It's not just individuals who are guilty of this mentality. Most settlements operate like this too. Rivet City, for example is peaceful, organized, and orderly, but they don't give a flying fart about what happens outside of Rivet City. They'll come down hard on any lawbreakers within their city, but anyone on the outside is someone else's problem. You've got small pockets of civilization in a vast sea of lawlessness. If someone runs afoul of one of the civilized settlements, there's plenty of places to hide, and plenty of opportunities to meet like-minded people. The wasteland doesn't make people evil, but does provide an environment for evil to thrive.

In essence there is no good and evil, these are points of view based upon a believe system programmed by our culture. Culture is merely an operating system we run on our hard drives (in our brains). What's perceived in one culture or believe system as good can be bad mojo in another. Windows USA totally differs from Windows Japan for example. Every OS has its own code and own set of parameters. Although I do "believe" there are certain preprogrammed universal morals or codes, lets say: some kind of BIOS. However I think this BIOS (instinct) is primarily based on survival. It can go two ways which totally depends on the situation at hand as I see it:

~ people can cooperate to insure their survival, strength in numbers which requires a set of rules which eventually evolves into culture a more complex set of morals: laws, rights, etc.

~ everyone fends for themselves i.o.w. true anarchy which also can insure that you'll live another day depending on the situation.

I suppose the majority of mankind will settle for the first option even though both options are driven by the same BIOS, when there are enough recourses at least because it's peaceful, profitable, requires less work, etc. But what happens if this hard drive of ours gets formatted or corrupted? There are dozens of scientific cases where a person gets a brain trauma (mentally/physical) and an additional change in personality. A lot of studies have been documented with hallucinogenics in relation to personality disorders and brain function not to mention the stuff secret services have performed. A true psychopath has only a BIOS (primal instinct) and it seems to me there is a bit of code (morals) not installed on their operating system or maybe a different firewall installed because they can access their be_highly_social.exe files when their goal is simply to deceit without any remorse. It's like in nature with certain camouflaged critters: a little fish thinks he sees a tasty worm which is waggling in a gapping mouth of a bigger fish. Does the predatory fish have any moral quarrels about this? Of course not he thinks it's time for a snack! Goes for individuals as well as for groups of people or nations otherwise we would established peace on this planet ages ago. We come from nature thus nature is true reality, I can't grasp the notion that somehow we stand above mother nature cos she will kick our behind and in the end shake us off like a bad case of flees. So we surely do have the capability to prey on our own if necessary. Naw, good and evil only exists in the eyes of the beholder imo.

There is no such thing as evil in a situation like this.. For all of eternity people have done what they must to survive but when things are good, food is plentiful and society is peaceful people aspire to higher values. When the chips are down and only one family can eat, good people will do evil things to make sure it is their family that is eating. Theft, assault, murder in the name of survivial is not a sin, it is a neccessity. Some people would rather die than admit this to themselves... so I say, let them die if it means I will live, my family will live.

Actually, as long as the selfless or at lease morally good people managed to survive the short run, they will ended up in a much better position then the evil or immoral people. Just look at the town of Shady Sand in the original Fallout, it was just a peaceful and weak farming community compared to the Khan raiders who kill and murder for their own gain. But 80 years later in Fallout 2, though peaceful cooperation and trade with other communities, Shady Sands has transformed into the New California Republic, the largest political faction in the entire Fallout universe that rivals the Brotherhood and even the Enclave. The Khans on the other hand, ended up in almost the same position as they were before and were completely obsolete.

Acting in a moral and peaceful manner does help with your survival in the long run. That was why we humans developed these traits in the first place.



Mostly to just show others how powerful they are or in because they lack the knowledge of right and wrong. We don't have enough information to make a judgement on the reason why they do evil things, but in some examples they were just doing what they feel is needed for them to survive.

Do you believe that wanting to be alive, and wanting to be happy, makes a person evil? That's absurd, and a perversion of morality. Not wanting to share water, when you don't have enough water to share, is only rational. Correct morality can only be derived from what man is, and all correct morality therefore derives from the instinct to survive. Read some Robert Heinlein, Ayn Rand or Friedrich Nietzsche.

Rivet City is peaceful, organized, and orderly exactly because the owners don't sacrifise the lives of the own citizens in a futile and naive gesture to appease all outlanders. As there are limited resources, and countless outside threats, the owners are acting sensibly, ethically and responsibly in preserving one of the few remaining pockets of civilisation. Allowing everyone in would result in starvation, infiltration and attempts at hostile takeovers.

I don't know about others, but it could be some people could have become evil after being screwed over after trying to be good. Take a lot of womanizers. Most have had their first true love hurt them. From then on they lose all respect for women and see them as something to be used for physical pleasure. A good indication is the womanizer's inability to have a physical relationship with someone he respects and is in love with.

True.

Maybe they TRIED to be kind, TRIED to be a decent human being but ended up getting walked all over by the others. They'll start to think, "What's the point?" I know I would if despite my constant doing good things to other people, I recieved nothing but crap in return. Worse if the only reason they come to me for help is because they're using my good nature for their own personal benefits, know that I would never turn my back on anyone who needed my help.

