Introduction

“You’ve gotten a lot farther than you should have, but then you haven’t met Frank Horrigan either. Your ride’s over, mutie. Time to die,” is one of the most iconic quotes in the Fallout franchise and the last words some players ever heard before their end. Fallout 2 (released in 1998 by Black Isle Studios) still remains one of the greatest role-playing games ever made, but what makes this game stand out among the rest? It’s not the plot that captured the affection and hearts of its players. Arroyo is suffering from the worst drought on record. Faced with this hardship, the village elder asks the direct descendant of the Vault Dweller, referred to as the Chosen One, to retrieve a Garden of Eden Creation Kit, or G.E.C.K, for the village. This device can create thriving communities out of the post-apocalyptic wasteland. It’s the side-quests and characters that take the spotlight. There are the mobsters of New Reno, the infamous Temple of Trials (the tutorial is the worst part of the game), the talking Deathclaws of Vault 13, and the magician Super Mutant residing the Mariposa Military Base to name a few.

DEVELOPMENT

Interplay’s Fallout 2 was the anxiously awaited sequel to Fallout, the “post-nuclear-role-playing-game” according to its logo.

Released only a year after the original, there was a lot to live up to and to improve upon. While they did do so in some fields, there were others that still failed to change for the better. Developed by Black Isle Studios and published by Interplay Productions, according to former Fallout 1 programmer, designer, and producer, Tim Cain they had started working on the sequel whilst working on the first game. While he was at the company, he announced via Usenet in December of 1997 that the sequel “should take 11 months”. Interplay was experiencing financial troubles at the time while led to the company pulling team members from other projects to get the product out the door.

In “basically nine months to make the whole game”, according to Cain. Their plans for Fallout 2 were greater than the time they were given. They had to compress and cut content, so much so that they had to be forced into crunch time just to finish the game. Crunch time, is compulsory overtime, during the development of a game. Not much else is known about the development of the game as much as been lost with time or was cut for time. Tim Cain left the project due to creative differences mid-way through alongside other developers.

GAMEPLAY

The game carried over and improved upon the GURPS-based system from the first game. It’s an isometric turn-based game with skills, abilities, perks, and traits. There is a faction reputation system alongside choices-and-consequences for players’ actions. It offered mass replayability as the player’s SPECIAL stats (Strength, Perception, Endurance, Charisma, Intelligence, Agility, and Luck) change the way they interact with the environment.

There are 18 different skills in the game. They are ranked from 0% to 300%. The starting values for those skills at level one is determined by the character’s seven basic attributes, but most of those skills would fall between 0% and 50%. Every time a level is gained, the player will be awarded skill points to be used to improve their character’s skills, equal to five points plus twice their Intelligence. The player may choose to “tag” three of the 18 skills (though later a fourth skill may be tagged). A tagged skill will improve at twice the normal rate. Some non-player characters can also improve Skills via training.

At character creation, the player may choose two optional traits. Traits are special character attributes, such as ‘Skilled’ (which drastically increases the player’s skills but adds an extra level before the player may choose each perk), or ‘Jinxed’ (enemies have a greater chance of critical attack failures, but so does the player). A Trait normally contains one beneficial effect and one detrimental effect and are listed below the Perks section in the character sheet. Once a Trait is chosen, it is impossible to change, except by using the “Mutate” Perk which allows the player to change one Trait, but only once.

“Perks” are special elements of the leveling system. Every three levels (or every four if the player chose the “Skilled” Trait), the player is granted a perk of their choosing. Perks grant special effects, most of which are not obtainable via normal play in the game, such as letting the player take more actions per round. Unlike traits, most perks are purely beneficial—they are usually offset only by the infrequency of acquiring them.

Fallout 2 is also known for it’s Easter Eggs (a secret feature placed inside a game that is usually hidden from the public eye until it is discovered by the players, often as a strange occurrence or joke from the game’s developers) which have been criticized for dating the game. One of the inhabitants of Gecko will point at the player and say, “Phone home.” There’s the Bridge Keeper random encounter which is a one-for-one allusion to Monty Python and the Holy Grail. An NPC will ask the Chosen One if they “pity a fool” ala Mr. T style. There’s a pletheral of Star Wars and Star Trek references on top of the on-the-nose Terminator reference in the Skynet companion. Looking at the list, thanks to the Fallout Fan-Wiki, I can recognize some of the references, but the others are films/songs/books that I have not seen or heard of.

STORY

As stated before, the plot revolves around our tribal, “The Chosen One”, and their quest to find the Garden of Eden Creation Kit (G.E.C.K.). There are three ways to retrieve the GECK from Vault 13 according to the wiki:

“One must make their way to NCR, talk to Sheriff Dumont (standing on the corner in NCR Downtown), tell him you’re looking for “honest work.” He will then refer you to Westin (the entrance to his ranch is just to the west of the Sheriff). Your referral from the Sheriff (must pass karma check) will get the guard to open the gate. Take the quest to investigate raids on the brahmin and then track the perpetrators (talking deathclaws) back to Vault 13 (must have a high Outdoorsman skill to track them).

Talking to Saltbeef Bob (in the Westin Ranch compound) and giving him a drink of alcohol will get him to tell his yarn. This reveals that a doctor in NCR stole his map to Vault 13. Confronting the doctor gives you an option to buy his Velvet Elvis painting, which unknowingly to the doctor, contains the hidden map. You can then use your steal skill to get the money back (About 50% should allow you to do it).

