[SPEAKER_03]: Welcome to the Fallout lorecast.
[SPEAKER_03]: The podcast that explores the boundaries of our knowledge about the world of Fallout.
[SPEAKER_03]: So I've been getting a lot of positive responses lately from people enjoying this pre-war businesses kind of theme that we've been doing lately.
[SPEAKER_03]: I think it has a lot to do with being able to see the world from a different perspective.
[SPEAKER_03]: And like I mentioned in the previous episode, it really highlights the world building, the different locations, the way that they considered in so many different ways.
[SPEAKER_03]: the way that the pre-war world worked and still is part of the wasteland and the remnants of that.
[SPEAKER_03]: And how many things that we can find reflect a world that is no longer there, but yet still continues to influence the wasteland 200 years later.
[SPEAKER_03]: We've got a lot to cover this week, so let's get into it.
[SPEAKER_03]: Why don't we head down Highway 95 in the Mojave and head back to New Vegas?
[SPEAKER_07]: of America's greatest minds deserve for the miracles of science.
[SPEAKER_03]: What is one of the things that you are most likely to expect to see while heading down a highway, angry motorists, sure, roadkill, potentially, what about gas stations?
[SPEAKER_03]: Yes, the most exciting things that you will ever see on the side of the highway, a gas station.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I'm joking about that a little bit.
[SPEAKER_03]: In the wasteland, when you come across any location, it could be exciting.
[SPEAKER_03]: And if we're heading up Highway 95 from Novak, we will run across El Dorado, Gas, and Service.
[SPEAKER_03]: What remains here is...
[SPEAKER_03]: Basically, the main building, the place that you would go into, pay for the gas, or to pick up some snacks and some drinks and things.
[SPEAKER_03]: And then you have the overhanging, I don't even know what that's called, the shade that hangs over where you would drive up your car and fill up your car.
[SPEAKER_03]: And then there is a big sign in the front, a big round sign.
[SPEAKER_03]: But it doesn't say I'll deroto on it.
[SPEAKER_03]: It says Poseidon Energy.
[SPEAKER_03]: And remember, every time we come across one of these pre-war locations, it's an opportunity to tell a story.
[SPEAKER_03]: And what we're seeing here is a reminder that Poseidon Energy was extremely important in the pre-war world.
[SPEAKER_03]: Poseidon Energy was a conglomerate.
[SPEAKER_03]: They had their hands in every different type of energy that was available.
[SPEAKER_03]: some would call them a cartel.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's corporations like these that held so much sway over the United States government, driving policies and even wars for energy in order to maintain their profits.
[SPEAKER_03]: Tell me if that doesn't sound familiar today.
[SPEAKER_03]: And we can go into Poseidon Energy, but that starts with a P, and that is not the focus of this episode, but we will eventually get there.
[SPEAKER_03]: But let's talk about El Dorado Gas and Service, because they don't have a sign up that says El Dorado at the front.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's not the big sign, but it is noted on the map that this is El Dorado Gas and Service.
[SPEAKER_03]: So you can see here that they were also under the umbrella of Poseidon energy and that this was a chain of locations most likely across the wasteland.
[SPEAKER_03]: What's left of this specific location is mostly the campfire, so there's some beds and some containers inside the location and man is it is it fun to go back to fall out new Vegas and see how everything is basically the same color.
[SPEAKER_03]: you walk into this building and the floors, the walls, the countertops, everything, is that grayish beige tone that looks like, I don't know, the sun has melted away any semblance of color from the world.
[SPEAKER_03]: And there are hints that this used to be more than that.
[SPEAKER_03]: You can see a little bit of the blue and yellow in the Poseidon energy sign, but you can also find remnants of, say,
[SPEAKER_03]: But otherwise, the location is mostly empty and I appreciate this about some of the older follow-ups.
[SPEAKER_03]: In fact, this is one of those details I noticed after I play Fallout 76 for a long time and then I even go back and play Fallout 4, let alone 3 or new Vegas, is how much empty or the world is and it makes sense.
[SPEAKER_03]: A location like this can be seen from a distance.
[SPEAKER_03]: Anybody who happens to be walking by would stop in if not just for shelter for a moment from the sun and the weather.
[SPEAKER_03]: And for the most part, the shelves are bare.
[SPEAKER_03]: There is nothing left here.
