Tag Archives: bathesda

Fallout – Strategic Nuclear Moose

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“And God said: Let them have beer!”

One of the least important locations on the “Fallout: New Vegas” map, Brewer’s Beer Bootlegging is the official title of a small shack located northeast of McCarran airport, due east of the Sunset Sarsaparilla corporate office. The Mojave Wasteland is a forbidding place, but no amount of nuclear holocaust will keep a good brewer down! The shack appears to be abandoned, but the interior leads to an underground bootlegging operation that has been recently used.

Complete with fermenters, crates, and consumable beer, the crowning touch is the painted shipping pallet in the corner. The white paint reads: Strategic Nuclear Moose – let them drink beer. This is a reference to real-life Scottosh brewing company BrewDog. Their attention-grabbing achievement is known as “Tactical Nuclear Penguin,” boasting a whopping 32% alcohol content.

Previously branded irresponsible for an 18.2% beer called “Tokyo,” the gentlemen behind the operation decided to thumb their nose at critics first with a low-alcohol beer called “Nanny State” before eventually unleashing “Tactical Nuclear Penguin.”

A warning on the label states: “This is an extremely strong beer; it should be enjoyed in small servings and with an air of aristocratic nonchalance. In exactly the same manner that you would enjoy a fine whiskey, a Frank Zappa album, or a visit from a friendly yet anxious ghost.”

I would stab a guess that somebody on staff at Bethesda Game Studio is a fan.

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Fallout – Howard Hughes And Mr. House

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The House always wins.

A goodly number of “Fallout” fans play through “New Vegas” without ever noticing the incredibly striking parallels between the Vegas Strip’s monolithic figure – the reclusive pragmatist Robert Edwin House – and the real-world filmmaker and aviation magnate Howard Hughes. Looking at the image above, it’d be a stretch to call it a coincidence. Mr. House’s biography draws heavily on the life and career of Hughes in a wonderful homage to mid-century America.

Let’s take a look at a brief breakdown of their respective biographies.

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Robert House: Born to a wealthy tool magnate. He was orphaned at an early age and was cheated out of his inheritance. Despite this setback, he attended the Commonwealth Institute of Technology (inspired by MIT) and founded RobCo Industries, a robot manufacturing empire that plays a significant role throughout the “Fallout” series. His technical genius and prolific business skills made him a leading figure in aerospace engineering, Vegas Casinos & entertainment, and even reacquired the H&H Tool Company from his half-brother.

Mr. House survives the nuclear apocalypse in a cryogenic chamber of his own design. After two hundred years of preservation, however, he cannot risk leaving his isolation chamber; exposure to outside contaminants would prove deadly. He rules the whole of the New Vegas Strip remotely, using an army of security robots (securitrons) and has brokered treaties with regional tribes, who he has employed to repair and re-open The Strip.

In his corporate portrait (pictured above) we see Mr. House standing in front of one of his greatest robotic achievements, Liberty Prime, a building-sized robot designed to assist American troops in fighting the communist Chinese. Liberty Prime, known to anybody who has played “Fallout 3”, is central to the game’s plot. This portrait is a fun hint at the development and history of Liberty Prime that we don’t see until the follow-up game, “Fallout: New Vegas.”

Howard Hughes: Born to a successful inventor and businessman who founded the Hughes Tool Company in 1909. He demonstrated high aptitude in science and technology at a very young age. In particular, he become interested in engineering, building Houston’s first “wireless” radio transmitter at age 11. He used spare parts from a steam engine to make a motorized bicycle, took his first flying lesson at 14, and attended math & aeronautical engineering courses at Cal-Tech.

Both of Howard Hughes’ parents died when he was a teenager – his mother from complications of an ectopic pregnancy and his father from a heart attack. Hughes took his inheritance and became a Hollywood tycoon in the 1920s before forming the Hughes Aircraft Company. He broke several world air speed records, acquired and expanded Trans World Airlines, and revolutionized commercial air travel.

In later life, he began to evince symptoms of mental illness, including obsessive-compulsive disorder. He is remembered for eccentric behavior, impulsive spending, and an unhealthy obsession with germs. In November of 1966, Hughes traveled to Las Vegas and moved into the Desert Inn. He refused to leave the hotel and decided to purchase it in order to avoid conflict with the owners; he made the ninth-floor penthouse his personal residence. He subsequently purchased The Castaways, New Frontier, The Landmark Hotel and Casino, and The Sands.

