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[justdiptych]

The original Fallout had one group of raiders. That was the name the game map gave to them - 'Raiders' - but they were in fact known as the Khans. They were a relatively minor faction, being tied to quests in the first town the player is likely to visit, but we learn a lot about them in their brief appearance.

Many of the Khans are given names and dialogue, and will tell the player about their history - including how they came from the same place as the people of Shady Sands, Vault 15, and feel entitled to share in the town's wealth. Some see their raiding life as a way to claim control of the post-war world - ruling through strength and fear, believing that old ideas of morality died with the rest of the world. Others treat it as just another job - they support their group by trading, maintaining equipment, preparing food, and other everyday tasks.

In short, the Khans are a fully-realised community, as much a part of the story as any other. We learn that their brutal leader, Garl Death-Hand, took command after killing his abusive father. The player can kill him, or negotiate with him, or impress him with acts of cruelty, or even challenge his nihilistic views by convincing him that they're his father, back from the dead. Killing Garl and destroying his compound is treated as the best choice for the region as a whole, and is confirmed to have happened in the next game in the series, but it's certainly not the only option.

Fallout 2 has two groups of raiders. One - again marked 'Raiders' on the map - turn out not to be raiders at all, in that they're not attacking towns to steal their wealth. Instead, they're a mercenary company, hired by a disreputable businessman from one town (New Reno) on behalf of another town (Shady Sands again, now the capital of the New California Republic) to harass a third town (Vault City) to convince them that they need outside help in maintaining their defences. It's part of the game's major subplot about the three societies competing for control of northern California and western Nevada.

The other group are the New Khans, founded by Garl's son Darion after the original Khans' defeat. These Khans aren't nearly so fearsome as their predecessors - they mostly operate in secret, hiding behind a group of squatters who have moved into the ruins of Vault 15 and pretending to help them restore it for use. Darion is wracked with resentment over what happened to his father's crew and guilt for having survived, and his gang ultimately present little real threat to the outside world.

What I'm getting at here is that, in the world of Fallout as it existed in those early games, 'raiders' were not a major factor. There was one group who conducted raids as part of their regular economic activity, but only against particular communities - Shady Sands saw them as raiders, but to the Hub, they were just traders. Raiders only existed in a particular context - they had particular interests, beliefs and opportunities that would not always be possible or applicable.

Most of the games' conflict came not from the existence of raiders but from bilateral political and economic competition between groups with overlapping but not identical interests, which was reflected in their respective ideologies. We see this in Killian and Gizmo fighting to control the future of Junktown, and in the Master's attempt to reshape the world with the Unity while the different groups of New California try to retain their independence.

We particularly see it in Fallout 2, with its three-way battle for economic domination between the constitutional democracy of the New California Republic, the mafia-ruled narco-state of New Reno, and the elitist technocratic slave state of Vault City. Which of these groups continue to rule and expand, and which crumble, is what ultimately shapes the region's future - with control of Redding and its gold supply as the linchpin.

While the Enclave are the story's primary antagonists, they're chiefly characterised by their refusal to engage with this new socio-economic order - they believe that all outside authorities are illegitimate, and all outsiders non-human, and their only plan is to release a bioweapon into the atmosphere and kill literally everyone on Earth but themselves. The Enclave's defeat is necessary for New California's survival, but, otherwise, they change very little about how people live their lives. They're like Darion's New Khans on a larger scale - relics of a fallen order, robbed of their purpose, hiding in an old bunker and driven by nothing but resentment of having been left behind.

I might, in future, talk about the contrasting depiction of raiders in Fallouts 3, 4 and 76, and about New Vegas's use of raider and bandit groups like the Khans, the Legion, the Fiends and the White Legs. For now, I think I've made my point - that raiders are not a fact of life but a product of a particular place and time, and much less relevant to the universe of Fallout than other forms of competition and violence.