[SPEAKER_03]: And that makes sense.
[SPEAKER_03]: How are you going to expect to find anything when the next person who happens to wander by would just pick up anything of value?
[SPEAKER_03]: So it doesn't make sense.
[SPEAKER_03]: There's much here at all, and there isn't.
[SPEAKER_03]: Now this location actually was featured in the Fallout New Vegas official game guide collectors addition, tour of the Mojave wasteland, what a long name.
[SPEAKER_03]: book.
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, you know, remember these game guides that used to be called them books.
[SPEAKER_03]: It specifically says on page 417 a rest stop along Highway 95.
[SPEAKER_03]: This is close to both Helios 1, which makes sense because Poseidon energy, but I guess it makes sense that you would have gas stationed long roads and this one just happens to be close.
[SPEAKER_03]: And Boulder City.
[SPEAKER_03]: Outside there's usually a prospector and a lip campfire with scattered bedding.
[SPEAKER_03]: Inside the gas station offers a ruined series of shelves mostly picked clean.
[SPEAKER_03]: Now you can come across this prospector outside he's got like a motorcycle helmet and kind of a hodgepodge of other clothing and you can also come across some vipers, two gunslingers and a leader hanging out near this location.
[SPEAKER_03]: Now you might be asking, is this the only Eldorado gas in service?
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, it seems to be the only one we know about.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's the only one that shows up in the new Vegas map, and it doesn't show up in any of the other games.
[SPEAKER_03]: So I'm assuming it's a chain.
[SPEAKER_03]: Clearly, they're connected to Poseidon Energy, and it would make sense that these types of gas stations would be more than just one random location.
[SPEAKER_03]: How many times have you been to a gas station?
[SPEAKER_03]: And it wasn't a chain of some series of gas stations, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: That's extremely rare.
[SPEAKER_03]: But we don't really know.
[SPEAKER_03]: We don't have any other evidence for that.
[SPEAKER_03]: So there you go.
[SPEAKER_03]: Elder Rado Gas and Service.
[SPEAKER_03]: All right, for this next one, I'm going to have to do my best Spanish because the title is fully in Spanish.
[SPEAKER_03]: Now, warning, I am not bilingual.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm really bad at language.
[SPEAKER_03]: You've heard me try to talk and speak English.
[SPEAKER_03]: I barely do that.
[SPEAKER_03]: It took French in school.
[SPEAKER_03]: So whenever when else was learning Spanish, I didn't even do that.
[SPEAKER_03]: But here, let's give it a shot.
[SPEAKER_03]: L, period, d, d, so, period, d, Joe, d, so, probably d, so, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: Delas, ab, where he does, ab, where he does, ab, okay, well there, you got it.
[SPEAKER_03]: Most of the Spanish speaking audience out there is now, I'm, I'm not dead to you, I'm so sorry.
[SPEAKER_03]: But what this translates to is the newspaper of the board woman, because a redoss, a burriedoss, is the female version of the word, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: So, board woman.
[SPEAKER_03]: And this is very interesting because this only comes up one time.
[SPEAKER_03]: one time in the lore and it feels like it is mostly a joke because it's the sort of thing that when you hear the characters say it, if you understand what they're saying, you go, oh, that makes sense for the title of a newspaper targeted at women who just want to read like celebrity gossip and that sort of thing.
[SPEAKER_03]: Now, this shows up only one time in the entire series of games.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's during a conversation in New Vegas, in a conversation with Raul Tahada, and most of you will recognize that name.
[SPEAKER_03]: So, I'm not going to go into the background there, but here's, this is where this shows up.
[SPEAKER_03]: The conversation goes, you as the courier say, maybe there's a connection, can you remember anything else about Robert House?
[SPEAKER_03]: This is, of course, during the events of New Vegas and you try to understand what's going on with Mr. House and the strip and all of that.
[SPEAKER_03]: Raul says, I remember there was some weird stories about him, especially near the end.
[SPEAKER_03]: Now, Raul is a ghoul and has been around for 234 years, has lived in Mexico and the United States.
[SPEAKER_03]: He's a legendary gunslinger, and he's recounting something from the past.
[SPEAKER_03]: There was a tell-all in El Paradeeo, I'm going to mess it up again, in the name of the magazine, by a starlit house dated.
[SPEAKER_03]: She said they never don't make me spell it out boss.
