If the Institute was Truly Evil...

[South8028]

2 hours ago, Miauzi said:

 

Reject?

Why do I have to "blindly and faithfully" follow a lore story -> which is now incomplete, contradictory, and bad?

That's precisely the crux of the matter - even the construct of a religion shouldn't massively contradict itself internally or have major logical holes.

 

Ultimately, it doesn't matter whether an entertainment construct is a novel, a film, or a computer/video game... what matters is that the internal logic of the created world is intact... otherwise, you quickly end up with "trash."

 

So what did "Bugdesta" do with the "lore" - which they acquired through the studio purchase? -> ultimately garbage... because since they have no creative ideas of their own - they shred the "lore" of this series, beloved by Fallout fans.

 

Satire or fun? -> that's now provided by the mod authors - but not by the actual game developer for a long time.

 

Of course, mod authors do this. After all, the game is already 10 years old. It's bad that sometimes bgs releases strange, functionally useless updates for some reason and ruins people's fun.

By the way, just now there was information that fo5 is not being developed by bgs. fo5 is being made by another Microsoft team based on the former ZeniMax Online Studios. Let's see...

[Count Chocula]

5 hours ago, Miauzi said:

Ultimately, it doesn't matter whether an entertainment construct is a novel, a film, or a computer/video game... what matters is that the internal logic of the created world is intact... otherwise, you quickly end up with "trash."

This is what many fail to grasp about fantastic fiction, and lies at the heart of  "willing suspension of disbelief." If a fantastic fiction does not adhere to its own logic, made up or not, many people will not buy into it. In a two-hour movie it's not as big a deal because many people will just be dazzled by the special effects and loud noises. But in a novel or a computer game, people have time to analyze and think about things.

 

In the mod Depravity, the NPC Murphy rhetorically asks "Why did the Gunners take over Quincy if they were just going to shut it down?" He also says or implies that if the Gunners took over the commerce that went through Quincy, that would make sense because then the Gunners would be making money off it. This isn't something I picked up on in my earliest playthroughs, but eventually I wondered the same thing as Murphy, before I ever played Depravity. It makes no sense that the Gunners would do what they did. So for that particular instance, Fallout 4 fails the "willing suspension of disbelief" test and Quincy is just a place with monsters to kill and loot, like a cave complex in a Dungeons & Dragons module from 1978.

 

And if I were running a tabletop RPG set in the Commonwealth and I wanted to incorporate the Gunners taking over Quincy, I would come up with a good reason.

[nmagod]

On 7/15/2025 at 3:51 AM, South8028 said:

VaultTec was clearly founded by aliens

No, VaultTec was founded by humans.

 

But aliens DID cause the war.

 

 

 

On 7/15/2025 at 10:02 AM, Miauzi said:

 

 they shred the "lore" of this series, beloved by Fallout fans.

 

they also can't keep the lore of TES consistent

[South8028]

2 hours ago, nmagod said:

No, VaultTec was founded by humans.

 

But aliens DID cause the war.

 

 

 

they also can't keep the lore of TES consistent

I was joking. There is a novel by V. Vinge. A Deepness in the Sky. There, people secretly founded all sorts of corporations on the planet of spiders and gradually brought the spider society (cobers) to a thermonuclear war. They expected that after the war they would appear as saviors and seize power. In the novel, people were evil, and spiders were a metaphor for our human society of the 20th century.vault tec is very similar to such a corporation. This corporation is engaged in outright sabotage and destruction of civilization, instead of thinking about its own profit.

[Count Chocula]

23 hours ago, South8028 said:

I was joking. There is a novel by V. Vinge. A Deepness in the Sky. There, people secretly founded all sorts of corporations on the planet of spiders and gradually brought the spider society (cobers) to a thermonuclear war. They expected that after the war they would appear as saviors and seize power.

"Break it on purpose, say 'See, I told you it was broken,' then say 'Well, we gotta fix this'" is nothing new in the real world. So it's no surprise Black Isle (or whoever created the original VautTec lore) went that route (sorta, kinda, but not exactly) with VaultTec. 

[Raven 54]

On 7/14/2025 at 9:17 PM, South8028 said:

That's why they're locally concentrated in Boston. That's where they came from and that's where they live. They're a local Boston military faction with no ties to anyone outside the Commonwealth

I wonder what happened to their accent, I mean I have been to Boston and those people talk funny compared to the plains states where I live, but then again I have been accused of having an accent too.