[justdiptych]

I absolutely cannot decide what to name my new Sparrow-class airship in Fallen London. My shortlist so far:

The Liberation of Flight (the Liberation of Night except it can fly... yeah, not this one)

The Cladery Lungs (it's a dual-envelope model)

The Saker Falcon (because you could call your falcon 'Sparrow' in Silver Tree, see)

The Chatterbox (it's a bit of gasbag, y'know)

Mrs Merdle (after Lord Peter Wimsey's car - and because it's a dual-envelope model)

Etaoin Shrdlu (in a story about censorship and redaction, text that inserts itself into a work feels like an act of rebellion)

This Whole Thing Smacks Of Gender (probably not, but maybe!)

The Pirate-Poet (because she is my friend)

The Principle of Correspondence (as above, so below)

[justdiptych]

I first discovered Fallen London many, many years ago, when some friends recommended it to me as something very queer and gender. I found that it was indeed very queer and gender - in ways I didn't realise applied to me at the time - and also right up my alley as a student of 19th century history.

Since then, I've had the very great pleasure of becoming part of the game's community - which has been the sweetest and had some of the most interesting conversations I've had in any game's fandom - and of making some dear, dear friends.

It's been a delight to see how the game has grown and developed over that time, and the wealth of talent Failbetter have attracted. Fallen London really is something special and I'm honoured to be one small part of it.

Fallen London

i started the fallen london tumblr (well the Failbetter Games one but you know what i mean) in 2014

we are almost at 7,777 followers, at which point i will do something special for you all

please take this as my invitation to reblog this with the reasons you play fallen london so we can recruit more people into our fruity little victorian gang

thank u

[justdiptych]

Having been ruminating on the possible link between Archie Reid of Mask of the Rose and September of Fallen London, and having been informed what a fool I am for suggesting there might be one, I've been trying to formally lay out the evidence for and against them being one and the same, and to reckon with the unavoidable uncertainties. (Some serious spoilers for both games appear below the cut.)

FOR:

Both have red hair, green eyes, and very similar facial features.

Both are written with similar accents.

Both have established connections to the Calendar Council - September is a member, of course, while Archie is familiar with May.

Both write and publish revolutionary texts.

Both have hostile relationships with Mr Pages - Archie can expose Pages as being personally responsible for the Fall of London.

September's dialogue suggests that, like Archie, he was a student in London at the time of the Fall.

AGAINST:

September's stated background - on a baronial estate near Balmoral - does not align with Archie's stated origins in Glasgow. (See below for further examination of this point.)

Unlike other Mask of the Rose characters (Griz, Horatia, Moss, Pages, Ferret, May, Reginald, Barqujin and Batachikhan), September makes no appearance at Mrs Chapman's in Fallen London.

September doesn't mention having any history of medical practice.

UNCERTANTIES:

Our knowledge of Archie's background is complicated by the fact that 'Archie Reid' is not his original identity. He was, instead, Lucian, an officer and spy who had travelled much of the world. He had tried to warn the people of London of the impending Fall and was, for his troubles, almost erased from reality by the authorities. 'Archie Reid' is what remains of him, and even he doesn't know whether everyone's memories of Archie (including his own) are true or false.

September's age is unclear. On first meeting him, the narration describes him as a 'youth', and his portrait doesn't look like a man who would be in his late fifties at the youngest. This doesn't quite agree with his own suggestion of having been in London during the Fall. If he is Archie, perhaps his theriac staved off the effects of age?

I don't recall how much elaboration we get on Lucian's background in Mask of the Rose's Reunion ending, and whether it's compatible with September's backstory. I'm also not sure whether that matters. Did the person Lucian was, and the things he did, retroactively cease to exist when he became Archie? This is very confusing, I know.

I'm not sure whether September and the Efficient Commissioner have any relevant dialogue if they're on the board of the Great Hellbound Railway together.

Putting Watson aside and putting on our Doyle moustache for a moment, it is possible that September was not originally written to be Archie but later became him. When September first appeared in Fallen London, he used a different portrait - the same one used by the non-binary portrait artist at Helicon House. His current portrait came later. Perhaps this represented a revision of his character's backstory and identity? Eh, I'm speculating aloud here.

To sum up: I dunno. It might be him. They sure look alike. If it's not him, they'd have a lot to talk about if they ever met.