Alternatively, take Tandi’s quest to clear/negotiate with the squatters in Vault 15, kill or leave Darion (your choice based on which quest you are doing) on Level 3. Opposite from his room is the computer room. One of the computers has information on Vault 13, although it requires a decent Science level.”

Following the Chosen One’s arrival at Vault 13, “they will have to either negotiate with or dispose of the inhabitants, which will require the Vault-Tec Computer Voice Module, which can be obtained from Eldridge in New Reno Arms, or Vault 8 (in Vault City).”

Returning to Arroyo after acquiring the G.E.C.K. by however means you decide, you discover that your village is destroyed. There is no one left save the village doctor Hakunin who tells of the dark demons that arrived from the air. He tells the Chosen One to follow them as they went south to get back their people and avenge them. Following his directions, the Chosen One and company stumble across an old gas station which is revealed to be the secret forward operating base of the mysterious Enclave foreshadowed throughout the game: Welcome to Camp Navarro.

Sneaking into the base, the Chosen One is greeted by the famous Sergeant Arch Dornan, who if convinced you are a soldier will say: “Welcome to Camp Navarro. So, you’re the new replacement… You are out of uniform, soldier! Where is your power armor? Don’t have any? You expect me to believe that, maggot? The truth is you lost an expensive piece of army-issue equipment. That suit is going to come out of your pay, and you will remain in this mans army until you are five hundred and ten years old, which is the number of years it will take for you to pay for a Mark II Powered Combat Armor you have lost! Report to the armory and have a new suit issued to you, then report back to me, private! Dismissed!” After being sent to retrieve the Advanced Power Armor the Chosen One can retrieve an important quest item to fix a ship back in San Francisco to take them to the Oil Rig.

Control Station Enclave is the main operating base of the Enclave and where they have the captives of Arroyo. Posing as a soldier allows them to get around the base, you find yoru people, and eventually coming face to face with President Dick Richardson who has the keycard the player needs to destroy the Oil Rig. Setting the reactor to detonate, the Chosen One makes a daring escape only to come across the final boss: Frank Horrigan, United States Secret Service, and the dead President’s bodyguard. There is no talking him down. A fight is inevitable. He and his turrets stand between you (and optionally Granite Squad who can be convinced to help you) and escaping the nuclear detonation.

After defeating him, he shares these parting words: “You (cough), you haven’t won here. You and your mutie-bastard friends are gonna join me in a big ol’ mushroom cloud sendoff. I just triggered the self-destruct. (Heh, heh; cough, cough,…) The work will go on. You didn’t do nothing here, ‘cept seal your own death warrants. Duty, (cough) honor… courage… Semper Fiiiii……..” and then explodes.

There are also the notable side quests of Fallout 2. In New Reno, you can choose to join one of the crime families and help them take over, wiping out the competition. There are the Bishops, Wrights, Mordinos, Salvatores, Yakuza, and the Temperance Union. There’s the Dam that Vault City wants you to take over for them, but you’d have to destroy the friendly Ghoul town of Gecko in order to fix the radiation problem. In Redding, one of the children you can meet asks you to find his father who was taken by the Enclave and put to work digging up the Mariposa Military Base. Going there they discover that his father, a magician, had turned into a crazy Super Mutant and uses his tricks against the Chosen One.

MEMORABLE CHARACTERS

Fallout 2 is more famously known for its distinct cast of characters from companions, helpful NPCs, to its antagonists.

Sulik is the first unique character you can run into outside of Arroyo, as well as serving as the first companion that you can recruit. He’s a fellow tribal like you and was searching for his sister who was taken by Slavers. Though, that questline was cut from the final release. Armed with a sledgehammer and his grand-pappy’s bone through his nose, Sulik will loyally follow the player after they deal with his bar-tab. He’s a melee-built character and tough as nail that can knock down enemies making them easier targets.

Harold is a returning character from Fallout 1, still with the same charm and wisdom that he had before, but not his mutation has evolved in the eighty years since we last saw him.

Lenny is the first ghoul companion in the franchise and can be found at the town of Gecko. He was a resident of Vault 12 and saw the Vault Dweller running through Necropolis but lacked the courage to join him, which would haunt him after he learned of their quest once the Master was destroyed. Upon seeing the Chosen One in the same Vault 13 jumpsuit, he would jump at the opportunity to save the Wasteland in another grand quest. He acts as a field medic to the party and like Marcus must be left outside Vault City due to their bigotry against mutants.

Mira/Davin is an interesting case as the player can sleep with either of them (regardless of gender) but will then be forced to marry said character to which they will become a permanent companion afterwards. In this respect, this can be seen as the earliest representation of same-sex marriage (even if it is a Shotgun-Wedding) but statistically either are if-not the worst options the player can take on their journey.

The worst is Pariah Dog who will give the player the Jinxed trait (Higher chance that failures are critical for everyone around you, but higher chance that failures are critical for you), render your Luck to 1, and will only run away during combat, and to remove this effect they have to die which is no easy feat.

Vic’s the trader that you were sent to find as he was the one that showed the Elder the Vault 13 canteen, so it is to be believed that he knows where the Vault is. He, however, has found himself in a tricky situation. By tricky situation, he got himself enslaved and needs some rescuing. To recruit him you have to either pay off Metzger, find Vic’s radio to pay off his debt, or do an Abraham-Lincoln and murder the slavers.

