The Enclave: Evil or Machiavellian?

[Norzan]

The few redeeming qualities they have were added in FNV

The Enclave Remnants kick ass and brought much needed depth to the faction. I wonder if the Enclave could have been much better written if Fallout 2 had a much bigger development time. All that extra time could have been used to polish a lot of things, specially the Enclave.

 

[Deleted member 98605]

Godwin's law is about topics that go on so long they eventually spiral into direct comparisons to Nazis even though they're mostly unrelated.

The entire ideology of the Enclave, and by extension their actions, mirror the day to day business operations of 1930's Germany. Do we actually want to get into the semantic differences between experimenting on vault dwellers vs. Jews?

I would. Again, Fascism is tied to class conflict, which there ain't jack shit about in Fallout anymore.

The racist/eugencist stuff? That wasn't just a Nazi thing. The US did it. Sweden did it. Brazil. It even seeped into China. Most of the world did it. From around a period of 1885-1955, yes, 1955 and if not later, - I think Alberta was doing it to Native and Poor women up to the 1970s - 'evil' eugenicist programs and racist societies enforced their will on the minority and poor for the 'benefit' or dream of a pure race/citizen body. That by itself does not a Fascist make, and it's disingenuous to the victims of Democratic Eugenic programs, our own people, our own history, to just say it was just a Nazi thing or the Nazis were the most major player of it.

Hell, I bet the 1940s Eugenicists just saw the Nazis as waylaid by their own fanaticism into wasting time and energy; as many outside observers commented with nearly anything Nazi.

 

[Veers]

Godwin's law is about topics that go on so long they eventually spiral into direct comparisons to Nazis even though they're mostly unrelated.

The entire ideology of the Enclave, and by extension their actions, mirror the day to day business operations of 1930's Germany. Do we actually want to get into the semantic differences between experimenting on vault dwellers vs. Jews?

Vault-Tec didn't become a widespread Enclave thing until either 3 or 4 if memory serves, so either way it's disregarded as far as I'm concerned. From what I hear it's gotten even dumber in 76. And obviously, doing something that Nazi Germany also did doesn't make you Nazi Germany. Did you know they were among the first countries to push for animal rights and humane treatment of them on a national level? Not sure that wanting to take care of your pets makes you a Nazi.

Whether you agree with it or not on a moral level, what the Enclave says is also factually correct; they are the last unmutated humans, alongside Vault dwellers. This isn't some long, complicated biological or eugenics thing or some vague ethnicity claim, it's simple truth. If you're born out in the Wastes, you're irradiated and most likely mutated. If you're born in a Vault or within the Enclave, you're a pre-War citizen in all ways except being born after the War. If mutated life continued, pre-War life would never become dominant again, meaning the pre-War world could never be brought back. The reason an Enclave soldier will shoot you for walking onto their base is the same reason why you'd shoot a feral ghoul if it came near your shack. To them, you're a mutant, and they aren't wrong.

And with all that, remember no faction and no person is totally good. No one will claim any of them don't have flaws. In Fallout, being a good guy doesn't mean you're a perfect guy. There's a lot of shameful things the Enclave could improve, but the same can be said of every other group.

 

[BigGuyCIA]

The racist/eugencist stuff? That wasn't just a Nazi thing.

Nothing I said in my post implies that it's just a Nazi thing. It's simply the strongest, and grounded example of leadership that was focused on <insert identifier> purity and executing / experimenting on people outside of that group. It can be Khmer Rouge and the point wouldn't change.

That by itself does not a Fascist make, and it's disingenuous to the victims of Democratic Eugenic programs, our own people, our own history, to just say it was just a Nazi thing or the Nazis were the most major player of it.

Oh fuck off and stop being dishonest. That isn't what I'm saying and you know it.

And obviously, doing something that Nazi Germany also did doesn't make you Nazi Germany. Did you know they were among the first countries to push for animal rights and humane treatment of them on a national level? Not sure that wanting to take care of your pets makes you a Nazi.