[justdiptych]

Trans issues are rarely brought up in the Fallout series. Fallout 2′s cut Environmental Protection Agency location was apparently slated to include 'Top Secret Research into Gender Modification', but there's little suggestion what that content would have actually included. Also, the pre-war USA was a fascist hellscape that was actively hostile to human rights - witness, for example, a federal information release about the New Plague, which conflates contagion, socialism and queer sexuality, and encourages readers to report anyone displaying any of the above for 'quarantine' - so pre-war trans communities likely drew as little attention to themselves as possible. More recently, two non-binary characters (Burke and Orlando) have been introduced in Fallout 76's expansions; their roles have been relatively minor.

All that said… the Auto-Doc technology we see in Fallout 2 and New Vegas would be an absolute boon for trans patients. Auto-Docs can synthesise and administer medications, including hormone treatments (the models in the Sierra Madre Villa Clinic can dispense adrenaline, for instance). Any medications not already available can be added to the Auto-Doc's database by a knowledgeable user - this is how the cure to Jet addiction is manufactured in Vault City.

Auto-Docs are also capable of all manner of surgeries. Cosmetic surgery is not unheard of in the Fallout universe - Rivet City’s Horace Pinkerton and Diamond City’s doctors Crocker and Sun all offer it - but Auto-Docs can go even further. Advanced models can even alter a patient’s entire skeleton, with minimal scarring: Fallout 2′s Chosen One can can have their skeleton reinforced, without any Charisma penalty (unless they opt for the heavier, more invasive upgrade), and New Vegas’ Courier can have their spine and central nervous system replaced with a synthetic alternative. Auto-Docs can even give a patient a new voice - Christine Royce tragically had this done to her without her consent, but this does demonstrate show the procedure’s viability for a willing user.

Whether or not the major medical companies of the Falloutverse would sign off on such uses of their tech, breaking and customising Auto-Doc programming seems to have been a simple matter. A suitably sympathetic or motivated physician could have easily started a trans health clinic that could address the bulk of their patients’ medical needs - hormone treatment, surgery far more advanced than exists in the real world, and even voice alteration.

In short, there is absolute, copper-bottomed, canon-compliant room in the wasteland for fully automated transing of genders, and I hope the devs will recognise and embrace this fact.

[justdiptych]

Joyce is to the bourgeoisie as Harry is to the police - too idealistic and too aware of the limits of their world to be functional, and too cynical and too dysfunctional to leave it behind and commit to something new. So, they distract themselves with art, or sport, or whatever they can find that will scramble their minds. Neither could be an Evrart, ready to grab the world with both hands and turn it upside-down.

I suspect that 'Joyce', like 'Harry', is a shortened revolutionary name. If they'd been born a little earlier, or the communist project had lasted a little longer, they'd have both thrown themselves into it. As it is, they're both coping with a world that they don't really fit into. Joyce is coping a little better, of course, because she's fantastically wealthy, which provides a helpful cushioning effect between oneself and reality.

also final word on this probably- I *like* Joyce Messier a great deal as a character. I think she's cool and interesting. I find it fascinating that she tends to approach things very bluntly. the words she uses and the manner in which she analyzes things, this is sort of an instance of a character who knows exactly *what she is* and articulates it in a manner congruent with the writers of the game. she is, as she says wryly but honestly, "a bourgeois woman". i cant think of too many rich people who would without prompting and prodding, self identify with marxist social taxonomies in this way, even with a thin veil of ironic self deprecation. She's educated. she knows the words and the motivating logics of class analysis. and shes *cool*. harry picks that up. honesty is cool. bluntness is cool. cynicism is cool. she is quite open about her place in the world and how she conceives of it. unlike a lot of other powerful figures in the game, i dont think shes completely swallowed by self justifying rhetoric the way, say, sunday friend is. or she is up to a point. she knows about countercultural movements and she has affinities for them and is also aware that they inevitably are consumed by capital. (this, by the way, is kind of complex in that like. ok its a depressing reality but also i think if the de team was fully bought into that line of thinking, they would not make this game. it is telling that joyce of all people would critique cindy on the basis of capital subsuming revolutionary art. I dont think joyce is wrong per se, but i think she is drawn to that line of thinking because it is *very comforting for someone of her class position to dismiss the value and power of revolutionary art and critique of capital* just a thought) She's disgusting in that her power is not rightfully hers. her position is not rightfully hers. she is actively repressing and oppressing others in service of disgusting, semi-fascistic, hypercapitalist forces. shes enjoying the comforts and benefits that such a role allows her. shes disgusting shes frustrating shes profoundly arrogant (as her clash with evrart claire proves definitively). Her self satisfied idiocy is what allows her to play with fire and foolishly assume she cannot be burned. She's smart but her comfortable position puts the blinders on her and so she's also pretty fucking stupid. and shes also deeply deeply sad. I empathize. I pity her. She's so fucking sad. I don't think she is drawn to self medication and self destruction through constant pale exposure or all that rueful nostalgic rumination for no reason. She knows what she is to the world and she knows what she's doing and she's too cowardly and comfortable and self interested to change, but she's too self-aware to ignore it completely. I think she probably dislikes herself to some degree and i think its destroying her. Like most of the cast of the game, she's complex and deeply human. She's hateful, but I also think she is too well realized to hate, at least not for me.

