Timelines

In order to see if there are similarities within Fallout and our reality I have to have a good long look at the Fallout timeline and ours respectively. 


1942 - Sierra Army Depot begins construction. Situated in Herlong, California, it is a United States Army post that offers '36,000 acres of high desert terrain we are able to provide distinct storage advantages of ample space, low humidity and low precipitation; excellent for the long term storage of mechanized vehicles located here.'  as well as the safe disposal of depleted uranium and in their own words they 'have a highly dedicated staff of expert and skilled machinists, craftsmen, equipment operators and support personnel that are vital to the current and future Army needs. This type of expertise allows us to receive store, maintain, and ship material anywhere or anytime in the world - ON TIME.' The people who run this place have been living on site for quite a few generations (1950s when the housing scheme started) and is run entirely by the US Army and overseen by the US government (part of the TOCOM LCMC branch) it also offers a variety of services, these include:

• Inland Petroleum Distribution Systems
• Water Support Systems
• Force Provider 
• Army Field Feeding Systems 
• Large Area Maintenance Shelters
• Landing Mat Sets
• Bridging 
• Reserve Component Hospital 
• Decrement Associated Support Items of Equipment - (non-medical)
• Receive, store, issue, renovate, and demilitarize (disassemble) depleted uranium rounds

Besides this long list of services, the depot was and still is a huge military storage facility, during the 1970s and 1980s, SIAD was also used for the storage of unarmed nuclear weapons. These weapons and their storage and maintenance areas were protected by the 980th Military Police Company as a part of DARCOM.

Leading us nicely into the Fallout timeline, in 1945 3 years after the SIAD was created, the Los Alamos Nuclear research Facility opened, as well as the Manhattan Project.

1969 - After WWII the US Government turns the 50 states in 13 commonwealths  to ensure economic stability after the War. But due to backlash from the commonwealth the tensions rise in the nation when the commonwealth puts their own ambition before the economic stability of the country. The national flag is changed to reflect this and depicts fourteen stars - thirteen in a circle to represent the commonwealths and one in the middle to represent the federal government and the nation as a whole. This was the year (in our world) that Richard Nixon becomes president of the USA.

2042 - Mr House (in the real world Howard Hughes) founds Robco which are a US based company specialising in domesticated products, whereas in game they develop robots to aid 
humans in domestic chores.
Howard Hughes was a man


2051-2052 - This is where it starts to get juicy. USA begins putting pressure on Mexico to protects its investments in their oil supply, citing the political instability and pollution as a threat to nationality. The United States government enter Mexico to oversee all of Mexico's oil refineries. They also cite the political instability and pollution as a threat to nationality creating huge costs to Mexico's economy.


This however, is not a rare occurrence, the USA have in the past put pressure on Mexico concerning their natural gas and crude oil resources considering that the Mexican government rely on the industry for 35% of total government revenues, including taxes and direct payments from Petroleos Mexicanos (Pemex) as well as Mexico being the third largest foreign crude oil supplier to the US.
On May 8th 2003, a group of American Republican congressmen approve a bilateral accord with Mexico, American invested into the opening of Pemex, the Mexican oil company as well as an agreement on migration.
The Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) is a permanent intergovernmental Organisation created at the Baghdad Conference on Sept-10-14 1960 they meet to regulate and observe crude oil prices in order to keep prices fair worldwide.
In 1982 though, there was one country that stood independently against OPEC, yet kept its prices close to the OPEC regulations that of course was Mexico, in the New York Times it stated, 


"Government critics have argued that membership in OPEC would be desirable because it would decrease the nation's economic dependence on the United States, which buys about half of the 1.4 million barrels of oil that Mexico exports daily." November 30 1982


To combat this, in La Jornada (left-wing publication) Mexico City, Mexico, May 12, 2003,they went on to say that one of the reasons that Mexico did not join OPEC was because of the American pressure exerted by OPEC officials as well as investors in the oil companies of the North. On an economical note, if Mexico had of joined OPEC they would have sold oil to the USA on a preferential basis, this allowed the USA to purchase Mexican oil at a good price and increases reserves. On a long-term basis, and in due time would of allowed it to bring down the price of oil on a global level, which just goes to show that the American republicans (who are known for their hate for Mexicans) are trading oil for migration despite the fact over 4.5 million undocumented workers play a part of the USA's huge food trade, not too far away from Spain being the main exporter/manufacturer of the UK's food.




