Lonesome Road: Existentialism in Fallout 2

War. War never changes. It seems no mat­ter the era, human­i­ty will always sav­age itself for resources, shel­ter, land, or any­thing else that grants power or sur­viv­abil­i­ty. In the Fallout series, the play­er sets off alone to explore the Wasteland that once was America, and along hir jour­ney must tan­gle with the worst the species has to offer, be it can­ni­bal­is­tic raiders, ruth­less war­lords, or the last, dilut­ed rem­nants of the gov­ern­ment.

Fallout, as a series, is all about defin­ing your life in the face of the utter mad­ness and mean­ing­less­ness of exis­tence. The games are not con­tent to demon­strate that the sum of exis­tence is worth­less, or else there would be noth­ing worth fight­ing for and there would be no end­ing influ­enced by play­er action. You as play­er are thrust into a world you do not under­stand, whose soci­ety only bare­ly resem­bles our own, and you must decide what is impor­tant in this world, what deserves sav­ing and what should be left to die.

In the Fallout series, you assume the role of a Protagonist (Large P, so…well, you get it by now), who must embark upon the Main Quest, that is, the main plot of the game, which, once resolved, ush­ers in the meta-apocalypse that is the end of the game. Each of these Protagonists is dif­fer­ent, faces dif­fer­ent chal­lenges and cir­cum­stances. But in between the open­ing and end­ing, each read in Ron Perlman’s Bastion-esque nar­ra­to­r­i­al style, the player’s agency is just about unlim­it­ed. So unlim­it­ed, in fact, as to seem ter­ri­fy­ing.

In con­sid­er­ing the ter­ror the Wasteland rep­re­sents, I am remind­ed of the Whiteness of the Whale, as expressed by Ishmael in Moby-Dick. Ishmael express­es ter­ror with regards to the whale, specif­i­cal­ly nam­ing its white­ness of color as its most fright­en­ing fea­ture. Here “white­ness” is an anal­o­gy to the unknown, mys­te­ri­ous aspect of nature, that which is both pow­er­ful and not-human. The great white unknown of the whale, utter­ly pow­er­ful and nat­ur­al, has dri­ven Ahab mad, and chances are good that many will lose their life in its pur­suit. In much the same way, the Wasteland is ter­ri­fy­ing because it is so vast and lethal. The gray of nuclear ash is a fit­ting like­ness of the dread whale’s white­ness. The Wasteland, like the whale, rep­re­sents an unknown that could, just as eas­i­ly as not, eat your face and leave, as your epi­taph, a belch as it search­es for the next poor schmuck to devour.

Exploring the Wasteland, the Protagonist encoun­ters a grim rever­sal of humanity’s dom­i­na­tion of nature; crea­tures are much big­ger and hardier after the bomb. The nat­ur­al world has sur­vived and radi­a­tion has made the sur­vivors very fit indeed, includ­ing mole rats the size of dogs and hell­ish mutat­ed igua­nas that pose a sig­nif­i­cant threat to the strug­gling human pop­u­la­tion. It is easy to grow com­pla­cent when human­i­ty has final­ly learned how to build our own caves, heat and cool them regard­less of sea­son or time of day, and are only required to hunt and gath­er for the best bar­gains at the gro­cery store, but the fact of the mat­ter is, nature doesn’t care about us and will eat us if we are not care­ful.

If you, read­er, would think back over the hero­ic sto­ries you have enjoyed, you might be sur­prised to real­ize how many of them fol­low the typ­i­cal arc of the “Coming-of-Age Story.” The for­mu­la is sim­ple enough, and so ubiq­ui­tous that I won’t both­er to relate it here. The coming-of-age arc is one which lends itself very well to gam­ing, incor­po­rat­ing as it does the Protagonist’s rise in power/ability/importance in the world. It is note­wor­thy, then, that the Fallout games do not fea­ture coming-of-age nar­ra­tives. Fallout’s pro­tag­o­nists have noth­ing to prove. It is gen­er­al­ly safe to con­clude that any coming-of-age arc in the life of a given Protagonist has already hap­pened. You, the Protagonist, are not embark­ing upon a jour­ney of self-discovery or a vision-quest. You are already an adult, and you know who you are (a respectable set of skills is even defined by the play­er at the open­ing of the game as a rule).

