This show is brought to you by our generous patrons at patreon.com slash Fallout Lorecast. The Robots Radio presents the Fallout Lorecast. Welcome to the Fallout Lorecast, the place for the Fallout community to come together to explore the boundaries of our knowledge about the world of Fallout. Ladies and gentlemen, Vault Dwellers, Raiders, hello, hello.
Welcome back to the Fallout Lorecast. So today the episode is another weird one. This is another episode where it's just me and you guys. So hopefully this is fun.
If you liked the last one that I did by myself, then hopefully you will also enjoy this one. Today we're talking about another nightkin. We're going to talk about Dog or God, Dog God, God Dog, however, however you want to put it. So this is a character from a DLC for Fallout New Vegas, right?
So we've talked about some of the other nightkin from Fallout New Vegas and a lot of you were saying that you wanted to hear about this one, you know, before we kind of close off this section of, you know, this this category for the podcast. So this is another one of the master's nightkin or was one of the master's nightkin, right? And just like, you know, the other nightkin that we've talked about, Dog or God, I guess both, they suffer from dissociative identity disorder. And this was caused by a combination of Stealth Boy abuse, unsurprisingly, as well as dealing with the loss of unity and the lack of purpose that comes with, you know, losing losing your master, right?
And so Dog really left his service, left his role, pretty downtrodden and in a really dark place, right? So let's talk a little bit more about Dog and kind of kind of where his headspace is at, because I think it's really interesting. And it's similar to what we were talking about with Davison and Antler, where having a lack of purpose alongside some sort of addiction can really just make things spiral out of control, right? And you see that here, you see a really interesting inner conflict.
But we'll get to that in a second. First, let's talk a little bit more about about Dog, about what Dog looks like. So similar to Lily Bowen, who we talked about before, Dog is shorter than the average super mutant. Of course, he is still a nightkin, so he's still a very large, very tall, definitely taller than humans, absolutely.
And a funny little factoid is that, so when Dog, right, so Dog has dissociative identity disorder, which is just like we talked about before, you know, you see these multiple personalities, you see these alternate personalities in these nightkin. Dog and God are the personalities that this nightkin has. And Dog is the host, right? So that is who I used to consider to be the original host of this body.
Dog is what was created when this person was turned into a nightkin. And when Dog is fronting, which fronting, if you're talking about dissociative identity disorder, fronting is when a certain personality is taking charge, essentially, right? So they're the one talking, they're the one maneuvering around. And when they're up front, it means that sometimes the other ones, maybe they don't know what's happening at all, right?
You can, you can co-front, I think it's what it's called when you have more than one kind of acting at the same time or, you know, co-piloting. But so in this case, when, when Dog is fronting, Dog is 10% smaller than he is when God is fronting, which is, which is pretty interesting. And like I said, in general, he's still a pretty small super mutant, but no less deadly, of course, right? He is a nightkin.
So yeah, pretty interesting. And as far as personality goes, Dog really is about as cut and dry as you can get when it comes to thinking of what a nightkin might be like, or just a super mutant in general, right? This is a barbaric creature, humanoid, who just has an endless need to kill or maim and to torture. And this is most likely due to a combination of being turned into a nightkin and the conditioning done when working under unity.
And this is left a lasting effect on him because now that Dog is free, you know, essentially to do anything that he wants, he continues to just want to slaughter and possibly eat anyone and anything he can. So that's pretty interesting. It makes me wonder, is it, is it cannibalism if a super mutant eats a human, right? If super mutants were originally human, I don't know.
I don't know. What do you think? So Dog and God, they're interesting. They are kind of opposite ends, two sides of a coin, if you will.
They would like to have very different lifestyles, right? So Dog is just ruthless, whereas God is much calmer and doesn't want to just be torturing people and doing terrible things all the time. He wants to be calm and collected and thoughtful, which I'm sure you can imagine if you're a nightkin and half of the time you are just, you know, going around just wrecking everyone's days and then you, you switch and suddenly you are kind and you feel guilty, maybe it's, it seems pretty crazy. It'd be really strange to encounter someone like that in real life.
And I'm sure honestly, maybe not even with dissociative identity disorder, because I know that any of you who are interested in psychology may be aware that multiple personality disorder, which is now considered to be dissociative or dissociative identity disorder, is not always agreed upon in, in psychology as a real thing. And so despite plenty of evidence pointing to it being very much a real thing, there hasn't been a whole lot of research put into it yet. And we're starting to see a lot more. And of course, you know, sometimes it takes time, science takes time and it takes time for it to catch up with what becomes common knowledge.
