ways of defined bases.
I would venture a guess that, after 200 years of radiation induced genetic mutation and decades of living in wasteland squalor, the immune system and general constitution of a person in the Fallout universe is overall more robust and resistant to complications of an unhygienic lifestyle. I mean, it's not like the average waster in Rivet City or Goodneighbor is living THAT much more cleanly than your garden variety raider, right? It's probably also why debilitating illnesses that would put ua on meds and in bed for a week today amount to just an annoying debuff in survival mode, and why the only person we ever see in 4 with debilitating illness is a Vault-dwelling child.
Seeing you're time being 29:29 wasn't lost on me. Also, I'm a new fan, last year or so, thanks for the videos you make, been really loving them
16:42 that raider on the bottom right definitely killed 109 people
Alright, subscribed AND Notifications ON. I was first brought to your page for The Lore on Power Armor, and I expected you to leave out FO 1 and 2. But wow, I am super impressed at your research level into some of these videos. FO 1 and 2, along with New Vegas (Interplay, basically) are my favorite FOs so I love that you include them (tactics too). I was pretty depressed today, and these videos made me feel better. Let me look into the FO Bible and ask you some really specific questions lol. Thanks, RadKing, and thanks to Atom!
I really think the reason for the gore in fallout 3 was because it was the first 3D game in the franchise and the use of gore was used for shock value to juxtapose it against the neo futuristic 1950s utopian architecture and style. It was then toned down because it’s not actually shocking and a bad guy who is Saturday morning cartoon villain evil isn’t a very good bad guy. Good bad guys need to have at least some plausible justification so there can be an argument that they’re the hero of their narratives. Without that it’s just shock for shock value. It’s fun to speculate though.
Saturday morning cartoon baddies are great bad guys
@@thomastakesatollforthedark2231 yeah moraly grey realistic bad guys are overrated and allot more generic
Radking- "Welcome to MTV Cribs! Today, were checking out this raider settlement"
Raider- "Shhh guy's, I think I hear somethin' "
Your channel kicks ass man, always love to see what new topic you'll dive into. Keep it up🔥
I can understand marking your place, keeping the fear factor up, and exemplifying that others should not mess with you. But there is such illness associated with corpses. And the stench...
The problem with trying to make sense of this stuff is the folly of assuming the beth fallout games have any kind of internal consistency
You can get disentary from being around decaying corpses too long which for raiders who dont have reliable medicine would be a death sentence. Not to mention corpses would attracts death claws and whatever mutant predators are in the area.
If you’re living in squalor 200 years after the bombs dropped, it’s a conscious choice
The disciple troughs are washing basins...saturated with the blood of their victims
All the human decorations are also potential snacks for later
I was hopping you’d show and comment on more examples, you should make a fallow-up video where you do tours of the worst raider camps like a fucked up version of those interior decoration shows or mtv cribs
Raiders were a strange breed
I always kind of assumed that cannibalism was common among raiders, though there is not a ton of direct evidence. My reasoning was that cannibalism seems common enough in the post-apocolyptic world, in fact I became a cannibal myself in my first playthrough, simply because I was burning through stimpacks too fast
Very interesting topic! I always thought about it. And about the world in general to be honest. After 200 years, things would be reconstructed much more than how they are. Hell, I think the world would be almost back to normal - but the Fallout world is in this constant decay, almost as the bombs just dropped. I understand it's a art-style choice, but it always bugged me in some way.
Completely agree, I think all the crazy shit would definitely happen for a couple decades but guaranteed by the end of 100 years it wouldn’t be neeearly as bad
@@mackiemark5149
For sure. That's why always gravitated towards Metro more. You have the same decay of the world there, or even more, but it is only just 20 years after the global conflict. But again...different cultures, different artistic visions. Perhaps because I'm from Eastern Europe, I am pulled towards the more realistic side, rather than the pin-up, happy go lucky, nuclear-punk style.
In the US everybody wants to go back to the 1950's, 1960's. But here, everybody wishes those years had never happened xD
My favorite comparison on this front is Jamestown's founding in 1607. 210 years after that, the east coast had been pretty built up, formed a united government, sent scouts to chart the way to the west coast, gave the world's most powerful navy some serious black eyes (before getting blockaded), developed and built the world's first steam warship, and even starting laying railway. 210 years after the Great War in Bethesda Fallout, people still haven't cleaned their room or built decent new shelter.