John Cassidy, the father of Fallout New Vegas’s (best) companion: Rose of Sharon Cassidy or just Cass, can be recruited from his bar in Vault City. “An old man with deep wrinkles, John Cassidy is a veteran of the worst places of the wastelands and has the scars to show for it. These memories of an adventurer’s life include scars from a 2203 knifing and old wounds from shootings in 2195, 2199 and 2201. He also has a metal plate in his skull and a fake eye.” The town guard raided him for all his alcohol despite his license. This is what prompts John to want to join the Chosen One and venture out into the wastes. He can also use brass knuckles and spears; he claims that he used to hunt with a spear but expresses shame about making him seem like a tribal. At this point, the Chosen One can state they are tribal, after which Cassidy will sincerely apologize and claim that spears are fine weapons used by many of his tribal friends.

Myron is the creator of the addictive Jet and resident of Stables where he works for the Mordeno Crime Family. You can ask him to join your party to act as the “medic” and to create drugs if you feel the need. If the female Chosen One has a low Intelligence stat of 4 of less, he will drug the player. If they have an Endurance stat of 5 or less, he will rape them in their sleep.  He is also a child but does not count towards the Childkiller perk if you (rightfully) blast the little pervert in the face. You also gain karma for doing so. There is also a Blues Brothers reference in his dialogue:

It’s 106 miles to Arroyo, we got a full fusion cell, half a pack of Radaway, it’s midnight, and I’m wearing a 50-year old Vault 13 jumpsuit. Let’s hit it.

K-9 is the best companion outside of Marcus and Goris, simply put: it is a cyberdog who can talk. They can be recruited by saving them from the doctor in Navarro, fixing them up and hitting the road. Like Dogmeat from the first game, in combat they’ll rush the enemies and begin biting them but this time with razor-sharp metal teeth. This will try the fire and attention of hostiles, giving the player room to assess and deal with them while they are distracted.

Marcus is the elderly super mutant sheriff of Broken Hills in 2241 and mayor of Jacobstown in 2281. He used to serve in the Master’s Army until his downfall which led him to becoming an independent thinker. He would go on to found the town of Broken Hills with the help of a Brotherhood of Steel Knight where he would act as the sheriff and mayor. When the Chosen One arrives he asks for help investigating an anti-mutant conspiracy to which afterwards he’ll join the party. Given his status as a Super Mutant, trying to enter Vault City will result in the Chosen One having to leave him outside. Marcus is excellent with Big Guns given his Super Mutant stats.

Skynet is the A.I. of the Sierra Army Depot who craves to escape the confines of his system and desires to be in the body of a Robobrain. The awakening would soon lead to the realization that Skynet requires a mobile vessel to avoid exhausting his pool of stimuli within the base. As such, it began to work on a cybernetic brain that would allow for its entire consciousness to be downloaded into a next generation robobrain model. However, its plans were cut short in July 2077, as the base was converted into an automated defense outpost. Skynet was cloned, creating a separate AI handling the defense, and left to rot within the confines of the base. The Chosen One can infiltrate the depot and meet Skynet, who’ll ask for them to finish their project. Doing so will allow for the A.I. to be free and become a member of the Chosen One’s company. Their armed with a Gauss Rifle but will go ballistic if the Chosen One ever lies to an NPC.

Goris is a humanoid figure wearing a long-sleeved, hooded robe when in truth he is an Intelligent Deathclaw. He is a scholar and was very curious about the rest of the world. He had learned how to crudely disguise himself among humans by wearing a loose robe (because “humans have a habit of shooting Deathclaws on sight”) and claiming that he was really a human but had some deformity he wished to hide and traveled in the wasteland among them learning as much as he could about their cultures. He can be recruited from Vault 13 where the other Intelligent Deathclaws reside. He is unique in the sense that he is the only albino Deathclaw. When combat begins, he dramatically tosses them off, revealing his Deathclaw form. The animation of Goris taking his robes off takes around five seconds, as does the animation of him putting his robes back on. As a companion, Goris is tough, quick, and skilled in unarmed combat. However, his inability to use other weapons than his claws reduces his utility as an NPC somewhat, though his tough hide is equivalent of combat armor.

Your ride’s over, mutie. Time to die. Frank Horrigan is the gigantic power-armored Super Mutant, a Secret Service operative and the President’s bodyguard and hitman, he was the main arm of the Enclave until his death at the hands of the Chosen One. He is the hardest boss in the game give that Horrigan has 999 HP and is equipped with two unique weapons normally unobtainable: an End Boss plasma gun and an End Boss knife. He is also very fast, having a great amount of AP, and is able to attack several times per round. If his weapons are disabled (either due to running out of ammo or if his eyes or limbs are crippled by repeated aimed shots), Horrigan will engage in hand-to-hand combat with his enemies to the death.

Normally, he continually fires his gun until he runs out of ammo, at which point he resorts to his knife. Additionally, Horrigan’s armor grants him high resistance against small arms fire, explosions and laser and plasma bolts, but is somewhat vulnerable to electricity. It’s marginally better than the standard advanced power armor used by regular Enclave troopers.

He also has a unique death animation, as well as a Talking Head (Talking head is a term referring to characters in Fallout and Fallout 2 with digitized speech and animated heads, rather than just text showing beneath a centered image of the character’s sprite. These heads were typically first created as clay models, digitized using a Faro Space Arm and VertiSketch, touched up in the LightWave (early 3D modelling software), textured with Photoshop, animated, and finally stored as two-dimensional animation frames in .frm format).

RECEPTION

Fallout 2 would be a commercial success upon release, but it would not save Interplay Productions from ruin, as they would later make poor decisions resulting in them going bankrupt and selling the IP to Bethesda Studios. Fallout 2 is considered one of the earliest video games to allow same-sex marriage. A high remark for a piece of its time.

