One of my most popular posts (maybe the most popular) was a post about Christianity and the Warhammer 40k universe. I thought I might write on a similar subject with another beloved setting.

I cut my video-gaming teeth on Fallout, playing both 1 and 2 when they came out, and pining for Van Buren until it was finally cancelled. I’ve played through Fallout: Tactics, 3, New Vegas, and 4 multiple times, the non-canonical Brotherhood of Steel games (set in my home of Texas) spent more time fooling with Fallout Shelter than I ought to have, and have had my share of adventures in West Virginia (the only place I’ve lived outside of Texas, coincidentally) in Fallout 76 (although that’s been long enough I ought to go back, as there’s a lot of added content I’m haven’t played). I’ve loved the TV show so far; Walton Goggins has become one of my favorite actors (and the show has given him a character with a wide range in which he can shine), and I’m decidedly less grognardian about supposed retcons and changes to canon the show has made (I just don’t think it ultimately matters if Shady Sands was located in a slightly different place in the games than in the show, for instance). With my bona fides established, let’s talk about the setting and where it might or might not intersect with the Christian faith.

At the outset, I want to address a question that I see with some frequency on the internet: does Christianity survive in the late 23rd century of Fallout? The answer, emphatically, is “yes,” though the extent to which it does probably cannot be known. Rather than lay out the examples, I’ll point you to an article on the subject on the Fandom Fallout Wiki (which, I’m given to understand, may not be as reliable or accurate as some of the other available wikis, but it has plenty of citations from the games to make the point on this subject).

But, unlike my discussion of Warhammer 40k and Christianity, there will be fewer direct theological comparisons of in-setting ideas. Instead, Fallout provides a potential for examining Christian values in a setting that takes some of the moral dilemmas of our own world and dials them up to eleven.

If Warhammer 40k is “grimdark,” how should we categorize Fallout? Is it “grimlight?” I’d certainly argue it’s a grim setting; if you doubt that, read up on the Vault-Tec experiments in the vaults. Or consider the body horror of forced conversion into a super mutant or unexpected conversion into a ghoul. Or the things the raiders do to people for fun. Or maybe just the state of America before the Great War. Like cyberpunk settings, we daily find the ideas more prescient of the current history than is at all comfortable.

Here are a few additional examples: (1) Vault City is a slave-owning society; (2) New Reno is a hive of scum and villainy; (3) the Enclave represents the worst facets of American government and political discourse; (4) the Brotherhood of Steel, for all its initial ideals, is a fascist and intolerant organization that has deviated significantly from the spirit of its initial purpose.

But, while it’s certainly dark, there’s a lot more light in Fallout than in Warhammer 40k. There’s a lot more humor, and while “war never changes,” we’re beyond there being “only war.” Both the games and the TV show have a smattering of the comic, the satirical, and the “wacky” parts of the wasteland to balance out some of the grim and grit. But more than that, there are many examples of goodness in the Fallout world that do not exist in the same quality or quantity within Warhammer 40k. Naive as she may be, Lucy (as well as most of the other vault dwellers not in on Vault-Tec’s schemes) wants to do good. Shady Sands was a place of hope and tolerance. The NCR in general attempted to rebuild some semblance of a civil society.

These are beacons of hope in a largely corrupt world, good people fighting against the weight of the world for something better. And here is where the Fallout setting shines, I think: it doesn’t shy away from tough moral decisions and doesn’t leave decisions without their consequences. Neither do the games judge you for taking the low road and, in a fictional setting, it’s worth being able to explore the nuances of immoral or amoral behavior as a practical thought experiment or maybe just to let off some misanthropic steam–fantasy is a much better place to do that than the real world. That same factor–that Fallout is primarily encountered as a video game–is also its major weakness. If you don’t approach the game with the discipline of roleplaying a developed character encountering the Fallout world for the first time (and I don’t think most people do this or want to do this, and that’s fine), then meta-considerations creep in. Instead of asking “What is the right course of action in this situation?” or “What would my character do in this situation?” the question often becomes about the choices necessary to get the best game items. While there’s a potential investigation of amorality there, I think it largely breaks down the value of the moral quandaries that can be thought through in the Fallout world. This requires a sense of immersion.

I’ve been listening to Tom “Robots'” Fallout Lorecast the past week or so as a break from reading for school. If you just want to explore the lore of the Fallout world, I’d recommend you just follow rabbit trails on the several fan-made wikis. But what Robots does differently is that he often asks you to step into the shoes of someone in one of the Fallout situations: What would you feel and do if you were Paladin Danse upon his life-changing discovery? How would you feel and respond if you were a member of Vault X and discovered the experiment being conducted on you there? Robots’ background in philosophy comes to the fore as he uses the Fallout world to create immersive thought experiments.

