Forum:Premise for a future Fallout game...

I've been cooking up this scenario in my head as I've been walking through the city lately, and thought I'd share it with all of you guys, see what you think. I don't think there's a snowball's chance in HELL of it ever getting made, this is more or less just for fun. This goes into some dark territory, even for a Fallout game, so just a warning, it's a bit "mature" in places. I also tried to stay away from cliches like "The Enclave vs. The Brotherhood" and "Player getting shot, getting revenge".

This game would also contradict certain elements of Fallout: Tactics or Brotherhood of Steel, but from what I gather, those aren't really that popular anyway...

So, here we go...

Player Character
The game begins on a freight train (Being pulled by a fusion-powered version of this) en route to Chicago, from the city of Gary, Indiana. The player character (A teenage girl in the canon) has just fled the state, heading towards the “glowing red light” she’s seen in the skies over Lake Michigan (The aircraft warning light on top of the Sears Tower). Throughout the course of gameplay, it will be revealed that her parents sold her into slavery at a very young age, and she’s spent most of her life toiling long hours in the steelyards, owned by Bruno Stahlmann, a cruel, sexually abusive tyrant who rules most of Northern Indiana with an iron (or rather steel) fist. One night, as Stahlmann attempted to molest her once again, she grabbed his pistol that he had carelessly left loaded next to his bed, and murdered him with several gunshots to the head. Realizing what she had done, she fled the factory (Murdering Stahlmann’s deranged brother Wolfgang in the process, by dumping a bucket of molten steel on him), and boarded a freight train towards the mysterious land of “Chicago”, equipped with literally nothing apart from some rags fashioned into a shirt and pants, a few bottle caps she had saved up over the years, and the pistol from Stahlmann’s bedroom.

Plot
As the train arrives in the south side of ruined Chicago, the player character finds themselves woefully unprepared for the harsh reality of the Chicago wasteland. Wandering through burnt out streets covered in a foot of snow (With no coat, gloves or shoes), she nearly freezes to death, until she is discovered by Shannon O’Leary, a motherly old woman of Irish descent, who takes the “poor child” into her home for shelter. After providing you with clothes and food, you’re taken to Shannon’s brother, Martin, leader of the “North Side Mob” of Chicago. In exchange for shelter and some caps, you become hired as an “errand girl” for the O’Leary family. You’re soon plunged into a post-apocalyptic vision of prohibition-era Chicago, complete with laser-firing tommy guns, speakeasies with Mr. Handy bartenders, and good-old fashioned extortion, er… “protection”. As your reputation with the O’Leary family becomes more and more respectable, a grief-stricken Martin informs you that his son has been kidnapped (presumably by the other families) and hires you to find and “take care of” the people who’ve done it. As you investigate more and more, it becomes clear that the other families are not responsible - They may have their differences, but they refuse to engage in something as “low” as kidnapping. The mutual disgust shared by the leaders of the other two families causes them to approach the O’Leary family about a temporary truce. With all three families working together again, it is soon discovered that Martin’s son is being held for ransom on the top floor of the Sears Tower. Making matters worse, the hostage takers have demanded control of the city of Chicago, or they will detonate an old Soviet atom bomb (Purchased from the Pulaski family after the don, Gerald Pulaski, had his cousin smuggle it from war-torn Poland over to the United States) on the top floor of the skyscraper, killing the thousands of residents living in the city below. Volunteering for the rescue mission, you lead a small squad of various mobsters through the fiercely guarded Sears Tower, climbing all 108 floors (Some elevators will be operational) through a hail of gunfire. Upon finally reaching the top, you are confronted by none other than Wolfgang Stahlmann, who survived the molten steel, although it has left him severely disfigured. Even more horrifying, it is then revealed that the player character was the daughter of Bruno, conceived when he raped one of his female slaves. Stunned and overcome with emotion, you must now battle Wolfgang and free Martin’s son (Who is rather book-smart and can disarm the atom bomb in a matter of minutes). If all goes well, Wolfgang will be sent plunging 1400 feet to his death into the frozen Chicago river, and Martin will disarm the bomb with only seconds remaining on its timer. With Martin rescued and a newfound sense of camaraderie between the quarreling mob families, the city of Chicago is once again reunited, and Martin (the next in succession to head of the mob) vows that under his rule, Chicago will become a model of democracy, liberty and opportunity for all wanderers of the wastes. This of course, will be the canonical story, and choices made by the player character during the quest can drastically alter the ending of the game.