@@kanrakucheese it's not a valid comparison because the North American colonies were established by European EMPIRES. In Fallout, there is no support network, everyone is rebuilding with what they can find and not much more. Progress would be much slower, similar to early civilisation. Progress isn't linear, we've jumped ahead the past couple centuries, early history is much much slower. Not Fallout 3 slow, that's just.. absurd, like they're not even trying. But Fallout 2 feels not crazy far off.
Ok, but where's that sick raider armor with the pseudo Atom's Children vibe from the beginning located?
What about the Rust Devils? They have the worst case of Robo cannibalism I've ever seen.
what about them ~shed
East Coast is also more resistant to change for a variety of reasons, such as The Institute. People are so afraid of deviations from the status quo, as signs of The Institute replacing someone with a Synth.
I think to an extent, the Obsidian/interplay guys try (imo) to differentiate between your average raiders, who might do some drugs here and there, rob some people, and people that are either purely sadistic or psychotic and do it for fun.
Yeah, there's no generic raiders. You have different types of groups (Great Khans, Jackals, Vipers, etc.)
@@OperatorMax1993 Which I think is an underused and underutilized idea compared to 90+% of human enemies being generic "Raider (Rank)". STALKER and even NV in places (Legion vs. NCR's choices of projectile weapons) showed that just giving factions different leveled lists for guns gives them a huge amount of personality. Fallout 4 kinda sorta attempted it with the Gunners, Triggermen (who you basiclly only see during a few Goodneighbor quests and the unfinished vault in the main quests) and generic Super Mutants, but since the game had only 20 or so guns total it didn't really work, at best just meant factions had a few signature weapons.
I prefer the "cleaner" aesthetic as it makes the areas that still do have all that gore much more impactful. Otherwise you just get numb to all the gorebags and corpse kabobs and they lose their desired effect.
The best answer, they didn't used to.
One thing i like about Metro Exodus is even the cannibals have a bit of decency (although in twisted manner)
They kept the "meat" in cold storage, a bit neatly. Their living quarters weren't littered with bodies and blood, thus keeping it "rather clean of human remains" and the best part= they kept a doctor to check every human they want to eat! Everyone wanted food, but good food! Even if it's human flesh! Hell, the doctor is so damn important he becomes the leader of the cannibals!
Fallout's cannibals would've died long ago due to eating a man with 100 STD's, animal transmitted disease and mutations!
In Fallout 3 it made sense, the raisers sounded like madmen, the kind you easily imagine r*ping each-other on a daily basis and doing stuff because their crazed minds just told them to.
But in Fallout 4, they very clearly have dialogues and banter that depicts them as pretty normal people behaving like outlaws, so it feels weird they would live among severed limbs and mangled corpsed strung around.
But lets not pretend Fallout 4 has a well-written world (neither did 3 really, but at least it was somewhat trying).
Yea - theses also the quest t9 get the kid back from the Forged. Who looked at a cult of raiders amd went "yea they seem like reasonable people to join up"
I have another theory for the mutilation aspect: Based on what scientific studies reveal about psychopathic murderers, there is often a traumatic experience in their past, most often their childhood. Killing and mutilating their victims gives them a feeling of control over their lives and the life of their victim. Some Raiders could have a similar case. Growing up in the wasteland, often abused by other people, probably in more than one way, possibly traumatized them. Killing others and mutilating them, could give them a sense of control, that they do on a regular basis to get that feeling of control over their own lives and others. This would apply to any Raider victim or other Raiders.
Good thing there was enough stockpiles of hair gel to keep their hair spiky for 200 years
It really just hones in the Obsidian/Interplay considers raiders to be actual humans. They can still be cruel and violent but that's true of any group, now or in the fallout of nuclear war. But for most people that doesn't turn them into mindless, unfeeling husks, and those who do would struggle to find community even among the most brutal.
Considering the different ideological position Bethesda often supports it's hardly surprising, though.
May ⚛️ bless you with his Glow
whoa scientology emoji
Praise be unto Atom! May you feel His Glow and be Divided 🙏⚛
He always kills me with radiation so f atom
@@johnahrens3214HERETIC! HOW DARE YOU talk like this about Holy Atom and his divine glow?! You will be punished! Brothers, throw him to The glowing ones.
-high confessor Cheese
adam a
another thing to note--supermutants surround themselves with gore, particularly gore bags. It might not be out of the question for raiders to either hole up in a site abandoned by muties or are using displays to try to ward off enemies. I suspect an extreme overabundance of human remains would actually work to _deter_ wild irradiated predators if they've learned to associate that with getting their hides kicked by big green men
Plus the smaller things lured in to scavenge can be eaten.... if you are okay with the taste of fried radroach for the 8th night in a row.