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The Growing Population of Raiders

  • Member
    April 12, 2017

    I know what you mean. To answer your question, yes, quite simply I do think that raiders were well served by Nuka-World because if not there would be nothing to help them. The raider settlement system, lots of raider gear, raider objects, raider weapons/armor, etc. are totally worth the negatives.

    As far as what is missing yes I mean we all know that Fallout 4 is really lacking in the ability to truly play a dark character but really all Bethesda games have become more....PG-13 over the last few cycles. I can be "evil" in Skyrim but a lot of that is roleplay and a few items/abilities. Fallout 4 really isn't too far off that. It is just that voiced protagist reading lines with a tone that is completely against what you might use in your head if you heard them say nothing.

    In the real world raiders would be some dark sons of bitches. I will again call back to using things like the Walking Dead. Negan would be a great example of a raider, and probubly a very sucessful one at that. Raiders are really used in too many comedic ways sadly. In a more realistic setting raiders should scare the crap out of a settler even more than a ghoul or a super mutant. Yeah those things might want to kill you but a raider.....ooo and raider can and will do sooooo much worse to you than just kill you. Thats what is missing with Nuka-World. Raiders are...cartoonized? Is that word? Close enough. Sad but thats why it is up to us and our builds, roleplay, playthroughs and lore articles to give that realism and depth to the game world we all love so much.

  • Member
    April 12, 2017

    Amor - that's it exactly - Disneyfied / cartoniized. 

  • Member
    April 12, 2017

    I second...er...third your idea Amornar. Super Mutants and raiders I feel have both been given this comical nature. Sure we see a bunch of decapitated corpses hanging around by chains in their camps, but I feel like evil dialogue and nature is lacking for them. But again, this kind of points back to your original point Amornar: if in theory we just have the bottom of a line of raiders that stemmed from even before the war, not every raider is going to be completely sadistic and crazy. Sure they do some scary shit, but that's all apart of the fear factor. Most are still just average humans trying to get by. We see this with the well known scene of a raider burying his buddy and lamenting over it. They're not all bad people per say, they just resort to evil methods. But again, they do still have that cartoony feel to them that doesn't exactly contribute to my point. I'm lovin all these thoughts and opinions on stuff, thank you to everyone who has contributed to this article!

  • April 14, 2017

    I honestly have trouble understanding why there are so many raiders in the wasteland. They have guns and numbers, sure, but many are violent and unpredictable drug addicts that straight up murder each other for something as simple as talking too much. See the Hardware Town ambush. Anyone who becomes a raider at this point, 200 years after the bombs fell, is doing so because they want to participate in the anarchy or because they have literally no other options. I don't believe anyone would choose the life of raiding when other options are present. So the sheer number of raiders is either Bethesda exposing their dwindling creativity or a bleak commentary on the evil nature of humans. 

    Raiders sleep on diseased mattresses, have inconsistent and unreliable infrastructure, live amongst dead and decaying bodies, have no medical professionals at their disposal, have no consistent sources of food and water beyond what they can steal, and I'm willing to bet that many of them OD on Jet, Psycho, Med-X, and so on. If they run out of innocent civilians to steal from, they will turn on each other. They already do. Raiders can't win this war and I can't get over how many there are. Unless they're having children with an alarmingly high successful birth rate or abducting slaves to force into raiding, I simply don't see a reasonable explanation for their numbers. This long after the war, after the gangs have had enough time to splinter, dominate territory, and evolve into their own subcultures, they're still stuck as just "raiders."

    Sometimes a Diamond City guards will mention that the raider gangs are fighting over some sort of territory, I think it's downtown. I can't remember the exact quote, but he does mention raider gangs fighting for dominance over a territory. The problem is, they're all just "raiders". There's no gang names! There's literally zero identifying qualities to separate a raider in south east from a raider in the north west. 