[SPEAKER_03]: Anyway, they said all he wanted to do was scan her brain and make her dress up in different outfits.
[SPEAKER_03]: The courier then can say that's sickening, and then Raul says it was quite the scandal at least in the Latin American tabloid journalism market.
[SPEAKER_03]: So what we know about this newspaper or magazine is that it was a tabloid.
[SPEAKER_03]: So it was most likely the kind of
[SPEAKER_03]: I don't know, tabloid that you come across, say, in the check out Isle of a grocery store or on a shelf at a place like El Dorado Gasson's service when you walk inside and you just kind of glance over to the side and you're like, Oh, what is there to read today?
[SPEAKER_03]: This is that type of thing.
[SPEAKER_03]: And the fact that it's named after bored women, the newspaper of bored women, totally makes sense because isn't that exactly who many of these publications are targeted at?
[SPEAKER_03]: And so it's just named obviously as a joke about the kind of publications that
[SPEAKER_03]: These are basically just saying the quiet part out loud, that sort of thing.
[SPEAKER_03]: So there you go.
[SPEAKER_03]: There's really nothing else at all about this.
[SPEAKER_03]: We don't have a picture of it.
[SPEAKER_03]: We don't find a copy of this laying around somewhere, but it would be really cool, like so many of these things, to bring this back.
[SPEAKER_03]: This tiny little reference,
[SPEAKER_03]: So, developers, if you work for Bethesda and you were working on Fallout 76 or Fallout 5 or maybe you're working alongside Bethesda because you are a hired house that is updating, I don't know, Fallout New Vegas for a new release because you're doing some sort of remaster version.
[SPEAKER_03]: Maybe just drop one of these in El Dorado gas and service, just leave it up on the shelf somewhere so we can just see a cover or something.
[SPEAKER_03]: That would be amazing.
[SPEAKER_03]: But it does make me wonder one thing.
[SPEAKER_03]: Is Raul secretly admitting that he liked to read these papers?
[SPEAKER_03]: These tabloids?
[SPEAKER_03]: This could just be the sort of thing where he's like, oh yeah, I remember people referencing this.
[SPEAKER_03]: I've had people in my life who would have read these or at least
[SPEAKER_03]: He may be noticed the cover on the shelf somewhere, but then why would this be something that is just actively in his memory 200 years later?
[SPEAKER_03]: That doesn't really make sense.
[SPEAKER_03]: I feel like maybe he was actually somebody who read the tablades, which completely changes his character.
[SPEAKER_03]: So just keep that in mind, and if you want that to be your headcan and then just go for it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, I don't know anything, Mr.
[SPEAKER_00]: I just think it, and then I don't.
[SPEAKER_03]: So far, in this series, we have covered a number of different gun manufacturers and ammo manufacturers.
[SPEAKER_03]: There's another one we haven't hit on yet called enforcer.
[SPEAKER_03]: Now, this we clearly know is a company because we can find cans of BB gun ammo within enforcer in the name.
[SPEAKER_03]: But it is a little difficult to read.
[SPEAKER_03]: The covers of these old items are tend to be worn and kind of faded.
[SPEAKER_03]: But also, this comes from Fallout 3 in New Vegas.
[SPEAKER_03]: And those textures are a lower quality, a lower resolution.
[SPEAKER_03]: And if you look at these little cans that you can find, and that's the only evidence we have for this company at all.
[SPEAKER_03]: At the top it says, lead-free, which is pretty clear.
[SPEAKER_03]: The F is kind of missing.
[SPEAKER_03]: But you can read that.
[SPEAKER_03]: fancy looking font says enforcer and then another word.
[SPEAKER_03]: So is enforcer the actual name of the company or is it enforcer something else?
[SPEAKER_03]: And because it's this odd kind of script and it also gets faded at the end, it looks like three or maybe four more letters after enforcer, completely separate word, that might start with a B and then an L or something, it's hard to tell.
[SPEAKER_03]: So as far as I know, this company is called enforcer something, and then below that, there's some little details.
[SPEAKER_03]: Performance grade, you can kind of make out lead warning on back and then some other letters at the bottom, but again, they're hard to read.
[SPEAKER_03]: My guess is it's five hundred count, as I think what that says at the very bottom.
[SPEAKER_03]: And you'll see these around.
