361: Pre-War Businesses: Newspapers Reveal The Past

[SPEAKER_00]: robots radio, games, lore, stories, community, just press play. [SPEAKER_00]: Welcome to the Fallout lorecast. [SPEAKER_00]: The podcasts that explores the boundaries of our knowledge about the world of Fallout. [SPEAKER_00]: So here's an interesting concept. [SPEAKER_00]: Something that occurs to me regularly when I'm looking at the world building in video games or fantasy stories or whatever, especially when we extrapolate into the future or potential futures.

[SPEAKER_00]: Then here's an example to get you started. [SPEAKER_00]: Imagine you're looking at the skyline of New York City in [SPEAKER_00]: What do you see? [SPEAKER_00]: Well, you see a lot of smaller buildings because the skyline wasn't as tall almost a hundred years ago, you know, what eighty-five years ago.

[SPEAKER_00]: But you also do see some buildings that are taller. [SPEAKER_00]: There are some skyscrapers. [SPEAKER_00]: And those skyscrapers are designed in a style from the early twentieth century. [SPEAKER_00]: Now jump ahead, fifty years, nineteen ninety. [SPEAKER_00]: What do you see on that skyline?

[SPEAKER_00]: You see lots of more modern buildings, glass skyscrapers, but among them are the older buildings. [SPEAKER_00]: Just because new technology comes around that allows you to construct taller and different looking buildings that are more modern, doesn't mean that you get rid of the older buildings.

[SPEAKER_00]: The Empire State Building, for example, still has its use. [SPEAKER_00]: It would be silly to take down that entire building in order to just build a newer version of it. [SPEAKER_00]: That would be a big waste of money. [SPEAKER_00]: And it still functions for something that is still needed.

[SPEAKER_00]: You jump ahead another number of years and the same thing happens. [SPEAKER_00]: You see newer buildings crop up, but a lot of the old buildings are still there. [SPEAKER_00]: This is the way technology proceeds. [SPEAKER_00]: Whenever I see a futuristic film with a futuristic city, and yet there isn't dotted among the futuristic buildings, older styles.

[SPEAKER_00]: It hits me as odd. [SPEAKER_00]: What happened to those older buildings? [SPEAKER_00]: Was there some sort of cataclysmic event that cleared all of them? [SPEAKER_00]: And so when people started building again, they only used the newest designs. [SPEAKER_00]: That doesn't seem to happen very often.

[SPEAKER_00]: And yet, when we do world building, oftentimes this is what we see, or what we kind of imagine the future to be like. [SPEAKER_00]: One of the things that Fallout does so well is it doesn't do this. [SPEAKER_00]: And it doesn't do it on purpose for a few reasons. [SPEAKER_00]: First of all, because of the retrofuturism thing, you of course still have old technology mixed in with the more advanced technology.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, that is part of the setting. [SPEAKER_00]: But I think that the designers also understand that that's also not how technology works. [SPEAKER_00]: Another example of this concept, we've had the internet for decades now. [SPEAKER_00]: Everybody sends emails and yet people still send letters through the mail.

[SPEAKER_00]: They still do an analog version of this. [SPEAKER_00]: Now, yes, the demand for that has decreased, but it still exists. [SPEAKER_00]: In fact, people still use fax machines. [SPEAKER_00]: Before there was a time where we could just pick up a cell phone and call somebody halfway around the globe, we would have to use something like Morse code.

[SPEAKER_00]: And yet Morse code is still in existence. [SPEAKER_00]: Now, it doesn't get used as much as it did at one point, but it still exists. [SPEAKER_00]: Old technologies have their place. [SPEAKER_00]: Now, where am I going with this? [SPEAKER_00]: Think about newspapers. [SPEAKER_00]: I've been going through all of the different businesses in Fallout, and this week I was getting ready to continue through the seas.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I noticed that there are a few sea-named newspapers, the capital post, and the Charleston Harald. [SPEAKER_00]: And I thought, you know what? [SPEAKER_00]: Why don't we just do an episode about newspapers? [SPEAKER_00]: And you might also be thinking, newspapers, they're going away.

[SPEAKER_00]: We have less and less newspapers in our world today because of the internet. [SPEAKER_00]: And yet, specific newspapers still exist. [SPEAKER_00]: They don't do as well financially as they did in the past, but they still have their place. [SPEAKER_00]: And in the world of fallout, that is also very much the case.

[SPEAKER_00]: You can see in the intro to Fallout four that the news is on on the television. [SPEAKER_00]: And yet even though they've had televisions and radios, there are still newspapers in the world. [SPEAKER_00]: You see them sitting on counters. [SPEAKER_00]: You see old headlines from pre-war events in those newspapers because even though that advanced technology was available, newspapers didn't go away.

