fallout reading material ??

T

th_weasel

First time out of the vault
set in our world, in an alternate dimension.
somewhere in a vault you are bob the librarian, your duty is to collect reading material for the savior.
what would be your list to improve his skills ?
his survival skills??

Throwing,Repair,Barter,Gambling,Outdoorsman.

First aid, Doctor:
A manual of military surgery, by S.D. Gross, MD, 1861
Emergency War Surgery 3rd ed
US ARMY Field Manuals Emergency War Surgery Handbook


Small guns,Big guns:
Modern Rifles & Sub Machine Guns
Us Army Survival Manual
Guns - The Book Of Rifles
Munitions - Firearms - Manual - Mosin Nagant Rifles
Sniper Guide Rifles Calibers Ranges
Canadian Infantry - MGs, Rifles & Carbines - C6, C7 & C8

Lockpick:
The Complete Guide To Lockpicking
Quick Vibrating Lockpick
Hampton Advanced lockpicking secrets
Cia Lock Picking Field Operative Training Manual

science:
US Military Field Manual - Communications Jamming.pdf
Us Army Electronics Course - Fundamentals Of Microwave Communications Ss0345
Engineer Field Manual Volume Ii Military Engineering-Part 1 Communications (1932)

Unarmed:
The.SAS.Self.Defense.Handbook
The.Complete.Idiots.Guide.to.Self-Defense
Fbi Defensive Tactics Manual

Sneak,Steal:
SNEAK IT THROUGH Smuggling Made Easier by Michael Connor

traps:
Burglar Alarms - How They Work.pdf
IED Improvised Explosive Devices - Booby Traps - A Weapons Profile 2006
[Paladin Press] Death By Deception - Advanced Improvised Booby Traps
Vietcong Imrovised Explosive Mines and Booby Traps

Speech:
Glass_1999_Complete Idiots Guide To Verbal Self Defense
How To Develop Self-Confidence In Speech and Manner
 
I think he's trying to imagine what did the books in Fallout contain. Take your average big book of science, what exactly does it contain? Interesting idea. Sort of like the ending of "The Time Machine" the guy goes into the future and take three books with him (I think) to rebuild the world. The question that remains would be what books?
To sum it up: what books do you think one would have to read in order to survive in the wasteland and maybe even thrive?
 
I also remember the Steal, Traps and Lockpicking weren't 'approved skills' of a Vault Dweller... though it is an interesting source of books.
 
Carib FMJ said:
I also remember the Steal, Traps and Lockpicking weren't 'approved skills' of a Vault Dweller... though it is an interesting source of books.
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Hey, you never know when you'll get locked out of your safe! Or forget how to disarm the self destruct! OR, OR! ummmm <,,< I can't think of anything for stealing.
 
Or have to slip some dynamite on a small, helpless child when he tries to do injustice on your goods? :wink:
 
Or have to slip some dynamite on a small, helpless child when he tries to do injustice on your goods? Wink
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I can just see the explanation: "Why officer, I didn't place that chunk of C4 in his pocket, he stole from me... why I always carry armed explosives with me! Honest! :roll: "
 
first thanks to martinez for the deciphering, that was what the post was referring to.
what would be the content or the titles of the fallout's books if they originated from our world ?

just imagine that we are sort of confronted to the kind of disaster that would require survival skills, all theoritical knowledge will be the starting point of what will makes of us the shepherd and not the sheep, and isn't theoritical knowlegde what books offers to us?

all the books that were mentioned above do exist in our reality.
 
You know what? I just realized something: if one were to live in the wasteland literacy would surely be the last thing one needs or needs to worry about anyway. Books? For what? Light a fire? Use to stuff your clothes for insulation?
And another thing: The Vault Dweller surely knew how to read, write and all that but what about The Chosen One? Where did he learn how to read? In 80 years people can forget a lot of things... when living in a hostile environment like the wasteland you find out pretty fast that the sword is mightier than the pen... so what good is it to learn these things? It stands to reason that even in the wasteland there are still some bastions of culture and technology (BOS, vaults and perhaps major cities) but other than that people would probably develop practical skills like outdoorsman, basic fighting and choose to neglect reading and writing. Seriously, read what? How many books are there left in the wasteland? Holodisks? And of course PiP Boys just grow on trees... As for writing... write what? With what? On what? Who gives jack about writing? It just seems that in an post-nuclear world some things are doomed to extinction.
So, why the book thread? :roll:
 
i understand how you feel, you are kind of pissed about books :p
but really will you literally deny the basic impact of books upon human knowledge ?
a post-apo environment without books or with zero knowledge would not result in an environement such as fallout the game, instead it would rather resemble to planet of the apes with it's "human herd".
the above list of books is mainly consisted of manuals then if you check about the meaning of a manual you will get something like: a book giving brief information such as basic facts on a subject or instructions for operating a machine.
that mean that these are meant for normal folks.

since it's an post-apo environement literacy have to be of utmost importance since the human kind would naturally wants to recover the lost technology or just being able to use some means of it.

i didn't talk about writing at all, maybe to log your journey, but there is the pipboy for that :)

for myself let's say that i was always interested in that kind of practical knowledge like you say, being myself a pseudo anarchist, my desire is to be able to survive without the society around and of course it's a fantasy.

fallout the game kind of realized that fantasy of mine and i should admit that it's really well thought and very realistic.
 