[SPEAKER_03]: They're red and black and they've got kind of a silver or grayish kind of band across them.
[SPEAKER_03]: And then on the bottom, the can is just, it's like a silverish color.
[SPEAKER_03]: As if only the top was colored for branding reasons.
[SPEAKER_03]: Now, we don't know anything else about this company.
[SPEAKER_03]: Was this a firearms company?
[SPEAKER_03]: Was this somebody who just made?
[SPEAKER_03]: I don't want to say not real ammo because you can use a BB gun for real gun like purposes in the right scenarios, but maybe they didn't do.
[SPEAKER_03]: full ammo, like you would find in most firearms, maybe they were more of like a hobbyist company or something like that.
[SPEAKER_03]: But without any other examples, anywhere else, we don't know.
[SPEAKER_03]: With a name like Emforcer though, I have to assume that they did more than just BB gun ammo.
[SPEAKER_03]: I would assume that they were doing other types of ammunition at least, but we may never know.
[SPEAKER_03]: So this next one is a fun one.
[SPEAKER_03]: We've focused a lot on New Vegas on this episode so far, and this one also is in New Vegas.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's ever its building and garden supplies.
[SPEAKER_03]: Now, you might be wondering what's so fun about garden supplies, but there's more to it.
[SPEAKER_03]: Now, this is a sign you can find on a building, and it's near McGill's pawn shop if you remember where that is.
[SPEAKER_03]: Think the western blocks of Las Vegas.
[SPEAKER_03]: Now, this is interesting not because of an in-world thing.
[SPEAKER_03]: Most of what we know about this is what's left of a sign.
[SPEAKER_03]: Evert's building in garden supplies and of course it's got that fancy kind of font for Evert's and the kind of art deco-y sort of shape to it, you know, like the rectangle in the background is just kind of skewed towards one of the corners that stretches out further and then building a garden is a very normal looking, very plain font.
[SPEAKER_03]: But what's interesting about this is that it is a reference to Scott Evers.
[SPEAKER_03]: Now, Scott is one of the developers, and he kind of worked him into the game here.
[SPEAKER_03]: And you might recognize him because he worked at interplay entertainment and black aisle studios on Fallout and Fallout 2, where he was a technical designer and level designer.
[SPEAKER_03]: So my sense of this is it's probably not something he added to the game, it's probably somebody else on the team who just used his name as kind of this fun reference, but lead world designer is extremely important, this is somebody who
[SPEAKER_03]: definitely had an influence on our experience of playing Fallout New Vegas, but that's not where it ends.
[SPEAKER_03]: He also was lead world builder on all of the Fallout New Vegas DLC, and continued to work on other things with Obsidian.
[SPEAKER_03]: Never went your nights to Alpha Protocol if you remember that didn't do so great.
[SPEAKER_03]: The outer worlds?
[SPEAKER_03]: Now let's think about this for just a minute because he was the lead world designer for Fallout New Vegas.
[SPEAKER_03]: Which means that much of his design had to do with the way the world works and what makes up say, I don't know, the outside world buildings and nature buildings in garden supplies make sense for him being the designer of the world.
[SPEAKER_03]: So it's a fun little reference that most people will just walk past see the sign on the side of the building and not think anything about it.
[SPEAKER_03]: Oh, also, we know that this was one of Zaps Neon Signs as well, because it does show up there.
[SPEAKER_03]: And remember, there are the Neon Sign Manufacturers in New Vegas that we've discovered on previous episodes.
[SPEAKER_03]: So next time you pass by Evert's building and garden supplies, think about Scott Evert's.
[SPEAKER_03]: He was a huge influence on the game and he's been immortalized in a sign on the side of a singular building.
[SPEAKER_03]: And this one doesn't even have a map marker.
[SPEAKER_03]: And we've got some weird ones this time, okay, so we're about to talk about what I think is at least a piano brand if not a music company called, and this is the tricky part.
[SPEAKER_03]: What is probably an ICE?
[SPEAKER_03]: Now here's the dilemma.
[SPEAKER_03]: This title only comes up on the front of grand pianos in Fallout 76.
[SPEAKER_03]: That's right.
[SPEAKER_03]: One location, no other instruments, no buildings, no other reference at all.
[SPEAKER_03]: Now what's tricky about this is that the font and the way the artwork looks on the front
[SPEAKER_03]: Here's where the error is.