[SPEAKER_00]: And this is interesting because, you know, what does go away when the apocalypse happens? [SPEAKER_00]: A lot of the electronic media that we consume in our daily lives. [SPEAKER_00]: It's much harder to find a recording of an old live TV or radio broadcast than it is to find an old newspaper laying around.

[SPEAKER_00]: The analog version of communication sticks around into the future and yet the digital versions disappear much more easily. [SPEAKER_00]: Now they're not gone for good. [SPEAKER_00]: We do find holotapes and the recordings of digital media. [SPEAKER_00]: They are less available. [SPEAKER_00]: They are less common.

[SPEAKER_00]: And if you found one copy of one news post, that would be a big deal. [SPEAKER_00]: Yet in the wasteland, you can find multiple copies of each of these headlines that I'm about to go over in this episode. [SPEAKER_00]: So keep that in mind as we go through as one of the things that makes fall out really well done and have very interesting and kind of more realistic version of the wasteland and don't get me wrong.

[SPEAKER_00]: There are definitely some wacky things in the wasteland and they take this in sci-fi realms. [SPEAKER_00]: I don't think in our own world we're ever going to mutate. [SPEAKER_00]: Comillions into death claws. [SPEAKER_00]: And the FEV probably won't ever be a thing hopefully. [SPEAKER_00]: But when it comes to world building, [SPEAKER_00]: They did it right with newspapers.

[SPEAKER_00]: So let's take a look. [SPEAKER_00]: So let's start with Fallout three in the capital post. [SPEAKER_00]: This is a pre-war newspaper. [SPEAKER_00]: This is something that was published before the bombs dropped and as far as we can tell after the bombs dropped, no more newspapers. [SPEAKER_00]: You can find the company's office over in La Font Plaza, which has come up before in these businesses.

[SPEAKER_00]: There are other businesses around there on the map. [SPEAKER_00]: And at that location, you can find the remnants [SPEAKER_00]: of newspapers, with articles about many of the things that were happening before the bomb dropped. [SPEAKER_00]: And what's interesting about these articles is that they are dated, not every newspaper you find in every game has a date readily visible, at least in the versions that we're able to see.

[SPEAKER_00]: but these newspapers do and they cover a variety of different topics and they are one of the reasons why we know when certain events happen in the timeline. [SPEAKER_00]: So I thought it would be fun in this episode to go over everything we can discern about what each of these pieces of information mean and how much of it we can actually read.

[SPEAKER_00]: So there's something to keep in mind here. [SPEAKER_00]: These headlines and the articles associated with them are attached specifically to just a few newspapers that we can see. [SPEAKER_00]: We can actually see some digital versions of these that are saved and you will notice when looking through these that some of the headlines get repeated on different newspapers even from very different years.

[SPEAKER_00]: especially when you look at the version of the newspaper that's held up in the trailer for Fallout three. [SPEAKER_00]: It combines a few different headlines in a way that doesn't really make sense, but that's because that newspaper in the trailer was being used kind of like a newspaper that shows up in a movie or something like that.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's meant for you to notice the big headline and then just see that there's a bunch of other text written on the page, but not necessarily be able to read it all. [SPEAKER_00]: So some of this gets repeated. [SPEAKER_00]: What's also interesting here is that this newspaper, the capital post, shows up in the TV series in season one's episode of the trap.

[SPEAKER_00]: You can see a version of it, and it's far enough away from the camera that you can, again, only read the headline, but it says reds losing territory, more troops deployed to far east. [SPEAKER_00]: There's no date specifically on there, but I think we're too assume that this newspaper was recent during the episode that was being filmed, and that episode would have been roughly very close to the events of the Great War.

[SPEAKER_00]: So probably within a few years of twenty-seven, [SPEAKER_00]: I'm not exactly sure when this would have been written based on the episode that it's in and the relations there, but we can make some assumptions about that. [SPEAKER_00]: But what articles do we get with dates? [SPEAKER_00]: Well, let's take a look.

[SPEAKER_00]: Now, if you're screwed-eyed, one thing you'll notice is that the physical versions in the game spell capital within O and the digital versions in the game, the ones you can see in the screens that pop up that look like holotapes are spelled with an A. Also, the physical version that is picked up in the trailer is spelled with an A.

[SPEAKER_00]: And the one that shows up in the TV show is spelled with an A. So capitol, and yet there what seems to be a typo on some of the physical ones. [SPEAKER_00]: But here, let's take a look at the oldest date that we have. [SPEAKER_00]: July, twenty-seventh, twenty-fifty-two. [SPEAKER_00]: The main headline of this is United Nations Disbanded.

[SPEAKER_00]: And we get a little article over on the side that says, pint-sized slasher, more than myth. [SPEAKER_00]: And of course, that's a reference to this idea that the pint-sized slasher was a story that was going around potentially just a myth of a child who was committing all sorts of horrific deeds that was then used in the vault where everybody was captured and had to live out in existence on tranquility lane with the pint-sized slasher, of course.