This is such a bad faith argument that I don't even want to dignify it with a response.

The reason an Enclave soldier will shoot you for walking onto their base is the same reason why you'd shoot a feral ghoul if it came near your shack. To them, you're a mutant, and they aren't wrong.

Vault 13 dwellers weren't approaching Enclave encampments, and consisted of ancestors from original Americans - something the Enclave seems to obsess over constantly. They killed the first bunch that greeted the soldiers at their vault entrance because they took too long to open the doors, and captured the rest for experimentation.

 

[Veers]

Vault 13 dwellers weren't approaching Enclave encampments, and consisted of ancestors from original Americans - something the Enclave seems to obsess over constantly. They killed the first bunch that greeted the soldiers at their vault entrance because they took too long to open the doors, and captured the rest for experimentation.

According to the Fallout Bible that was an unintended oversight on the developers' part, and in reality the Enclave patrol fired without orders because they got spooked. Only a few of the Vault residents died and the soldiers had to lie about it to get out of being punished. The cutscene is inaccurate per Avellone, but they didn't have time to fix it.

 

[Quartz]

If we can't call evil a small group of people that want to commit worldwide genocide despite having no idea how most of these people will be doing at all we might as well get rid of this word. If subjectively thinking that what you will do will end up in a net gain for humanity on the long run is enough to not be evil then what the hell can we call evil? terrorist aren't evil by this definition at least.
Let's asume for a moment their plan could actually work, have you thought USA =/= the world? Imagine all the different comunities that will be thriving in other places, some of which will never have reverted back to the stone age as you say, since they wouldn't be nearly as damaged by the great war.

Imagine living a peaceful life in your thriving country on the other side of the globe, advancing towards industrialization and developing increasingly stable and humane governments, then your family is dead, and everyone is dead, and so are you, and this was done in purporse by someone, BUT IT WASN'T EVIL, man, sometimes you just must make sacrifices, why are you crying? I find your lack of commitment to the american project pathethic!

And what's the deal with returning back to the stone age, as if most of human culture wasn't retained.
You talk about reuniting and being what the wasteland needs, reuniting what? being needed by what? by the rocks? they want to kill everybody!
They just want a planet devoid of intelligent life to colonize. It doesn't have anything to do with old america or new america or nothing, It's an ideology that gets people killed and justifies any bad that would be inflicted upon a person just based on the context in which they were born.

If suddenly, Sauron spoke to Frodo and told him that somehow what he was doing he was doing to reach everlasting peace among the races at some point in the future, now he's a good boy and the people who say he's evil were just brainwashing us and should be more tolerant with other people's ideas?

I believe some relatively nice writing is fooling you into believing the enclave is more than it really is, which is a super villain that put's the world at the stake for our hero to save.

But alternatively I guess we could actually reserve the word evil for people that admit's they are evil or people who harms others for fun and have it nothing to do with what someone does, achieves and inflicts upon others, only intentions matter.

 

[Veers]

If we're going to play by your logic, every ghoul, super mutant, and bandit you've ever killed all made you evil. They were just trying to live their lives out and you stopped them from doing it because they were a threat to you. If the Enclave does it and they're evil, then you're evil too. While we're at it, what about all those settlements? Scrapped and stolen from people who were there first or had them before you did I wager. If you're trying to rebuild, that's evil too. And I guess we're going to ignore that leading Enclave official who saw more prudence in trying to cooperate with the Wasteland rather than wipe it out entirely to the point he wanted to give it clean water.

Nah, nah, they're just evil supervillains because.. because... yeah, because.

 

[SquidWard]

If we're going to play by your logic, every ghoul, super mutant, and bandit you've ever killed all made you evil.

Yeah because self defense against assailants is just as evil as someone wanting to commit genocide against people who hardly know of their existence.

If you're trying to rebuild, that's evil too.

The fuck?
You realize everyone else is rebuilding too, right? It's not like we're talking about the world being exclusively full of cannibals that are xenophobic and violent sadists. The members of the Enclave could have used their resources to help people but instead let's just hit the reset button a second time because we want to rebuild, just without everyone else?