[SPEAKER_03]: All of the letters look normal except for the I.
[SPEAKER_03]: So EX, C, E, L, L, E, S. All of that's fine.
[SPEAKER_03]: Then you get to the I and it looks like the right half of the I shape was cut off, as if there was an editing error.
[SPEAKER_03]: Like the word was supposed to have more in it, or was originally something and then got edited, but they didn't completely cut out the I.
[SPEAKER_03]: Maybe it's supposed to be XLS with the SCE at the end, that sounds a little bit weird.
[SPEAKER_03]: Maybe it's supposed to be something else, and we're just seeing the left side of what appears to be an iPhone, but maybe there's more going on there, because the left side of the E's look exactly like the left side of the eyes.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's tricky.
[SPEAKER_03]: If you look at it, you'll get what I'm saying.
[SPEAKER_03]: That's a weird word, is it a hodgepodge of, I don't know, excellence and something like solstice or something like that.
[SPEAKER_03]: I don't know, I can't tell.
[SPEAKER_03]: Now, I've done a little bit of digging, and I'm by no means a expert on piano brands.
[SPEAKER_03]: If you ask me about guitars and bases and drums and things like that, I could tell you a lot about that.
[SPEAKER_03]: Recording equipment, maybe even some of that stuff as well.
[SPEAKER_03]: But,
[SPEAKER_03]: piano brands.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm not really sure.
[SPEAKER_03]: I can't find anything out there that seems like an obvious reference or an obvious inspiration for this or, you know, sometimes in games like Fallout, they'll take two words that seem like they're common and merge them together into something new.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's nothing like that.
[SPEAKER_03]: That I can find.
[SPEAKER_03]: So if you are more familiar with piano brands and what might be going on with this, let me know.
[SPEAKER_03]: And if you are a developer for Fallout 76 and you did the art on this, I would love to learn why it looks like one of the letters is just cut.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's a hard line when there are no other hard lines in the way the font looks because it looks like it's as if it's raised.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's almost like the edges of the letters all have at least some sort of border and then that I just seems to be cut off.
[SPEAKER_03]: So it looks like an error but it's the kind of thing that most people will never notice.
[SPEAKER_03]: man, we've got some weird ones this week.
[SPEAKER_03]: Okay, here's another weird one.
[SPEAKER_03]: This is a fallout tactics thing, so already it's kind of off canon.
[SPEAKER_03]: Tactics is one of those like, is it canon?
[SPEAKER_03]: Is it not?
[SPEAKER_03]: Some circles would claim it is.
[SPEAKER_03]: This is a real world company.
[SPEAKER_03]: We just did a conversation with the patrons about real world companies.
[SPEAKER_03]: We put into fallout games.
[SPEAKER_03]: But this one did not come up.
[SPEAKER_03]: Falcon Northwest.
[SPEAKER_03]: Now, if you are a PC enthusiast, if you're somebody who has bought pre-made gaming PCs in the past, you might recognize Falcon Northwest because they are a custom or pre-made gaming PC company, and they've been around for a long time.
[SPEAKER_03]: I remember this brand from 20 years ago, and it in a track, it makes sense, because Fallout Tactics is an older game.
[SPEAKER_03]: Now, where do they show
[SPEAKER_03]: Well it's tricky.
[SPEAKER_03]: There is one image that remains from the game and probably from the game marketing materials.
[SPEAKER_03]: Now it's tricky.
[SPEAKER_03]: This image clearly exists because there is a reference to it in the Fallout Wiki which shows the image and the image is a close-up of
[SPEAKER_03]: The weapons that some, what look like Brotherhood Soldiers are using?
[SPEAKER_03]: These appear to be laser rifles, and in the background, there is a character, and it's all very zoomed in and cut down.
[SPEAKER_03]: We can kind of see their hands in lower torsos.
[SPEAKER_03]: And the character in the background is holding what appears to be a Falcon North West PC.
[SPEAKER_03]: A current day regular looking Falcon North West.
[SPEAKER_03]: PC, like the box, the desktop box, and at the bottom it says Falcon Northwest, and this looks like it comes from marketing material.
[SPEAKER_03]: I have done a reverse image search.
[SPEAKER_03]: I cannot find any other references to this image online anywhere.