[SPEAKER_00]: harassing everybody and murdering them over and over again. [SPEAKER_00]: This ties those two things together. [SPEAKER_00]: It wasn't just something that Stanislaus Braun came up with. [SPEAKER_00]: This was something that was in the culture as far back as twenty fifty two. [SPEAKER_00]: But what does it say about the United Nations being disbanded?

[SPEAKER_00]: Well, if we zoom in close, we can make out most of the words. [SPEAKER_00]: It says, in a crushing blow to foreign relations in world peace, the United Nations yesterday was completely disbanded, leaving its member nations to fend for themselves in these trying times. [SPEAKER_00]: Many had considered the United Nations the best hope for brokering a ceasefire between the European Commonwealth and the nations of the Middle East, but such an intervention is now impossible.

[SPEAKER_00]: In a somber press conference at the United Nations buildings in New York City, the United Nations President, Second Gama, Sakagama, I think it's getting tricky to read here. [SPEAKER_00]: Sakagama, oh, here he had this to say. [SPEAKER_00]: It is a sad day for the United States. [SPEAKER_00]: Sadists still are sad or still for the world.

[SPEAKER_00]: An era of relative peace and prosperity has come to a tragic end. [SPEAKER_00]: The resource wars are upon us. [SPEAKER_00]: In my humble opinion, the United Nations is needed now more than ever, sadly the world disagrees. [SPEAKER_00]: Those nations that have not already moved out of the immense headquarters will have completely vacated the premise by the end of the week.

[SPEAKER_00]: Several organizations have already begun bidding on the prime real estate. [SPEAKER_00]: But children's toy retailer, Bumble Lo's, seems determined to transform the building into their new East Coast Superstore. [SPEAKER_00]: So a few things here. [SPEAKER_00]: The United Nations and the Resource Wars were parts of the history of what was going on before the Great War.

[SPEAKER_00]: So go back and listen to those episodes if you want to refresher on that. [SPEAKER_00]: But this makes sense for twenty-fifty two. [SPEAKER_00]: This is a time where the world is struggling. [SPEAKER_00]: There are wars for resources. [SPEAKER_00]: We're talking oil. [SPEAKER_00]: This is the Middle East and Europe.

[SPEAKER_00]: And the disbanding of the United Nations spells the beginning of the end for all of these nations. [SPEAKER_00]: Now notice here that the little detail at the end about the gigantic building that was being used to help try to solve world peace issues is now going to be bought by a toy company.

[SPEAKER_00]: This is ridiculous, of course. [SPEAKER_00]: But it shows the priorities of the time. [SPEAKER_00]: As people are descending more and more into uncertainty, they are spending money more for capitalist types of things that distract them like toys. [SPEAKER_00]: and yet the world descends in the peril.

[SPEAKER_00]: The side article is even harder to see all of the text clearly about the pint-sized slasher, but it does reference this demon who the children of America would be familiar with in all of that, which tracks with the way it's portrayed in tranquility lane. [SPEAKER_00]: But what else do we have?

[SPEAKER_00]: Well, we have another article from twenty seventy two. [SPEAKER_00]: So we're jumping ahead in time a number of years. [SPEAKER_00]: And in this article, we find out that the US is going to annex Canada. [SPEAKER_00]: In fact, the headline is simply US to annex Canada. [SPEAKER_00]: The side headline is development of army superweapon confirmed.

[SPEAKER_00]: Before we get into that, there's something else worth noting here. [SPEAKER_00]: Both newspapers are fifty-six dollars for a copy of the newspaper, and yet strangely enough that price didn't change in the years between the fifties and the seventies, but it's probably stock background, kind of footage that you're not really supposed to notice.

[SPEAKER_00]: Or maybe prices were stagnant for that long, although I seem to doubt it. [SPEAKER_00]: U.S. [SPEAKER_00]: to annex Canada says, in a move that is being wildly viewed as both necessary and overdue, the United States military today declared that they will begin the immediate annexation of the country of Canada.

[SPEAKER_00]: The decision comes after a long and contentious relationship with the Canadian government that began shortly after the Chinese invasion of Anchorage, Alaska, in the winter of twenty sixty six, the Canadian leadership at the time [SPEAKER_00]: expressed its opposition to the American troops passing through the country or traversing there and this is where it starts to break up and gets dark on the side of the screen.

[SPEAKER_00]: There is more towards the center where the paragraph kind of moves over from the bottom of the page to the top second section. [SPEAKER_00]: If that makes sense, it's much more visible. [SPEAKER_00]: And in here, we see a continuation of a sentence, including wood cultivated from the country's Great Timberland forests to maintain the war effort against China.