The strug­gle in the Fallout games seems to be wrestling with the demands of adult­hood, rather than com­ing into it. You are called to take a stand in a world that is much larg­er than you and your con­cerns. You may want a water chip for your vault, to find and get answers from your dead­beat dad, or get your hands around the throat of the bas­tard who shot you, but your needs are sec­ondary to a mas­sive Super Mutant army breath­ing down the col­lec­tive neck of civ­i­liza­tion, a strug­gle for con­trol of the world’s clean water sup­ply, or the inevitable grudge match between two great armies. By the end, a high­er pur­pose is served, and the Protagonist moves, acts, and bleeds for some­thing greater than hir­self.

Unlike coming-of-age nar­ra­tives, which involve the theme of grow­ing into self and accep­tance of respon­si­bil­i­ty, the Protagonists of the Fallout series are thrust into the fore­front of the game nar­ra­tive for some qual­i­ty they already pos­sess. It might be that ze is judged to be the only one capa­ble of solv­ing a given prob­lem, or the des­tiny of Protagonism might be foist­ed upon hir because of who ze is. The Fallout Protagonists can be viewed, then, as the odd one out, vic­tims of the luck of the draw. The Vault Dweller (of Fallout) was given his job because he was con­sid­ered the right man for it, the best equipped to sur­vive in the Wasteland, even though noth­ing in Vault life could have pre­pared him for what he would find out­side its impos­ing metal door. The Chosen One (Fallout 2) is the grand­child of the Vault Dweller, a vic­tim of hered­i­ty whose lin­eage is thought to carry with it a spe­cial des­tiny. The Lone Wanderer (Fallout 3) is just a kid whose dad broke open the frag­ile ecosys­tem of Vault 101, and who gets inex­orably drawn into a risky exper­i­ment that (unless ze is not a total douchebag and assum­ing the Player has not installed the Broken Steel DLC) ulti­mate­ly claims hir life. The Courier (Fallout: New Vegas) is just some guy or gal who took a strange job and got burned for it. The Fallout Protagonists are remark­able in that they could be one of us if we too grew up in a post-end-of-world world.

As I have played much more of Fallout: New Vegas than any other title to date, the exploits of the Courier are fresh­est in my mind, and so I will spend a lit­tle time dis­cussing the Mojave’s favorite lit­tle mail-person that could. More so than those of the other Protagonists, the Courier’s jour­ney exem­pli­fies com­ing to terms with one’s own mor­tal­i­ty and place in the uni­verse. The game opens with the Courier tied up, kneel­ing on the ground, and get­ting shot in the head (and is arguably one of the most kick-ass open­ers a game has ever had). The rest of the game, then, can be read as one man or woman’s recov­ery from a near-death expe­ri­ence and com­ing to terms with hir own mor­tal­i­ty. After wak­ing up from get­ting shot in the head, the Courier chas­es hir attack­er, Benny, across the Mojave desert, right­ing wrongs or wrong­ing rights, depend­ing, until final­ly con­fronting Benny in his casi­no, where­upon ze finds out what’s real­ly going on. From there, the Courier must decide the fate of Vegas, the Mojave, and the two armies bat­tling for con­trol of each. And all because of a stu­pid lit­tle job.

The main game of New Vegas is a rich text indeed, but it is con­cerned with the Courier’s role in events larg­er than hir­self, out­side of hir direct sphere of expe­ri­ence. The Courier is truly given hir due in the four DLC titles, which, when con­sid­ered holis­ti­cal­ly, rep­re­sents an arc of later-life growth, a path of char­ac­ter devel­op­ment much as might hap­pen after one has been con­front­ed with one’s own mor­tal­i­ty.