    So why are there so many raiders? Because Bethesda thought it was good enough to give us one type of raider. If raider gangs had distinguishable features, my answer would be completely different, but this has been a thorn in my side ever since I first played. It's a wasted opportunity. 

    And why do people choose to become a raider? Because they're morally corrupt anarchists or have literally no other choice. 

    Now I'm the bleak one. 

  • Member
    April 14, 2017

    *Cracks knuckles* Alright....I have some thoughts about this post so bear with me. :)

    Legion said:

    I honestly have trouble understanding why there are so many raiders in the wasteland. They have guns and numbers, sure, but many are violent and unpredictable drug addicts that straight up murder each other for something as simple as talking too much. See the Hardware Town ambush. Anyone who becomes a raider at this point, 200 years after the bombs fell, is doing so because they want to participate in the anarchy or because they have literally no other options. I don't believe anyone would choose the life of raiding when other options are present. So the sheer number of raiders is either Bethesda exposing their dwindling creativity or a bleak commentary on the evil nature of humans. 

    Raiders sleep on diseased mattresses, have inconsistent and unreliable infrastructure, live amongst dead and decaying bodies, have no medical professionals at their disposal, have no consistent sources of food and water beyond what they can steal, and I'm willing to bet that many of them OD on Jet, Psycho, Med-X, and so on. If they run out of innocent civilians to steal from, they will turn on each other. They already do. Raiders can't win this war and I can't get over how many there are. Unless they're having children with an alarmingly high successful birth rate or abducting slaves to force into raiding, I simply don't see a reasonable explanation for their numbers. This long after the war, after the gangs have had enough time to splinter, dominate territory, and evolve into their own subcultures, they're still stuck as just "raiders."

    Sometimes a Diamond City guards will mention that the raider gangs are fighting over some sort of territory, I think it's downtown. I can't remember the exact quote, but he does mention raider gangs fighting for dominance over a territory. The problem is, they're all just "raiders". There's no gang names! There's literally zero identifying qualities to separate a raider in south east from a raider in the north west. 

    So why are there so many raiders? Because Bethesda thought it was good enough to give us one type of raider. If raider gangs had distinguishable features, my answer would be completely different, but this has been a thorn in my side ever since I first played. It's a wasted opportunity. 

    And why do people choose to become a raider? Because they're morally corrupt anarchists or have literally no other choice. 

    Now I'm the bleak one. 

    First to get out of the way and as a bit of a disclaimed I completely agree with Bethesda blanket whitewashing all raiders into one homogenous enemy for you to fight rather than taking the time and giving each raider gang its own unique weapons, armor, decorations, etc. like they did in Nuka-World. In the lore of the game I am sure Bosco's raiders would be extremelly different from Jared's raiders, Zeller's army, etc. Lazy and causes all raiders to feel like one bland group.

    Now then, for your main question of why would people choose to become a raider. In no means do I want to sound like some expert sitting up high in his ivory tower lording over the downtroden but I believe I have some real life experiance that is pertenant to how humanity has so massivly devolved into the raider-world that is the Commonwealth. In real life I live in a very rural area, lots of farm land, many, many, many people live below the poverty line. I also happen to work in the mental health field so I spend a lot of my time working with people that fit into this population (lets just say rich people would not utilize my agency's services). Now comes the part that will come off has hypocritical and potentially divisive. A very large majority of my clients would be raiders if the world devolved into a real world wasteland. While my community would certainly have farmers (it is rural I said), settlers, and other peaceful people; raiders would be a big problem. Now why do I bring this up? If we took many (there will always be exceptions) communities like mine as a snapshot of the world I would be willing to bet we would find similar ratios of people who have the potential to grab a gun over a shovel and a tato when when the tough gets going. Even if a majority of people decided to be good and decent and honest when the bombs drop and survival becomes your all consuming desire, any minority willing to simply take what they want at the point of a gun will quickly overwhelm the landscape.

