Part 37: WHY???? [Warning: Disgusting]

WHY????

Welcome back! Last time on ATOM RPG we made it to the Dead City and we got a quest from a lady named Agatha to rescue her missing not-crush Maksim. Today we're going to see how vile this quest is, and make no mistake, it is fucking vile.

I'm not kidding.



The first thing we need to do is press this switch. A ton of the map is gated behind this one door - including the Mushroom Cult bunker we need to escape this damn game - but also the extremely disgusting quest we're going to do today.



Fortunately, it is a straight shot to the "Technical Rooms", and I think I've made my point with the time wasting random encounters that we're going to skip right there.

I want you to imagine why Maksim might be missing, because you are almost certainly wrong.



Anyway, we are greeted by this man and his dog. You might think "oh, it's a well armed group of bandits". No.



I hope to God none of the people in this bunker are using real people's portraits.



Well, on the plus side, we know where they have Maksim.

: From this moment on I desire more information. Who did you cage?



Oh, so they have man-eating dogs. I mean, i guess that makes sense, this is the violent post-apocalypse after all.

: I'll translate from dummy-speak: there's a normal man from the surface living here? Can I talk to him?



Wait, what?

: Thanks for the info. Now, let us change the subject.



: What is with your gait? Are you hurt?

: [The young man covers his mouth, suddenly afraid to speak for some reason]



: [Personality] It's not bad to talk to a good friend.



This is not going to end well.



: [Speechcraft] I know you want to share your story. Don't be afraid.

: [Success] [The kid's whole frame begins to shudder, and he hits himself in the head several times]

: I won't! I won't! No bad! No bad!

: [You're about to give up after this demonstration of primitive rage, but it seems like it was a trick intended for someone listening in. Because after screaming for a bit, he calms down again and looks comically around before gesturing you to come closer. When you do, the stench of pus, skin disease, and soiled clothes crawls into your sinuses where it snuggles up against you soul. After another quick look around, he whispers:]



I want to screenshot this so I can prove I'm not making this up. There's not enough for this.







: Dios mio! I think I'm going to be sick!

For once Fidel speaks for all of us.

: I also felt sick, teehee!

Why the FUCK is this even in the game? Just wait, it gets worse.

: [After a small pause, the young man realizes he is crying. He wipes the tears away with a confused expression, and continues giddily]



What the actual fuck? If we take the middle option the entire bunker turns hostile and you murder them, which is what I did on my first playthrough. However, for the full ATOM experience we will be talking to the vast majority of these sick fucks (I missed a sister, but do you really want to read that?)

: Uh huh. What's your opinion on your dad's actions?



: Listen... Ummm... No, I have no words. Let's change the subject. Forever.

Is this supposed to be funny? Why is this in the game?



We nope the fuck out of there.


Yea this is actually in the game. Let's get Maksim and get out of there.



We can find this lady in the pantry.



Get away from me witch.

: What's the problem with this Maksim you mentioned?



: I just want to ask you some questions.



: Who are you?



: Okay then. One more question...



: What are you doing here?



I... no. Get away! Get away!

: Umm... You had children before? Where are they?

Once again, I am going to post the screenshot to show I am not making this up.



Why! Why do we need a fucking incest bunker in our funny reference Russian Fallout?



I get it. This is obviously bad, but what purpose does it serve to the story? The best you can say is that it's transgressive and shocking but to what end? What does this incest bunker have to do with the collapse of the Soviet Union? I get a lot of authors use incest as an obvious marker of societal decay, but this is just wallowing in it. It's handled clumsily, and it keeps getting worse.



: Jesus H. Christ... Can I, like, ask you something else?



: What are you doing here?



I miss talking to Manya. I'm kind of glad, honestly.

: Would you look at that. Next question.



: Tell me more about this compound.



If you're getting the impression the kids aren't the brightest bulbs, well... there's a reason for that.

: You greedy girl! Next question...



: What goes on around here?



I think this is supposed to make her more repulsive but we live off giant rat meat. Who the hell knows.