[SPEAKER_03]: So unless you have a time machine and I go back and time to win the game came out, and I can look at maybe some of the marketing materials that I can't seem to find, maybe you can confirm that this is actually from marketing material, or if this is actually in the game, I'm not really sure.
[SPEAKER_03]: The quality of the image appears to be higher than what is in the base game, so I would guess this is either a cinematic,
[SPEAKER_03]: That's in the game somewhere that I don't know where it is.
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, it's a kind of a minor thing.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's just a character in the background.
[SPEAKER_03]: So you may not even notice it playing through the game.
[SPEAKER_03]: or it's from some sort of marketing thing.
[SPEAKER_03]: That's more likely it.
[SPEAKER_03]: It was part of a marketing image or a marketing video or something that was put out in order to promote the game in Unison with Falcon Northwest as the best PC you can get to play Fallout Tactics or something like that.
[SPEAKER_03]: But I don't have any memories of this marketing campaign.
[SPEAKER_03]: So maybe you do.
[SPEAKER_03]: If you do, comment, jump on the discord.
[SPEAKER_03]: Let me know your thoughts on this one because this one's kind of baffling to me.
[SPEAKER_03]: Now, let's talk about Falcon Northwest.
[SPEAKER_03]: Is Falcon Northwest actually in the Fallout universe?
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, that's tricky.
[SPEAKER_03]: And again, there's not a whole lot of evidence here, one way or the other.
[SPEAKER_03]: The Wiki, I think, is wrong in claiming that one of the rivers during some dialogue and Fallout tactics happens to mention the company.
[SPEAKER_03]: And here's the line, by Falcon's tower, we are lost.
[SPEAKER_03]: I don't think that's a reference to a PC gaming tower, because it doesn't make sense in the context why would you, I don't know, swear on Falcons Tower of during a difficult situation if it doesn't reference something else.
[SPEAKER_03]: But it's tricky, and I am by no means an expert on Fallout Tactics, I've played the main line games, but this one ludes me.
[SPEAKER_03]: So based on some research here, there is Falcon Squad, which is a squad of the Brotherhood of Steel, so the use of the word Falcon would make sense in that regard, but there's no location that's specifically called Falcon's Tower.
[SPEAKER_03]: There's a tower at the beginning of the game, but it doesn't have that name.
[SPEAKER_03]: So is this just something one of the character says or just a personal name that the character came up with for a specific location?
[SPEAKER_03]: or something like that?
[SPEAKER_03]: I don't really know.
[SPEAKER_03]: This one, this one foiled me.
[SPEAKER_03]: I haven't been able to figure this one.
[SPEAKER_03]: I usually can figure some of this stuff out, but not this one.
[SPEAKER_03]: So if you happen to be a big, fallout tactics fan and I know there's probably only like 12 of you out there.
[SPEAKER_03]: Let me know.
[SPEAKER_03]: Let me know what you think about this one.
[SPEAKER_03]: Alright, the last one for this week shows up in Fallout 4 and Fallout 76.
[SPEAKER_03]: It goes by the name Fallen's, F-A-L-L-O-N-S. Now Fallen's is a department store chain and does show up and is a important part of some of the background of what's going on in Fallout 4.
[SPEAKER_03]: Do you remember Eddie Winter, do you remember of that crime family and the headlines about Eddie Winter breaking into locations and stealing money and goods and those types of things?
[SPEAKER_03]: Yep, that was Fallen's Department Store.
[SPEAKER_03]: There's a whole story about his team, Eddie Winter's team, including Rod Rigo Palamar, who was the safe cracker and they targeted the jewel repart of the store and they stole some diamonds and things like that.
[SPEAKER_03]: It was a whole heist reported about in the newspapers.
[SPEAKER_03]: Now, what's interesting about Falun's is that it is not just a pre-war business.
[SPEAKER_03]: This is a business that has survived and you might be thinking, well, how is that possible?
[SPEAKER_03]: Department stores surviving into the wasteland?
[SPEAKER_03]: How are they getting their products?
[SPEAKER_03]: How are they selling to you?
[SPEAKER_03]: Like, how does this even work?
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, it turns out that Falun's basement in Diamond City,
[SPEAKER_03]: is an actual evolution and descendant of the individuals who run the business are descendants of the people who originally ran Fallen's department store 200 years previously.