    Now then, all that considered, we are not talking about the real world we are talking about the fictional world of Fallout. Here we have government that condones companies like Vault-Tec to do any and all unspeakable and horrific social experiments on people, we have corporations abducting homeless people and subjecting them to dangerous chemical testing, businesses dumping truckload after truckload of nuclear waste into your local fishing hole, prison inmates being cut up and made into homocidal robotic horrors and everything else we find in the wasteland. This is not a happy place and is built up as a very dark and negative view on humanity from the developers own stories. If such things are the norm in this dark pseudo-futuristic landscape how can we be suprised that the decendents of these corporate monsters would be anything but raiders.

    As I type this the old saying "nice guys finish last" comes to mind. I cannot think of a more apt metaphor for this topic. In the world of Fallout good guys die. Given everything trying to kill you in this world its a wonder we have as many people still willing to pick a mutfruit as we do. Sadly, again we get that blanket whitewas of raiders by Bethesda to expedite and streamline game development that is as Legion put it, "a wasted opportunity" in which they could have really made the raider system something you could influence helping and hurting rival gangs, joining sides, backstabing, taking over territory, exerting influence, building up raider settlements that have more meaning and get attacked and must be defended from rival gangs much the same way people have modded the civil war in Skyrim to work only with 50 factions instead of just 2. Maybe next time. :)

    Hope that wasn't too long and too dark a perspective on humanity's capacity for morality.

    -Amo

  • April 15, 2017

    Amornar said:

    *Cracks knuckles* Alright....I have some thoughts about this post so bear with me. :)

    First to get out of the way and as a bit of a disclaimed I completely agree with Bethesda blanket whitewashing all raiders into one homogenous enemy for you to fight rather than taking the time and giving each raider gang its own unique weapons, armor, decorations, etc. like they did in Nuka-World. In the lore of the game I am sure Bosco's raiders would be extremelly different from Jared's raiders, Zeller's army, etc. Lazy and causes all raiders to feel like one bland group.

    Now then, for your main question of why would people choose to become a raider. In no means do I want to sound like some expert sitting up high in his ivory tower lording over the downtroden but I believe I have some real life experiance that is pertenant to how humanity has so massivly devolved into the raider-world that is the Commonwealth. In real life I live in a very rural area, lots of farm land, many, many, many people live below the poverty line. I also happen to work in the mental health field so I spend a lot of my time working with people that fit into this population (lets just say rich people would not utilize my agency's services). Now comes the part that will come off has hypocritical and potentially divisive. A very large majority of my clients would be raiders if the world devolved into a real world wasteland. While my community would certainly have farmers (it is rural I said), settlers, and other peaceful people; raiders would be a big problem. Now why do I bring this up? If we took many (there will always be exceptions) communities like mine as a snapshot of the world I would be willing to bet we would find similar ratios of people who have the potential to grab a gun over a shovel and a tato when when the tough gets going. Even if a majority of people decided to be good and decent and honest when the bombs drop and survival becomes your all consuming desire, any minority willing to simply take what they want at the point of a gun will quickly overwhelm the landscape.

    Now then, all that considered, we are not talking about the real world we are talking about the fictional world of Fallout. Here we have government that condones companies like Vault-Tec to do any and all unspeakable and horrific social experiments on people, we have corporations abducting homeless people and subjecting them to dangerous chemical testing, businesses dumping truckload after truckload of nuclear waste into your local fishing hole, prison inmates being cut up and made into homocidal robotic horrors and everything else we find in the wasteland. This is not a happy place and is built up as a very dark and negative view on humanity from the developers own stories. If such things are the norm in this dark pseudo-futuristic landscape how can we be suprised that the decendents of these corporate monsters would be anything but raiders.