: So no rumors, huh? Okay, bye.


So you can probably guess what happened to poor Maxim, but we have more denizens of this shitty bunker to meet.





: I have a few questions about just that - your family.

Yea she's not gonna help.

: [The woman pouts and her voice grows still quieter]



: Did you know that your husband castrated your only son?

: [The woman's eyes grow wide for a second. Probably, she's remembering some soul crushing images she blotted from her mind in order to maintain her sanity]

How do you make this traumatic nonsense so dull, narrator?



Somehow I missed that first option, Jesus H Christ.

: Did you know that your husband had - Ahem! - an affair with your daughter?

: [The woman tries to answer you, but chokes on her words. She manages to speak on the second attempt]



: She doesn't look all that naive. Tell me the truth.

: [The woman sighs and her shoulders slump]



What the fuck? What the actual FUCK?

: No wonder your kids are so weird.

: [The woman closes her eyes and sighs heavily]

: This is a completely predictable result of my husband's teaching techniques. Vladimir Ivanovich only gave the kids the knowledge they needed to survive. He and I... We believe that teaching children to use all their intellectual capacity would be cruel in this vile new world.

I don't even. Is this supposed to be a parody of the Soviet or post-Soviet education system? The education system for the country that invented the god damn spaceship?



: So your kids acting like demented freaks is what you wanted for them all along? Now that's cruel.

: [The woman laughs with sadness in her eyes]

: Cruel, huh? You know what's cruel? Teaching kids hygiene in a world where there's barely any clean water! Teaching kids to read in a world devoid of book! Teaching kids to play and make friends in a world where every other person is a slaver or a brainless mutant!


: You know what's even more cruel? Educating kids about gas stoves and refrigerators, airplanes and cars, Gagarin's space flight and the wisdom of Marx, Engels, and the immortal Lenin! When all that's left of these things is ash! Everything... just ash! So don't you dare lecture me on cruelty!

How about you shut the fuck up?



See, its funny because Hexogen has an inflated ego. When we are seriously discussing how the mother of the year over here allowed her son to be castrated after the son tried to rape the daughter after they raised him to be a dumbass and he saw his father doing it first. Fuck this quest. Fuck this game.

: You are mistaken, comrade.

: The world is cruel, but if you had not crippled your kids mentally, they would at the very least stand a chance to regain what humanity lost. Now they are part of the problem and not the solution.

...is this a critique of home schooling?



On that, we nope the fuck out.




Let's see what this dipshit has to say for himself.

: Quite an interesting place you've got here. Can I ask some questions?



: Who are you?



: Right, right. Here's another question...



: What are you doing here?

: Like all normal fathers should, I am raising my family to survive the dangers of modern life.

: The only thing normal about this place is the smell of shit. Everything else I've seen and heard is... insane.



Oh fuck you.

: Right. Another question...



: What is this place?

: After the details of my social experiment became public, I had to take a janitorial position here in the metro. All that time I chased rats and screwed in light bulbs, I was cursing my life.



: What was the experiment that got you fired?

: [The man smiles and nods. He's been waiting years on end to share his scientific theories with someone]

There is an irony in him making his kids too stupid to talk about his theories with.

: After many long years educating young people and learning about the quality of their lives after graduation, I made a certain discovery. Only those who excelled at certain things adapted well to society. The others led unremarkable or even contemptible lives. The 60s were kind to men of science, the 70s loved poets, historians and journalists. The 80s asked for warriors and protectors.

: This is the reason why I ignored Communist Party educational standards and changed the lesson plans in all my classes. No Languages, no Arts, no Music, no History. They only received lessons in sports, they were forced to learn sport shooting and firearms maintenance, and they crafted weapons and armor from scrap metal and refuse instead of wasting time on Math.

: I was only able to keep up this course of instruction for a few months before the parents and the authorities found me out. They said school was a place for higher learning, not grunt work. As if that was a bad thing! What did they know about teaching!



: What a weirdo theory... Ahem! I meant to say, can I ask another question?