2052 - The tension in the world in the past century causes most of the worlds petroleum reserves to dry up thus starting a war between the European nations and the Middle East when the ME decided to drastically increase oil prices. This in turn causes the USA to forcefully annex Canada. 
OPEC's history covers the 'war' (debate) between the EU and neighbouring Middle East nations over oil prices, Canada on the other hand is a whole new bag. 
A brief internet search shows many plans, ideas, websites, forums, blogs all about or in favour to annex Canada, except after a CNN poll it was revealed only 4 out of 10 Americans wanted to actually annex their peaceful Northern neighbours, whereas out of 6.7 million Canadians 19.9% of the populace were for the proposition.
There is a whole heap of information for this argument that I dont have time to read through, reading the analyses I can conclude that there has always been a shaky relationship between Canada and the USA that tends to go back to nationality, resource, public policy, legalisation issues, firearm control and a multitude of private sector issues including various ideas to privatise public services. The Fraser Institute is a conservative and libertarian think tank based in Canada (yet privately invested by Americans) that promotes free market principles. This is one of many examples that show the permeation of American ideas, values and ideals that have been shaping Canada for since October 10, 1849. Sir Wilfred Laurier said from his speech in Boston in 1891 - "I am a subject of the British Crown, but whenever I have to choose between the interests of England and Canada it is manifest to me that the interests of my country are identical with those of the United States of America. " 



2066 - China invades USA from Alaska for resources and thus starts a war with the US. This is also the time when the Vaults were built, to the public they were bomb shelters that could hold 1000 people in each, but little did they know that they were actually social experiments by Vault-Tec (in collaboration with the US government).

2077 - The war reached it's climax when the US and China dropped nukes on each other, this is also the time when the Vaults locked up completely. The war, although called the "Great War" only lasted 2 hours before both nations were reduced to nothing.

Whichever game you play let it be Fallout, Fallout 2 or Fallout 3 or New Vegas, they all follow this timeline.








References:

Mexico's oil industry - James A. Baker Institute  for Public Policy


Mexico's 1982 Economic Crisis - University of Texas at Austin


Canada's Trade Laws - NAFTA, World Trade Laws

Background

The Fallout universe is a pseudo-historical RPG littered with relics of our reality, cultural conflict and a grim look at what could be a not so distant future. Stuck in a cultural limbo in the time period of the 1950's, with a mindset of paranoia that echoes the cold war, it offers an alternate timeline after world war 2, a country torn apart by conflict not only alongside neighbouring nations, but internally as well. This game does not take place in the 50's, but is a reimagining of the world similar to a "what if" scenario where 50's technology came into fruition so flying cars, robots that look like boxes, food in pill form etc. The timeline between our world and their world splits after World War II, except they had rapidly advanced their technology as in our world.


Amongst a host of other events that scatter the timeline perhaps one of the most important events was the energy crisis that caused the Resource War which unsurprisingly brings to light a global interest in reality; the acquisition of resources, renewable energy and the global plight of capital.


People of distinction who feature in-game have had a profound effect on our world as well, such as Nikola Tesla, the physicist who revolutionized how we utilize electricity, Howard Hughes aka Mr House, an industrialist, aviator, philanthropist, hotelier, engineer and an incredibly successful business magnate. Most of the characters in-game are all viable representatives for their real counterparts, not only adding to the game's complex structure, but offers the player some form of education whilst enjoying it.