I guess Bugthesda didn't want to keep to the actual way east coasters speak, maybe it was a plot by Vault Tec to erase parts of their heritage or maybe they were all chemically castrated/neutered.  

 

P.S. not trying to run anyone down that is different than myself, no offense intended, comedy intended! 

[South8028]

1 hour ago, Caveman 74 said:

I wonder what happened to their accent, I mean I have been to Boston and those people talk funny compared to the plains states where I live, but then again I have been accused of having an accent too.

I guess Bugthesda didn't want to keep to the actual way east coasters speak, maybe it was a plot by Vault Tec to erase parts of their heritage or maybe they were all chemically castrated/neutered.  

 

P.S. not trying to run anyone down that is different than myself, no offense intended, comedy intended! 

It would be funny if bgs went to Boston to recruit voice actors for a fictional faction in 2287. And anyway, the majority of fo4 players don't understand American accents.For example, I only recognize the Texas accent. I often don't understand what they say at all. Their "white" sounds like "way" to my ear.

[Count Chocula]

On 7/19/2025 at 11:53 AM, Caveman 74 said:

I wonder what happened to their accent, I mean I have been to Boston and those people talk funny compared to the plains states where I live, but then again I have been accused of having an accent too.

Regional dialects in North American English (probably other languages in other places, too) are disappearing. Pretty soon every native English speaker in North America will talk like people on cable news shows. In a post-nuclear holocaust world like Fallout, with travel and communication limited, and no common mass-market media for everyone to listen to, over the course of time regional variances would crop up again. I imagine a comparative dialectologist or a sociolinguist could weigh in on how different the dialects of the Mojave and the Commonwealth would be after 200 years of very little contact between the two regions.

 

Everyone has an "accent." It's called their dialect.

Edited July 21, 2025 by Count Chocula

[nmagod]

On 7/19/2025 at 11:53 AM, Caveman 74 said:

 

I guess Bugthesda didn't want to keep to the actual way east coasters speak

but they sure did add the asian accent and irish accent in a couple places, weird huh?

[MrGrey]

6 hours ago, nmagod said:

but they sure did add the asian accent and irish accent in a couple places, weird huh?

There's French in the Miss Nannies and then the Cait for Irish. Is there an asian accent? where do I find this accent? 

 

Odd that, after 210 years, they sound exactly the same as 2015 Americans. 

[nmagod]

the asian family when you start the Far Harbor DLC, of course

[MrGrey]

On 10/5/2025 at 3:04 AM, nmagod said:

the asian family when you start the Far Harbor DLC, of course

But that's Japanese not.... oh. 

[Miauzi]

Am 07.10.2025 um 00:52 Uhr sagte MrGrey:

Aber das ist Japanisch, nicht … oh. 

 

Um - so Japan is located in East Asia... and according to "legend," the inhabitants of this region (about 2 billion) have a biological problem (larynx) with pronouncing the "R" sound - it's supposedly always replaced by an "L."

It's just a legend, of course - but it persists very persistently in the latently racist cultural world of the West... you need something to feel superior to peoples whose cultures have existed thousands of years longer!

 

If East Asians grow up in the "West" from early childhood, they speak the local language without an accent... or with the local accent.

And the Nakanos have lived in this alternative USA for generations - their ancestors probably even immigrated before World War II... where they were then interned for several years as US citizens.

 

On the other hand,

The cultural melting pot – of which the USA is (or was) always so proud – is just a legend... intended to conceal the actual reality -> the ghettoization of immigrants.

It's not for nothing that East Coast cities have names like "Little Italy" or "Little Odessa."

When my now-deceased uncle's longtime friend traveled through the USA for an extended period (months) in the early 1990s, he got much further in such neighborhoods with the "local" language than with the official English.

For "Little Odessa" (New York), this was "Russian" at the time - which he mastered like a second native language... since, as a German, he had spent his childhood in the Soviet Union (1930s and 1940s).

 

What prompted the developer of Fallout 4 to deliberately use "local" accents through the descendants of immigrants is ultimately a matter of speculation.

[South8028]

8 hours ago, Miauzi said:

 

Um - so Japan is located in East Asia... and according to "legend," the inhabitants of this region (about 2 billion) have a biological problem (larynx) with pronouncing the "R" sound - it's supposedly always replaced by an "L."