 

[Veers]

And why shouldn't they want to? The NCR can conquer and tax and control anyone it comes across, since it sees it fit for the vision of a new post-apocalyptic world. The Legion can conquer and enslave and tax anyone it wants, since it sees it fit for the vision of a new post-apocalyptic world. The one group that wants it back to how it was, the Enclave, therefore wants to elminate any mutants and irradiated humans, but somehow, that is an exception to everything else and inexcusable? Do the people in the Enclave and in the Vaults not have a right to live too? I'd say they do, especially when it doesn't look like they can ever coexist. Most Vaults open up and either get enslaved, massacred, or scattered.

Hell, have you seen the world as it is? Killers, psychos, and drug-addicted mutants make up a much larger part of its inhabitants than peaceful, civil folks. You get people splattering intestines on their beds before going out and eating people while jacked up on Psycho, and looking at that, I'm not sure you could blame the Enclave for wanting to do what they do. The prewar world can never, ever be the same again if mutants inhabit it.

 

[Quartz]

Can you really not see the difference between killing in self defense or hunting dangerous bandits and members of a hostile army with genocidal intentions and killing random people that you know nothing about becouse of some tiny mutations?

I'm curious, if I told you that I have a genetic defect, caused by background radiation, that makes me less evolutionary fit, and someone killed me for it, would you say it isn't moraly reprehensible, perhaps even that it's good, so long as he did it to cleanse my impurity from the genetic heritage of mankind?
I'm guessing not, if that's the case, what would be different between this context and the one from Fallout 2?

And about that official, we don't need to ignore him, the plans of the Enclave and it's leaders are still the same, they want the people that this official wanted to give water dead.

 

[SquidWard]

I'm not defending the Legion. I'd be more inclined to defend the NCR but they do have evil about them too. Any form of major government is going to have issues and we know the NCR isn't the poster child they'd like to be. Just because one system is fucked up doesn't excuse the other system that is even more fucked up. At least in the NCR slavery is illegal, women aren't just to produce children, and they aren't exterminating entire groups of people with no justifiable reason. Sure, there's corruption and people lose their properties and way of life. I'm not defending that part. But they sure as hell aren't the Enclave.

But yeah, sorry I don't see how worldwide genocide is justified. No one is saying only the Enclave have evil tendencies but rather they are overall evil and undesirable in ideology. Yes, psycho addicted cannibals and slavers are reprehensible. Who said they weren't? How do you deal with criminal and moral offenses in a society? Wipe the population clean and hope to start over or punish the offender?

 

[Veers]

Correction, a rogue computer AI wanted to poison the water, not the Enclave itself. The D.C. Enclave were only a portion of the Enclave at large to begin with, and according to dialogue and notes, both the D.C. Enclave and Enclave High Command elsewhere took Autumn's side, not Eden's. That's all of course ignoring Bethesda's generally nonsensical writing and lack of proper worldbuilding, anyway.

In the context of Fallout 2, would you say the pure-strata humans with no mutations or background radiation exposure aren't the only way to a truly pre-war world? That mutation will spread, it might even grow worse, to the point a few hundred years from now even when the radiation's dissipated everyone's even more mutated than before. Part of the Master's plan for example was pushing the evolution of mankind to full mutation now, because from what he knew it was apparently an inevitability that mankind would radically mutate in the future anyway, and for its own survival now the right thing to do would be to force a change immediately. At best we'd all become twisted monsters, assuming we didn't die out in the first place which was just as likely. If what he believed was right, then that validates what the Enclave says too.

If the post-war mutated and irradiated population is only going to get worse, how can you have a world as if the bombs never fell when everyone is growing increasingly mutated into, if the Master's correct, a new species entirely, if we even make it that far? You just couldn't.

And to the point of the rest of the world, we know the Enclave has bases on other continents, and we know other countries had vaults and shelter programs of their own. The Enclave is predominantly focused on America, but that doesn't mean it's an all-American organization. Rebuilding the world, not just the United States, is their focus.