And so right now, most of our exposure to things like multiple personalities is through characters like this or villains in movies, which is not great because people out there exist like this. And even if you don't have multiple personalities you know, when I mentioned the idea of seeing someone who, who really flip flops like this and can go from being just completely ruthless to feeling bad about it. Right. And genuinely wishing that they could live some other way.
And this is so interesting because I imagine you do encounter people like that in real life who maybe do terrible things and then feel just so burdened by it and then maybe continue to do terrible things. And it's, it just goes to show that humans are so much more complex than you could ever really even conceptualize the duality of man, you know, it's so, it's so crazy. So yeah, so that's, that's essentially who, who this guy is. And when, when God is fronting right, so God is the more calm one.
He wants to believe that he is the host in Dog's body, right? Not Dog. Dog is not the one in charge. God wants to believe that he is the one calling the shots.
He was there first, right? And unfortunately, this is not the case, but this is the role that God would like to have. He wants to be really the, the primary person living in this body. Unfortunately, God doesn't really like the body that he's in, this nightkin body.
And I think this is interesting because to me, this is a representation of probably the difficulty that comes with your, your human body being transformed into a non-human creature, a non-human killing machine. Right. And if that part of your personality still comes back at all, and what's interesting about nightkin, right, is that they are made to still have parts of their humanity left because they thought it would make them stronger. So if you have your humanity, you know, coming out, your conscience coming out and trying to tell you that the things you're doing are bad, then I'm sure that's a, it's a representation of your pre-monstrous self, right?
Having just a really hard time coping with a new, with a new life, with a new body. And so you see this with God. And the nice thing that's interesting about God is that despite this discomfort and despite obviously not agreeing with Dog, God really wants to take care of Dog and Dog hates this, right? So God essentially treats Dog as a younger sibling.
He wants to be a caregiver. He wants to make sure that Dog is making good choices and protecting the body they share. And Dog, on the other hand, hates this, just absolutely despises it. Since he sees God as an unfair authority figure that's keeping him from being himself and doing what he wants to do, which is killing people, essentially, right?
And so it's definitely a pretty crazy little issue we got there. And the other interesting thing about having multiple personalities and this is, this isn't just in real life, but it is in real life. But also you see it with Dog and God here that when one personality is fronting, I mentioned this before, that sometimes they can come up together and sometimes it'll have one in the front and others will be kind of in the back. The idea is that they're living in your subconscious.
And so they're still existing. So these personalities, they don't just go away. They don't just turn off when you're not living through them, essentially. They're still living.
They're just not fronting, which is a really interesting concept and not at all what our podcast is about. But when it comes to Dog, the place that God goes when Dog is out or the place that Dog goes when God is out is referred to as the basement door of the cage. And this is just a representation of his subconscious. This is to teach me how to do this.
You ever had an awkward experience where you kind of zone out and then you will come to realizing that you're looking directly at someone and they've noticed? It's pretty freaky. That is a very minor, minor example of dissociation. Other examples are if you look at yourself in the mirror and don't recognize yourself, or if you look at your hands and you don't feel like they're really your, like you know, you know objectively that they are your hands, right?
And so imagine being, imagine being a super mutant. Number one, imagine being a super mutant. But imagine being a super mutant that is just dealing with this constantly, just constantly coming in and out of awareness. It just sounds so, so difficult to me.
And the idea that any of these nightkin dealing with that is really scary, but what's different from, in my opinion, what's turned about dog is that he doesn't really have anyone else, and it's part of his problem. And so you see with Davison, he has a whole group of other nightkin with him, with Tabitha. She created essentially a cult following, right? But with dog, he so desperately wants a sense of purpose again, wants another master, wants someone to work for, something to work towards, and also an ability, he wants the freedom, if you will, to do terrible things and do it as much as he wants.
And so it's just, it's a crazy time over in dog land. Hello there, old chap. Good to see another of General Atomics finest still eager to serve. Alrighty, I'm going to take a moment to, the middle of the show, and I've never done this before, so bear with me.
I don't know actually what to say here, but I do know that I want to thank our patrons. You guys are amazing. Like I truly am flabbergasted and just truly a shock that any of you appreciate the podcast enough to give even a dollar. Like it honestly blows my mind, and there just aren't enough words.
There are not enough words in the English language. I'm gonna have to learn other languages to express how much it blows my mind that any of you donate and are just so kind. You know, even those of you that listen and have been listening since before I've been on here, you know, just the following that this has and the incredible people that I've gotten to meet through doing this podcast, it has truly changed my life. So I just want to say thank you because normally I don't do these little middle parts, but I feel the love.