I think this is a homeschooling joke? It's still fucking disgusting.

: Have you heard anything interesting lately?



Oh, yes, we will get to poor Maksim.

: Sad, that. Let me ask you something else.



: Let's change the subject.



: I would like to talk about this family of yours.



: I could not help but notice that your kids' behavior is rather bizarre.

: [Vladimir Ivanovich shakes his head]



: How the hell are they survivors? Your teenage son acts like a mentally ill child.

: [Vladimir Ivanovich chuckles at you with a contemptous leer]



Oh fuck off.



: [Intellect] A highly developed intellect will benefit from knowledge and mental acumen even in an undeveloped world.

: [A wicked fire lights up in Vladimir Ivanovich's eyes. Despite his flaws, this is a smart man, and he's hungry for an intellectually stimulating debate. There is, however, contempt in his gaze as well]



Ok I am 99% sure this is meant to be a parody of the "profiled" educators, which is not something I can speak to re the Russian curriculum. It is deeply unfunny and offensive.

: [Intellect][Speechcraft][Personality] Let me show you how wrong you are...

We need 9 personality to pull this off. Maybe I could have burned items to get there, but that sounds like a job for a pacifist and we are absolutely executing this motherfucker.





: You can read minds, huh? Then what color am I thinking of? Never mind, let's just change the subject.

skip some menus.



: Why did you castrate your son?

: Pavka told you about the operation yes? Well... it looks like we must discuss this with our son. Why did you ask him, anyway? What business is it of yours? I did it because what my son attempted would have brought us nothing but regret. I... defused him, made him safe.

Jesus fuck! I in no way shape or form want to defend what Pavka tried to do to his sister, but it is notable he only tried that because he was raised to be stupid as hell and saw this disgusting man do it first.

: You actually believe that? You made your own child into a cripple!

: Because of the way he was raised, Pavka will never realize the full horror of what I did. He hasn't the morality to know it was immoral. He has no concept of normalcy, so he will never see himself as lacking something useful.



I'm with Fidel here, but the hole keeps getting deeper.

: What kind of a monster are you? Raping your own daughter.

: [Vladimir Ivanovich looks away]

: Please, understand that the things I did brought me more pleasure. I wanted to repopulate the planet with the seed of my loins, to become the leader of a tribe of evolved men and women who would be ready for the harsh reality outside. I only learned later that there were other sane survivors above, and all of this was before I discovered my seed was incompatible with my daughters genes.



Ok, you did it because you wanted power instead of being horny, you piece of trash.



Fuck. You.

: Ahhh, you have the perfect fallacy on your side, comrade monster! Oh child, we cannot help this family. They are too far gone. There's only one cure for them and it comes in nine grams of lead.



I am very tempted to take option 1, but we need to find Maksim first.

Well, ok, we don't, but... I end the conversation here.




This is poor Maksim.

: Oh man, oh man, oh man! Finally, a normal person! Oh, man! Dude, I thought I'd die in this shit hole bunker. Brother, I'm beggin' ya, please get me out of here.

We got your back homie.



So, yes, if you haven't figured it out, Valya is raping Maxim.

: Saving you sounds like the right thing to do. Let's talk about it.

He has four questions I skip.

: [The man sobs and gives you a double dose of wide puppy dog eyes, full of hope]

: I beg of you, please, get me out of this mess. They don't feed me, they don't give me water, they only say I have to make babies with that fat chick.



: They're totally nuts! I once saw that dumb looking kid tear into a live rat with his teeth and eat it, guts, fur and all. And my so-called sister in law? She's what, like eighteen? Well she shits her pants regularly! They're not normal, you hear me? I bet they're planning to cook me up and eat me, or maybe even skip the cooking part! Oh, man! Just please, save me!

Dude, you didn't even need to speculate, the way of the Cossack Sword does not leave innocent people behind in incest rape dungeons.



Alexander. Alexander, what the FUCK?

Also, the sister in law I didn't talk to apparently wants to escape from this place and has a similarly traumatic backstory. I am not reloading to play this shithole bunker again.