[SPEAKER_00]: But it was a recent near shortage of the Alaskan pipeline that initially tipped the American military's hand. [SPEAKER_00]: Quote, that was the last straw said, Babcock, commander of the US forces in Canada. [SPEAKER_00]: You know, it's been stopping the reds from pouring into downtown Genoa.

[SPEAKER_00]: American soldiers, that's what. [SPEAKER_00]: And now we've got to worry about some Chinese Alaskan or otherwise taking out the pipeline. [SPEAKER_00]: I don't think so. [SPEAKER_00]: Effective immediately, United States troops are beginning a complete takeover of all Canadian assets and and then it continues and falls off.

[SPEAKER_00]: So we get a few details here. [SPEAKER_00]: The invasion was twenty sixty six. [SPEAKER_00]: The problem is that they're still resources that are needed, or at least that's what the US is using to justify annexing Canada. [SPEAKER_00]: They want their timber, but more importantly, they need to make sure that they continue getting oil from Alaska through the pipeline.

[SPEAKER_00]: Plus, there's the justification of defending the part of the continent from the Chinese invasion and all of that, which has been going on at this point for six years, twenty sixty six to twenty seventy two. [SPEAKER_00]: But that invasion is not done yet. [SPEAKER_00]: In fact, that invasion continues until twenty seventy seven, and we know this because of the final newspaper that we have.

[SPEAKER_00]: January, eleven, twenty, seventy, seven. [SPEAKER_00]: So this is only, what is that? [SPEAKER_00]: Roughly nine months before the bombs drop, commies crushed Alaska liberated. [SPEAKER_00]: In this article, also, fifty-six dollars is very hard to read. [SPEAKER_00]: Because there is a bunch of text at the top, there's a big picture of Alaska in the middle, and all of the text is on the sides.

[SPEAKER_00]: And there's a side headline. [SPEAKER_00]: It reads, food riots, royal feds. [SPEAKER_00]: So let's get into the details here. [SPEAKER_00]: This is what I can make out from this image. [SPEAKER_00]: Comey's crushed Alaska liberated. [SPEAKER_00]: In the late evening hours of January, tenth, brave American army forces launched an all-out offensive against the entrenched Chinese communist invaders in the beleaguered seaport of Anchorage, Alaska destroying all opposition and finally liberating the city after more than ten [SPEAKER_00]: By assuming that's years it looks like of Chinese occupation.

[SPEAKER_00]: No red blooded American can something the terrible winter of and then it fades into the darkness on the edge of the image. [SPEAKER_00]: There's only so much that you can actually read in this. [SPEAKER_00]: But it's pretty clear that the commies have been pushed back. [SPEAKER_00]: The American forces have finally liberated Alaska and this conflict has been going on for over ten years.

[SPEAKER_00]: And there are food riots. [SPEAKER_00]: Americans back home are starving and they are upset. [SPEAKER_00]: It says it would appear that Washington's tolerance for American social disorder has finally reached its breaking point in a recent public statement White House spokesman Warren Eccleston.

[SPEAKER_00]: said, OK, Americans are hungry. [SPEAKER_00]: We get it. [SPEAKER_00]: Well, I've got news for you. [SPEAKER_00]: Things are tough all over people. [SPEAKER_00]: The president himself has been forced to substitute cube steak for his nightly prime rib. [SPEAKER_00]: And the only wine available is a detestable Chateau Montrose, twenty forty three.

[SPEAKER_00]: But does he wine? [SPEAKER_00]: Does he take to the streets like a rabbit red? [SPEAKER_00]: So please good people, please wait in line, get your food and then go home. [SPEAKER_00]: Where Americans, we do not solve the problems with violence. [SPEAKER_00]: This reads like, let them eat cake.

[SPEAKER_00]: Doesn't it? [SPEAKER_00]: The famous quote from Marie Antoinette about people starving in the streets during the French Revolution and how they should just eat cake? [SPEAKER_00]: Because they're the aristocracy and they still have cake. [SPEAKER_00]: Nobody has even bread. [SPEAKER_00]: Anyway, there you go.

[SPEAKER_00]: Those are the articles from the capital post that I can make out. [SPEAKER_00]: But what about the one that shows up in the trailer? [SPEAKER_00]: Well, the one that shows up in the trailer has the headline Red Winter, Chinese forces in Vatalaska. [SPEAKER_00]: It's dated January, thirteen, twenty sixty-six.

[SPEAKER_00]: It also has the pint-sized slasher article on the side. [SPEAKER_00]: But then down at the bottom of the page, you can see US two annexed China and development of Army superweapon confirmed. [SPEAKER_00]: which are articles that come from later than twenty sixty six so these are clearly getting repurposed now you might have noticed that it also refers to the development of army super weapon confirmed in twenty sixty six but then again the same headline shows up in that article from twenty seventy two [SPEAKER_00]: And in the twenty seventy two one, we can actually read that one.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm not going to read the whole thing because it actually doesn't tell us very much. [SPEAKER_00]: But it implies that the United States is finally ramping things up in a way that's going to stop the commis once and for all. [SPEAKER_00]: And they need to be transparent about what they're doing.

