Talk:Gehenna (Van Buren)

Quite interesting pun (cut off from the article).--dotz 22:10, 19 April 2008 (UTC):

The existence of Gehenna in the original Fallout'' are vaguely alluded to, although the creature does not appear in the game. The Ancient Brotherhood Tape (see: Holodisk) recovered from The Glow states: ''"Camarillo seemed fine physically, but he wandered off about an hour ago, mumbling something about Gehenna. That bastard has all the anti-rads."'
 * I don't see a pun there. Restored. Nitty Tok. 12:44, April 4, 2010 (UTC)
 * Then you clearly never played Vampire: The Masquerade. Nevertheless, I'm 99% sure Camarillo was not referencing the creatures named Gehenna, but a place where people and animals were sacrificed to be consumed by ever-burning fire. Or it's the aforementioned pun. Or, probably, both. I think it's fairly unlikely- given the time at which this particular group of people died- that the extensive mutations required to turn humans in to Tasha-killing monsters had yet occurred. Also, you have to ignore the glaringly obvious fact that these particular men came from Mariposa Military Base to investigate the West-Tek Research Facility, AKA "The Glow". They arrived after "20 days of hell". At what point would they have had time to travel several hundred miles to the southwest, to Utah, to check out an abandoned government coal mine? I'm going to change the article. Please check out the links- and consider the logic- before you revert. Baseproduct 05:22, June 27, 2010 (UTC)
 * In fact, after brief consideration, I propose moving this article to a new page, titled "Gehennae", and changing the old links that point to it in specific reference to the quest vanish and reappear as the links above, in the trivia section. I would have done it myself, but so many links point to this page (I think via the creatures template) that I don't want to break something important by doing so. Look forward to your input. In the meantime, I'm going to edit out the Camarillo bit from the article. Baseproduct 05:29, June 27, 2010 (UTC)

What are they, oil-covered people? FinalWish 12:58, June 7, 2010 (UTC)
 * I'm trying to understand here. Is the argument that because the name "Camarillo" and the word "gehenna" were used in the same sentence that it's therefore a reference to Vampire: The Masquerade? I'm not buying it. Gehenna is a real world with its own non-WoD meaning that is quite appropriate in the Fallout context. And, in WoD, it's "Camarilla" and not "-o." By the way, camarilla is a real word with its own meaning, too. Just because WoD is the first place somebody learns the two words doesn't mean much.--Gothemasticator 07:51, June 27, 2010 (UTC)
 * It is a reference. End of story. http://images1.wikia.nocookie.net/fallout/images/0/08/Personal_Sig_Image.gif Tagaziel (call!) 09:54, June 27, 2010 (UTC)
 * I'm not seeing it, and stubbornly insisting without an explanation isn't convincing me.--Gothemasticator 15:36, June 27, 2010 (UTC)
 * K, let me give this another shot, then. In a game shot through with pop culture references- from a time when all the hip PNPRPG nerds, like me, were playing WW games- we have a male character named Camarillo (a name of apparent Spanish descent; its feminized version would be Camarilla) who references Gehenna. We have 4 choices as to what the developers intended when they put in this tiny little line:


 * 1. Nothing. Nothing at all. This is merely a HUGE coincidence.
 * 2. They intended to reference a game that was more than a decade away from being planned, when there were no indications that their game would ever be successful enough to sequel-ize, never mind twice.
 * 3. They intended to reference an obscure piece of Jewish eschatology, wherein Gehenna- which is, yes, an actual place that serves the city of Jerusalem as a trash dump- is the place where wicked souls are sent to be punished in ever-burning fire.
 * 4. They intended to reference Vampire:The Masquerade.


 * Let's examine each of these, shall we? Number one seems unlikely, as this is a game that prided itself on its references. Number two is... certainly possible, but again unlikely, for the reasons I mentioned above- namely, the distance it would be necessary to cover in the allotted time is too great, and the events that apparently lead to the creation of the Gehennae have yet to occur (although, given that they don't actually exist in the FO universe, one could argue they never did). Three is fairly likely; without going too deep in to the specifics of it, it is a place where demon-worshipers supposedly sacrificed their children, by fire, to their dark gods. This later morphed in to a version of hell, where the fires burned unceasingly. Given that the glow is extremely radioactive- and these men are being burned alive by it- this certainly fits the "ever-burning fire" definition. Let us now examine number four. In the same sentence, we have what appears to be a reference to a group of vampires in an RPG who believe that Gehenna is their apocalypse, and a mention of Gehenna- not exactly a common name, nor a common word. Camarillo was a man, according to the holotape, so changing the last letter of that group of vampires' name to -o makes sense in context of the Spanish language, where sex is frequently indicated by changing the last letter of a name/noun (Mario/Maria, chico/chica). Let us now compare 3 and 4, the most likely of the possible interpretations. Three is a strong possibility, but it lacks the double nature of 4; while a place that destroys the wicked with unending balefire certainly fits the circumstances of these men in the glow, given that "Camarillo" appears in the same sentence, and- whether you like it or not- this tabletop game is the place 99% of people heard of these two words for the first time, and is the *ONLY PLACE* they were ever likely to hear the two words in the same context, it walks, talks, smells, and tastes like a reference to V:TM. I don't know if any of the developers of the original game are Jewish and of Spanish descent, but I can deduce fairly easily that they were most or all RPG nerds... it's how they were able to make such a great CBRPG. So, while your mileage may vary, this is way better documented than around 60% of the references on this wiki. Rather than start an edit war, I'm going to leave the article as it currently stands. My biggest gripe with it was that there was no way the holotape was referencing creatures whose existence is almost certainly a complete mystery to the people who recorded it. Baseproduct 17:58, June 27, 2010 (UTC)
 * All right. Thanks for being willing to talk this out for my benefit. I'll buy the "Camarilla plus Gehenna in one sentence amounts to a reference" argument. I do agree, though, that it is not referring to the creatures. I'll put back the WoD note in the article.--Gothemasticator 19:43, June 27, 2010 (UTC)
 * I put the WoD ref in the holotape article. I removed links and referencing language between this article and the holotape article.--Gothemasticator 19:50, June 27, 2010 (UTC)
 * Thank you. :) Baseproduct 20:01, June 27, 2010 (UTC)
 * I know this is old, but I thought that it was Van Buren alluding to the random sentence, not F1 alluding to some super odd creatures... :/ Nitty Tok. 03:54, November 23, 2010 (UTC)