Falling Out with a Zombie contingency

Today's Topic #1: Fallout
Sub Topic(s): Fallout, Fallout 2 & Fallout 3
Where to start on Fallout… I guess the beginning right?
Fallout one and two have been heralded as one of gaming’s biggest cult classic RPGs.
The entire series is set in the 22nd century following a nuclear war with China. It is a “What if?” scenario highly influenced by the 1950’s and the Cold War era. A major plot point in the games aside from the war is the Vaults. Just before the war the US Government contracted Vault-Tec to build many large underground bunkers to supposedly to preserve US citizens until it was safe once again. It is later learned in the game that the vaults were a large scale social experiment. Each vault had its own unique situation and problems. Yet outside the vaults life still went on.


In Fallout you take on the role of the Vault Dweller sent from the infamous Vault 13 (subsequently the control group of all the vaults) to find a replacement chip for the failing water purification system. Along the way you run into raiders, man eating rats, giant scorpions, struggling civilization and super mutants. You also meet the Brotherhood of Steel. They are a paramilitary organization hell bent on reclaiming pre-war technology. Knights of the Brotherhood are seen in combat armor with assault weapons and the elevated Paladins wear powered armor and carry mini-guns! YES! I need to point out that when the games was released in ’96 that it was considered extremely violent and graphic, by today’s standards the series are still very violent but not quite so graphic. Before I digress too far, the Brotherhood ropes you in to do some scouting for them and you find a super mutant army forming in the north. You report back to the vault and they tell you to help the Brotherhood. You can guess the rest.


In Fallout 2, 80 years down the road, your character is the descendent of the Vault Dweller. This time around you must leave your village to find the Holy GECK (Garden of Eden Creation Kit) to breathe life back into the dying earth of your village. Once again you will encounter raiders, scorps, rats, mutants, still struggling but more vibrant civilization, the Brotherhood and the Enclave. The Enclave will be the primary antagonist of this story line. The Enclave is the remainder of the US Government hold up in an off shore oil rig. After you get the GECK and return to your village you find that they have all been kidnapped by the Enclave for testing. Again I don’t feel like writing too much more about this.


After the release of an okay Fallout Tactics: Brotherhood of Steel and the tepid at best console title Brotherhood of Steel, but before their financial fiasco, Interplay was working on Fallout 3. It was code named Van Buren. Sadly in ’03 it was cancelled when Interplay cut its PC division out. Now in a triumphant revival Bethesda Softworks has put up a teaser page counting down to 05JUN07. So far all the page does is play music and has a hand full of concept pieces. The game seems to be an enigma, all that is known is that Liam Neeson is to do the voice work for the character’s father; the game is supposedly a MMORPG and it is being built on the Gamebryo engine previously seen in Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion.

*Here is a link the Fallout 3 teaser page http://fallout.bethsoft.com/index.html
*This is a link to No Mutants Allowed you can find everything Fallout here from canon to trainer programs and mods. http://www.nma-fallout.com/
* This is a link to Wikipedia which seems to have a comprehensive knowledge piled up for your viewing pleasure. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallout_series

Today’s Topic #2: Jameson Triple Distilled Irish Whiskey
Sub Topic(s): Whiskey
I would like a Jameson and coke… PLEASE?! Ha ha. No I really would though… Jameson is a two stage drunk for me. First six to eight shots worth is the Chill Stage. Every time I start I just want to relax and watch the world go by. The next stage is the Happy Stage. It comes around shot eight to ten. Energy levels seem to pick up a bit and the objective changes from chillaxing to conversating. Jameson has a wild side effect; there is a 50% chance that you will become the night’s philosopher. So be prepared for long blown epiphanies about the stars, freckles and sand. It is a wholly satisfying drunk.

Today’s Topic #3: Zombie Survival Kit
Sub Topic(s): …..ah…. Zombies?.....
So I saw this on the net the other day and thought I would share. Unless that thing has a .45 and 500 rounds of ammo you might be better off with a brick. Remember to go for the head. Heh heh. Zombies are one of my favorite genres. They really put humanity into contrast, makes you look at what it is to be human. Not to mention man seems to have a fascination with the dead. What is more embodying of our fascination than it getting back up and carrying out life’s most basic functions? It flies in the face of most monotheistic religions and makes people question. Could you imagine what a zombie apocalypse would be like? Do you have the intestinal fortitude to carry on and do what you have to, to survive?







Today’s Topic #4: Gun of the Day
Sub Topic(s): The Flamethrower
This devastating incendiary death dealer has not been used by the US military since Vietnam. In WWI and WWII all sides used flamethrowers in various roles. I will only cover the man-portable flamethrower here, although it should be stated that vehicle mounted flamethrowers generally were the most wisely deployed. I also want to dispel the myth that flamethrowers actually shoot fire, rather they shoot ignited napalm of one type or the other. Also cinema makes the flame thrower seem as though it only can fire for 50ft or so, where as real flamethrowers can send a jet of napalm up to 250ft. I also want to dismiss the notion that all flamethrowers exploded when shot. Most flamethrowers used unflammable gas as their propellents. While the diesel based napalm needed an incendiary round to make it light by anything other than the weapon.

Flamethrowers were hard to use and generally demanded an entire fire team to be structured around the one weapon. When able to be used the flamethrower was devastating. It excelled at clearing entrenchments, bunkers and pillboxes. It also worked very well on standing buildings and foliage, normally starting fires that would take the entire structure or sections of the forests. They we also used as a psychological wweapons. The gruesome death involved with the receiving end of the flame thrower more often than not caused screams that caused chaos and fear. Fear is a soldier killer. Flamethrowers were so fear by both Axis and Allied powers that when flamethrower troops were captured they were generally not taken, but rather executed on the spot. The Nazis, in all their Fascist wisdom, had their flame troopers sew black and white skull patched on their uniforms.

Flamethrowers generally consisted of two tanks a hose and a gun/sprayer/igniter. One of the tanks would have the flammable liquids in it, in the US’s case; napalm. The tank would contain a propellant; in most cases it wouldn’t be flammable. The hose would connect the tanks to the weapon portion of the flamethrower. Now the weaponized end generally had two pistol grips a trigger on each one being the igniter and the other the fuel release valve. There were various igniter types’ magnesium, heat electricity and pressure. The US flamethrowers had adjustable nozzles with the ability to modify the streams.



Here is a link to see a working flamethrower diagram. It is of a design not used by the USA. http://science.howstuffworks.com/flamethrower3.htm

Good night and good fight.