[justdiptych]

(unreasonably aggrieved about issues that are the opposite of pressing voice) I can't believe no-one is talking about the suspicious musical similarities between Martha and The Vandellas' 'Nowhere to Run' (1965) and Jacques Dutronc's 'Le Responsable' (1969).

[justdiptych]

When new nouns are added to languages that gender everything, who decides which gender they get? Like, if I invented a patented trouser-rotator and I wanted to sell it in Germany, do I get to decide if it's a der, a die or a das? Though I suppose there'd be some marketing team who'd want to make that decision - assigned gender at branding. 'Introducing… die Hosenrotator. That's right, fellas - she's single and she's available. You can fuck this domestic appliance.'

Or does it go to a government department? 'L'Académie française has rejected your application for your rotateur de pantalon to be recognised as masculine. Please do not apply again until your appliance has lived as its preferred genre for a period of ten years, or without written affidavits by a lamp, a table, a tree and the Moon.'

[justdiptych]

Having been ruminating on the possible link between Archie Reid of Mask of the Rose and September of Fallen London, and having been informed what a fool I am for suggesting there might be one, I've been trying to formally lay out the evidence for and against them being one and the same, and to reckon with the unavoidable uncertainties. (Some serious spoilers for both games appear below the cut.)

FOR:

Both have red hair, green eyes, and very similar facial features.

Both are written with similar accents.

Both have established connections to the Calendar Council - September is a member, of course, while Archie is familiar with May.

Both write and publish revolutionary texts.

Both have hostile relationships with Mr Pages - Archie can expose Pages as being personally responsible for the Fall of London.

September's dialogue suggests that, like Archie, he was a student in London at the time of the Fall.

AGAINST:

September's stated background - on a baronial estate near Balmoral - does not align with Archie's stated origins in Glasgow. (See below for further examination of this point.)

Unlike other Mask of the Rose characters (Griz, Horatia, Moss, Pages, Ferret, May, Reginald, Barqujin and Batachikhan), September makes no appearance at Mrs Chapman's in Fallen London.

September doesn't mention having any history of medical practice.

UNCERTANTIES:

Our knowledge of Archie's background is complicated by the fact that 'Archie Reid' is not his original identity. He was, instead, Lucian, an officer and spy who had travelled much of the world. He had tried to warn the people of London of the impending Fall and was, for his troubles, almost erased from reality by the authorities. 'Archie Reid' is what remains of him, and even he doesn't know whether everyone's memories of Archie (including his own) are true or false.

September's age is unclear. On first meeting him, the narration describes him as a 'youth', and his portrait doesn't look like a man who would be in his late fifties at the youngest. This doesn't quite agree with his own suggestion of having been in London during the Fall. If he is Archie, perhaps his theriac staved off the effects of age?

I don't recall how much elaboration we get on Lucian's background in Mask of the Rose's Reunion ending, and whether it's compatible with September's backstory. I'm also not sure whether that matters. Did the person Lucian was, and the things he did, retroactively cease to exist when he became Archie? This is very confusing, I know.

I'm not sure whether September and the Efficient Commissioner have any relevant dialogue if they're on the board of the Great Hellbound Railway together.

