Spoiler-zone ahead kids; be warned!



One of the nicer touches to Fallout 3 was the very selfless, ambitious, and yet deceivingly simple goal of the "good guys" of the game's story: pure, free, clean water for all. It was a very impressive element of the story, and one which -- I think -- should make us all think about what we really need to improve our lives and what our currently violent, war-torn real world really needs in order to lead it out of these troubled times.

Clean water was the pressing need of Vault 13 in the first major quest of Fallout 1 as well, but it wasn't as much of a literary quest as it turned out to be in Fallout 3. That is to say, "water" in Fallout 3 isn't just water, it's practically one of the main characters of the story.

Remember, the game does not introduce us to water by giving us a cup of it to drink, and our first encounter with water is not when we drink it out of the Potomac River in the wasteland; water is introduced to The Lone Wanderer by his dad (or his mom?) by way of an appropriately used biblical quote:

"I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end. I will give to him that is thirsty of the fountain of the water of life freely..."

In the dark humor-filled story, it was an almost discomforting moment in the game when Liam Neeson read the ancient yet personal passage (especially ancient considering the setting and circumstance of the game!), and it was also an odd moment of contemplation, reflection, and optimistic uncertainty which seemed almost defiant towards Fallout's pessimistic and existential narrator. It's not until the end of the story that we come to realize that the "I" in the quote is in fact the Lone Wanderer himself: he is the alpha and the omega in the sense that he activates the purifier and gives the people of the wasteland either redemption and a new beginning or death and ultimate destruction by way of using the Enclave's contaminant.

The amazing thing about the dream of Project Purity is that it touched everyone in the Capital Wasteland (for better and for worse). Even the Enclave did not intervene at the Jefferson Memorial merely for pragmatic reasons, they did so because the very idea of the waters of life threatened their entire ideology of absolute authority. Listen to President John Henry Eden on his radio broadcasts. Even without having Enclave troops present in the Capital Wasteland, he confidently declares "I am the heart, the soul of the Enclave; the heart, the soul of America [...] One Enclave. One America." The Enclave WANTS power and authority over people, and feels confident that they have it at the game's beginning, but until that power and authority is threatened, they never feel a need to actually exercise power or authority or do much else besides sit around in their base and throw masturbatory radio robots into the wastes. They view reality in a way that is meant to be antagonistic to the player's view of reality. The player, by the game's goals and design, interacts freely throughout the land acquiring companions and allies by merits of his actions and interactions and who resolves his quests by risking all and leaving behind everything comfortable in his life in order to rush headlong into the unknown corners of the wasteland. The Lone Wander and his father have real power -- real freedom, and they get it by changing the world. The Enclave, on the other hand, is blinded by an ancient ideology which defines power and authority as something that is inherited; to Eden, the fact that he is the "successor" to the presidency of a country that died the day that the bombs fell over 200 years in the past is enough for him to feel legitimate in his actions.



That clean, pure, free water is what changes the world (for good or for bad) and the fight to first finish and then to control the purifier is the player's source of delight in Fallout 3 because it simulates one playing a key role in saving the world, connecting with countless millions of lives (the wastelanders and the generations of wastelanders to follow them) in one bright moment before death.

Fallout 3 demonstrates the very best and worst of humanity, and it shouldn't shock or surprise anyone to learn that the violence, slavery, drug abuse, and debauchery of the real-world matches or even exceeds that of the fictional Capital Wasteland. I wrote this post while reflecting on a recent random, senseless murder of a University at Albany student this past semester -- the barbarity of that incident, but the fitting celebration of his life which took place when he was posthumously awarded his diploma at the university's graduation ceremony.

Where are our waters of life? Could it be the internet? Open-source software? Healthcare? Globalization? How do we "fight the good fight"?

I'm interested in hearing your thoughts on this, but would just leave you with what I ultimately take away on this, which is the final moment of the game, when after we hear that "War. War never ends..." we see one last vision of The Lone Wander and his dad's dwelling in Vault 101. There, we see not the "I am the Alpha and the Omega..." quote in center-frame, but instead see the photograph Jonas took of father and son standing together with the bee-bee gun after the 10th birthday party. Both of them unconcerned with the fate of the world and living for the moment the best they could...

Update: I reposted this today because I stupidly posted this last night in the middle of "hugfest" :-) Thanks a lot to Niero and CTZ for letting me repost and too the commentators on the last post who told me I should repost it!