Objects play an incredibly huge part to the games success, being able to construct weapons, helpful inventory items and in one game mode depend entirely on your wits and survival know-how. The integration of commodity items takes a playful turn, as their functions are regressed  instead of performing their tasks normally they would be incorporated into either an aggressive implement or an item that will benefit you rather than complete some form of mundane or pointless task.


So essentially the best way to approach this essay would be to divide all the key areas of study into easy to digest chapters that will lead into one another to avoid distraction from the main question.

Notes

Ok So I started shooting emails back and forth between me and Richard. This is what we had to say...


Right, well if you can throw yourself back a year to what my proposal was...

Joking, the title was "to what extent are transgressive next-gen computer games real?"

So this would be comparing timelines in both the real world and the virtual plane to see if there are any connections in social, cultural or military values. Investigating and analysing  the social hierarchy, politics and subsequent relationships relevant to each games timeline and 'timeline' respectively, looking at the connections between the real and virtual.

Also the technology, adaptation of mankind to new surroundings, as well as studying the interaction and relationship between player/character, how emotive responses to situations in-game have effects on the player as a person.

Some theory I will be using will be Ludology, Hyperreality, Virtuality, Ideology and Immersion.

But I was thinking that maybe toning the essay down a tad to make my workload more manageable as a whole, maybe something like comparing certain games to art, questioning the aesthetic of virtual simulation as well as giving games the philosophical platform they deserve. 

I have included some images from the game the original proposal was written for to give you an idea about what it is I am writing about.

I also found a site with all the in-game poster designs that will give you a much better idea, http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Category:Fallout:_New_Vegas_posters

Thanks Rich,

Tom

I like the topic, but not the title- computer games are obviously not real. Baudrillard would probably call them first or second order simulations. The more interesting question, revolving around the concept of hyperreality, would ask whether computer game worlds are informed by, or inform, reality. Put another way, does the simulation create it's own reality.

This should make a good dissertation. Get some introductory guides toBaudrillard. You'll also need to fill in a proposal form, which you can get from Yasmine

Richard




So first things first, read an introduction to Baudrillard! 

First Impressions

Following on from my last essay on Baudrillard, hyperreality and Philip K Dick, I have a rough idea of what I want to do my essay on. Last year, my proposal was accepted, 

'to what extent are next-generation computer games real?'

Richard Miles' feedback outlined some more key sources to read concerning the impact of new technologies, the impact of said technologies based on textual experiences and to look at the emerging discipline of Game Studies, which will be vital as a methodological approach to my dissertation.

He mentioned that looking at a some case studies based on close readings of seminal computer games would help my essay from being too general.

So as a start, looking at some case studies concerning games, as well as starting some of the key texts highlighted by Richard.

I need to narrow down my essay title as well, but we will see as I go on what sort of things I will be studying in greater detail. At the moment possible titles are: 'Is the Fallout universe different from present day?' ' In the Fallout universe, how has the American dream survived for so long?' or 'To what extent does Fallout coincide with our reality?'

Obviously I will make sure I have a much more focussed title in a few weeks hopefully!

More helpful

http://www.ctheory.net/articles.aspx?id=610

More Baudrillard

ANNOTATE> Dissertation ideas.


Towards Freedom: Television, Baudrillard and Symbolic Exchange
Posted by Stephen Groening / University of Minnesota on February 23rd, 2007 3 Comments Printer-Friendly

by: Stephen Groening / University of Minnesota

Tony Blair George Bush

Tony Blair (left) and George Bush (right) on Towards Freedom Television

For Jean Baudrillard, television is not a medium of communication but a technology of non-communication because it precludes the reciprocity necessary to symbolic exchange, an activity he compares to ritualized gift exchange described in the anthropological writings of Marcel Mauss (Merrin, 1999). The amount of signification produced by television overwhelms our ability to give meaning back and thus renders our world opaque. Since the television audience cannot “give back” to television, television prevents communication. Based on this model of the symbolic, Baudrillard famously declared that the 1991 Gulf War “did not take place” since a war requires a struggle between adversaries, which the first Iraq War clearly did not have. A true war would involve exchange and opposition. Baudrillard argued that the United States was a constant giver in this non-war and, at any rate, the goals of George H.W. Bush and Saddam Hussein overlapped so much that they were not adversaries (Baudrillard, 1995).