First of all I've had a pretty bad day and as I was writing I was actually thinking about something else so I ended up writing in anger. :)
Second of all you sort of missed the point... I didn't say that literacy wouldn't be important. It is. In any world. Actually I consider the written word the cornerstone of civilization. If we didn't have books or any kind of texts that could last then practically every generation would have to rediscover everything. There would be no progress.
But what I was trying to emphasize was that in a Fallout world literacy would be more like a luxury. It wouldn't be crucial to survival in the outside world.
For example, the farmer in Shady Sands knew nothing about crop rotation although he had been practicing agriculture all his life. The Vault Dweller had never sewn a field in his life yet he had read about it. He had had the luxury of living in a Vault with all of his basic needs provided for and thus had time to learn things. The farmer had worked for his food every day of his life. And that left him no time to indulge himself to certain luxuries.
Now take the BOS. They didn't produce their own food, they traded for it. They traded long lost technology for the goods they needed. They were a bastion of knowledge. One of the few that remained. So assuming that culture was sparse in the wasteland isn't all that preposterous. Many of the inhabitants of the wasteland had no reason to seek such knowledge.
What comes to mind is a story by Ray Bradbury, "Ice and Fire" (I think that is the exact title) from the volume "R is for Rocket". It's all about a human expedition to a planet closer to the Sun (probably Venus) that has failed in a pretty bad way. The new conditions on the planet force the human body to evolve at a startling rate resulting in a life span of 8 days. 8 days between birth and death. All the knowledge that members of the expedition brought with them was lost. And life is so short that nobody is willing to sacrifice even a second of their lives to recover that which was lost. Except for the Scientists. They toil all of their lives, 8 days, so that they may have 2 days of creativity, days in which they produce something and then they die. They beg the other humans for more volunteers but the only answer they get is "What's the point? Why spend the few precious days of life that we have so that we may work on something that will never benefit us?"
So I ask you: why would the average man in the wastes turn to books when life itself can offer him offer him all the experience he needs? Why chase a dream when you could live your life?
 
Actually I consider the written word the cornerstone of civilization.
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that's about true :)
Why chase a dream when you could live your life?
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you talk about living a life in the wastes as if it was enjoyable. do you find that improving your rank in a post-apo society and odds to survival as decorative as rainbows ?
i agree with you about the fact that normal folks, who think that life in the wastes is hell and that there is no hope of change, let alone that they would think of themselves as the factor of that change, wouldn't spend their time on fantasies like reading.

but you yourself missed a point we are here talking about a savior
with a task. let's say that you are that savior and about to engage your journey, and you have "no idea" of what's going on outside.
surely the most important skills would be selfdefense, outdoursman and smal guns if you got one on you.
but even those have to be teached in some way (note that in that vault there is no rambo, mr karate or mcguiver grand grandson), so here comes bob the librarian sweeping dust from these forgotten things named books, teaching you about the "basics" of survival skills.
books are just a mean of learning that's all about them.

but if you question was in a more "realistic context", then that would have to do with your way of life, and how you feel about the meaning of fulfilment in life. but i'am pretty sure that it's not your stand of view but just a point because you were just retorting subsequently to and sustaining your last post :)

btw thanks for the reference i like scifi materials ;)
 
but you yourself missed a point we are here talking about a savior
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The thing about this savior is that he is an average person which finds himself/herself in an anything but usual situation.
Another thing about culture in the wastes is access. How many schools have you seen in Fallout 1/2? And I don't mean the school of hard knocks :wink: . The only one I know of would be the BOS.
And books are rare thing in the wasteland. Pretty expensive too. So even if the average wastelander would want to improve himself that way it would be hard for him/her.
The vaults surely had books stored on their computers and holodisks. And those living in a vault would surely have a PiPBoy. So in a sense they had it all. All they needed was the will to learn. And when you are stuck in a steel can with so many other people you find that time is abundant. The one thing they did not have was the opportunity to go out into the world and make use of what they had learned.
This would be the dilemma of culture in the wastes: those who have it keep it for them selves and the rest have little if any chance to get to it. Just like any other precious resource...
 
in an attempt to recover from a hijacking post attack :)

i thought that this section was about fan/fiction, since it was my post i thought i had the right over those fictional parameters.
my question was simple if i was the choosen one what would be the books that i would cary with me ?
i can't tell if it's just a feeling but you seem as if you are trying to persuade me not to cary those books with me rather than that, abandoning myself to my instincts and give them control in order to survive.

what i see is that you just don't stop talking about NPC's i don't know how you feel about yourself but the majority of the human kind would think of themeselves as the most important character in their life, that's just normal since they prefer it because of it's maneuverability, and they think that their character is just the greatest and that he is capable of doing great things like saving the world not just surviving.

btw schools aren't the sole mean of learning, and also don't forget that their fabricated knowledge have only one purpose, to feed the society, remember we are anarchists ;)

so once more what i was asking for was to complete that list above, so it will benefit us once we provoke that 3rd world war or armageddon or wathever, and name it "the 100 books list you must read in order to survive" :p :)
 
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