Since Fallout acts as the island from which I hope to launch a thousand ships of inquiry, it is only appropriate to start this blog there. Accordingly, I will try to articulate a thought regarding Fallout's critique of State power, specifically focusing on Fallout 3, as a preliminary step to discussing how it relates to visions of communal life within the game, which I will reserve for the next post.
In Fallout 3, the Enclave represents State power. The Fallout wiki, the one-stop destination for all things related to the series, describes the Enclave as "a secretive political and military organization who are said to be descended directly from members of the pre-war United States government." Diegetically, the appeal to historical descendency is mobilized in an attempt to ordain the Enclave as the legitimate sovereign. Through the re-establishment of law and order at the end of a plasma rifle, the Enclave seeks to re-create the economic and cultural hegemony of the pre-war United States that surrounds the player only in obliterated fragments.
As part of the main narrative of Fallout 3, the player is captured and held captive by the Enclave. President John Henry Eden, an artificial intelligence computer mainframe, asks the player to place a modified virus (FEV, or Forced Evolutionary Virus) inside the water purifier associated with Project Purity, a project to cleanse the Wasteland's irradiated water supply. The Enclave intends to use the FEV to kill all that have been tainted by radiation. This includes not only the Super Mutants and feral ghouls, which are de facto enemies, but also the stigmatized Gob who serves as bartender in Megaton and the residents of the peaceful city of ghouls called Underworld.
It seems to me that one way to understand the Enclave's attempt to re-appropriate Project Purity for the purposes of population control is in relation to Foucault's discussion of biopower. Unlike the scientists of Project Purity, whose egalitarian intention is simply to provide clean water to all who want it, with the FEV, the Enclave possesses the power to discipline the irradiated body to its farthest reaches: death. If Project Purity mobilizes the power to sustain life in the Wasteland, the addition of the FEV to Project Purity endows the wielder with the "power to foster life or disallow it to the point of death" (Foucault, History of Sexuality, vol 1, 138).
Though biopower is not expressively located in the State, but finds its expression in a variety of institutions and techniques, for our purposes, I would argue that the game stages the Enclave's power to control populations for the purposes of crafting a specific embodied citizen-subject, through which a new United States will be constructed. Additionally, I would argue that Fallout identifies the Enclave as "bad," and structures the game so that the "right" thing to do is to subvert this power of the State and realize the democratic potential of science.
Fallout 3's identification of the Enclave as the "bad guys" is part of a wider critique of State power and suspicion of centralized governments. The assurances of ensuing prosperity and tranquility made by a militarized political entity become ironic in the face of ubiquitous devastation caused by the confrontation of previous entities armed with nuclear weapons. The game seems to present a critique that is both old and familiar: the State is inevitably constructed in order for the few to profit off the injustices committed against the many.
The Republic of Dave presents a more tongue-in-cheek critique of State power and democratic government. Surrounded by a high chain-link fence on the boundaries of the Wasteland, the player is informed that "the Republic of Dave is the only true sovereign nation in the Wasteland." The player arrives to the Republic of Dave in the midst of an election. But surprise! Dave is the only candidate. He extols the virtuousness of overthrowing the Kingdom of Tom, Dave's father, and giving the citizen, who are all children, the right to vote. In this tiny plot of land, the game plays out its pessimistic vision of democracy: voting is making a fraudulent choice between candidates you did not choose and there is little difference between a tyrant and a president.
I hope to have sufficiently demonstrated the extent of Fallout's critique of State power and cynicism toward the ability of centralized governments to do little other than commit a series of injustices, to the point of death, against innocent civilians. In the next post, I will argue that despite this critique, the game is actually incapable of realizing an image of communal life that does not inevitably rely on the State form.
In Fallout 3, the Enclave represents State power. The Fallout wiki, the one-stop destination for all things related to the series, describes the Enclave as "a secretive political and military organization who are said to be descended directly from members of the pre-war United States government." Diegetically, the appeal to historical descendency is mobilized in an attempt to ordain the Enclave as the legitimate sovereign. Through the re-establishment of law and order at the end of a plasma rifle, the Enclave seeks to re-create the economic and cultural hegemony of the pre-war United States that surrounds the player only in obliterated fragments.
As part of the main narrative of Fallout 3, the player is captured and held captive by the Enclave. President John Henry Eden, an artificial intelligence computer mainframe, asks the player to place a modified virus (FEV, or Forced Evolutionary Virus) inside the water purifier associated with Project Purity, a project to cleanse the Wasteland's irradiated water supply. The Enclave intends to use the FEV to kill all that have been tainted by radiation. This includes not only the Super Mutants and feral ghouls, which are de facto enemies, but also the stigmatized Gob who serves as bartender in Megaton and the residents of the peaceful city of ghouls called Underworld.
It seems to me that one way to understand the Enclave's attempt to re-appropriate Project Purity for the purposes of population control is in relation to Foucault's discussion of biopower. Unlike the scientists of Project Purity, whose egalitarian intention is simply to provide clean water to all who want it, with the FEV, the Enclave possesses the power to discipline the irradiated body to its farthest reaches: death. If Project Purity mobilizes the power to sustain life in the Wasteland, the addition of the FEV to Project Purity endows the wielder with the "power to foster life or disallow it to the point of death" (Foucault, History of Sexuality, vol 1, 138).
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| Enclave propaganda |
Fallout 3's identification of the Enclave as the "bad guys" is part of a wider critique of State power and suspicion of centralized governments. The assurances of ensuing prosperity and tranquility made by a militarized political entity become ironic in the face of ubiquitous devastation caused by the confrontation of previous entities armed with nuclear weapons. The game seems to present a critique that is both old and familiar: the State is inevitably constructed in order for the few to profit off the injustices committed against the many.
The Republic of Dave presents a more tongue-in-cheek critique of State power and democratic government. Surrounded by a high chain-link fence on the boundaries of the Wasteland, the player is informed that "the Republic of Dave is the only true sovereign nation in the Wasteland." The player arrives to the Republic of Dave in the midst of an election. But surprise! Dave is the only candidate. He extols the virtuousness of overthrowing the Kingdom of Tom, Dave's father, and giving the citizen, who are all children, the right to vote. In this tiny plot of land, the game plays out its pessimistic vision of democracy: voting is making a fraudulent choice between candidates you did not choose and there is little difference between a tyrant and a president.
I hope to have sufficiently demonstrated the extent of Fallout's critique of State power and cynicism toward the ability of centralized governments to do little other than commit a series of injustices, to the point of death, against innocent civilians. In the next post, I will argue that despite this critique, the game is actually incapable of realizing an image of communal life that does not inevitably rely on the State form.
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