“Operation: Iraqi Freedom” (the second Iraq war) has been somewhat different. Although the invasion was a non-war by Baudrillard's definition, the occupation includes an amount of “symbolic exchange” to fulfill Baudrillard's requirements of actual, rather than virtual, war. The Bush administration and, according to polls, the U.S. citizenry are disconcerted by this turn of events. It is fairly clear that the invading forces did not want any part of any kind of symbolic exchange. An example from the use of television in the invasion suffices to support this point. On April 10, 2003, as part of an effort called Towards Freedom Television (TFTV) a specially equipped Hercules aircraft dubbed “Commando Solo” flew over Iraq and began broadcasting a series of televised speeches by George W. Bush and Tony Blair into Iraqi homes. In the tradition of leaflet dropping, balloon releases, radio broadcasts such as Voice of America and Radio Free Europe, Towards Freedom Television was not necessarily new or remarkable. But there are some intriguing developments in this form of imperial propaganda: a military plane beams television broadcasts into a country whose television stations were among the first targets to be destroyed by bombs and missiles, and the control of distribution is created through brute force. Thus, the invaders want to replace one form of what Baudrillard might term unilateral non-communication (that of Saddam Hussein's regime) with another (U.S. television).

Commando Solo

Commando Solo, the airplane used to transmit signals

In retrospect, TFTV was a failure and a surprising one, given that television is often seen as the propaganda device par excellence. Following Baudrillard's logic, both TFTV and the television system in the United States lack symbolic exchange and so one should work as well as the other. However, the breakdown really occurs in how unsuccessful TFTV is in simulating symbolic exchange; that is, how close TFTV approaches a model of communication. Because television in the United States more closely adheres to an imagined model of communication and reciprocity, it is rarely recognized as the non-communication it is. Through the slight-of-hand and misdirection called “freedom of choice” the non-communication of U.S. television appears to be communication through an appeal to freedom (of markets, of expression, of not watching). Iraqis, because of lived experience, were (and are) able to recognize non-reciprocity when they see it.

In the case of TFTV, freedom means broadcasting news from the big three American networks (ABC, CBS, NBC) in the place of Iraqi television. TFTV, run by the British company World Television (with apparent supervision from the Pentagon), consists of already created media products and promotion. These operations–destroying previous media apparatus and filling the airwaves with U.S. cultural product–paved the way for Norman Pattiz, chairman of Westwood One, to set up “Iraq and the World” a 24-hour satellite channel beaming similar material as TFTV to 22 countries in the Middle East.

I am neither surprised nor particularly upset by the military's effort to broadcast propaganda into foreign territory, it seems a relatively minor incident in the larger context of the war. I offer TFTV up as a graphic demonstration of the similarities between television's non-communication and the invasion's non-war, which calls attention to the fashion in which military and cultural activities seem interchangeable. Richard Denis Johnson, author of Seeds of Victory: Psychological Warfare and Propaganda made this equation explicit when he said of the leaflets alerting Iraqis of TFTV “It's almost like getting a TideTM coupon in the mail” (Coughlin, 2003). This observation is disturbing and chilling on several levels. First, it compares the violent destruction and subsequent replacement of a nation's media apparatus to the banal experience (to U.S. citizens) of receiving junk mail. Second, it reduces the messages of two of the most powerful men in contemporary society to laundry detergent. Third, it conflates violent military activity with consumerism. In this sense, it would seem Baudrillard is correct: no matter what we may hope for the media in contemporary society, it has become a form of symbolic violence by disallowing response and reciprocity. If leaflets from a hostile and invading army are equivalent to coupons, than the advertisements on television might be akin to the door-to-door raids carried out by the U.S. Army. Thus television is militarism carried onto another stage. Perhaps television is domination in an even purer form than military force, since, as we have seen in the past few years, the violence perpetrated by our invasion of Iraq has elicited more reciprocity and stronger responses than broadcast television in the United States.