[SPEAKER_00]: This is all implying liberty prime. [SPEAKER_00]: So as you can see, there's already some really good world building and interesting stuff going on just in the newspapers that showed up in Fallout three. [SPEAKER_00]: What about Fallout four with the Boston bugle? [SPEAKER_00]: We did cover the Boston bugle a little while back on one of these check out all these different companies kinds of episodes.

[SPEAKER_00]: But what else was it referring to and does it coincide with the capital post? [SPEAKER_00]: Let's take a look. [SPEAKER_00]: Now taking a closer look at the Boston bugle, we discover some things that are not as advantageous to us from a lower archaeologist, a lower archaeologist, a lower archaeologist perspective.

[SPEAKER_00]: These articles don't have dates associated with them. [SPEAKER_00]: And if you take a look at the physical versions of the newspapers all bundled up, you can't really read much. [SPEAKER_00]: There's maybe dates there, but you can't tell. [SPEAKER_00]: The textures are just too low resolution.

[SPEAKER_00]: If you look at the articles in the terminals, then you get all the text and the text for each of the articles is readable, but each article doesn't have a date associated with it. [SPEAKER_00]: In fact, the only thing you get at the very, very top, the very first thing that you see in the terminal, [SPEAKER_00]: is the Boston Bugle trumpeting truth for over fifty years, front page news, October, nineteen, twenty-seven through October twenty-third, twenty-seven.

[SPEAKER_00]: Copyright the Boston Bugle, twenty-seven articles may not be reprinted without permission of the editor and chief. [SPEAKER_00]: So I think this is enough to say that each of these headlines happened within four days of the bombs dropping. [SPEAKER_00]: Now, which in what order? [SPEAKER_00]: Well, they are listed article one article two and so on.

[SPEAKER_00]: So maybe we can assume that they go in order from the nineteenth to the twenty-third. [SPEAKER_00]: I think that's what it's implied here. [SPEAKER_00]: But again, each article doesn't have its own date associated with it. [SPEAKER_00]: And none of these articles go further back in time than just a few days before the bombs drop.

[SPEAKER_00]: Article one is case closed on crime boss Eddie Winter. [SPEAKER_00]: So it's about Eddie Winter and the stuff going on with that and there's a whole quest line associated with that and fall out for. [SPEAKER_00]: So if we assume that that's October nineteenth, then that's the headline article from then.

[SPEAKER_00]: The second article would be from the twentieth and that says China show down an atomic ultimatum. [SPEAKER_00]: This is interesting. [SPEAKER_00]: The article reads, war has there been any extended period of time in recent memory in which soldiers have not fought, blood and died all for the sake of furthering the political goals of one government or another.

[SPEAKER_00]: The short answer is no. [SPEAKER_00]: The longer, more terrifying answers that we have not yet begun to experience the extent of human suffering. [SPEAKER_00]: They're foreshadowing the bombs dropping is what they're doing here. [SPEAKER_00]: From Anchorage in frigid Alaska to Shantau on our enemy's doorstep, American troops have been embroiled in brutal battle.

[SPEAKER_00]: They have taken and lost many lives a nearly uncountable number, but not entirely. [SPEAKER_00]: Because the truth is, the casualties have been countable. [SPEAKER_00]: These conflicts, however horrible, have all been in some inexplicable, perverted way manageable. [SPEAKER_00]: Through taxes and various wartime revenues, the United States government has been able to fund a standing army, the likes of which this country has never seen before.

[SPEAKER_00]: The same is certainly true of our mortal foe, China. [SPEAKER_00]: And with each dollar spent comes a natural accounting of how that dollar was spent every bullet, every bunker busting bomb, every body bag. [SPEAKER_00]: Soon after each is used in the theater of war, we know every how, when and where.

[SPEAKER_00]: But the sad obvious truth is that the days of manageable war have nearly come to an end. [SPEAKER_00]: In the minds of the world's great leaders, those billions of dollars haven't merely been spent, they've been wasted because here we are. [SPEAKER_00]: After more than a decade of constant warfare, with no clear end and no clear winner in sight.

[SPEAKER_00]: So really, at this point, one other options do the superpowers have if not the nuclear one. [SPEAKER_00]: And therein, of course, lies the rub. [SPEAKER_00]: For when China and the United States launches its nuclear missiles and drops its atomic bombs, there will be no one left to count the casualties, let alone the ordinance.