The cir­cum­stances of the titles are too many for this arti­cle, and, as I believe New Vegas to be one of the most impor­tant titles I’ve ever played, I urge you to expe­ri­ence it for your­self; I do not wish to spoil. Instead, I will sup­ply you with the lessons that the Courier is to derive from hir expe­ri­ences in these astound­ing, pro­found novel­las. Dead Money’s admo­ni­tion is sim­ple: Let go of the past. Move for­ward, and do not build for for­ev­er as for­ev­er will out­last you. To be trapped in the past is death, and will con­sume you. Honest Hearts shows that, in your life, there are times when you are respon­si­ble for the fates of oth­ers. Though the cir­cum­stances might not affect you in the slight­est, you have the moral imper­a­tive to choose wise­ly. Old World Blues cau­tions against attempt­ing to grow too wise; too much knowl­edge blinds one to real­i­ty. All there is can­not be known, and the blind pur­suit of Knowledge can lead to one’s loss of human­i­ty. Finally, the les­son of Lonesome Road is that the road you walk in life, though you may walk it by your­self, is never walked alone. Your actions, how­ev­er triv­ial they may be in the moment, have con­se­quences that extend much fur­ther than you can fath­om, and you can hurt peo­ple with the small­est care­less­ness. This is dif­fer­ent than Honest Hearts, where dis­pas­sion­ate choic­es can make or break oth­ers’ for­tunes. Lonesome Road is specif­i­cal­ly a day of reck­on­ing, a judg­ment day near the end of your Courier’s life for hir sins. To own the con­se­quences of your actions is the final les­son New Vegas teach­es you, and it is per­haps the most impor­tant, for in this world, much like the Mojave, your actions, your choic­es, define you and are all you have to show for your­self.

When con­front­ed with the vast unfair­ness and sense­less­ness that is the Wasteland, it is impos­si­ble to escape the insan­i­ty that per­vades it. Nuclear holo­caust and insan­i­ty go hand-in-hand, as seen in such film clas­sics as Dr. Strangelove, where humanity’s era­sure by mush­room cloud is treat­ed, not with mock­ery, but with madness-in-the-face-of-dread. One of the Fallout series’ most endear­ing qual­i­ties is its odd­ball humor. The games have moments of com­plete wack­i­ness which are sim­ply accept­ed at face-value. Taking the Wild Wasteland perk in New Vegas fur­ther adds to the zani­ness, allow­ing the Courier to wit­ness even more bizarre occur­rences than usual. In my cur­rent playthrough, my Courier was assault­ed by a gang of old ladies who attempt­ed to shake me down with rolling pins. Think about that for a moment.

In our world, much like the alter­nate world of Fallout, life as we know it can end in a flash. You are con­front­ed with fucked-up shit on a daily basis; the hor­rors of human evil and suf­fer­ing are just there, and noth­ing you or any­one can do will stop them. Life is mad­ness, and yet you must live. Fallout’s treat­ment of the human con­di­tion is sub­tle, but effec­tive. There is no escap­ing the mad­ness of exis­tence, nor is there any com­bat­ing it (although the pack of grannies were most com­bat­able). It is there, whether you like it or not, and you must engage it.

At the same time, the temp­ta­tion is great to sim­ply sit back and hide, to “tun­nel”, if you will. Existential tun­nel­ing of course has its ben­e­fits, and is some­times imper­a­tive to sur­vival; if the Vault Dwellers hadn’t buried them­selves under­ground, human­i­ty would have been much worse off than it is in the time of the games. Even when the need to ven­ture forth is greater than the need to stay shel­tered, the safe­ty of the Cave –er, Vault, is dif­fi­cult to over­come.

In every major title since Fallout 2, the play­er is greet­ed with an ini­tial load­ing screen (that is the open­ing text of the game) com­mand­ing the play­er to “PLEASE STAND BY.” This is no mere loading-screen text, but a call to sur­ren­der to the bleak­ness of the Wastes and with­draw into the com­forts of Vault-Tec and its state-of-the-art Vaults. But Vault-Tec can­not pro­tect you for­ev­er; even­tu­al­ly, your water chip will mal­func­tion, or your dad will get one of his moon-eyed ideas and do some­thing crazy, or some other force will pull you out from your shel­ter and force you to con­front the world. And it will suck, and it will be scary, but at the same time, you must con­front it, because war? War never changes. Its hor­rors will always be there, and hid­ing under­ground will never change that.