.
On Good and Evil in the Wasteland [or: More VG Philosophy]
.
In most video games the two great alternatives of good and evil are fairly obvious,
almost to the point of being too obvious. The Real-World is, of course, mostly
composed of shades of gray; and sometimes the choice between good and evil is
not-at-all obvious. However, some of the better games can occasionally introduce
an element or two of gray, and thus create some confusion on the part of the
player. Thus the player’s character, his avatar if you will, having built up his good-
ness or bad-to-the-boneness, will be left in the awkward position of not quite
knowing which of the available alternatives (or choices) is the better way to go,
in light of that particular character’s general tendencies.
.
One VG that manages to generate some interesting grays is Fallout 3; which is an
FPS set in a post-apocalyptic alternate-future, where the cultural flavor is that of
the 1950s. Anyway, in this odd past/future world, the avatar is generally doing
something when otherwise not just exploring. These missions or quests usually
offer two, or sometimes three, possible courses of action. A good avatar will
choose the good way of doing something, while the evil avatar will choose the
bad way, and the neutral avatar will choose randomly or perhaps just flip a coin.
.
For example, in Bioshock you are given the choice of harvesting the energies of
the Little-Sisters or of saving them. Both choices have their pros and cons, and in
this case at least alternating between the two options is definitely the worst way
to go. You have to make a choice, and stick with it throughout the program in
order to reap the maximum benefits from your choice. In this case, harvesting
offers immediate and lasting benefits in the form of a powerful potion, but also
taints your avatar, generates animosity among the NPCs, and creates nasty
complications further on down the line. Saving the little-sisters has less
immediate benefits, but pays off better later in the game. Strategy and tactics;
the more you have of these, the better the choices offered to you. It’s all very
simple really … Or is it?
.
In the Wasteland, things are generally quite simple; if not exactly easy. And so,
of course, there are many and various creatures and people who only want to kill
you, or perhaps eat you. Normally, it’s just kill or be killed. Weapons and self-
defense are your primary concerns, and missions are few and far between. Being
born and raised in an underground vault, your avatar enters the Wasteland as a
blank-slate; so how you develop, and what you will eventually become is entirely
in your hands and comes from the choices you make and the things you do.
.
As soon as you exit the vault, which has been the only world you’ve ever known,
you look about and there, not far away upon the bleak and grayish landscape, is
your new home, the well-protected little town of Megaton. Among the many things
to be soon found there is a plot to detonate the nuclear bomb in the center of the
town. If you choose to help the plot along, the town and everyone in it dies in an
atomic explosion. If you choose to foil the plot, only two people die, the sheriff and
the assassin Mr Burke (who works for someone else). Easy choice here for a good-
tending avatar; and the only sour note is that the plotter’s boss (Mr Tenpenny)
escapes justice and remains a serious threat to Megaton. But this info is given
only in passing, and seems irrelevant with two dead bodies (good and evil) lying
at your feet. That is, the Sheriff attempted to arrest Mr Burke, and got himself
killed for it (ie. the killer shot him in the back), whereon I relaxed Mr Burke’s
violent tendencies (permanently).
.
So in the Wasteland good and evil are determined by the choices we make, by our
actions, and also by our words. The kind of person we are is reflected, and kept
track of, by an odd system of Karma. So although the world is largely a blanket
of anarchy (with little pockets of civilization), it is relatively easy to be a good (or
even very good) avatar; or conversely to be bad, although it might take some
effort to be very bad. In fact, the hardest thing to accomplish is to remain neutral;
which requires a balanced mixture of both good and evil actions and words. So
while kind and merciful actions will make you a hero and a saint to the people of
the Wastelands, maintaining a Very-Good karmic level is difficult in the face of
careless blunders, trickery, bribery, corruption, coercion, and a dozen other factors
that press you to do something thoughtless and/or downright stupid. The radical-
humanist philosopher M.N. Roy claims that “Man is moral because he is rational”;
but in a world ruled by anarchy and violence and desperation “how is it possible to
sort out reasonable actions from unreasonable ones? How to decide between right
and wrong, good and evil, justice and crime, useful and useless?” (‘Foundation
and Earth’, Asimov)
.
Eventually the Hero of the Wastelands (that’s you) wanders into Tenpenny
Tower, a high-rise hotel taken and held by force for the benefit of the wealthy
and aristocratic survivors of the nuclear Armageddon that killed billions (without
making distinctions between rich and poor, young and old, worthy and unworthy).
Anyway, you arrive just in time to hear an argument (over an intercom) between
TTSecurity (inside the walls) and a ghoul (outside the walls). After hearing that he
can’t enter, he mutters some vague threats about ferals, and stalks angrily away.