    As I type this the old saying "nice guys finish last" comes to mind. I cannot think of a more apt metaphor for this topic. In the world of Fallout good guys die. Given everything trying to kill you in this world its a wonder we have as many people still willing to pick a mutfruit as we do. Sadly, again we get that blanket whitewas of raiders by Bethesda to expedite and streamline game development that is as Legion put it, "a wasted opportunity" in which they could have really made the raider system something you could influence helping and hurting rival gangs, joining sides, backstabing, taking over territory, exerting influence, building up raider settlements that have more meaning and get attacked and must be defended from rival gangs much the same way people have modded the civil war in Skyrim to work only with 50 factions instead of just 2. Maybe next time. :)

    Hope that wasn't too long and too dark a perspective on humanity's capacity for morality.

    -Amo

    Holy shit, GOOD POINTS. Like, all around. I've never had those experiences so your perspecitve is incredibly valuable to me! It reminds of GABOS, "game ain't based on symapthy." I only know that from a Louis Theroux documentary but it stuck with me, so I think understand what you're getting at. 

    And you know, I was thinking of New Vegas the whole time I was critisizing the FO4 blanket raiders. I know they had at least a few. Fiends, Jackals...Vipers? Enough that there was pretty clear territorial lines and unique-ish attributes. 

     

  • Member
    April 15, 2017
    Thanks. I didn't want to come off as all gloomy and pessimistic but from my life experience raiders could very well be a thing come the end and you combine that with the world Bethesda crested and yea....raiders, raiders everywhere. Still really really wished the gave identities to all the different gangs.....which may or may not be something I address in my build I'm working on ironically lol.
  • April 15, 2017

    You didn't come off as gloomy to me. That's hard to do anyway. But you know what? Just that little bit of insight does give raiders a bit more life. I can actually see a some possible characterization for raiders now, in builds, RP, in stories. It could be really interesting territory to explore. I'll keep an eye out for that build of yours and possibly start my own in the mean time. If not now, then in the next couple months anyway. Any chance you're willing to give a sneak peak on your plans to give identities to the gangs? 

  • Member
    April 15, 2017

    A teaser....I don't want to give too much away so how about just the names for my 22 raider gangs the build either controls or creates.......

    The Forged

    The Rust Devils

    The Pack

    The Disciples

    The Operators

    The Red Butchers

    The Shipbreakers

    The Black Marauders

    The Bloodclaws

    The Mariners

    The Void Reapers

    The Radroaches

    The Sea Snakes

    The Giggling Ghouls

    The Deathclaws

    The Nukalurks

    The Hellhounds

    The Atom’s Wolves

    The Nightstalkers

    The Kegcrushers

    The Iron Guard

    The Stormblades

     

    Sorry to hijack the thread Madd!

     

    Ooo and one last thought to keep in mind about how raider culture is seemingly so common in the present time. After 200 years of having raiders the "norm" that we might think of today is likely very different. To us, a brutal chem loving group of gun waving maniacs is insane and improbable. However 200 years of generations upon generations of raiders being "a thing" means no one has any concept of what life must be like without raider cultures being extremelly prevalant other than the player character, and perhaps some of the Institute's members who have little surface knowledge. For example we think of electricty today as being....everywhere, everything runs that way, virtually every place in our world is wired up....despite electricity only being around for a little over 100 years.....more food for thought. :)

  • April 16, 2017

    Ooo and one last thought to keep in mind about how raider culture is seemingly so common in the present time. After 200 years of having raiders the "norm" that we might think of today is likely very different. To us, a brutal chem loving group of gun waving maniacs is insane and improbable. However 200 years of generations upon generations of raiders being "a thing" means no one has any concept of what life must be like without raider cultures being extremelly prevalant other than the player character, and perhaps some of the Institute's members who have little surface knowledge. For example we think of electricty today as being....everywhere, everything runs that way, virtually every place in our world is wired up....despite electricity only being around for a little over 100 years.....more food for thought. :)

    Good point! God, I sound like I'm from the Institute now. Hmm. I'm sure I'll have more thoughts on this later. You've given me new things to turn over. Could reignite my desire to throw in FO4.