Forum:General Wellesley

General Wellesley, is he a human or not? What is quoted below is the only source for this character.

--Ant2242 (talk) 23:39, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

Comments
This man is referenced as being a General before the Great War. Nothing states that he is some sort of cyborg nor is there anything that states he survived, let alone mutated.--Ant2242 (talk) 23:39, 18 August 2015 (UTC)


 * Here is the deal: the general was alive during the Great War. And while he is almost guaranteed to have been a human before the War, there is absolutely nothing to suggest that he made it through the War as a human, still. Since this is a pre-War article, it is written in past-tense - not present-tense. If this was a present-tense article, then yes, I agree that he would be listed as human, still. But it is not.


 * So since we do not know what happened to him during and after the Great War, it is impossible to tell, without sources, as to whether the general remained or died as a human. In this sense, the burden of proof is proving that the general was still a human - the burden of proof is not the other way around, as that is a fallacious argument.


 * This is also to act as a safe-guard: we have no way of knowing, if pre-War characters will ever make an appearance in future titles. Is it likely that the general will show up again? Definitely not - lower than a .0001 chance, I would wager. But we suddenly look pretty damn foolish if he does appear again, as a ghoul, or something else, and we have on our articles, that he is still a human.


 * This extends to all of our pre-War characters, in which we have not discerned their fates. 00:05, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

But by using such logic we can treat every character that has not cleary definied race as unknown, for example, Buzz Babcock and many many more. Imho Wellesley should be human. --Languorous_Maiar (talk) 09:05, 19 August 2015 (UTC)


 * I respect your opinion, but we cannot say that, without evidence, as dictated by our content policies. If the general were a modern Fallout character, his article would have been written in the present-tense, which means his last state of being is what we would have him listed as. For instance, Three-Dog was in Fallout 3, and the last time we saw him, he was human - so he stays listed as human until a future title set in a time after Fallout 3's timeline possibly contradicts that. But the general is not.


 * He is a pre-War character, which means that everything written on his article, is written in the past-tense, since nothing he did happens during any of the current playable games. That means when reading his article, everything from the Great War, to the battle for the water purifier, has already happened. So since we do not know his state of being during and after the Great War, we cannot safely suggest that he is/was still a human. GarouxBloodline 12:06, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

Why is this an issue? Ghouls and super mutants, as a rule, did not exist before the war. There is no reason to name the General as unknown, as he was a human. The same fundamental assumption goes for every pre-War character. Unless it's possible to conclude, conclusively, that they were not human, keep the original race. We take facts as-is, otherwise we have to put every pre-War character down as "Unknown" because they might have been ghoulified. Tagaziel (talk) 14:37, 19 August 2015 (UTC)


 * While a different discussion for perhaps a different day, we do not actually know if super mutants/ghouls existed before the War or not.


 * But that is not why we are here. The point I am making, is that this is a pre-War article, which means it is in the past-tense. The general's fate has not been determined, which means it is speculation to assume as to what has happened to him since the Great War. We are talking about Fallout, where just about anything is possible. It seems silly to me, to make huge assumptions as to the final fate of pre-War characters, when we know full and well that they might return in another Fallout game. Hell, I have been expecting a ghoulified Constantine to show up ever since Fallout 3 was released. GarouxBloodline 17:36, 19 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Just because something might have happened doesn't mean it did happen. As you wrote above, the last known appearance of the General is as a pre-War human and thus he is marked down as a human. Same standards. It isn't a huge assumption either, simply a statement based on available facts. To be honest, a bigger problem is assuming gender based on how the name sounds. Might be worth checking out. :) Tagaziel (talk) 21:24, 19 August 2015 (UTC)
 * That is an especially tough one to tackle, actually. Especially when engimas such as Sergeant Dornan, and Emerald Solo exist.


 * Anyways, I will digress. I still support my belief, and I have not been dissuaded from it - but there are more important things to be attending to, so I will pick my battles carefully. Maybe later down the road, I can pick this discussion back up. GarouxBloodline 21:27, 19 August 2015 (UTC)