I could see that person develop a mentality of "I'll help you if you help me, but hinder me, be a dead weight, or think to use me in any way, you're dead."

It'd be like the Dark Ages. Harsh environments breed harsher people. Look at the Mongols, to this day they get by with a nomadic lifestyle, no agriculture, basic herding, very little formal education, and a might makes right moral compass in the Gobi wasteland. My money would be on them, Siberian tribes, the Inuit, the Aleut, and the Steppe peoples in central Asia being good survivors.

'Evil' in game terms is only relative.

Behaviour wise, I don't think I've come across any character in this game that was doing something that people in real life don't do. There's some real dark places and people out there in the real world, and even in some of the 'better' places in the world there is always someone who has the capacity to slide into darkness, so to speak.

I would consider most 'evil' people are actually more opportunistic (I raid a cavaran not because I think killing caravan guards is fun, but because I want its supplies) than evil (Muwahaha I blow up Megaton because I'm evil like that and that's fun!).

Also to the OP. No one is born good or evil.. Its the environment and how they are raised.

Is this a nature vs nurture type of thread?

There is no such thing as evil. There is also no such thing as good. Merely shades of the same spectrum that are perceived differently by different people. If you kill somebody to take his food to feed your family, does that make you evil? Does that make you good? Morality is how your perceive it and if you believe that you MUST be a saint or a really good person, then chances are you won't last very long in the Wasteland.

Especially in the Wasteland, there is only one rule of law. The Gun. Whoever holds the biggest stick and whoever can swing it the best will be the law and if he kills say...an entire town but has the best weapons in the entire Wasteland and can use it professionally, he'll get away with it.

The problem inherently intrinsic to discussions of Good and Evil, or moreover, Good -versus- Evil... is that, as has been stated before, neither 'entity' is actually that. An entity. What they are, instead, are 'classifications of thought'... rationalizations we make about certain actions, beliefs, and tendencies based upon the way our bodies respond both emotionally and physically.

If you try to tear apart these concepts, however, you find an ever-broadening collection of concepts. It is our human mind's systematic way of classifying everything... and 'Good' and 'Evil' are just two classifications which have had the misfortune of persisting for a great many millennia.

So in order to understand WHAT makes the people in fallout a certain disposition which you might consider 'Evil'... you first have to understand the person without this classification attached. Each of them has their own history, personality, and set of beliefs which guide them and 'motivate' them to act out in certain ways. With a fictional character, sometimes these actions have to be 'assumed' outright, or implied by some outside source... but this same philosophy applies to living persons as well.


Let's take Mr. Burke, for instance.


What makes him 'Evil', more than anything, is a game setting. In fact, were you to NOT receive a positive Karmic bonus for ending his life, you might never find yourself asking such a question about him. His particular actions, however, do speak a great deal about his willingness to act well beyond the realm of social acceptability... or Mores (more-aes). What gives him this lack of concern for things which others view as being 'Right' or 'Wrong' is a purely empirical, rational mind. Allistair Tenpenny expressed a disdain for the esthetically-ugly shape of Megaton on what he perceived to be his horizon. To Burke's rational mind... the proper course of action was to -remove- that ugly shape.

A nuclear warhead was not required... but rather, convenient. The reason you could not be allowed to warn the people... because to his rational mind, the people were as much a part of the ugly city as the walls and buildings and pipes themselves. To destroy one without the other, would to be to invite the ugliness to spread. Somewhere in his mind, I am certain, he also knew that there would be an enormous backlash against Tenpenny Tower if refugees began arriving in Rivet City claiming that Tenpenny and his thugs kicked them all out of their homes and blew the place up with an atomic bomb.

Nowhere in that course of action is what can truly be described as evil... because, to plainly put it, it is nothing more than empty, emotionless logic. And to declare that as 'evil' would be to say that any sane man with a rational, logical mind, is in fact quite evil. Perhaps, depending upon the definition used for 'evil'... this would actually be accurate. But metaphysically speaking, this would mean only the insane are of virtue... at which point being 'Good' becomes something I would much rather avoid altogether.


The same can be said for Tenpenny himself, while others, like Carolina Red for instance, are more a product of psychological abuse. Their minds begin to function in ways which they are 'comfortable'... and which result in the least amount of pain and injury. Others still are highly emotional. Others still are- well... I think you get the point.

In the end, the reasons for their perceived evilness could go on infinitely.

Any attempt to hypothesize and rationalize their actions... only results in more possibilities... and more rationalizations and hypotheses.


This is the reason for the ever lasting dilemma of 'Good versus Evil'. You could just as easily say 'Us versus Them' and have the same effect... the same perceived meaning. From there, the cycle could begin again... and again... with the same questions being asked each time, without end, for all time.

The only answer I have ever found to provide any satisfaction is this:

'There are as many reasons, for as many causes, as to why a man (or woman) should act a certain way. And were I to begin cataloging them, and sorting them into groups, I would quickly find that each patient could be summarily classified into many groups... and from within those groups... ever smaller groups... until at last each man (or woman) appeared to be but a fleck of sand in a universe built of sandcastles'


Probably... not the answer you were looking for, though.