I feel the love, and I want to make sure that you guys do too, because we really, really, really do appreciate you. If you have any questions about Nuka World, I'd be delighted to answer them. Okie dokie. So moving forward, I'm gonna talk a little bit about the dead money DLC, right?
I mentioned that this is all from a New Vegas DLC, and it is super cool. So what I'm going to try to do is not spoil too much of it. And for the most part, just talk about dog, right? Or God, or both of them.
And just kind of talk about their role in the situation and the different outcomes that can happen in relation to dog as a character, right? So I'm not gonna be talking about dead money as a whole. If you want that, we can do that in the future. I'm not sure if it's been done before, but I don't want to spoil all of it because it is really cool.
And I can 100% put my stamp of approval on it because I played it the other day. Very exciting. So if you haven't played it yet, and you are interested in playing it, this is your sign to go play it. And also you're welcome and not spoiling everything.
But on the other side of all of this, this game, this money, nope, dead money is the name of it. This game has been out for a good, a good long while now. And so in terms of information regarding dog, I'm not really holding back. But, you know, it's a lore podcast.
There's going to be spoilers, I suppose. So let's talk about dog. Let's talk about meeting dog. So when you first meet him, he is locked inside of a cell in a police station.
And you're there because you want to recruit him for Father Elijah. And Elijah is a former Brotherhood of Steel elder who wants to destroy the NCR. And Elijah hears about the abandoned Sierra Madre resort, which is a resort that never had a proper opening. It was supposed to be this just beautiful, amazing resort that everyone would want to go to, you know, the vacation spot in the area.
Brand new. Fantastic. And unfortunately, the bombs dropped and many people were there. But it never had a proper opening because it didn't get to stay open.
But there were people who, I'm not sure if it was for a grand opening party or because I know that's the theme of a lot of those. I'm not sure if they got stuck during the grand opening party or these are people that worked there. But when the bombs dropped, the resort locked itself down, right? And that meant that it locked a lot of people inside.
People that were visiting, I think, for the opening. And this is dangerous. Many of them died, unfortunately, many at the hands of each other. And, you know, just struggling to survive makes you do crazy things.
And years after the bomb drop, but not long enough after that, people weren't still trying to live in this area or people weren't still stuck in the resort because people were certainly still surviving inside of the resort. The Sierra Madre began spewing this this red toxic gas, which just killed everyone, killed anyone attempting to survive that didn't have access to protection. And so the only people left in this area are what I want to refer to as ghost people. And these are people who live in the toxic gas.
They live in the cloud, as it was referred to. This this red cloud. And they live in hazmat suits and they are considered to be very dangerous and are known for kidnapping people that try to walk through and around the resort. So this is a very dangerous place, but the appeal is that because it never really opened and because it locked down when the bombs dropped, it is essentially, despite people trying to survive in it and the toxic gas, other than those two things, it is essentially brand new.
And so it's like a, what is it called? A time capsule, right? Of time, of pre-war, pre-war life or what the height of pre-war life, it was supposed to be, right? This is a beautiful resort.
And so rumors of the Sierra Madre being home to plenty of pre-war supplies, resources, furniture, and other treasures, who knows what, have spread across the wasteland. And it wasn't uncommon to hear people bragging about knowing the way in or having maps and using it as leverage to get food or shelter from serious adventurers. It was, it's pretty common in the Mojave, apparently, that you could go and stumble across one in a bar and they might try to convince you to help them out for, in exchange for information on the Sierra Madre. And the idea here is that there is, there's a vault right at the Sierra Madre where, where all the goodies are hidden.
And Elijah that I mentioned before, hears about all these rumors and wants to break in because he wants to find what is in this vault. He wants to put the rumors to rest. He wants to know what is in there, what is so fantastic that legends have been told about this resort, right? So in order to get inside, he's going to need a team.
He's not gonna do it myself. And this is where you come in. You have been asked to, if you'd like to help him, you can go and confront, I believe, three other people. One of those is Dog, and you want these people to help you out.
And so in order to convince Dog, you have to go visit him. And like I mentioned, he's locked in a cell in a police station. And when you give the proposal to Dog, this is honestly right up his alley, right? Dog has always wanted to have someone to believe in and to work for.
And losing the master in his past is what drove him further into his mental illness. And that makes him, you know, all the more eager to violently cling to a new master. And so you, if you know anything about Dog going into this, for example, if you've listened to a podcast episode for a podcast that talks about Fallout lore and they've mentioned something like this, which is totally something that podcasts that talk about Fallout lore would talk about. This is getting really meta.