[SPEAKER_03]: So they're still around.
[SPEAKER_03]: And there are many different locations across Massachusetts.
[SPEAKER_03]: You have the flagship store in West Rocksbury.
[SPEAKER_03]: There's Falun's General Atomics, Galleria.
[SPEAKER_03]: There's Falun's in Concord.
[SPEAKER_03]: Moncignore, if you pronounce that correctly, which I probably didn't, Plaza.
[SPEAKER_03]: And then another one in Fanniewell Hall, which I probably also mispronounced.
[SPEAKER_03]: And department stores in our world today are not what they once were.
[SPEAKER_03]: We have to remember that our world has changed, even since the late 90s.
[SPEAKER_03]: There was a time in our world, not too long ago, where people would go to malls and hang out.
[SPEAKER_03]: And oftentimes, at a mall or a major downtown area, you would have a major department store, something like a seers or a dillards or whatever, those types of stores.
[SPEAKER_03]: And they still exist in our world, but they don't serve the same need, I guess you could say.
[SPEAKER_03]: Most of us shop online for most of the things that, in the past, you would have gone to a department store in order to find.
[SPEAKER_03]: This was something as somebody who's probably older than most of you, I remember doing a lot.
[SPEAKER_03]: Walking around department stores, while my mom shopped for things, I don't know if it was close or, I don't know, a lawnmower, but basically you could buy anything at a department store.
[SPEAKER_03]: And so this tracks, this makes sense for that pre-war world that was highly influenced by mid-20th century.
[SPEAKER_03]: Department stores would have been a major type of shop.
[SPEAKER_03]: In fact, for a while, they were dominant in retail sales.
[SPEAKER_03]: If you got a job as a salesperson at a department store, say, in the 1940s or 1950s, it wasn't uncommon for you to be able to make enough money doing that to fund your entire family.
[SPEAKER_03]: And 30, 40 years later, retire with pension.
[SPEAKER_03]: That's how successful.
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, that's how different the world was back then, but it's also how successful these types of businesses were.
[SPEAKER_03]: So it makes sense that Eddie Winter would have targeted a location like this for a heist, because think about it.
[SPEAKER_03]: They don't just sell lawnmowers and t-shirts.
[SPEAKER_03]: They're selling jewelry, diamonds, lots of valuable things, electronics.
[SPEAKER_03]: Now what's even more interesting about all of this is that the Fallen family didn't just stop with Fallen 4.
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, sort of.
[SPEAKER_03]: In Fallen 76 you can go to the Valley Galleria.
[SPEAKER_03]: We've talked about this location before.
[SPEAKER_03]: And there is cut content around this location that features Emma Fallen.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yes, same last name, descendant of the family that ran the department store, but she's not in the game.
[SPEAKER_03]: Now it seems like the intent was to include this as some connective material between the when the world fell apart and the department store probably went out of business because there was nobody left to buy all their things and then 20 some years later the events of Fallout 76 and one of their descendants working in Appalachia.
[SPEAKER_03]: and then the descendants in Fallout 4 and the basement location in Diamond City.
[SPEAKER_03]: So you kind of see this through line there.
[SPEAKER_03]: It totally works and it's really cool when they had this stuff in.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I don't know why this was cut content.
[SPEAKER_03]: My guess is that they had so many other things they were adding into the game, especially with the wastelanders edition, that added a bunch of different characters or at least references to people.
[SPEAKER_03]: Maybe she was just somebody who was going to be referenced in a terminal or something like that.
[SPEAKER_03]: but as with everything in game design you have to learn what content to include and what content to cut.
[SPEAKER_03]: So maybe she'll come back in a future update and we'll get to learn more about this Fallen family and what's actually going on here.
[SPEAKER_03]: So there you go, Fallen's.
[SPEAKER_03]: As usual, thank you for tuning in again.
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[SPEAKER_03]: I'll read it out on a few trips so to the show.
[SPEAKER_03]: All right, there you go.
[SPEAKER_03]: I hope you have a wonderful rest of your week.
[SPEAKER_03]: And if you've learned some things about some of this stuff, which was mostly a mystery to me this week, let me know.
[SPEAKER_03]: Help me fill in the blanks.
[SPEAKER_03]: Maybe we can figure it out together.
[SPEAKER_03]: All right, I'll see you next time.
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