: Have you seen that "beauty"? Ugh.



: I'm not lying whatsoever this time, not at all. I don't believe genius skips a generation. I'm not counting on my grandchildren to write novels I will then claim as my own, and I'm especially NOT planning to hire a prostitute to steal my child's seed to fashion a genetically superior, younger version of me! Why would I? I don't want an heir at all, one small thing from my existence to carry on after I die, a successor to my life's work...

Are we really making a crack about Hexogen hiring a prostitute to rape his kid in the fucking incest rape dungeon?

: What is he on about? This old dude would fit right in with this wack-job family.





We can lie so that he runs out and gets killed by these wackos, but we're not doing that.




Bear retroactively wins the argument with a convincing appeal to force.



This causes the entire family to go hostile, but I don't think there's anything you can actually do for the kids.



It's... not great, honestly! Valya is a rapist, but she's also a victim of horrific abuse.



I at least get dog armor from the penis eating dogs. Look, the ATOM writers put that into the game.



The son also dies.



We can report back to Maksim now.



: Yeah, I'm here to talk about that.



: I killed those sad bastards. You're free to go.

: [Maksim exhales his relief and claps you on the shoulder]



: Thank Agatha as well. It was she who sent me.



: Best of luck, kiddo.




We deliver Gosha's message to his brother, which nearly starts a fight.



We got played again! Ha ha!



Maxim insists we take a huge reward for our troubles.



That's it! That's the quest!

I haven't had too much to say because honestly ATOM is just wallowing in its own filth here. It doesn't need me to explain that when the writing is just so abhorrently dogshit. I suppose we can extend the ATOM writers credit they absolutely do not deserve after shit like the Pizzagate quest and the General Nasty quest and all the alt-right crap, because I am sure more ATOM fans are going to wander into the thread and point out that writers like Faulkner use incest as a theme to show moral decay and this quest is all about how in the absence of the Soviet Union's great culture we get this incest shit. Hell, even Game of Thrones uses stuff like Jaime and Cersei's incestual experimentation to characterize the Lannisters and the society of the Seven Kingdoms as decadent and corrupt. The problem is that Faulkner is using it to show how the South suffers from the original sin of slavery, and sexuality in Faulkner is never portrayed as titillating or a transgressive shock for the purposes of shock.

The problem is that this is so over the top and, in true ATOM fashion, lets the player wallow in the trash. It is broadly comparable to R. Scott Bakker's nonsense where his orcs are for adults because they cut new orifices to rape people with. Both Bakker and ATOM portray the rape and incest as bad, but it's a lazy way to convey abhorrence because it's just abusing shock at disgusting transgressions. ATOM goes one further by having Hexogen make a rape joke while poor Maksim is begging you to get him out of the rape dungeon. Furthermore, ATOM really doesn't have any credit left to stand on. We can accept something like Joffrey murdering the prostitute in Game of Thrones because the early seasons are carried by the cast, we have no patience for ATOM because it's wasted enough time with unfunny references and abhorrent garbage. Yes, Fidel wants to kill the father because he rightly understands that this questline is abhorrent, and both father and mother spew crap about how this is caused by the trauma of their world and the cycle of abuse and yadda yadda yadda, but this is just such a random inclusion in a game filled with random bullshit. Faulkner is about how the South is decaying and insular due to the legacy of slavery and the inbred aristocracy. Game of Thrones is about how terrible a lust for power is when unshackled from any constraints or considerations. Even Bakker can be generously considered to write about the horror of a world without free will where if you know what levers to pull you can make anyone do anything (although his recent works have disproven that notion). ATOM is about nothing except hiding behind the funny references and a conspiracy you cannot interact with in any way. This quest adds nothing. It does not flesh out the setting, it does not flesh out the characters whom we never see again, it's just transgressive and offensive shlock to disguise the underlying laziness and ineptitude of the developers. Fuck this quest, and fuck this game!

Next time: The Postman Conspiracy returns!