Part 1: In The Beginning, There's An Intro

Ironically enough, I didn't do Post 1 yesterday, because I spent 5,5 hours on Wasteland 2 and consequently nursed a headache and feeling of wasting life for the rest of the day.

Post 1: In The Beginning, There's An Intro



Even if you're like me and abhor videos, I suggest you watch the game intro for added gravelly voice bonus

Interplay, back when it wasn't just an undead monster with IP blocking agenda.



Micro Forte is or was a an Australian company that has not updated its website since 2009.

[There are also sounds of various war newsreel related sounds in the background. A quarantine is mentioned]



"14 Degrees East, the strategy division of Interplay, located in Beverly Hills and founded in 1999" - Wikipedia



Brian Fargo founded inXile Entertainment in 2002. Notable games include:

• Bard's Tale
  
• No Games Of Note For Years 2005-2011
  
• Hunted: Demon's Forge - the meh fantasy coop game*Choplifter HD - kind of ridiculous, especially when zombies get involved, but fun as far as these sort of games go
  
• Wasteland 2 - [spoilers]I spent 5 hours shooting giant flies, maggots and exploding zombies yesterday. A pack of giant rabbits near damn TPK'ed me. Don't go to Ag Center[/spoilers].
  
• Torment: Tides of Numenera - Much like Endless Legend if for people who like Fantasy 4X games, but hate actual magic, so is Numenera for people who like fantasy RPGs, but abhor actual magic. Hopefully it's a fitting successor to Planescape: Torment.

Aw shit, this isn't Cooking Mama?!



THE FUTURE!



Or is it?



Nope, just an old booklet, preserved like it is by the hot and dry weather typical to Chicago.



Just gently swaying in slightly radioactive wind.



What's this? A car?



A car full of looters! Ghoul Ayn Rand does not approve!



Unfortunately, Ghoul Ayn Rand was killed by giant rad scorpions yesterday, so the militaristic looters take off in their sweet ride. This Humwee sounds surprisingly like a dune buggy. Also, seeing the general retro (someone correct me in the comments) style of Fallout, I don't think Humwees would be in the game.



Anyways, it's a sweet ride and the driver hurries to catch up to the convoy, or the Paladin will punish him by taking away his Meat Platter.

Mmmm, Meat Platter. Tastes like something!



The driver is so reckless (or has put so many points into driving) that he steers away just in time not to hit the rock.



INSAAAANE STUNT BONUS!



The passenger who may or may not have thrown up from the bumpy ride, gets rid of the booklet. There's no old indian Native American to shed a singular tear, because all Native Americans had been blown up BY THE COMMIES.



The booklet neatly hugs a signpost.



"Oh dilapidated old sign that's placed there for dramatic purposes, only you can understand my loneliness."



It's not dramatization, that's how Chicago sign looked in 1997



Post-apocalyptic Chicago (played by present day Detroit)


With mood and atmosphere out of the way, let's get to the story intro!



[We hear keyboards clattering in the background. This is likely a Brotherhood bunker and the keyboard here is a decoration]





La guerre. La guerre ne change jamais

Ahem.

War. War never changes. This intro doesn't list that many reasons why the war happened, only that it happened.



Everybody entered war expecting to win and maybe loot a sweet TV set. Which is logical, you don't start a war intending to lose, usually.



Seeing how everybody knew that this war would end up in giant mushrooms of death rising over population centers (except for Vegas, because God-Emperor of Gambling installed lasers to knock down missiles, just like in Ground Control), giant underground Vaults were constructed to help people that mattered (retro-futuristic politicians, retro-futuristic Niki Minaj, etc) survive and rebuild the Wasteland.



However, if there's one thing important people hate more than poor people, it's actual work. So Vault 0 filled with robots that would do all the heavy work. Having to shovel kid skulls by yourself is such a chore.



Unfortunately, Vaults were either incomplete or faulty when the missiles launched and many fell to various ravages. Many others fell to bad writing as some sort of Shadow Government who planned the Vaults decided to make most of them into giant societal experiments, because that's worth endangering the survival of the human race some more - or to make Vault exploration in FO3 interesting (it didn't)Wait, I am idiot, apparently that was intended from the beginning. So my list of gripes for pre-FO Fallout can be summed up "No Take All Button, Stupid Shadow Government". . Though I still think that Vaults were boring in FO3

I also like the toy bear going "well, that's all, folks!"



"Sergeant, why don't we put bigger pauldrons on the power armor?"

"Collins, your mother was ugly as a cow and twice as stupid. I can clearly see what you inherited from her"

However, a military Vault on the West coast survived intact, likely because they shot any building contractor that tried to skim or take shortcuts, and military is mostly immune to social experiments because nothing is more cruel than bureaucracy they have to face daily. So they preserved their tech and training, and emerged mostly intact and armed.



Knowing that numbers can only take them so far, they looked into the biggest force multiplier they had: sweet, sweet technology. So they started raiding raider camps (oh the irony) and mutant bases, taking everything that beeped and wasn't bolted down.

Also, I have no idea what's happening in the right corner. If that's a super mutant, where is its head?



But Power Armor only makes you mostly immortal, so the numbers of brothers (and sisters, at least I don't remember no explicit statement that brotherhood should be males-only. Tho most characters up until FO3 were) started shrinking. One group advocated taking in local recruits and making them into Knights and Paladins. The Elders said no, partially because they didn't want to share their secrets of always keeping their faces in the shadow.



Having dissenters in their ranks wasn't entirely fun, so they got sent on a mission: track down the remnants of the Super Mutant army and kill them. Grumbling "I still think recruiting tribals is a good idea", they boarded great skyships and flew away.

There was a computer with a copy of Crimson Skies in every ship.



Unconfirmed (drunk on rot gut) sources claim that the fleet was made up identical dirigibles with haphazardly placed rocket boosters, at least two WWII Japanese fighters, a Cesna, a Chinook with a dirigible booster photoshopped in the back and a space shuttle.

I either suck at image resizing, or Rightload and lpix want to give me a head ache



The great fleet was beset by an ever greater storm while crossing the mountains and crashed.



The survivors (a quite a few survived by jumping ship in power armor and punching ground as they fell) gathered near Chicago.



Being far away from the main Brotherhood and having lost people in the crash, the exiles decided to carry out their original idea of recruiting tribals. In return for protection, medicine, ammo and tech, the locals had to provide recruits.

And booty.

"Is that your sister? Can we have her? Tits like that are worth at least two boxes of 5.56"

"Can I get that muscly guy? A girl gets lonely... without an HMG gunner, I mean"



However, life in the Wasteland is not only shooting raiders and watching scantly clad tribal women dance near a campfire (though there's enough of that). Strange tracks are found, strange rumors are heard.

Life in the Brotherhood is about to change...