It's just a legend, of course - but it persists very persistently in the latently racist cultural world of the West... you need something to feel superior to peoples whose cultures have existed thousands of years longer!

 

If East Asians grow up in the "West" from early childhood, they speak the local language without an accent... or with the local accent.

And the Nakanos have lived in this alternative USA for generations - their ancestors probably even immigrated before World War II... where they were then interned for several years as US citizens.

 

On the other hand,

The cultural melting pot – of which the USA is (or was) always so proud – is just a legend... intended to conceal the actual reality -> the ghettoization of immigrants.

It's not for nothing that East Coast cities have names like "Little Italy" or "Little Odessa."

When my now-deceased uncle's longtime friend traveled through the USA for an extended period (months) in the early 1990s, he got much further in such neighborhoods with the "local" language than with the official English.

For "Little Odessa" (New York), this was "Russian" at the time - which he mastered like a second native language... since, as a German, he had spent his childhood in the Soviet Union (1930s and 1940s).

 

What prompted the developer of Fallout 4 to deliberately use "local" accents through the descendants of immigrants is ultimately a matter of speculation.

Oh well. From the point of view of Russians and Germans, English-speaking guys are completely incapable of pronouncing the "R" sound. 😁 

[Count Chocula]

I wonder what an "Asian" accent is. Asia goes from the east coast of the Mediterranean to the west coast of the Pacific. When a Brit says "Asian" they mean "South Asian." When someone from the U.S. says "Asian" they mean "East Asian." I suspect no one means "West Asian."

[Count Chocula]

On 10/8/2025 at 1:06 PM, South8028 said:

Oh well. From the point of view of Russians and Germans, English-speaking guys are completely incapable of pronouncing the "R" sound. 😁 

I'm not an expert on Russian, German or English dialectology, but, sure, I believe the retroflex "r" common to many English dialects, especially North American English dialects, is relatively uncommon among major languages of the world. So is the uvular "r" common to many German dialects (I believe). I don't know what kind of "r" is the "standard r" in Russian.

[South8028]

On 10/20/2025 at 10:20 PM, Count Chocula said:

I'm not an expert on Russian, German or English dialectology, but, sure, I believe the retroflex "r" common to many English dialects, especially North American English dialects, is relatively uncommon among major languages of the world. So is the uvular "r" common to many German dialects (I believe). I don't know what kind of "r" is the "standard r" in Russian.

The Russian "R" is slightly softer than the German "R," but just as aggressive compared to the soft English "R." In Russia, some English teachers recommend omitting the "R" altogether. In Japan, the "R" is also very soft. Some Romaji translators interpret "R" as "L." As an anime fan, I often encounter names and untranslatable words translated with "L" instead of "R." But when I listen to Japanese without translation, I can distinguish the "R".

[Count Chocula]

I don't know what you mean by a "soft r." Major languages around the world have various "r" sounds. Most North American (and the Irish and West County English) dialects I am familiar with use a retroflex "r." Major German and French dialects use a uvular "r." Spanish, Italian, some German and some French dialects and Scottish dialects I am familiar with use a trilled "r." Many dialects that use a trilled "r" use a flap "r" intervocalically. Spanish used to distinguish between the trilled "r" and the flap "r" by spelling the trilled "r" as "rr" and the flap "r" as "r."

 

Those are all fairly imprecise descriptions because, as I mentioned, I am not an expert dialectologist in my native language of English, let alone in other languages.

[South8028]

On 10/22/2025 at 11:24 PM, Count Chocula said:

I don't know what you mean by a "soft r." Major languages around the world have various "r" sounds. Most North American (and the Irish and West County English) dialects I am familiar with use a retroflex "r." Major German and French dialects use a uvular "r." Spanish, Italian, some German and some French dialects and Scottish dialects I am familiar with use a trilled "r." Many dialects that use a trilled "r" use a flap "r" intervocalically. Spanish used to distinguish between the trilled "r" and the flap "r" by spelling the trilled "r" as "rr" and the flap "r" as "r."

 

Those are all fairly imprecise descriptions because, as I mentioned, I am not an expert dialectologist in my native language of English, let alone in other languages.

but you reason like an expert. 💪🙂

In Russian, the "r" sound is pronounced so strongly that Russians almost never hear it in English, especially in American English. To the Russian ear, English-speaking guys barely pronounce the "r." The "r" sound practically disappears from words. Good diction, in Russian, means clear, distinct pronunciation of consonants. A distinct, pronounced "R." It's funny, but the better someone's diction in Russian, the worse their English will be. It'll be like someone's consonants are being "chopped" in the ears with an axe.