It’s one of his podcast episodes that became the impetus for this post, in fact. If I remember correctly, it was his episode on Vault 3, where he discusses the naivite of the vault dwellers, their takeover by Fiends, and the philosophy of violence as necessary (with a mention of just war theory thrown in). Those of you who’ve followed the blog for a while know that the Christian ethics of violence is a topic that continues to fascinate and confound me. I think the Fallout setting is a great place in which we can look at the topic again.

If I understood him correctly, Robots’ core argument is that violence is necessary to keep evil from winning. I think that’s a commonly-held belief. Certainly, it’s the justification used by the “good guys with guns” argument in America, to which I once subscribed. But are things that simple?

Let’s except from consideration the Tactics and Brotherhood of Steel games which, by their very nature and design are fundamentally based in violence. In the true RPG Fallout games, the world seems like one in which violence is inevitable. You’re given weapons early on, and the wasteland is replete with creatures and people who unambiguously wish to do you harm. Within the genre itself, there’s an expectation that combat and violence will be aspects of the experience. There’s a whole ‘nother conversation to be had with why we often want combat and violence to be part of the games we play as a matter of interesting and high-stakes conflict, but this is a long post as it is.

If you’ve played through any of the Fallout games, did you ever consider that non-violence might be an option? I took for granted that violence would be part of my experience in every single one of the games–hopefully with me doing more of it than receiving. And yet, there are discussions and demonstrations of pacifist runs of the Fallout games all over the internet. Some people, whether through moral righteousness, creativity, or the simple love of a challenge, had the thought that they might survive the wasteland without becoming its moral victim. Until the most recent episode of the TV series (Season 2, Episode 4, “The Demon in the Snow”) and with the possible exception of her treatment of Snip-Snip, this was the journey Lucy trod. With the Ghoul as a ready foil, her character arc seems to be devoted to the question of whether one can maintain one’s values upon encountering and living in the wasteland.

Certainly, by “common” standards, much of the violence in the TV and the video games seems to be “justified.” There aren’t a lot of ways to talk a super mutant or a radscorpion out of violence, and–as with Vault 3–the raiders are an ever-present threat to those who would seek to live in the wasteland in peace and mutual cooperation. But terms like “justified,” and “just war” are often confused with “good violence” and “good war.” Is there ever really such a thing? Here’s maybe the more difficult question: is it ever acceptable to make a potentially immoral choice in favor of survival–yours or someone else’s?

Let’s take an example from Season 2 of the Fallout TV show (SPOILERS AHEAD!). Let’s look at Maximus’ killing of Xander Harkness. He does it to save lives, the lives of children no less, and in opposition to what amounts to racism. Certainly, in the moment, killing Xander and thereby preventing the murder of children is justified (and, in meta-narrative, I think the writers intended this moment to be a callback to the fact that the first Fallout games faced pushback and censorship because of the possibility of doing violence to children, but perhaps I’m reading too much into it). But every character who comments on what happened is clear that Xander’s death means war with the Commonwealth Brotherhood.

This, I think, is a good example of the theological belief I’ve come to (the argument for which must be relegated to another post) that one of the most profound messages of the Incarnation is that, on a cosmic level, evil cannot be overcome with violence or force; it can only be overcome by love. Violence begets more violence.

If we turn to very recent events in the U.S., let’s consider the violence perpetrated by I.C.E. Every tear gas cannister, every pepper-loaded gel round fired point-blank in the face of a peacefully-protesting pastor, every murder of an innocent woman, every violent arrest in violation of civil rights, every unnecessary use of force increases the likelihood that someone responds with more violence. I applaud the restraint and discipline of the many, many, peaceful protestors who have endured all of this violence without responding in kind; I believe that truly is the only way to achieve justice. If nothing else, it makes clear who the “good guys” and the “bad guys” are, and both the rest of America and the world are watching.

Not only is the response of non-violent protest the moral one, but it’s also the practical one. Should someone respond violently to I.C.E., our government will use that incident, no matter how limited, to justify the deployment of greater violence against the populace. Which will engender more violence from the populace. So on and so forth. When Ron Perlman’s gravely voice opens the early Fallout games with the now emblematic “War…war never changes.” This is what he means. Violence only begets more violence, one war only sets up the conditions from the next. It’s only when we choose non-violent resolutions that we truly move toward the peaceful world God wants from us, where no one “studies war anymore.”

