Apr
15th
2024
New Story: The Fall of Shady Sands · 2:30am April 15th
Hank MacLean is on a mission to spite his wife and destroy the NCR. But to do that, he'll need a little help from some familiar faces...
Basically an elaborate shitpost oneshot based on the new Fallout TV series. This isn't related to the Diaryverse at all. Don't take it too seriously.
In related news, I might be releasing a kinda sorta DannyJ Reviews special for the Fallout show soon. Not 100% on that yet, but likely happening once I get myself sorted out. Spoiler alert: I did not like it.
"I have made a wasteland where everyone can shoot raiders and live in garbage forever, the perfect setting for our future corporate interests. Literally what else do you want? Fuck off."
Nailed it. I still want to watch this show, mostly out of morbid curiosity. But blowing up Shady Sands basically destroyed any goodwill I was willing to extend its way.
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I knew this was going to be contentious going in, and I had very little faith in Bethesda or Amazon to begin with, but I was willing to be surprised. In theory, I think there's a world where these plot points could've worked. For example, if it were just the city of Shady Sands and its surrounding environs that had been turned back into a wasteland, rather than the entire NCR collapsing into anarchy, so that Bethesda could have their cake and eat it too, then I think I could deal with that. If the NCR had been humbled a bit as a natural consequence of their actions in New Vegas, I could understand that too. And if the NCR remnants were still acting like the NCR, and making a decent attempt at re-establishing themselves and fixing whatever deep-rooted problem led to their downfall in the first place, I think you'd actually have a pretty great underdog story on your hands.
The true problem for me is that they did the exact opposite of all of this. They destroyed the entire NCR offscreen and left no trace of any of the many other cities comprising the faction, in favour of 100% Bethesda wasteland saturation. They were randomly destroyed out of the blue by an outside context threat that had nothing to do with any of the NCR's actual failings as a faction, and in fact had no good reason to do any of it. And what NCR remnants we do see are more like a perverse desecration of the NCR's memory than any true continuation of their spirit and legacy. I genuinely have no idea what the fuck they were thinking with the Vault 4 cult. And then on top of all that, the most faithful of the remnants we do see get curbstomped by the Brotherhood of Steel anyway, and if that isn't the best metaphor for Bethesda Fallout in general, I don't know what is.
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I mean, I'm sure there's a world where the NCR eats some humble pie and that makes sense. (Literally any ending to New Vegas other than the NCR one, for example)
Like I said, I haven't watched the show yet, but to me it just strikes me as a massive waste of potential to continue Bethesda's bizarre nihilistic fetish for the trappings of Fallout without any of its substance. Of course Shady Sands was nuked by some random Vault-Tec asshole, humanity isn't able (or, it seems, allowed) to grow beyond its petty greed and self-destructive nature.
Although I guess I do have to give them credit, the Brotherhood coming to kick the NCR while its down isn't totally out of character for them, from what I understand. No love lost between those two factions.
I keep hearing that this show is good, but everyone I hear says that admits that they either don't know much about Fallout, or don't like New Vegas for one reason or another (mostly the former)
And maybe, divorced from the context of what Shady Sands is and what it and the NCR being erased means for California and the world, the show is good. But I just don't think I can get over it, knowing what I do.
Still, you wrote good crackfic and it's been a while since I read The Courier's Journal, and if there's one good thing this show has done, its inspire me to play New Vegas again.
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Yep. That's pretty much it.
Hahaha, no. Definitely not.
It's got enough redeeming elements to impress a normie audience. It isn't 100% abysmal all the time, and most stuff coming out of Hollywood these days is such utter garbage that I guess that's enough for some people. But it's definitely not good, even taking it on its own merits.
I'd go into detail about my thoughts on it, but I'm gonna be dropping my notes/review in a few days anyway, so might as well save it.