If you know anything about Dog already when you're going into this, you would know his history, I suppose, perhaps, perhaps. But if your first introduction to Dog is meeting him in this cell, then you really don't know if he wants to help you out or not, but you do know that you're gonna try your hardest to convince him. So you're provided with two holotapes, and one is instructions from Elijah. And this is used to get Dog to front.
If you'd like to get God to front instead, then you have to play a recording of himself telling Dog to get back in the cage. And so you can choose whether you want to talk to Dog or God. And obviously, given, given his personality, Dog is of the most use to Elijah since he's fiercely loyal and happy to accept any challenge as long as the reward is worth it in his eyes, right? Particularly if he's asked to do something gruesome.
God, on the other hand, doesn't want to help Elijah at all and would much rather escape and be free. And so you have to decide if you even want to put him through this or not, And there's a few things you can do. One of them is, well, if you can't figure out how to communicate with him well, which can be difficult, seeing as he freaks out if he sees you, then you can just kill him, right? If you're afraid of him attacking on sight and you don't know how to handle the situation, then that is always an option, is just to kill him.
But in this case, you kill Dog and God, you know, him, he is gone. The entirety of this being as a unit is dead. That's what happens when you kill people. Some other options here are, you can use the holotape of God talking to Dog, telling Dog to stand down, to convince Dog to back down.
And this will allow you to talk to God, who can speak to you calmly and won't just aggro immediately. Alternatively, you can stealthily approach, and if you're lucky, you can you can sneak your way up and then stand up and talk to them. But it is, it is difficult because if he sees you, right, and you aren't sneaky and gentle, then he freaks out. And so alternatively to killing him, you can also just leave him be.
Um, if you are able to just completely disregard him, get around him, you can decide to just leave him as he is. And then he continues his life dealing with being both Dog and God. And who knows what else as time goes on. I imagine that like other nightkin, it might get worse.
If you play your cards right, and if you have pretty good speech, I believe, then you can convince him to live his life purely as Dog or God. And this is honestly the craziest part of this decision to me, right? Because this is this is past all the other options of killing versus just being sneaky versus whatever. In this case, this is a lot like when we talk about Lily Bowen, we're deciding, you know, which personality does she keep and why?
It's exactly like that, because if you let him exist as Dog, he will go on an endless rampage against the wasteland and is rumored to wipe, to completely wipe small communities off the map. Alternatively, you can just keep God around and he will be very thankful for it. He'll be very happy that you helped him. He will talk about how you saved him and he'll go out into the world traveling around, looking for other like-minded, more agreeable super mutants to live around, which I think is just just clearly the nicest option here.
Definitely the sweetest one. Definitely the one with the most benefits for Dog, I believe, because it's going to keep him safe and happier and healthier and probably less angry. Right? It'll keep other people safe.
And after you do all of this, you have to go and deal with Elijah. But it's pretty interesting. And if you, in these scenarios where you choose Dog or God, in both cases, he will leave, right? And he either goes out to destroy the world or goes out to discover the world.
And I just think that's really cool. So he's a really, really, really neat character. And I'm glad that we got to talk about him a little bit. Let us know if you want us to do one that is about Dead Money as a whole.
Because I'm sure this would make more sense if it was a little bit more in depth. But alas, that is Dog God. And of course, I do my best with these episodes, and it's a little different if I'm doing it completely alone like this, because sometimes I type things wrong, right? Or I I'm looking at too many resources and then I mix up, you know, what I'm talking about.
Sometimes I get something incorrect. It happens. We all know that it happens occasionally. I do my best.
But usually there's an added benefit of bouncing off of robots or bouncing off of the live chat, you know, and people correcting as it goes or like reminding me of things. Right, because I take these notes. But of course, some things I'm like, oh, I'll just I'll just remember that I forget. So if if there's anything about this episode that is incorrect, honestly, please call me out.
Alternatively, if everything is fine and you think that this has been a fun, dandy, amazing episode, feel free to leave a review. Feel free to hang out on the Discord with us and talk to us, talk about your favorite experience with nightkin or your favorite DLC for Fallout games, whatever you want to talk about. We are happy to talk about with you. I really appreciate you guys.
And this is a weird outro, but I just wanted to let you know that I think you're amazing and I hope you have a fantastic day. And whether you're listening to this on your commute or before you go to bed or while you're playing Fallout, I hope that is bringing joy to your life because you deserve it. All right, I'll let you go. Have a wonderful day, you guys.
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