[SPEAKER_00]: No one left to declare victory. [SPEAKER_00]: So then only one question remains, is there any way the powers of the world can prevent a nuclear apocalypse? [SPEAKER_00]: If there is any hope left for the world, we must believe the answer is yes. [SPEAKER_00]: But these are hopeless times.

[SPEAKER_00]: This is a dark article, and the fact that it references ten years of war, assuming that this is the twentieth of October, twenty-seven makes sense, because we just learned that they pushed back the Chinese from Alaska only recently. [SPEAKER_00]: So I think the assumption about the dates lines up, it seems pretty clear.

[SPEAKER_00]: We also get more food riots, Boston food riots continue, and an article about civilians being hungry. [SPEAKER_00]: Again, the fourth article, so that would have been twenty first. [SPEAKER_00]: The fourth article, the twenty second is the White House remains empty. [SPEAKER_00]: Where is our president?

[SPEAKER_00]: The day before the bombs drop. [SPEAKER_00]: This is the article that hits. [SPEAKER_00]: For more than half a year, the West Wing of America's most famous residence has remained shrouded in near-complete darkness. [SPEAKER_00]: A skeleton crew of manual laborers remains on staff to maintain the property, but nobody has lived or worked politically there for several months.

[SPEAKER_00]: And even though the White House press corps was unofficially and unceremoniously disbanded around the same time, the media has remained steadfast and answering the most important questions. [SPEAKER_00]: Where is the president? [SPEAKER_00]: At first, the assumption was that the entirety of the United States government had moved operations to Ravenrock, the military operation center located in the mountainous regions of Pennsylvania, just a few miles northeast of the presidential retreat in Camp David, Maryland.

[SPEAKER_00]: But further investigations have revealed that neither the president nor his cabinet have been to Ravenrock complex in over a year, so if not Ravenrock, then where? [SPEAKER_00]: Thanks to an extensive and exhaustive investigation, the Boston Beagle has uncovered the answer, and our readers will likely consider it as strange as it is shocking.

[SPEAKER_00]: The president has been leading our country from a Poseidon energy oil rig just off the coast of San Francisco. [SPEAKER_00]: It's certainly an odd choice for the president's command center, or is it? [SPEAKER_00]: Not as much as it may seem as our investigation discovered. [SPEAKER_00]: Thanks to the testimony of a highly placed anonymous source, the Boston bugle has learned that the official designation of the oil rig is actually control station on-clave.

[SPEAKER_00]: Giving credence to the long-running rumors of a secret militarized shadow government known as the Onclave, which would take control of the United States in the event of a nuclear conflagration. [SPEAKER_00]: And so, the mystery of the missing president has finally been solved. [SPEAKER_00]: And in doing so, has the Boston Bugle also uncovered evidence that the end of the world in the form of total atomic war is also at hand.

[SPEAKER_00]: Sadly, the president's silence seems to speak volumes. [SPEAKER_00]: I love how this ties into the events of Fallout II and what's actually going on with the Onclave. [SPEAKER_00]: I love how also this article, which comes out a day before the bombs drop, reveals the Onclave. [SPEAKER_00]: We can tell by this article that the Onclave wasn't as much of a secret as people might have thought it was.

[SPEAKER_00]: In fact, by the events of the Great War, [SPEAKER_00]: the press and probably a good number of Americans were starting to suspect that there was a shadow government behind things and they were right. [SPEAKER_00]: They were a hundred percent right in the actions of the presidency and the actions of the United States and all the things that had happened leading up to this moment over the previous decades.

[SPEAKER_00]: were showing that it wasn't the American people who were actually in control of this. [SPEAKER_00]: It wasn't their needs that the government was meeting. [SPEAKER_00]: They were starving. [SPEAKER_00]: They were riding on the streets. [SPEAKER_00]: The government was taking over and annexing other countries for their supplies.

[SPEAKER_00]: And yet none of that actually went back to help the people. [SPEAKER_00]: It was all for the war effort. [SPEAKER_00]: or was it really just for supplies for the politicians and those members of the on-clave to complete what they were doing before the bombs dropped. [SPEAKER_00]: Makes you wonder.

[SPEAKER_00]: Now there is one other newspaper in Fallout four. [SPEAKER_00]: It's called The Old Post. [SPEAKER_00]: Now, unfortunately, if you wanted to go to the old post for any information about things that were happening in the twenty first century and fallout, well, unfortunately, you're not going to get very far.

[SPEAKER_00]: For a few reasons, first of all, the articles of the old post that we have are from eighteen ninety two. [SPEAKER_00]: And we can see the headline. [SPEAKER_00]: In fact, you can see these in bathrooms for some reason. [SPEAKER_00]: They're still hanging around in the world. [SPEAKER_00]: But you barely get a headline way of the future or something like that.