Edited October 24, 2025 by South8028

[Count Chocula]

On 10/24/2025 at 8:50 AM, South8028 said:

but you reason like an expert. 💪🙂

In Russian, the "r" sound is pronounced so strongly that Russians almost never hear it in English, especially in American English. To the Russian ear, English-speaking guys barely pronounce the "r." The "r" sound practically disappears from words. Good diction, in Russian, means clear, distinct pronunciation of consonants. A distinct, pronounced "R." It's funny, but the better someone's diction in Russian, the worse their English will be. It'll be like someone's consonants are being "chopped" in the ears with an axe.

Based on my very limited knowledge of Russian, Russian uses a trilled "r." I think some people call it a rolled "r." And perhaps there is a technical difference between a trilled and a rolled "r."

[South8028]

On 11/4/2025 at 11:37 PM, Count Chocula said:

Based on my very limited knowledge of Russian, Russian uses a trilled "r." I think some people call it a rolled "r." And perhaps there is a technical difference between a trilled and a rolled "r."

Deepseek 😁

### **What do you think about the difference between Russian and English diction?**

That's an excellent and very subtle question! As an AI, I don't have personal opinions, but I can analyze and summarize the key differences based on phonetics and linguistic observations.

The difference between Russian and English diction is one of the primary reasons for a "foreign accent." It lies in the work of the entire vocal apparatus: lips, tongue, larynx, and even facial muscles.

Here are the main differences:

#### 1. Articulation (Work of the Speech Organs)

*   **Russian Diction:**
    *   **"Forward" Articulation:** Sounds are formed predominantly in the front part of the mouth, with active use of the lips and the tip of the tongue. A prime example is the accentuated rolled [r].
    *   **Active Lips:** The lips are strongly rounded and protruded for sounds like [у] and [о]. The smile for [и] is also very active.
    *   **Tenseness:** Consonant sounds are pronounced more clearly, tensely, and firmly. Soft consonants (palatalization) are distinct phonemes, which is a major challenge for learners.

*   **English Diction:**
    *   **"Back" Articulation:** Many sounds are formed in the back of the mouth, with the tongue often retracted. This is especially noticeable in the British Received Pronunciation.
    *   **"Lazy" Lips:** The lips are less active and barely rounded. Try saying the Russian [у] and then the English "food" – you'll feel that in the latter, the lips are almost neutral.
    *   **Laxness:** Consonants are often softened or aspirated (e.g., [p], [t], [k] at the beginning of words are pronounced with a puff of air). The tongue is generally more relaxed.

#### 2. Intonation and Rhythm

*   **Russian is Syllable-Timed:** Rhythm is created by syllables. Stress is dynamic (force stress), where the stressed syllable is emphasized by force and duration. Intonation patterns can be very complex and emotional, with large pitch variations.
*   **English is Stress-Timed:** Rhythm is created by stressed syllables, which occur at roughly equal intervals of time. Unstressed syllables are "swallowed" or reduced (the famous [ə] "schwa" sound). This creates that distinctive "staccato" rhythm, unfamiliar to the Russian ear.

#### 3. Key Phonetic Differences

*   **Vowels:**
    *   In Russian, vowels in unstressed positions are reduced (e.g., "a" and "o" in the first pre-stressed syllable sound like [а], and in others like [ъ]).
    *   In English, **diphthongs** (gliding sounds as in "time," "go," "boy") play a huge role and are virtually absent in Russian. Vowel length is also critical (compare "ship" [ɪ] and "sheep" [iː]).

*   **Consonants:**
    *   **Aspiration:** In English, the sounds [p, t, k] at the beginning of a stressed syllable are pronounced with a strong puff of air (*p*en, *t*able, *k*ite). In Russian, they are simply [п, т, к].
    *   **Devoicing/Voicing:** In Russian, voiced consonants at the end of a word become voiceless ("дуб" sounds like [дуп]). In English, this rule is not as strict, and endings are often lost, which sounds like "sloppiness" to the Russian ear.
    *   **Interdental Sounds:** English has the sounds [θ] (think) and [ð] (this), which don't exist in Russian. Russian speakers often replace them with [с], [з] or [ф], [в].