He would be isolated for weeks at a time, handled common items with tissues to avoid contamination, and become obsessed with underground nuclear testing at he Nevada Test Site. He severely disapproved of nuclear testing, fearing exposure to radiation. Hughes is reported to have died on April 5, 1976, although no definitive record exists. He had suffered from severe malnutrition, likely the result of his obsession with microbes and infection, and a later autopsy stated kidney failure as the cause of death.

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Wealthy parents, tool companies, aerospace engineering, eccentricity, isolation, and fear of contamination. The script writers at Bethesda Game Studios paid strict attention to detail, straight down to the Howard Hughes initials for the game’s H&H Tool Company. Beyond that, Mr. House has a security robot named Jane; we later discover that Mr. House has an unusual attachment to the automaton. This computer companion is likely a reference to Jane Russell, a starlet who was under contract to Howard Hughes for a brief period of time and was also one of his lovers.

Mr. House also has a peculiar hobby collecting snow-globes. There is a good chance that this is a reference to the snow-globe in the opening scene of Orson Wells’ classic film “Citizen Kane.” While not one of Hughes’ films, it is considered an undeniable classic contemporaneous with Hughes’ own cinematic achievements. Additionally, “Citizen Kane” took it’s inspiration from another business tycoon: William Randolf Hearst.

Certainly, much more could be scribbled down about these two – and believe me, I am deeply fascinated with William Randolf Hearst – but these are the major points. It is this level of creativity, appreciation of history, and flat-out whimsy that makes these games so phenomenally fun, and the franchise so unprecedentedly successful. I’ll be keeping my eyes peeled for other interesting tidbits during my next play-through.

Cheers.

 

 

Fallout – Bugsy Siegel

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In an enormously detailed alternate universe, a tapestry of historic allusions provides the skeletal structure for Bethesda Game Studio’s phenomenal long-form “Fallout” video game series. Woven into the story are a remarkable number of period-specific references. Such references serve to make game-play interesting, dynamic, and rewarding to the player. In this, the first of many posts, I think that the “Fallout: New Vegas” antagonist, a charismatic villain named Benny, is a decent jumping-off place.

Benny, voiced by “Friends” alum Matthew Perry, drives the player character into the surrounding world. Having been shot in the head by Benny and left for dead, the player character survives and begins to explore surrounding communities, hunting down the would-be assassin. The narrative architecture revolves around an alternate history, and “New Vegas” exists in a retro-futuristic depiction of 1950’s Las Vegas, borrowing heavily from the popular culture of 1950’s America. There’s little doubt that the casino chairman, gangster, and smooth-talking Benny is inspired by famed mobster Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegel.

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Bugsy Siegel has gone down in history as one of the most feared gangsters in the history of organized crime. Founding member of the infamous “Murder, Inc.” group, he accumulated a significant monetary warchest in the east coast during Prohibition, earning a wage as both a hitman and enforcer. Once Prohibition was repealed in 1933, he turned his attentions to gambling, leaving his native New York in 1936 for the American Southwest. Handsome and charismatic, he aligned himself with developers of the Las Vegas Strip.

If the story feels familiar, look to Martin Scorsese’s 1995 film “Casino.”

Desiring a more “legitimate” lifestyle, Siegel relocated to Las Angeles, with a keen eye on a burgeoning adult playground in the Nevada desert. He had initially seen an opportunity to provide illicit services to crewmen working on the Hoover Dam, eventually assisting in the financing of a number of Las Vegas’ original casinos. In his most monumental coup, he eventually took over operations at the Flamingo Hotel in 1945 when its initial developer, William Wilkerson, ran short of funding. Bugsy’s lieutenants, during this time, were tasked with working on a business policy to secure all gambling in Southern California – a venture that never came to fruition.

With the Flamingo, Siegel would supply gambling, liquor, and food, and worked to land the biggest entertainers possible at the most reasonable price. He was confident these attractions would lure not only high rollers, but countless vacationers and businessmen. Wilkerson was eventually coerced into selling his shares under threat of death; he went into hiding in Paris soon after.

On the night of June 20, 1947, Bugsy Siegel sat with associate Allen Smiley in his girlfriend’s Beverly Hills home. He was reading the Los Angeles Times when an unknown assailant opened fire from outside. The assailant fired at him through the window with a thirty caliber military M1 carbine, striking him multiple times. He was struck twice in the head. Nobody has been charged with the murder, and the crime remains officially unsolved.

In “New Vegas,” Benny has similar ambitions. He is revealed to be a character with a ruthless past. He is comfortable with violence, and he has his eyes on ruling the whole of the New Vegas strip. A mobster in Las Vegas, silver-tongued and ambitious, it’s the checkered coat that seals the deal. The world of “Fallout” is populated with detailed references to our history, and this is just one of many, many others.