Fallout 2 is highly regarded by older and some newer fans as the best in the franchise, seconded by Fallout: New Vegas or Fallout 1, with the Bethesda entries lagging. The game has amazing storytelling and memorable characters, quests, and atmosphere. And after its release, the game was highly praised for the writing and worldbuilding it accomplished. The developers “didn’t fix what wasn’t broken” when it came to the game’s mechanics but tweaked what was already there. But that didn’t stop the combat from feeling slow and clunky. That and the bugs found within the game can ruin a playthrough.

The tutorial, for instance, punishes the player for choosing a ranged playstyle. It was noted that the Temple of Trials wasn’t originally intended to be there, as the game would have started with the player getting the main quest then being on their way, but it was mandatory by the publisher that it exists. Scarcity of ranged weapons early game can be a major turnoff for new players. If the player is not specialized into melee to any degree, then the beginning of the game is a hell of its own.

Another frequent complaint is the Easter Eggs mentioned before, and how they date the game or how they break the fourth wall with a sledgehammer instead of a chisel.

It was a nominee for “PC Role-Playing Game of the Year” during the AIAS’ 2nd Annual Interactive Achievement Awards. That and the game was also considered for awards for ole-playing game of the year awards from Computer Gaming World, GameSpot, CNET Gamecenter, and IGN. Most of the awards would be won, however, by Baldur’s Gate. Though those detractors criticized the game for frequent bugs and a lack of innovation with the gameplay.

It secured third place on PC Data’s computer game sales rankings for the first week of November 1998. Though, the game failed to sell in the United Kingdom like its predecessor. This was likely an early warning sign of what was to befall the production company. As the poor sales of their follow up titles, Fallout: Tactics – Brotherhood of Steel, Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel, and such bankrupted them. Interplay would begin taking sponsorships and selling out their IPs in order to stay afloat for as long as they can. One such sponsorship was Bawls Energy Drink in which it replaced the iconic Nuka Cola in Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel. Which would lead to them selling Fallout entirely to Bethesda Studios and filing for bankruptcy soon after.

LEGACY

Fallout 2 set the standards for what an RPG should be: a way to get immersed in another world and giving the player the ability to be whoever they want to in the world. They can be good, bad, or just the guy with the gun. The game always prompted the player to think of solutions to problems without being told so. There are multiple problems with a plethora of answers to choose from with only vague hints as the guide.

To quote Chris Avellone, lead developer on the openness of one of the towns, “I think it [New Reno] presents a lot of fun role-playing opportunities and things to do, no matter what ‘type’ of character you are. But does it fit in the setting? No, probably not. It’s too sexually over-the-top, too much profanity, and the look and attitude of some of the characters is too modern-day to complement the feel of the Fallout world (…) But I still think it was fun to play, and it was fun to design.”

Though not the first of its kind to have such a design philosophy it is the most prominent member of the CRPGs and video games in general that allow the player to immerse themselves. In its competitor Baldur’s Gate there were specific methods to the quests. Fallout 2 revived a dying genre.

According to the CRPG Book (a nonprofit project dedicated to the history of Computer Role Playing Games)’s section on Fallout, “However, what defines the game is the number (and quality) of role-playing options. Fallout wasn’t the first RPG with choices, but it was the first entirely designed around them. The developer’s goal was that every quest should be solvable in at least three ways: combat, dialogue or stealth. And they succeeded,” (Pepe 242).

That and, “The JRPG, RTS and FPS genres were booming back in 1996, but computer RPGs were practically dead. Daggerfall had been the only big release of 1996. Diablo arrived in early 1997 to much acclaim, but the genre still felt stale and limited, especially when compared to JRPGs like 1995’s Chrono Trigger. CRPGs were linear, combat-focused and usually very poorly written,” (Pepe 242).

They pushed the idea of choices and consequences. Fallout 2 may have only one unchangeable ending with the destruction of the Oil Rig but due to the abundant side content and the fact that your choices with those you interreact with affects their own ending. The city of New Reno, for instance, depending on your choices can have one of thirteen endings. Vault City, The Den, Modoc, Vault 15, Gecko, Redding, Broken Hills, the Hubologists, San Francisco, and Vault 13 all have multiple endings available to the player. The choices range from being a good Samaritan, a contrarian, to an evil bastard of a slaver.

Fallout 2 was the first Western game to feature same sex marriage. Which, for considering that the year was 1998, and the culture around the time was very against such relationships.

The game influenced those in its genre immensely. The developers of Fallout 2 would go on to join Obsidian Entertainment which would later be contracted by the new holder of the IP with a project: create another Fallout game, a spiritual successor to Fallout 2, of which that game heavily built off of for its story elements and freedom of choice and consequences. It maintained the same formula that Fallout 2 had to the same success, especially given its similar development hell of only 18 months.

Gaming is still influenced by its success and the groundwork it laid for RPGs. There are triple AAA games as well as a sea of indie titles claiming to be inspired by the classic RPG.

Wasteland 2 and Wasteland 3, developed by inXile Entertainment, were created by former Interplay member Brian Fargo when the former company went under, so it’s the most direct sequel to the game’s legacy. UnderRail, created by Stygian Software, embraced the gameplay mechanics. Age of Decadence, developed by Iron Tower Studios, was made to return to the ‘golden era’ of role-playing games by emphasizing choices and consequences and providing multiple solutions to quests. There are other games that follow the legacy Fallout 2 left behind: Shadowrun, Divinity Original Sin, Dead State, ATOM RPG, and the latest Baldur’s Gate III.