 

[Quartz]

There are plenty of people today that think that the world is corrupted, that it should be like it used to be, but that's imposible becouse of the new ideas that infect the world.
If some of this people had the hability to press the 'reset button' and wipe out everybody except a minuscule group of close and like minnded individuals, do you think they would be good guys too?
Perhaps a childish incel would like to cleanse the world from jerks and sjws, or a muslim fundamentalist would like to make sure in the world reigns the law of his god, a ecologist would like that no man would eat an animal again, or a paranoic patriot would like to prevent a horde of inmigrants to culturally replace his people (who have the right to live, too) into oblivion.

Also, how does the evils of the world justify worldwide genocide?
How does an extremist decapitating a journalist for defending the truth, a gang massacring, torturing, dismembering and hanging the faces of their enemies; a child dying of hunger, a warlord brainwashing kids into going to war and even inmolating themselves, and the trade of sex slaves make it okay to kill you?
Becouse this shit happens in the world you live in, and no filthy mutants are involved.

0kay, but forget that, let's talk about ends.
So, we can't really talk too much about wether the plan of the enclave would work or not, after all this is not decided by logic but by what the writers would consider reasonable or interesting (though I will note that I personally don't think a virus spread by air would be able to throughly affect the entire USA, let alone the world, and there's also the possibility of the virus mutating and breaching the cure), so let's assume it works.

EVERYONE IS DEAD (yippy), except the pure Enclave members, ready to enjoy their right to live (that no one was particulary targeting) to the fullest.
Do you think this tiny group of people, whose goal in life was literally to murder everyone, will magically be able to expand for centuries and get along perfectly and thriving, all while somehow avoiding any contact with radiation as to not make their genocide be for nothing?

They'll have all the world for themselves and yet they'll have to live extremely restrained lifes avoiding any contact with freaking (abnormally high) background radiation as to not become 'mutants'. Do you really think that can last many generations? What makes you think this few people are in a better spot to rebuild mankind than the people that has been doing it for two centuries?

And by that matter, since you say they'll restore the old world as it originally was, what makes you think that a few technologically advanced and military guys that are scared of THE FREAKING SUN will yield the same result as millenia of natural human developement, interaction and war?

 

[Veers]

We're talking about Fallout.

The Enclave and the inhabitants of vaults and secured shelters will rebuild, pretty simple. The Wasteland wasn't exactly rebuilding. The NCR and the Legion got pretty big yeah, but still were only on the cusp of getting all the amenities right. The NCR had factories but no real source of pure water. The Legion had land and water but no modern infrastructure. House had a single city and the Brotherhood had a few scattered bunkers. The Enclave have access to GECKs and other advanced technology, education, and nutrition the likes no one else could have. They'd be pretty prepared to tackle a now monster-free and bandit-free world.

Radiation will dissipate, any small mutations will likely be cured as soon as they're discovered, and the world goes on. Via GECK work and general tech, the pre-war world slowly comes back. The Enclave being (relatively) unified means conflict will likely not be a factor for at least a good long while. Give it 200 years and there's modern civilizations again across the globe. Small, but growing. The odd feral ghoul problem, renegade vault/shelter dwellers, and pockets of radiation are the only real threats left, or non-mutated wildlife that becomes mutated after the virus was deployed. I should not this isn't necessarily the solution I want. Autumn's got the right idea, get the people on your side and work with the Wasteland to an extent, rather than opposing all of it. That's a lot more of a plausible and morally just way to still achieve the Enclave's goal.

As a sidenote, the Enclave is attacked and ganged up on every time it shows up, even before anyone knows anything about it. They aren't given any measure of contact or coexistence by other major factions, even if those factions know nothing about them. Just by existing they become a rival.

 

[SquidWard]

Hey the Enclave took GECKs out of the vaults therefore we should just understand they need to be allowed to attempt to make the human race endangered again! Instead of helping the humans who have gotten this far and have rebuilt what they can, why shouldn't they just exterminate all other human life?