[SPEAKER_00]: And then all of the text is Lorum Ipsum. [SPEAKER_00]: And if you're not familiar with Lorum Ipsum, it's kind of the default Latin words that you kind of fill in a document just to see how the text would fill out the space that you would then replace with actual readable English or whatever language of the newspapers in.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's probably not Latin. [SPEAKER_00]: So these don't really help out that much. [SPEAKER_00]: But what about Fall at Seventy-Six? [SPEAKER_00]: Well, we get two newspapers in Fall at Seventy-Six. [SPEAKER_00]: There's the Charleston Herald and the Watoga Times. [SPEAKER_00]: Starting with the Watoga Times, we don't get a whole lot of information there.

[SPEAKER_00]: This is based on the city of Watoga. [SPEAKER_00]: And there is one article that reveals that a woman named Willie May, one of the atomic lottery. [SPEAKER_00]: which had been featured in that newspaper, and she had been playing for twenty years. [SPEAKER_00]: The prize includes ten years of Blanco Mac and Cheese, Salisbury steak, and Nucacola.

[SPEAKER_00]: So she's set up, but that newspaper doesn't really help us with any world-building information. [SPEAKER_00]: Now let's go to the Charleston Harald. [SPEAKER_00]: The Charleston Harald has a number of articles that we can find. [SPEAKER_00]: This was the newspaper from the city of Charleston, kind of like the Wattoga Times was from the city of Wattoga.

[SPEAKER_00]: And the map in Seventy-Six is four times bigger than that of fall at four, spanning multiple cities, or at least the remnants of those what used to be major cities. [SPEAKER_00]: And in the Charleston Harald, we get a number of different articles. [SPEAKER_00]: Unfortunately, for the lore of the pre-war era, they talk about local news.

[SPEAKER_00]: They're not talking about national issues. [SPEAKER_00]: So we're not going to find articles here about further details about the war with China. [SPEAKER_00]: or the strikes and the writing that we're going on across the country so much as the strikes and the writing that we're happening in this part of Appalachia do to the miners losing their jobs and getting replaced by robots and all of that.

[SPEAKER_00]: In fact, there are a number of articles here about horn right and the grafting dam and man versus machine and you get funny little side things like an advertisement for the giant T-pot and [SPEAKER_00]: That kind of stuff, but there is one article that is particularly interesting. [SPEAKER_00]: It is called blowout sale, secret cryptic doors.

[SPEAKER_00]: Now, this is not an actually published article of the Charles and Harold. [SPEAKER_00]: This is something that was written on by somebody. [SPEAKER_00]: using just the headers of the paper. [SPEAKER_00]: Basically, somebody took pieces of the newspaper that hadn't been printed yet that simply had the headers on it, so the Charleston Harold is at the top, and then scrolled something on it.

[SPEAKER_00]: This is what they wrote. [SPEAKER_00]: Right now, and for a limited time only, by two secret doors, get a third door free. [SPEAKER_00]: You can't afford to miss out on this amazing offer. [SPEAKER_00]: There's an asteroid here. [SPEAKER_00]: It says, this offer does not include installation or delivery by or must pay thirty-five percent convenience fee, taxes and hidden fees apply.

[SPEAKER_00]: All three doors must be identical. [SPEAKER_00]: See store for details. [SPEAKER_00]: Not valid across state lines. [SPEAKER_00]: Purchase of a door indicates an agreement to subscribe to one additional product per month. [SPEAKER_00]: Reading this text authorizes us to sell your personal information.

[SPEAKER_00]: If you do not agree to these terms, you must unread this agreement. [SPEAKER_00]: Which is hilarious. [SPEAKER_00]: And not actually something that somebody at the Charleston Harold would have written. [SPEAKER_00]: This was a hint at a secret door at a location in the building that was left out for you to explore and figure out where to go during a quest.

[SPEAKER_00]: And it's kind of clever, because it's written like it might be an advertisement and it has some ridiculous stuff in it, which may have been accurate to the nature of those pre-war types of agreements, which were ridiculous. [SPEAKER_00]: and yet it's pointing to an actual secret door for a quest line.

[SPEAKER_00]: So that's pretty fun. [SPEAKER_00]: As for the other articles that were about the things going on and I'm Appleach at the time, I've discussed a lot of those on some of the previous episodes and there's just more evidence here supporting those things. [SPEAKER_00]: Unfortunately, we don't get any of the other major international world-building stuff, but this stuff is [SPEAKER_00]: useful.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's interesting to see how this community had its own news and the things that were happening on a national and international level were also happening at a local level. [SPEAKER_00]: People were not safe. [SPEAKER_00]: People were hungry. [SPEAKER_00]: People were losing their jobs. [SPEAKER_00]: The government and the corporations did not care.

[SPEAKER_00]: And things were dark and dire, and then the bombs dropped. [SPEAKER_00]: And now, well, we all live in a wasteland, with just the remnants of these articles as a way to remember what the past was like. [SPEAKER_00]: And to know that even in the wasteland, things weren't necessarily better before the bombs dropped.