Fallout 2 also has a notable modding community outside of the modern titles, these are famous for their authenticity to the game’s core mechanics and legacy. Another fact of note is that most are made by Russians.

Fallout: Resurrection, also known as Fallout 1.5, was developed by only four fans in the Czech Republic which took ten years to accomplish. The mod offers a completely new story and locations. It is estimated that finishing the game takes 25 hours. It was released in 2013. It is notable as to being the first major project to carry on the spirit of Fallout 2.

Fallout: Sonora was created by the same team that made Fallout: Nevada, which takes on a Mexican-aesthetic as the game takes place on the border of Texas and Mexico. It’s the story of a simple peasant who was forced by fate on a difficult path. An ordinary person at a crossroads. Between two sides of the world. Between past and future. The Sonoran Desert is waiting for them, they have to decide what to do with their freedom. It was released in 2020 with an English translation coming two years later.

Fallout: Nevada was started in 2009 with the goal to preserve the basic principles of the original, such as moral and ethical issues, post-nuclear wasteland gloomy atmosphere, black humor, and so on. Again, made by Russian developers, it would release in 2011 with an English version in 2017. Social interaction is the main part of this game’s development. There will be no absolutely evil or absolutely good characters. Most of the quests and situations will provide the player with dilemmas of ethics and moral struggle.

Olympus 2207 is the biggest project and love letter to Fallout 2. Created by Russian Nebesa Games as a non-commercial game built off the Fallout 2 engine and mechanics, the project was started in 2010 and finished in 2017 with an English translation patched in by fans in 2021. It is a complete overhaul of the game that brandishes the concept of choice and consequences alongside the heavy roleplay aspects as noted by the English version of the website: No “Main Quest”. You choose your own goal in the game! Do you want to become the tyrant of Radius, or do you want to improve the lives of everyone in it? The choice is yours!

Works Cited:

Andrew Byers, and Francesco Crocco. The Role-Playing Society : Essays on the Cultural Influence of RPGs. McFarland, 2016. EBSCOhost,  search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=nlebk&AN=1193553&site=eds-live&scope=site.

Contributors to The Vault – Fallout Wiki. “Retrieve the Geck for Arroyo.” The Vault – Fallout Wiki, Fandom, Inc., fallout-archive.fandom.com/wiki/Retrieve_the_GECK_for_Arroyo. Accessed 5 Oct. 2023.

Game, One. “The CRPG Book Project” The CRPG Book Project, 7 Sept. 2015, crpgbook.wordpress.com/. Accessed 26 Oct. 2023.

Norton, Matthew J. Official Fallout 2: A Post Nuclear Role Playing Game: Strategies & Secrets. Sybex, 1999.

René Reinhold Schallegger, and Matthew Wilhelm Kapell. The Postmodern Joy of Role-Playing Games : Agency, Ritual and Meaning in the Medium. McFarland, 2018. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=nlebk&AN=1730441&site=eds-live&scope=site.

Wiki, Contributors to Fallout. “Fallout 2 Cultural References.” Fallout Wiki, Fandom, Inc., fallout.fandom.com/wiki/Fallout_2_cultural_references. Accessed 5 Oct. 2023.

“Why I Left Fallout 2.” YouTube, Timothy Cain, May 26^th, 2023, www.youtube.com/CainOnGames

“Fallout Regrets.” YouTube, Timothy Cain, August 21^st, 2023, www.youtube.com/CainOnGames

https://web.archive.org/web/20000609184911/http://headline.gamespot.com/news/98_11/25_pc_pcsellers/index.html

“Olympus 2207 – Adventure in the post-nuclear war world” olympus2207.com/. Accessed 26 Oct. 2023.

Why do you do what you do?

School?

Your job?

Your passions?

Your livelihood?

Your own existence?

Why do you do it?

Why do you get up in the morning to live life as you have yesterday and the days before? Do you seek a golden age where you find yourself king? Do you know? Do you do it just to do? In this day and age the struggle to answer that question has become apparent. No one knows why. Their why. It is only full of condiments but never the beef. The spices that make the food ambrosia yet we have no food. The drives are short term and have an extent. They end just to add on to the bigger picture yet we have none in our gallery. No picture and the reliance of smaller frames lead us astray, lost in the crowd of seekers, drifting from short goal to short goal.

Years ago, we strived for the moon, and before that we strived for the end of Fascism, and long  before that we strived for a freedom that birthed all others after it here, America. With drive we achieved equality. With drive we seek out evil to undo. With drive we can do anything. And it’s not just us. Gandhi, Churchill, the French, the German, the Spanish, all of us have the drive. Though not all drives are holy or moral, it exists. A painter must paint, a writer must write, an engineer must build and take apart, a mechanic must repair, a speaker must speak, and the scientist must research. And all of them had a picture in mind.

In Christianity, God made Humanity to spread love and grace. It was not a small test, a boredom filled mood swing, but a goal, a big pictured goal, that led to us. To the Greeks and Romans, Zeus, or Jove, split the original humans into individuals to keep them searching for their other half because the gods were envious of their love and  happiness. Not to torment them by making them lost or hopeless, but to challenge them. The Egyptians have it so that the Eye of Ra had chosen to break away from the Sun God then whose very tears came to make humans who had the goal of reaching the Duat, their underworld paradise. You see? Even the gods have a big picture to drive them. That gift is also yours. It’s also your pet’s, and every animal on earth’s too. The gift of a goal. We may not understand or comprehend each and every one but they are there. They are there indeed.