But the brilliance of Fallout as moral thought-experiment is that it does not simply leave us with satire of the violence in human nature. Let’s consider Vault 3 again. Even accepting my argument that, at the level of eternal redemption, on non-violence drives out evil, the question remains of whether violence is necessary, acceptable, perhaps even “good” to buy some time for love to win out. Put another way, if we have to choose between the naive but generally moral vault-dwellers to survive or the violent, immoral, and–we’re tempted to say despite not knowing the truth of the statement–irredeemable raiders, is it moral to allow the raiders to kill the vault-dwellers?

The question may perhaps be boiled down to this: do we prioritize the possible redemption of the raiders over the current moral superiority (in a general sense, of course) of the vault-dwellers? The knee-jerk response is an easy one. Theologically, though, the question is extremely complex.

Our soteriology frames the question. If we believe that the only possible salvation comes through the confession of Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, there isn’t a salvific calculus here: those who believe in Jesus are saved and those who do not are not, and that’s that, no matter who kills whom. But if we’re willing to consider a God who is more compassionate and less arbitrary than that (particularly in a world where the raiders may never have had an opportunity to hear the Gospel, depending on how things played out for them), the question is more complicated. And, if we consider the morality as a separate (but still theological) question from salvation, we cannot escape some sort of judgment at all.

Let’s work through this. If, arguendo, God redeems those who know and practice love in addition to those who have faith in Jesus as God¹, we have to look more closely at the original question.

One might argue that, if one is assured of their own salvation and God’s promise of eternal, abundant, life, the determination of a need to kill someone else, however bad that person may be, to survive, is a rejection of faith in God’s ultimate justice. That, I think is where all of the complexities enter in. If moral questions prioritize this life over belief in eternal existence, then the idea of “just war” and “just violence” is easier to come to. But, if we believe in eternal life and cosmic justice over temporal concerns, what does it matter if someone assured of their eternal life is unjustly murdered by an immoral person? Faith in God’s promises is vastly more important. This idea lies behind the actions of the martyrs. What if God’s idea of justice is not about people “getting what they deserve?” I’ll argue that its not in another upcoming post, but even without those arguments, the sacrificial salvation through Christ of undeserving mortals seems to discount a cosmic justice as a matter of dessert.

And yet, if we’re called to make this world like the Kingdom of God (I need to discuss alternatives to this phrasing in a separate post and soon), doesn’t that include protecting the innocent against the iniquities of predators? Is there a sort of “double justice” we must try to pursue simultaneously–a “worldly” or “temporal” justice and a cosmic and eternal justice? How would we balance such an idea?

There is no easy answer. In this life, we have to weigh the possibilities and do the best we can, never knowing until we’re face to face with our Creator whether we did the right thing. We can say that violence is never the best or righteous act while acknowledging that, in a fallen world, it may sometimes be the lesser of two evils. But it’s also possible to reject that position in favor of unflinching pacifism. We might believe, as Aasimov tells us in Foundation, that “violence…is the last refuge of the incompetent;” that we only ever choose violence because it’s the easier option, never the better one.

Fallout as the best fiction does, gives you space to consider the possibilities, not with a heavy-handed resolution in view, but as a thought experiment to help you determine where you might best position your belief. Fallout unflinchingly gives us views of the best and the worst of humanity, it acknowledges both the baseness and sublimity of human nature, just as life does. It reminds me of a quotation from beloved Christian author Frederick Buechner: “Here is the world. Beautiful things will happen. Don’t be afraid. I [God] am with you.”

I’d hoped to make this a single post, but my loquaciousness again gets the better of me. Two more posts on Christianity in Fallout will be forthcoming: one about the many examples of the journey to redemption that Fallout gives us, and one about the meek and the powerful, particularly with reference to late-stage capitalism.

1. For those who read this sentence and assumed we’re falling into a works-based or “Pelagian” idea of salvation, I disagree. There are several ways to get to my point. We might use simple logic through the transitive principle: If we accept the doctrine of the Trinity, then Jesus is God. If God is love, and those who believe in Jesus are saved, then those who believe in love are saved. We might also argue that the knowledge of Jesus as God and Savior is itself a transformative vehicle through which one achieves the totality of salvation, but if it is the transformation and not only the knowledge of God that is operative here (with Jesus being the clearest and most direct way to transformation, I’d argue) then the soteriological question remains complicated and mysterious in ways that should give us pause in going beyond attempting to “work out [our] own salvation through fear and trembling.” Yes, in making the argument above, I’m doing just the opposite, but this is one of the reasons I think we ought to hope for, if not definitively believe in, as expansive a view of salvation as possible–while perhaps holding in tension that God respects our free will and independence so much as to never force anyone into the acceptance of salvation. ↩︎