Putting Watson aside and putting on our Doyle moustache for a moment, it is possible that September was not originally written to be Archie but later became him. When September first appeared in Fallen London, he used a different portrait - the same one used by the non-binary portrait artist at Helicon House. His current portrait came later. Perhaps this represented a revision of his character's backstory and identity? Eh, I'm speculating aloud here.

To sum up: I dunno. It might be him. They sure look alike. If it's not him, they'd have a lot to talk about if they ever met.

[justdiptych]

I adore Wimsey, but I do want to offer fair warning to anyone who discovers him this way... the stories are broadly uncritical of police and policing. Lord Peter's best friend is a cop; he gets formal permission to assist the police because he's pals with the Commissioner; his interests and Scotland Yard's interests rarely diverge.

Don't get me wrong - the books are absolutely excellent and Sayers is my favourite author. Don't go in expecting a radical critique of law enforcement, though - expect a fairly traditional gentleman-detective narrative, but with some very interesting perspectives on religion, feminism, and so on, and some warts-and-all depictions of the artistic and intellectual sets of the 1920s and 30s.

i am a woman at war with herself, torn forever between my love of detective fiction and my hatred of cops and cop media

[justdiptych]

I started playing within the first year, when it was still Echo Bazaar and you needed a Twitter account to sign up. (Also, it was late winter, local time.)

I was curious about the Anniversary of my Blorbo (and the Community's Blorbis of course)

And yo, I'm a summer child! (Captain canon birthday is in December tho)

[justdiptych]

If you chose the fairy that means you have chaotic/confusing-type intrusive thoughts and if you chose the walrus you have violent/disturbing-type intrusive thoughts. Naturally, you don't need me to tell you which clusters of personality disorders those correspond to.

[justdiptych]

The Courier can speak at least a little German and Spanish, be unaware that the region they've been working in has a government, recognise a nightclub singer they once saw perform, not know what a fish is, and remember having unprotected sex with a woman two states away nearly twenty years earlier.

I think it's safe to say that the depth and breadth of the Courier's memories are shaped by the player, not the game.

(Also normally I'd cite @thefalloutwiki, which is the superior reference, but their version of this page didn't include the feet stuff.)

“Courier Six has to have amnesia! why else would they not know anything about the region and faction!”

If I was a post-apocalyptic mail man the last thing I’d give a fuck about is the socio-political systems existing around me when there’s giant irradiated scorpions and rattlesnake wolves and my ass gotta deliver shit on foot.

I can guarantee that a literal multi faction war could erupt right next to me and I wouldn’t notice over the sound of me playing death tug-o-war with a gecko over the shit I’m trying and failing to deliver.

[justdiptych]

I always thought September of the Calendar Council couldn't possibly be Archie Reid from Mask of the Rose. 'There can be more than one Scottish man in the world!', I thought. Then it occurred to me to perform a little experiment.

Yeah, that's the same dude.

[justdiptych]

Here’s a thing that happened to one of my fellow tracklayers. I was there.

Basically, we were walking down the moonlit paths of the Hinterlands, talking about something meaningless. I think it had to do with Emancipation. Then this train screeches up, stops next to us, and a bunch of neddy men with “Down with CiS” shirts climbed out and started beating him up. I was punched and kicked a bit too, but I managed to avoid brutalization by going for their faces. After figuring out what’s happening, I started attacking them back, getting them off of him. He was quite injured but I called Cornelius and he made a full recovery at one of the many hospitals formed from the Manager's double. I was fine, with only a cut on my peculiar personal enhancement that they patched up.

Hey why didn't anyone tell me people were shortening City in Silver to 'CiS'

What is Cis about people being transformed into a city???? There's nothing cis about any of this

[justdiptych]

Shout out to all the detective series that feature a crime connected to the art world and include the 'detective encounters a nude model' scene.

Honourable mention to New Tricks, which didn't have the model scene but did have Tony Head talking about how horny a painting made him.

That episode also had Alun Armstrong looking too close at a Rothko and almost falling in...

...so they clearly knew a thing or two about art.

[justdiptych]

Names that really aren't common enough for an author to use twice for unrelated characters:

Jabez (Doyle, in 'The Red-Headed League' and 'The Three Students')

Gotobed (Sayers, in 'Unnatural Death' and 'The Nine Tailors')