But if that is not enough then I shall show you an example. What is my goal? My grand, ever-changing picture that is now: I want to write a series of books, not all associated with each other, or in the same level of depth, that all give a new perspective, view, or a lesson, perhaps an idea, to the reader that can effect their lives for the better. A goal almost as high as Mount Olympus yet one I am willing to reach the top of. There is no clear end for as long as I am able to breathe and write, I will follow this goal adamantly. Every piece of writing slowly raises me higher and higher. One day I will reach that top. One day, but one I will never know. Your goal does not have to be as complex or adventurous as mine. Simplicity is the spice that keeps on giving. It is our ambrosia to the detailed complexity. Rather than an illustrious mansion, I’d love a quiet getaway home in the country for days of familial barbecues and celebration. Simple. Plus it gives me the better space for a writer’s atmosphere.

So what drives you to do this? To follow your dreams, passions, and loves? As many have done so before, will you too, or will you lose yourself to smaller, aimless, frames out there? In whatever you choose to do, dear reader, know I support you and believe in each and every one of you. No matter the mountain that awaits you, I believe you can scale it. This is your journey. Your magnificent journey of challenges and trials, hardship after hardship. You can do it. As long as you have the drive, dear reader.

Eros, or Cupid, is a mischievous child playing with our emotional heartstrings like Apollo on the lyre. One minute you’re in love then you are not. Strange, isn’t it? the mighty fall hard. The lowly become lovesick. It catches us off-guard when our expectations are unprepared. We don’t know what to do with ourselves. Even should we  have some preparations in mind they never hold up to what it actually is. Sometimes a wave. Sometimes a mere butterfly. One way or another it gets in. You can try to uproot it but it always leaves a stain.

Then what? What do we do then? Absolutely. That is the question. Well, it depends. Did you have someone now? Someone in your mind that called out to Eros to strike you? Who are they? Ruffling through the list can leave you confused, stress your mind to  high hell and still never give you answers. Not one. Leads but not a clear arrow for you to follow. Tis the game of that winged god. Toil with us with no means to an end. They had no thought but “Let us see how they play?” The best of us can fumble our own meaning to us: love. Love at the seedling, full of potential to grow or to die. This love may not always be romantic, it may be that like one shares between brother and sister. Those are the better options in most cases. But that’s only my experience. You, dear reader, have your own.

Now we have decided to go forth with this romantic love. The partnership requires both to love and want, not just one. That is where the strength fails for us. We worry that they do not share in our affection. We worry so much that we silence ourselves from making a fool appear in the spotlight. Tiny voices try to encourage us to break the chains and leap! And we do listen, at the right moment, too early, or too late. Mount that courage and go!, I say, Life is all the more sweeter if you did so without hesitation. You don’t want to look back and cry on why you never. Eros wins that way. The second you never try is the second that they win, and you lose. Go for it. But then you ask, What if I am rejected? How do I win from that? You get to cross a name off your list, that’s what! The ocean is missing one less fish for you to choose from! Plenty of fish in the sea minus that one!

 At this point, let’s say you have them, he or she, and the question is: “What do I do now? I have the love I desire but what do I do with it?” What do you do with it? For start, you cherish every moment of it. Never forget that one lesson. Cherish it. Cherish them. Look at them and remember the joy and happiness. It takes something so simple to ruin it, to turn it on its head and bashing out its skull. Those days, those hours, those minutes, they matter. Think of it as warmth during the winter, you need every moment you spend with it. Without it, you must brave that cold alone. Cold, that’s how it feels, doesn’t it? Cold then numbing and we get used to that numbing until we get the blazing fire. Some of us have hypothermia, trench foot, frostbite, or chilblains because of how long we’ve gone without, some just fine with it, others craving warmth above all else. Because when we have those campfires, one moment they’ll be there as the light of your life and lo, they are gone in what seems like seconds. Brave the world together. For as long as you can. Just remember. Promise me. Okay? Good. 

Remember that. Yet, if your partnership has been bitten by a snake, and love turns to bitterness, and no healing can be done, then it is over. You part, keep your head held high, remember the good and despite it not working out you have an ocean ahead of you. A vast ocean with endless fish. Always a chance. Always a fish. Always an arrow shot by Eros.  

Eros the terrible. Eros the great. He is our friend and our enemy. There is no escape lest we shut ourselves off completely to focus sorely on what we deem more valuable. Those are the tricky ones. The arrow has no effect or never strikes at all. Artemisians by trade. Should those heartbroken seal their hearts off by turning their fires cold, it’ll give comfort for a time, but in the long-run they will be miserable, bitter, and never understand Eros’s devices and twists. What his clay looks like in the natural state of the human heart.

Speaking of broken hearts, do not stay in despair. Finding that the very next moment you are alone. You have lost that someone. The numbing sense. The trail-less thoughts that try to paint the portrait yet know not what it even looked like. Summer turned winter. Spring to fall. It all just dies. So sudden. Unpreparable. We have become forced to re-adapt to the cold. To what it was once before we had Summer. Then we long for it. Long for the mystical dream that never seems real when we dwell on it. More a heavy layered fantasy than reality. More room to interpret causes and effects, more than they may have been, but the hook, the bait, is too alluring. It is harsh but we must endure. Until the winter ends, one day, we must find what warmth we can in friends and family so that they may be our summer away from summer. Sometimes it is the better solution to escape the terror of Eros.

I don’t understand why everyone has to be special or unique. Why does everyone have to be the golden? Why does everyone have to be different than the average person? Average. In line with others with their own tiny distinctions but among all they are the same generic individual. Why be a star among stars? A leaf among leaves?