The Wasteland wasn't exactly rebuilding.

Yeah I guess over 100 years of rebuilding and establishing cities and small nation-like areas with trade wasn't exactly rebuilding. They were just slapping their willies around living off of Enclave welfare checks right? Drinking 40s and skateboarding on church property, damned kids!

As a sidenote, the Enclave is attacked and ganged up on every time it shows up, even before anyone knows anything about it. They aren't given any measure of contact or coexistence by other major factions, even if those factions know nothing about them. Just by existing they become a rival.

Yes, wanting to take other people's things away and threatening their lives is going to upset them. That is what is happening

 

[The Dutch Ghost]

Do you think this tiny group of people, whose goal in life was literally to murder everyone, will magically be able to expand for centuries and get along perfectly and thriving, all while somehow avoiding any contact with radiation as to not make their genocide be for nothing?

And don't forget, one of the things that united these people was the threat they felt mutants posed to pure humans.
With that threat gone and pure humans once more having reclaimed the mainland, how long would this population remain united.

Sooner or later different opinions or ideas are going to appear in the minds of the population. What if some believe that the current leadership is too power hungry or does not look after what these individual feels is important.
What if some think way to much is spend on weapons and other military technology or that taxes are to high?

Sooner or later there would be divisions among the members of the Enclave (the remnants already mentioned that they did not agree with everything the leadership did).
What is the Enclave leadership going to do, force martial law? forced re-education?
There are bound to be some rebels who would decide to turn against the rest of the Enclave.

Would the world need to be "cleansed" once again?

 

[Norzan]

Yeah I guess over 100 years of rebuilding and establishing cities and small nation-like areas with trade wasn't exactly rebuilding. They were just slapping their willies around living off of Enclave welfare checks right? Drinking 40s and skateboarding on church property, damned kids!

Hell, Fallout 2 is actually criticized by some for being too civilized. Like, there's a big jump between Fallout 1 and 2 in terms of civilization.

I may like Fallout 2 but Enclave is comically over the top evil. Which i guess is fine if you just want an antagonistic faction, but they went too far if they wanted the faction to be understandable from a certain point of view.

 

[SquidWard]

Forgot about that criticism. Very true. But I guess those people were wrong seeing as they weren't exactly rebuilding. You know because they didn't have GECKs to instantly make the USA a pre-war first world country.

Obviously, Fallout 2 is not too civilized.

 

[Quartz]

Wasn't the virus suposed to work only on humanoids? killing all animals onearth seems counter productive.

Anyway, that's irrelevant, let's see if we can get this conversation back to the original topic.

You say the evils that the Enclave planned to unleash upon the world were justified by the end they pursued, right?

I put to question that end being more desirable than the current progression of the status quo, in fact to me it's obviously not, but since we are now judging what's good and whats bad the question becomes subjective.

Imposing your own worldview upon the entire world is evil, even if this worldview is defensible.
It's true that from the subjetivity intrinsecal to defining good and bad, directly contradictory ideas can be defended legitimally (slowly mutating humans good, rapidly mutating humans bad vs people are equal/ moral people good, nihilistic people bad vs moral is a human construct and thus bad doesn't really exist/), however this doesn't mean, at least with any useful definition of good and evil, that doing evil acts to achieve something you personally conceive to be good (though most others not), makes you morally good.

My way of trying to convince you of this is to ask what you would think if another group did the same, like an ecologist that sees clearly how the current mankind is going to destroy the planet, and since for this ecologist a world where a tiny amount of mindful ecologists live on a fertile planet is good while a world where so much bad things happen and the planet is losing it's hability to hold it's current ecosystems is bad, he uses a plot device that allows him to wipe out all of humanity but a select few.

A similar scenario can be made about religious fundamentalists, eugenicists, nationalists, etc...

Would you consider this action morally good?

If you say yes, then I agree that in your terms and definitions of good, bad and morality, the enclave are good guys.

