Because they release the whole season at once, that complicates discussing the show. People watch at different rates, which means that if we just have 1 thread, someone might be talking about episode 8 a day after the show is released when other people are trying to talk about episode one. It’s confusing and easy to spoil. Since there are only 8 episodes, I decided I’d just create a discussion thread for each individual episode.
Spoiler policy: Anything in this episode and any previous episodes are open spoilers. Please do not discuss what happens in later episodes in this thread. Rather, go to the thread for that episode and discuss it there. Assume that everyone who is reading this thread has only seen up until the episode in the title. General discussion about the whole series after you’ve watched all the episode can go in the episode 8 thread.
Aspirant Dane was referred to as “their” by the elder cleric. Are they supposed to be non-binary? I have a feeling that’s gonna make some alt-right snowflakes upset.
I don’t recall the Brotherhood of Steel ever being portrayed as overtly religious before, but the “clerics” have a very Eastern Orthodox church style to them. Feels a little more Canticle For Leibowitz-y than their portrayal in the games. I also don’t recall “squires” being portrayed as literal squires carrying their knight’s gear around for them, but I guess that makes sense since video game logic doesn’t apply here and a lone fighter in power armor can’t carry around hundreds of pounds of guns and meds and such all by himself in real life.
They did a good job of hinting that there’s something not-quite-right about the Vault 32 dwellers before the raider reveal, what with their having rough facial features and their bad table manners and “Monty” being fascinated by Vault hardware and not knowing his sperm count.
Speaking of which, the fascination with reproduction and the apparently commonplace nature of cousin incest is a pretty good indication of what Vault 31/32/33’s experiment was supposed to be - three independent environments without an internally sustainable population in and of themselves, forced to exchange fertile citizens to maintain genetic diversity, much like the hypothetical colony ships the Enclave was planning to build before the war would have been.
They’re definitely playing loose with canon - the Great War starts in mid-afternoon on the west coast, but in Fallout 4 it starts in mid-morning in Boston. I’ve read that the creators of the show have stated they don’t plan on being fully beholden to game canon, so I’m just gonna assume the games are a vague backstory to what we’re seeing rather than word of God.
The idea that chickens are so abhorrent to feral ghouls that they can be used to tell whether or not a ghoul has gone feral is a great piece of lore.
I liked the inclusion of the Junk Jet. Most of the weapons I’ve seen so far are right from the games and I appreciate the attention to detail.
That’s cool if you enjoy the series. For those of us who have no interest, creating 8 separate threads for one TV show just creates massive clutter in the “Latest” thread list. I wish people didn’t do this. I’ve now had to mute 8 different threads.
This is a thread shit. If you think the idea violates the rules, report it. If you just think the idea is annoying, start a thread in ATMB, with a link. But this is not an appropriate discussion to have in this thread.
Everyone, please return to the topic of the thread.
The Brotherhood of Steel was a bit of a shock. The games tended to portray them as modern and somewhat professional, not too much different from the behavior within a modern army. But then again, in the games you see the Brotherhood from the outside, so the rather more harsh and medieval internal behavior might be covered up for the player.
Thank you, that must be what is up. I couldn’t figure how the other vault got there unless they walked across the wasteland to get there.
Were there three vaults involved?
Two questions from only watching episode 1:
What was up with the Moisés Arias’ character. He kept giving looks to the overseer from the other vault like…we were supposed to suspect him. Turns out, he had no idea.
When Moises Arias character, I think, ran into one room, he saw a decayed body missing a leg. What was our takeaway from this?
I also started out thinking “Wait, Vaults aren’t connected” but the general consensus seems to be that it’s three Mini-Vaults as a social experiment which would also explain the seemingly small population of Vault 33. Based on the wedding scene, anyway.
Still curious how that works though. Does each Vault have its own surface access? The people in 33 knew as soon as Lucy opened the door since they came up to stop her. If Raiders had opened the door and gone down to Vault 32, you’d think everyone would get the “Door Open” alarm unless each vault has its own whole elevator/door setup which seems a bit excessive. In any event, this is just stuff I ponder on message boards and doesn’t stop me from enjoying the show.
I half-thought the brother was into the Raider leader and that’s why he kept giving her glances
The two vaults are directly adjacent to each other. He gets suspicious about the visitors, so while his sister is enjoying her wedding night, he walks over to the other vault, and finds that it’s been wiped out, but by the time he gets back with his warning, the massacre has already started.
Vault 31 was mentioned as where Overseer Hank came from as a traded breeder to join 33. And we saw the raider party came through 32.
Apparently the three vaults were interconnected in a way not seen in other vault installations. 32 and 33 had auxiliary vault entrances connected to each other via a tunnel, and it’s reasonable to assume that 31 would have been connected to 32 and 33 in the same way.
The set up of the vaults is my one* complaint about the show so far. Just going by the first episode, it seems like all the vaults are in one location, like a giant subterranean apartment complex, and that Vault 1 is just a bit further down the corridor than Vault 31, and Vault 50 just a bit further in the opposite direction. It’s also a bit weird that the Vaults are isolated enough that mild incest is considered acceptable, but also so close that you can walk from one to the other in the time it takes a newlywed couple to bang.
*Well, two - it also bugged me in the intro that nobody in the house with glass walls noticed the nuclear flash when the first bomb hit.
Rule of cool, I guess. Liberal propping up is required to successfully suspend disbelief, but I’m predisposed to allow it because the games are riddled with “that’s not how that works” moments.
In other words, the show is in perfect keeping with the games they’re based on.
At some point, I’m hoping someone walks through a door and the person following them can’t get through the door for some reason. For those of you who haven’t played the games, this is a weird glitch that happens from time-to-time. An NPC walks through the door ahead of you, and you can’t follow for a few seconds for some reason.
It’s not really the lack of realism in that scene that bugs me, its actually that I think it would have been cooler if everyone noticed the flash immediately. Everyone’s head whipping around in unison, starring at the city, not quite comprehending that the world just ended, until they see the oncoming shockwave and start panicking. The way they did it, it was all contrived to set up the “your thumb or mine,” line, which wasn’t that great a line to begin with.
That said, the bit during the raid where the projectors catch fire and the burning film of the farmland echoes exploding nukes was amazing.