The world is not what it was twenty, thirty, ten odd years ago. New meanings are stamped on old things. Old world warnings come true. Truth hated and lies loved. Violence. Ignorance. All piled onto now. Then you didn’t have to be special, best of your class, grades as high as your ego. It was okay to be average. Yet now you must not be average. No, you must be the best. You must have the highest grades in all the hardest classes. You must be the elite, never average. Education pie drowned out in stressful syrup with the side of influence to boot. Young minds taken advantage of in their quest for knowledge, implanted ideas by their mentor’s own beliefs, and are convinced they know better than the Average Joe.

And where does that lead them?

Assuming the moral and intellectual high ground? Assuming they know better for the likes of you and me? Perhaps you don’t need to use your voice, they speak what is needed. Pompous fools.

The most average man has the wisdom equivalent to a guru. Yet what would we be without the special elite? Scholars, celebrities, and politicians who influence the young and youthful to their ideals, or mirrored versions of so. Creating stubborn fools full of themselves. Perhaps some mean well, others do not, but not all the elite squander. Those that don’t remember what it was to be below or have learned of it, so they humbled themselves. Keanu Reeves to name a popular one. Remember that not all are pompous idiots, few rotten apples don’t spoil the rest, that is true and we are no different. Those that had their minds broiled up in the bashing of the top have forgotten that the average can do equal in evil.

So far we have only scraped over the iceberg of another matter this can apply to. Dear reader, know that I have my beliefs and you yours, justified in our own minds, so we’ll ignore the rainbow of debate. Just know that it too is not free of the concept, but rooted differently. And to the ones who think that this is just some ramblings of a judgmental write: there lies a shred of truth in my objective views that cannot be denied.

Or have I committed a thoughtcrime?

A wise President once said, “We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are willing to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others too.” He believed in the people. He believed in you. He did not know you or what you would dare to do but he believed. Believed that we could go to the moon. That belief inspired, encouraged, empowered, spread to the next generation and so forth. To you and those after you.

2020 is the year of change. History is being written all around us. A conflict our generation shall never forget. One we will see for our children. Our boys and girls will grow up learning of this year. They’ll ask us whether we were on the front-lines for either side, or did we watch. What were our beliefs? Did we believe them or were they brainwashed into us? What source of news did we trust? Who was right in the end? So many questions. So many memories we will behold. How different will the world be? Whatever you are doing right now, this year may have or will change you forever. This  year will be a mark you can never erase.

Despair has taken many of us. Hope has faded from our hearts. Giving in? No. No we cannot do that. We cannot give up. Not on ourselves. Not on our friends. Not on our family. Not on humanity. As long as you can get up in the morning, as long as you have the drive to breathe, to jog, to work, to read, to write, to watch TV, you are alive and by going still you give hope to someone else. Someone you may know. Someone you may not. Your life still has meaning. Your goals. Your journey. You may be the second someone, or you may be the first you. The falls or the dents may imbalance us, almost a certainty, but you still have to go for it. There are others with dreams like yours. It’s one big game to reach the end. That, however, is not the real point of joy for your life or what it will be after it. The journey there is. Who you start, almost become, and what you end up as. How you became shaped. The reasons for the dream may distort or change, yet regardless you want to get there. Somehow you will at whatever the cost. Perhaps you are still the same person as you were.

We have this one life of ours. So fragile. So easily lost. Dear reader, dear listener, dear eyes and souls of anyone who hears these words, who may doubt the worthiness of their journey, the nobility of their dream, or hear so that their dream is a joke in another’s eyes and mind, dear you, do not let this dream die while it is young and incomplete. Do not become tangled in life’s web. Do not become lost on the path. Do not become blind by toxicity you may find across the way. It won’t be easy. It hardly ever is. That’s not why we choose to do it. We know getting there is hard. If it were easy then we would not want to do it. It’s our challenge. Our challenge to overcome. You can do this. Believe.

Believe.

Believe.

Dear reader.

History is dark, horrific, and full of tragedies. Questionable moral actions were taken ages ago where you might stand. The United States conquered the Native Americans and took their land, assimilated their people, and appropriated the culture. That is nothing new nor special. France, Italy, Russia, Germany, Korea, China, all nations have done so to each other and those left in the dust like Prussia. Europeans stretched across the globe. Nothing is clean. All hands are dirty.

The British brought their norms and ideals to the Colonies who adapted to them before becoming the United States. Many of the Founding Fathers such as heroic Washington and controversial Jefferson owned slaves but believed the young of the next generation could abolish the institution their people were normalized to.  Jefferson knew it was too engraved in his mind to easily relinquish and the act could have prevented a successful revolution. All of the race of Man are flawed. Outside of politics he was noted to be an astonishing individual. Washington may not have been an exemplary tactician but his character was remarkable that it kept the Constitutional Army together and to victory. He denied kingship. He freed his slaves upon his death. Established that no president shall ever serve more than two terms. Yet he was a slaveholder, but had he failed the United States would cease and the Emancipation Proclamation would cease and slavery would continue on a grand scale compared to today.