Setting
The Chicago of 2077 (Sort of like this, but with some Jetsons-style houses and whatnot...) is drastically different from the city we know today. Like most of America in the Fallout universe, it never really underwent the transition from an industrial economy to a service economy, and as a result, the city (Particularly the south side) was still covered in the sprawl of factories and railyards. Many of the famous skyscrapers built after the 1950s were never erected in the Fallout Universe (Save for the John Hancock Center - renamed the “Button Gwinnett Center” and the Sears Tower, both of which resemble their real-world counterparts, except more “sleek” and “retro-futuristic” in appearance). The famous streetcars, abandoned around 1958 in our world, continued to operate until the day the bombs fell in the Fallout world, and O’Hare airport was still a military-operated airfield/production plant, known as the Orchard Field Airbase. In the mid-1950s, the Chicago Outfit (The south side mob) began to expand its power within the city. By the mid 21st century, the mob had more control over the city than the mayor’s office. The final straw occurred in 2061, when the mayor of Chicago (A short and rather insecure fellow) bankrupted the city by constructing “The Illinois”, a massive mile-high skyscraper designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, in a misguided attempt to earn his city some recognition. The leader of the Chicago Outfit (Rumored to be descended from the infamous Al Capone) won the mayoral election in a landslide, effectively turning the entire windy city into mob territory. While the energy crisis of the 2060s ravaged the rest of the world, Chicago managed to stay relatively stable (Due to an illegal petroleum smuggling racket) and the mob reigned supreme until that fateful day, October 23, 2077. The mayor and his associates had donated generous sums to Vault-Tec in order to guarantee themselves and their families sanctuary in their vaults, and as a result, the Chicago outfit was not destroyed along with the city. The Chinese atom bombs completely ravaged the metropolis, decimating most of the skyscrapers (Such as “The Illinois”, which was now reduced to its ground-level floor) save for the Sears Tower which had managed to miraculously survive the blasts thanks to a combination of SCIENCE! and sturdy construction. Afterwards, the entire region was plunged into a bitter, perpetual state of winter. A few years after the mayor died (at the ripe old age of 93) below the ground, his three top associates (Known only by their last names of O’Leary, Pulaski and Belushi) emerged from their vaults almost three decades after the bombs fell. The three families (Irish mob, Polish mob and Italian mob, respectively) soon found themselves engaged in a bloody war over control of the burnt-out, snow-covered ruins. Eventually, after years of fighting, borders were drawn, and the city was divided into three districts: The “north side” (run by the Italians), the “south side” (run by the Irish) and the “loop territories” (run by the Poles). In the 100 or so years afterwards, the three districts have experienced an uneasy peace, and have attempted to rebuild their sections of the city (This is not to say that occasional skirmishes between the families were unheard of). With the eventual repair of some nearby power-stations, the wealthier citizens are privy to conveniences such as electricity and running water, while streetcars and elevated trains operate amongst the Brahmin carriages and rooftops, respectively. The red aircraft warning light on top of the 232-year-old Sears Towers’ roof still functions every night, drawing in various travelers from all over the midwest, curious to find the source of the “mysterious blinking red light in the sky”…

Radio
The main radio station will be known as “BBC Wasteland”, and will be run by Nigel, the great-grandson of a British Army officer stationed in Canada as part of a NATO force (And a caricature of a stereotypical "Swinging Sixties" mod, similar to Austin Powers). Growing bored with life in the war-torn city of Ronto, Nigel traveled the rust belt, eventually finding himself in Chicago, with his antique collection of early-1960s British Invasion records (Nothing more modern than 1965, in an effort to keep with the retro-feel of the previous games). Between songs, he will often make extremely dark, sarcastic jabs at the United States, such as “I’d like to take this time to thank all of you yanks for blowing the whole planet to hell”. If Nigel and the BBC Wasteland headquarters are discovered, he will recruit you to acquire an album autographed by a British rock band in the early 1960s from the old “Tic-Tac-Toe Records” studio in South Chicago (A reference to the Rolling Stones recording at “Chess Records” on South Michigan Avenue during their early career). In return, he will reward you with his great-grandfather’s immaculately preserved military uniform, armor and weapons. Music played will include songs such as "I Wanna Be Your Man" by The Beatles, "The Hippy Hippy Shake" by the Swinging Blue Jeans, and "Not Fade Away" by the Rolling Stones.

Well that was a mouthful... --GaussRifle 03:32, December 10, 2010 (UTC)

Comments
This is not game material. This? This is NOVEL material. This is what a Fallout novel should be. You ever read The Balvarine Order? This would effing DESTROY that novel. Halo novels would bow before this. This is genius. Hell this would even be a great premise for a Fallout film or drama series on G4. MoonshadowDark
 * Thanks a ton! I had a lot of fun coming up with it, and I might fully flesh out the story some day, when I've got time. --GaussRifle 03:50, December 10, 2010 (UTC)
 * I think I agree with Moonshadow... Better as a novel (or other "non interactive media") as I think fallout games work better when you character is "user definable". But it seems you've got a lot of what makes the fallout world, the fallout world just right.Agent c 22:42, December 10, 2010 (UTC)
 * Yeah, I've been thinking about it, and if it was to be a video game, I'd rather see it as a spinoff than part of the main Fallout series, kind of like those crappy tactical games. --GaussRifle 22:22, December 11, 2010 (UTC)

Now THAT was cool! Makes me want to play it, and NOW. Excellent work, GaussRifle! Thecrystalcrow 12:17, December 10, 2010 (UTC)

That does sound cool, but for Bethesda to make that, they would have to include the BoS and the Enclave, because a large chapter of the Midwestern Brotherhood is there (might be the starting chapter to the Midwestern Brotherhood)and the Enclave still has a large fortification there. Evil TEX 05:06, January 1, 2011 (UTC)