It seems that the Tower has a problem with the local ghouls. They want to rent
rooms and enjoy the benefits just like any other paying customer. The residents
are, not surprisingly, against the proposition, and wish someone would just “take
care of” their little “zombie problem” by way of “ghoul extermination”. Once
inside the luxury hotel you may find someone who will even attempt to hire you
to assassinate the ghoul leader. But being the cautious type, I prefer to talk to
everyone before committing myself to desperate measures: “Violence is the last
refuge of the incompetent” (Asimov). Anyway, I came to see Tenpenny about the
Megaton matter, not to jump blindly into a war between ghouls and eccentrics.
.
So at last you have found Mr Allistar Tenpenny: a bored old man who sits out on
the balcony at the top of his tower, and surveys a large chunk of the Wasteland
as might a prince of the realm basking in the glory of his many and great lands.
He tells us that one day, whilst surveying his realm, he called Megaton “an eye-
sore”, and that his good friend Mr Burke immediately offered to have the eyesore
“removed”. And THAT was the genesis of the bomb plot that almost killed the
people of Megaton! Tenpenny then goes on to praise Mr Burke at length and in
detail, and finally ends by wishing for “more men like that”. Men, in other words,
who “can get things done”, quickly, quietly, and efficiently. Riiiiiight. Those are
the same “quick and efficient” type men that almost destroyed the whole
fraggin world! Duh …
.
At this point I’m very tempted to demonstrate the business end of my whacking-
shovel to Mr T, perhaps several times, upside the head. This would at least take
care of any danger to Megaton, and at the same time gain justice for the town
and it’s now dead Sheriff. Now you might think that the matter of justice for the
town’s lawman was satisfied with the death of his killer. After all, it’s an eye for
an eye, and a life for a life, as the good-book sayeth. But this is NOT the case
here, for Lucas was twice the man Burke was; so it will take more than one tiny
cockroach to even the scales there. Moreover, his son is now left without a family,
and his town without an enforcer of law and order and peace. All these crimes
must also be paid for, and they all fall at the feet of Mr T. Technically a swift
justice demands that I kill him now, but the game will interpret it as an evil act;
as will those that follow as I fight my way out of the building against determined
opposition. It would mean a lot of bad blood on my hands. Bad news all around.
.
So okay, I’ll let him live; for now. Justice can wait for another day and a better
time. And who knows, maybe I’ll find a way to solve this country-gentleman’s
little boredom problem too. As for the ghoul-problem, perhaps there is a peaceful
solution to this as well. Certainly the programmers favor the bloodless solution
as the best way to garner good karma. HOWEVER, any solution that leaves Mr
T breathing is nothing less than an offense to justice. He must go. There is no
room in this mangled-world for that old-world thinking that has proven itself
so destructive as to create a world made up of equal parts of radiation and
desperation. The old world must make way for the new. But this does not mean
a world without Law. It only means a new kind of Law.
.
In the old-world, prior to the war, the Law was often used not merely as way
to maintain the peace throughout society. It was also used as a weapon of
oppression against those whom the powers-that-be deemed undesirable (for
example, dopers are labeled ‘drug addicts’, defined as ‘criminals’, and then
subjected to the full fury and wrath of a deliberately draconian social and legal
apparatus). In the new-world, on the other hand, the Law will NOT serve the
ruling-elite first, last, and always, but rather it will serve Reason and Justice
alone! It is all well and good for the Law to serve the “Greater-Good”, but when
it targets specific groups of people for summary punishment and persecution
then it has lost all respect for the rights and freedoms of individuals and/or
minorities. This is but the first small step on the easy path of fascism.
.
Thus the will of the majority is not, and cannot be, the same thing as the so-called
“greater good”. Freedom and Justice ultimately belong only to concrete individuals,
not to abstract majorities, political parties, and self-serving ruling-elites; no matter
how right they imagine themselves to be. In the old-world the Law was made to
serve the ruling-elite first, the mindless masses second, and the individual and
minorities last (if at all). And if the Law is made to do evil, to part company with
Reason and Justice, well that is very sad indeed, but the Law is not perfect after
all. No, not perfect; but not good enough either. America was not built so as to
provide rich fascists with a good place to safely run wild.
.
As for the mission, the next step is to find and chat with the ghoul leader; whose
name, oddly enough, is Roy. Along the road to Roy’s subterranean hideout is a
sign painted on the tunnel walls in blue graffiti, with an arrow pointing that-a-way
… “the Revolution begins here” →
x