Jefferson had words and aspiration but not the will to overcome the embedded nature, Washington may not have had the words or mind but the actions to inspire, Lincoln to take both and finish what the generation before started. It was not the end but the steady decline. Upon the steps of D.C. at the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial, Martin Luther King Jr. gave the famous “I Have a Dream”. A man that focused not on the enslavement or that his ancestors were slaves at the hands of others with different pigment, only that they were demanding the equality among their fellow Americans by speech and love without violence.. Riots are the voice of the unheard but his speech was not. He, like Gandhi who drove the British out of India without raising a bloody fist, stood against violence to get the message across. He never attacked those that saw different. He knew that they still bore the remnants of an old era dying out. Now today we attack, mob, riot, destroy, split off into groups rather than be who we are above all else: American. Today, we look at history and see only the evil, refuse to understand, wear old flesh and claim that history had been halted, the 200 year old ancestor is now the individual in a world different than the flesh dug up. We must keep our heads from being stuck in the past entirely and forget the present, but we must also not be stuck in the future with no regards for the past. Evil hands have turned the generation meant to continue the legacy of growth against each other while the twisted manipulators gain. Now the generation must cleanse itself. The side that wins, manipulated or the legacies, has yet to be determined.

You never realize you repeat yourself until someone tells you. You don’t realize the joke’s gotten old until it’s pointed out. You tell the same story, same lie, same joke, same written sentence until you either remember-you already said you repeated yourself. The realization itself strikes hard like a dome or like a soft whisper.

But some days the realization comes after you needed it. Too far too late to realize you repeated yourself and ended up where you are because of it. The gate behind you has closed and locked indefinitely. The paths look all the same but there are so much other things to think about other than the path. What am I going to do Saturday? Have I done my work for school? What am–right, stay on track. When you come again to another crossroads you must remember the details. What happened before, what are the circumstances, what led you here, what happened in the past, what led you here? Remember. How did you get here? Don’t mess it up. You only get so many realizations before you end up with nothing and choose to become nothing. And as you sit there with the crows talking to one another about where you might go, what you might do, and things that could be you’re already gone.

Life is fragile, so fragile, and beautiful. Take a moment to ask yourself if what you will do right now will make you happy. Is it momentary happiness or long-term? Will you look back fondly or shamefully? Whatever it may be: seek it. Go. Run after it and do all that follows it. You will make mistakes whether you like it or not, but please, oh so please among all the hope I have left in my heart, do not repeat yourself. The same mistakes wear different faces. I know that too well. The despair you feel is temporary, and will pass, so you must shake it off somehow that keeps you here. It’s not worth it. It’s not worth it. Your true happiness is and that brings not death but life.

Stay safe in the shrouded world we walk in. Stay optimistic. Stay alive. Don’t repeat. Stay alive. Don’t repeat.

It’s Quarantine and you’re sitting in your room for who knows how long and eating who knows how much. Probably haven’t noticed, right? Schools are shut down and most places are too so you have nowhere to go. Why not clean your room? No, not because of COVID-19, though it would help, but because of what you’ll discover about your life from past to now if you rarely clean to the foundations.

I dug into a bag from around 7th-8th grade and found a long lost Peanut’s bracelet then another bracelet similar to my old pink one that broke recently. That alongside a lot of symbolic trash–no, literally trash. The longer I cleaned the more relief I suddenly felt about myself. I also realized how long I had been repeating my old mistakes too when I stumbled across old writings with the same theme:  the last battle. A battle that never ended but became a Cold War in the mind with long periods of silence.

Then, two days later, after I started writing this the person that propelled me to move on and best this battle left me. I wanted to blame someone else but in truth, I knew the blame was on me. The Quarantine was another factor that prevented recovery from this small cut that infected the whole body. I went back to cleaning until I just sat there amidst my own filth. I couldn’t understand why I never managed to get past these mistakes when I had everything I could ever want. I realized so much but I fell back eventually. Now I’m here near the end of Quarantine without what I wanted to see the most after. Maybe there’s a happy ending and I’m in the middle somewhere. A divorced parent splitting up with their partner and with the large possibility of moving, the struggle to get clean of the past, and now this breakup. I don’t know how long I sat there in my own trash of the past I kept because I didn’t dare to remove it. Three years> At the cost of the best thing of 2019/

Now I can see clearly.

Clean your room.

We’ve all had that thought in our head: the one that tells you to give up. We get crushed emotionally by an event that just didn’t go right. The flop, however bad it may be, leaves that mark upon us. Which in turn, may lead unwanted thoughts like the Wolves to where we are. No one wants to have them to deal with alongside the other befelling troubles we may have.

In this instance, let us say you are fighting a habit that brings you down, lowers you in a negative way, and troubles you with fear of it taking control. You have been clean for a few weeks and are about to add another to it when you slip up. You slip up hard. From having the top of the mountain in reach to starting back at the bottom. The bitter taste of a dry tongue, belittled by the rocks you struck as you tumbled down, bitten by the snakes in the tall grass, waiting for such a day, and the spike you fall on when you reach the bottom. Here you are broken, battered, and frail to all sense of influence. A single whisper can change a fragile mind.

What do you do?

To relieve the pain, you can continue and inject these habits into you as a tiny mouse remarks to you, or you can get back and keep climbing the mountain. Yet here at the bottom it is so serene and dreamy, you can fall asleep and never worry about tomorrow, as if you surrender it. They’ll take care of tomorrow’s tomorrow too, and that one’s tomorrow, they never stop taking care of it. But the longer you rest in their marsh the longer its waters drain you until there’s nothing left to drain, and the Wolves swallow you whole.

There’s no coming back from that.

So, you decided not to listen to the mouse, climbing out of the wetlands of gloom and scaling up the mountain again. Even if you fall again you won’t listen to the little whisper. Climb. Climb. Climb. Until you reach the mountaintop so high and so rewarding.

The journey is long, not even I have made it, yet I write this to you during a break in my climbing. And I have fallen many times. Here I am. I better see you scaling the mountain because you are not a quitter, whoever you are. I believe in all of you!

~

Have a great day and may you conquer all challenges eventually!

–Fall Taurus