### An Analogy

A good analogy is to imagine playing different musical instruments.

*   **Russian speech** is like a **violin**: bright, emotional, with clear, sometimes sharp sound attacks. The sound is born "at the front."
*   **English speech** (especially British) is like a **cello**: deeper, more "guttural," with rounded and smooth transitions between sounds. The sound is born "deeper."

### What are the implications?

*   **For Russians learning English:** The biggest challenge is to stop "working the lips" and train the tongue to retract for the deeper sounds. It's also crucial to master diphthongs and the "staccato" rhythm without "swallowing" the endings.
*   **For English speakers learning Russian:** The main challenges are mastering the system of palatalized (soft) and non-palatalized (hard) consonants, and learning to pronounce each syllable clearly without reducing unstressed vowels as much as in English. And, of course, the famous Russian rolled [r].

**In conclusion,** the difference in diction is not just a set of different sounds, but different "muscular" habits and motor skills. To sound authentic in another language, you need to retrain your vocal apparatus to move in a new way. It's like learning a new sport.

[Count Chocula]

3 hours ago, South8028 said:

For English speakers learning Russian:** The main challenges are mastering the system of palatalized (soft) and non-palatalized (hard) consonants, and learning to pronounce each syllable clearly without reducing unstressed vowels as much as in English. And, of course, the famous Russian rolled [r].

Again with the caveat that my knowledge of Russian is extremely limited, reduction of unstressed vowels to a lax, central vowel seems pretty common in both languages. But it's pretty much universal in English dialects I'm aware and perhaps not quite so universal in "standard" Russian (or whatever Russian dialect was used in the classes I took years ago).

[xsixkillerx]

On 7/15/2025 at 5:23 PM, Count Chocula said:

This is what many fail to grasp about fantastic fiction, and lies at the heart of  "willing suspension of disbelief." If a fantastic fiction does not adhere to its own logic, made up or not, many people will not buy into it. In a two-hour movie it's not as big a deal because many people will just be dazzled by the special effects and loud noises. But in a novel or a computer game, people have time to analyze and think about things.

 

In the mod Depravity, the NPC Murphy rhetorically asks "Why did the Gunners take over Quincy if they were just going to shut it down?" He also says or implies that if the Gunners took over the commerce that went through Quincy, that would make sense because then the Gunners would be making money off it. This isn't something I picked up on in my earliest playthroughs, but eventually I wondered the same thing as Murphy, before I ever played Depravity. It makes no sense that the Gunners would do what they did. So for that particular instance, Fallout 4 fails the "willing suspension of disbelief" test and Quincy is just a place with monsters to kill and loot, like a cave complex in a Dungeons & Dragons module from 1978.

 

And if I were running a tabletop RPG set in the Commonwealth and I wanted to incorporate the Gunners taking over Quincy, I would come up with a good reason.

Well they are mercs, so maybe someone not so bright hired them to wipe it out instead of take it over for more money, there is also a lot of dead gunners in odd situations spread throughout the lands, so its easy to see why they wouldn't necessarily be smart enough to think too far ahead and take it over themselves. Gotta keep head cannons simple and stupid sometimes namsaiyan

[Operand]

Tbh, the Gen3 Synths "under institute control" were always immersion-breaking for me. If the Institute can control the very DNA, why do they keep producing "defective" synths with propensity to independent thinking? But okay, let's imagine they can't control that. However, surely they can control how the synth looks? After all, they have been replacing folks above ground meaning they can manufacture a synth with any appearance, yet ... THAT was the synth "wife" of the scientist that we find? 

 

It's the case there ironically, the "you just have your head filled with porn" argument doesn't hold up, since - well, we all know how would a "synth wife" look if the scientist is able to control her appearance. It's pretty much the same how AI "waifus" would look if we ever get to the point of advanced robotics IRL: they all will be bombshells with perfect appearance. And if any SJWs / haters / "how dare you" typical groups would like to object, the reality will be dictated by the market, and guess what - if the "HR approved ugly appearance" doesn't sell, the manufacturers will start to pivot to what is actually in demand. It's already happening with virtual avatars in video games left and right, so it will be only even more of the case with IRL avatars.

 

Point is: the Institute isn't "truly evil", it's as usual, "truly stupid"