Starting this here, so i dont hijack other threads with other purposes.

The whole aliens thing in fallout, i feel is met with a knee jerk reactioon.

The gaint creatures in Fallout were not what people in the 50's thought would happen if they were exposed to vast amounts of radiation. Instead, they were intended to be cautionary figures during an age where atomic energy and mans reaching into space was met with a huge amount of paranoia over the start of the cold war.

"It is often said that these themes represent or reflect a fear perpetuated by the onset of the Cold War in the mid 40s. That the decidedly paranoid and anti-communist paradigm shift in the US meant that such monsters and aliens embodied a totalitarian Red threat or invasion. Or, equally, a liberal backlash to the repression of McCarthyism.

These theories are sometimes, perhaps, a little simplified. The prevalence of these kinds of films was also due to a surge in technological obsession matched by improved special effects, while thematically and symbolically the ideas of authority, anarchy, invasion, socialism, nationalism, capitalism (and new scientific or technological consumerism and its repercussions) were probably an allusion to things happening within the borders of the United States, as well as things outside."



i know the crashed ship was an easter egg.
as was the godzilla footprint
as was the tardis.

What i would like to have is an actual conversation that doesnt reguritate this sentiment.
an actual conversatiion as to what the actual meaning of what fallouts creatures represent, and why they fit in the 50's world of tomorrow/Science/US vs Red paradigm- the very foundation of the fallout universe.

I don't see how talking about Aliens and creatures goes together.

Anyways. In the Original Fallout the 1950s thing was not shoved down our throats. Tim Cain and the other Devs wanted to add super mutants. So they came up with FEV. It is not hard to imagine people with the 1950s mindset, would be looking for ways to make supermen, which is what FEV was supposed to do. It was to make people immune to chemical & biological warfare as well as Radiation. It did not work.

The idea of Supermen have been apart of American Culture long before the 1950s we all know this.

I don't think it's necessarily what people in the 50's believed, more like, the kind of science fiction that was popular at the time.

* Giant ants, for example, are an example of the "Attack of the 50 foot whatever"-type monster movie (especially "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Them!").
* Super mutants are Captain America gone horribly, horribly wrong.
* And so on.

It's interesting how we look back at the 50's, I watched a documentary recently on the very subject and snigger at the upsurge in UFO sightings, monster movies and the like but are we that different now? Seems to me that if anything there are more people obsessed with UFOs and there isn't exactly a shortage of Sci-fi fiction in any media.

As to what they mean context of the game, I don't think the mutants have any significance other than as a way of the makers getting a variety of enemies into the game but in a wider context they are an expression of humankind's primal fears which have existed forever.

I think the makers referenced real world myths with things like the invisible mutant killing cattle in Novac and the vampires in F3. Also in F3, people being snatched by monsters from Big Town seems to be echoed in lots of stories from around the world, while the Tenpenny Tower story was probably about racism. IMO.

thanks for the replies!


Exactly. it wasnt "if we add radiation to these, theyll get bigger!!" people in the 50's did not realistically think that was the future.

It was up to hollywood to make those myths, which were as i said, social commentary on the cold war and our advances in science and space exploration (which were tied directly to the cold war and not getting left behind/beaten to the punch by the "commies"). This is the key reason why symbolically rad creatures are synonymous with aliens.

in the original fallouts, the 50's werent shoved down our throats?
intro scene, a pro-american propaganda advert
Rad Creatures taken from the fabric of 50's sci-fi
All robots styled after 195's robots, robbie the robot anyone?
The actual great war, taken from the fear of nuclear war that was sominated in the 50's- druck and cover!
Science!
The Master- loosely based on the Blob
The Vaults themselves- based on a growing market for vaults due to the thread of nuclear war
Tube technology
Supermen in the Falluot context- ideal for battling the "commies".. 50's paralells abound.



As for UFO's in other time periods.... We have biblical examoples of UFO's, abnd we sure make alien movies today... while i agree that they are not specific to the 1950's, there are particular reasons why they were utilized so much in b-movies of the 50's and those reasons are in line with the untilization of rad creatures and other "SCIENCE!"-ey things found in the 50's, which were in turn implemented into the fallout inuverse as some of the key plot and setting attributes.


I mention aliens in the context of the 50's movie and not games lide deadspace, Aliens and the like.
Those meant different things,from a literary standpoint.
This ia why i mention context of their use as being important.

do some looking.. see how nuclear war, ginat creatures, space travel and aliens are blended seamlessly into b-movies of the time.
movies liek this one thats pretty dang fallout-y
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Without_End_(film)