[SPEAKER_00]: They were just different. [SPEAKER_00]: And yet, still kind of the same. [SPEAKER_01]: questions about nuclear worlds, I'd be delighted to answer them. [SPEAKER_00]: Thanks again for tuning into this episode. [SPEAKER_00]: I hope that deep dive or closer look at the news articles and newspapers was entertaining.

[SPEAKER_00]: I will be continuing more of the businesses and things and fall out in the future. [SPEAKER_00]: And GCX, twenty twenty five is coming up just as as I record this in just over a week. [SPEAKER_00]: And I'm excited. [SPEAKER_00]: This is going to be a lot of fun. [SPEAKER_00]: I'm going to be there hopefully getting opportunities to interview people and record some episodes stuff all sorts of fun things.

[SPEAKER_00]: So stay tuned for that. [SPEAKER_00]: That will be coming out as an episode. [SPEAKER_00]: Hopefully if everything works out in the next few weeks after the event. [SPEAKER_00]: And then actually probably within the week after the event. [SPEAKER_00]: And if you're planning to go, then let me know on the discord.

[SPEAKER_00]: We'll set up a group and kind of a meet up spot and everybody can get to see each other and say hi and do all of that. [SPEAKER_00]: So that'll be fun. [SPEAKER_00]: Also, got to thank our patrons, everybody who supports the show. [SPEAKER_00]: Thank you so very much. [SPEAKER_00]: And welcome to our newest patrons.

[SPEAKER_00]: Let's, I don't know if I welcomed just some guy, but we're going back a few weeks because of the other episode that kind of came in here. [SPEAKER_00]: Just some guy. [SPEAKER_00]: What's his name? [SPEAKER_00]: Keefer Overseer, and he who poops. [SPEAKER_00]: Wonderful names. [SPEAKER_00]: Thank you so much for joining and enjoying the episodes and getting your extra stuff and all of that.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm so glad that you are supporting the show and I couldn't do without you. [SPEAKER_00]: Also, I couldn't do without our centribot, a germinator who gets a shoutout every week. [SPEAKER_00]: If you sign up at the centribot label level, let words are hard. [SPEAKER_00]: You get shoutouts all the time.

[SPEAKER_00]: You guys know how this works. [SPEAKER_00]: Also, two new reviews came in in the last week on Apple Podcasts. [SPEAKER_00]: If you leave these on Apple Podcasts in the US, I'll read them out on future episodes. [SPEAKER_00]: This one is from Deliphane, who writes amazing to listen to and full of information.

[SPEAKER_00]: Listening to Tom Share has love and excitement for all things Fallout is contagious. [SPEAKER_00]: Love it. [SPEAKER_00]: Thank you, Deliphane. [SPEAKER_00]: And then, bromance, one-o-seven says, best Fallout show ever. [SPEAKER_00]: I started listening to the show a year ago, and I'm only on episode one-hundred and seven, but it is the best podcast I've ever listened to.

[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you so much. [SPEAKER_00]: You guys are amazing. [SPEAKER_00]: You're the best. [SPEAKER_00]: Also, I know some of you left some voicemail on the voicemail.app whatever thing that is. [SPEAKER_00]: I think they've changed ownership and somehow have gotten rid of being able to log in using my Google account, which means I can't actually log in and see those anymore.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm hoping that's a temporary thing and they reestablish that so I can log back in. [SPEAKER_00]: But in the meantime, that's not working. [SPEAKER_00]: So if you're trying to leave me messages there, I can't really see them unfortunately. [SPEAKER_00]: But hopefully it gets fixed. [SPEAKER_00]: I'll let you know.

[SPEAKER_00]: Thanks for being here. [SPEAKER_00]: Have a wonderful rest of your week. [SPEAKER_00]: Looking forward to GCX if you're going to be there. [SPEAKER_00]: And until next time, I don't know, maybe read the news and be aware of what's going on in the world because [SPEAKER_00]: It's crazy out there, everybody.

[SPEAKER_00]: All right, see ya. [SPEAKER_00]: To plug into everything else we're doing, check out robotsradio.net. [SPEAKER_00]: Reach out to me on Twitter at robots underscore radio. [SPEAKER_00]: Check out the robots radio rocket club where you can join me and a bunch of our other creators creating your podcast, starting a new podcast or helping your current podcast grow.

[SPEAKER_00]: There's more information about that on RobotsReady.net as well. [SPEAKER_00]: And you can always talk with us and the entire community over two thousand people on the RobotsReady Discord. [SPEAKER_00]: Come join us. [SPEAKER_00]: We'd love to chat with you. [SPEAKER_00]: See you guys next time.

361: Pre-War Businesses: Newspapers Reveal The Past

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