#they're just kept in more secure parts of the territories further away from the entrances

[tired-fandom-ndn]

Since we are dunking on fallout meager food options (and music, and clothes, and buildings), can we also talk about how weird it is that raiders don't have children?

I understand it from the real world view of "killing kids is bad", but in-game it is so odd.

Are they legit telling me no raider has ever had a kid? That their groups that band together for survival would have no kids running around? That no desperate adult (or barely old enough teen) showed up with a child because that was the only way they could get protection in the wastes? That no raider ever found a kid and said "fuck it, little timmy is tagging along"?

It bugs me to no end that we physically enter raider homes and somehow never see any sign of children. Fuck, I wanna eavesdrop on raiders talking about how excited they are about finding an "almost pristine" book from a series their child/sibling/nibling absolutely loves. I want to enter a raider den and have the raiders protect a locked room with everything they have, only to find it is a nursery after I've slaughtered them. I want to loot a dead raider and find a toy that they had been planning to give to a child in their life. Those a people and I want to be reminded of that.

Raiders (in the more recents games at least) are barely human. I don't feel bad about killing raider #6374, I don't wonder if they have loved ones they wanna return to. They have no depth aside from murderous looters and it gets worse every time I enter a place that the raiders are clearly living in long-term with no plans of leaving and yet, somehow, having no sign of children ever being present.

The world of fallout is despairingly hopeless and stuck in the past, so much so that even the very basic notion of "old humans often rear new humans" is treated as an afterthought instead of a core aspect of any society.

[context]

YEAH YEAH YEAH THANK YOU. There's those two raider groups in conflict with each other where the leader of one was VERY dedicated to her younger sister and I believed it implied that they'd been raiders really young, but even that was minimal and not really relevant to anything.

This issue isn't specific to Fallout, it's a fundamental part of any game where there are humanoid but universally hostile mobs, and it fucking SUCKS. Like idk what the solution to this really is when games do need enemies and not everyone wants to grapple with major moral dilemnas while gaming, but the dehumanization that is so common in gaming these days is a huge problem and the raiders are a great example of this because they ARE people. Like they are literally just people living their lives in a hostile world.

I think Nuka World could've been a great opportunity for including family units among raiders, since it's the only place where we can actually interact with non-hostile raider groups AND it's a permanent settlement, but that was a complete letdown too. This game is really trying to sell me the idea that the Pack at least wouldn't have a few dozen kids constantly underfoot? Bullshit.