Is it just me, or discussing if something is good or evil without establishing a moral system beforehand is kind of stupid?

 

[Veers]

And don't forget, one of the things that united these people was the threat they felt mutants posed to pure humans.
With that threat gone and pure humans once more having reclaimed the mainland, how long would this population remain united.

Every faction has problems with unity, but of all of them, I'd say the Enclave is possibly the most unified, aside from maybe the Master's Army, or House's Vegas.

Yeah I guess over 100 years of rebuilding and establishing cities and small nation-like areas with trade wasn't exactly rebuilding. They were just slapping their willies around living off of Enclave welfare checks right? Drinking 40s and skateboarding on church property, damned kids!

150 years to build up some adobe huts and metal shacks, or 150 years to build up skylines and fully-functioning pre-war cities? I'd go with the latter.

I may like Fallout 2 but Enclave is comically over the top evil.

They aren't, though. Even if you don't like them, they're still not.

Wasn't the virus suposed to work only on humanoids? killing all animals onearth seems counter productive.

I mean, they had plans to wipe mutated life in general, not just humans. I don't remember if the modified FEV strain could actively target mutant wildlife, but soldiers would.

You say the evils that the Enclave planned to unleash upon the world were justified by the end they pursued, right?

Right. No one else has the end goal of restoring the world to how it was, as if the war never happened, and even the few who thought about it never had the means. Only the Enclave does. I should stress as well I don't think FEV is the best way of doing it, though it definitely is a way. I still think Autumn's plan would've ultimately worked best; find those outside the Enclave or the vaults with minimal exposure or radiation, bring them into the ranks, and gain allies rather than trying to fight the world alone. Bend to the circumstances rather than stubbornly break.

I put to question that end being more desirable than the current progression of the status quo, in fact to me it's obviously not, but since we are now judging what's good and whats bad the question becomes subjective.

I agree, it certainly is subjective. I'm not at all trying to say my view on it's somehow the only one, or even the factually correct one. From the beginning I acknowledged it'd be a controversial answer, but it's an answer I stand by and one that I find interesting to discuss.

Imposing your own worldview upon the entire world is evil, even if this worldview is defensible.

Is it though? That's what the NCR, the Legion, and the Master did. In none of those cases do I think it was evil. Each faction had a very clear and sensible reasoning behind what they were doing, be it building a new post-war world in the image of a government that succeeded before, or bringing humanity to a point so evolved that the post-war world became natural to then.

My way of trying to convince you of this is to ask what you would think if another group did the same, like an ecologist that sees clearly how the current mankind is going to destroy the planet, and since for this ecologist a world where a tiny amount of mindful ecologists live on a fertile planet is good while a world where so much bad things happen and the planet is losing it's hability to hold it's current ecosystems is bad, he uses a plot device that allows him to wipe out all of humanity but a select few.

A similar scenario can be made about religious fundamentalists, eugenicists, nationalists, etc...

Would you consider this action morally good?

None of that's relevant to Fallout.

Is it just me, or discussing if something is good or evil without establishing a moral system beforehand is kind of stupid?

The problem is you're applying a zero-sum, clear cut system to a world that by design is intended to not have one, where there are no good guys or bad guys, just guys trying to make a living and survive in the bigger picture. Sure, raiders and bandits are clearly bad people, but it's a world where everyone has done bad things to survive. No group has any influence without doing some horrible things, because that's the state of the world. 3 was the first game to try and push a good versus evil narrative, and many, many people didn't like that. In some ways 2 had elements of it, giving you no means of helping the Enclave despite 1 letting you side with the Master, but that also was a subject of criticism and, overall, the game went out of its way to not paint the Enclave as total evil. They're your opponent whether you like it or not, but they're not the bad guy from an objective standpoint.

Fallout was never intended to be Ultima, where you can point at one side and call it totally good or totally evil. Instead, everyone is flawed, some more than others, and you have to decide if the good outweighs the bad. Everyone has some kind of point to be made.