The Air Force training for transmissions

The Air Force training for transmissions

While some debate the extent and nature of media influence, those in power already take it for granted. It does not matter to George W. Bush, Tony Blair, Brian Williams or Bill O'Reilly if audiences adopt “negotiated” or “oppositional” position, if they “poach” meanings, or if programs are polysemic, transparent or open. The destruction of local media apparatus and the replacement with exogenous media transmissions demonstrates how television is a “push” technology; the explanatory power of the active audience thesis no longer pertains in the face of TFTV's kind of unilateralism (that this unilateralism is somehow different may be just a fantasy we want to believe). The question here is not of propaganda versus ideological influence, or of truth versus lies. Nor is it an exploration of the link between military technologies and communication technologies, which has been covered exceptionally well by others (Mattelart, 1994 and Virilio, 1989). The violence inflicted on television by invading powers graphically illustrates how much is at stake in controlling the content of the airwaves. This may seem like a mundane observation, but it sheds a different light on struggles over representation which constitute so much of the politics of television playing out in major daily newspapers and weekly newsmagazines.

For Baudrillard questions of media control and distribution of content are misguided, since he presumes that we live in a mediatized, non-communicative society. According Baudrillard, what we need is to get back to the old practices of speaking to one another, to reject the simulacra and bring back symbolic exchange. This is a nostalgic view, which attempts to get back to a pre-modern society and include activities close to Mauss's descriptions of Native American rituals. In a sense, Baudrillard is a hippie: the social activist who leverages social privilege into primitivism and mutates social responsibility into rebellion. In his critique of Hans Magnus Enzensburger, “Requiem for the Media,” Baudrillard reveals himself to be precisely the kind of '68er Enzensburger critiques: the nostalgic who feels that non-industrial and artisanal media form symbolic exchange and constitute the only way out of the non-communicative society in which we live (Baudrillard, 1986).

So here is where we must depart from Baudrillard. For it is not enough to abandon certain media to the category of non-communication and uphold others as “symbolic exchange”. If television is indeed a form of symbolic imposition we must ask ourselves why unilateral non-communicative media arose in the 20th Century and became instituted in a society that professes liberalism and freedom of expression. In other words, Towards Freedom Television points to the need for historicity (attention to the specific situation of “Operation: Iraqi Freedom” would reveal opportunities for symbolic exchange) and sociological analysis. If we only look at television programming and audience activity in front of television sets (or other screens), we would miss much of this exchange and the kinds of communicative reciprocity that are taking place. Condemning the mass media as the enemy, as hopeless, or as inherently anti-social and anti-human is to retreat from the struggle of political and cultural representation; and it is a struggle we cannot afford to lose.

Works Cited
“Arab World now Faces Invasion by American TV.” The Guardian. 24 April 2003.

Baudrillard, Jean. The Gulf War Did not Take Place. Trans. and Intro. Paul Patton. Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1995.

—. “Requiem for the Media” in Video Culture: A Critical Investigation. Ed. John G. Hanhardt. Layton, UT: Peregrine Smith Books, in association with Visual Studies Workshop Press, 1986.

“Bush and Blair's Iraq Broadcast.” BBC Online. 10 April 2003.

Coughlin, Kevin. “War- It's Not just Firing Guns.” GlobalSecurity.org. 11 April 2003.

“Iraq Media Dossier.” Radio Netherlands Worldwide.

Mattelart, Armand. Mapping World Communication: War, Progress, Culture. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 1994.

Merrin, William. “Television Is Killing the Art of Symbolic Exchange: Baudrillard's Theory of Communication.” Theory, Culture & Society. 16.3 (1999): 119-40.

Stewart-Smith, Charles. “Why Should the Iraqis Believe US TV?” The Guardian. 14 April 2003.

Virilio, Paul. War and Cinema: The Logistics of Perception. London: Verso, 1989.

Essay