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Over the past few months, Fallout fans all over the world have been holding their breath
in anticipation for some new content. Thankfully, the first piece of DLC has finally arrived,
bringing with new places to go, people to meet and things to shoot at. Fallout 4: Automatron
follows your character, as they face-off against an enemy who happens to be building a deadly
robot army. While many fans will be playing the Add-On just to build their own personal
killer robots, there’s still plenty to dig into lore-wise as well. Starting with the
antagonist of the Automatron. While we won’t get into spoiler-y territory
with The Mechanist, if you know your Fallout lore you’ll know that this isn’t the first
time a version of the character has been seen in the series. According to Fallout 3, The
Mechanist started out as a fictional antagonist in the comic book and radio series, The Silver
Shroud, before inspiring a real-world counterpart in the wasteland. The Silver Shroud seems
to take a lot of inspiration from one character in particular: The Shadow. Debuting on the
Detective Story Hour radio show before getting his own pulp magazine and radio show, where
he was voiced by Hollywood legend Orson Welles, The Shadow was known as mysterious detective
and crime-fighter, not to mention the main inspiration behind Batman. The Silver Shroud’s
connection to The Shadow becomes very obvious when you find his costume in Fallout 4, which
is an obvious reference to The Shadow’s costume. That’s not the only connection
though. In Fallout 4, the costume is given to you by a ghoul named Kent Connolly. It’s
probably no coincidence that he shares his first name with Kent Allard, The Shadow’s
alter-ego in the pulp magazines. It’s clear that the Automatron DLC take
a lot of inspiration from the old pulps, even its cover seems influenced by sci-fi pulp
magazines from the ‘40s and ‘50s like Amazing Stories and Captain Future. But some
of the references in it seem to go back further than that...a lot further. Take Ahab and Jezebel,
two robots you’ll find in the Fort Hagen Satellite Array. At first Ahab won’t be
hostile, but mess with Jezebel too much and you’ll have a battle to the death on your
hands. This makes sense, as the characters appear to be named after Ahab, the 7th king
of Israel in the Bible and his controversial wife, Jezebel, and much like the robotic Ahab
of Automatron, the king Ahab was known for being fiercely protective of his wife. Most
players will probably find themselves not liking Jezebel too much as she comes across
as one of the rudest and most condescending characters in Fallout 4. The Jezebel of the
Bible had a similar likability problem, in fact the people of Israel apparently hated
her so much that they threw her out the window, where she was trampled by horses and eaten
by stray dogs. Moving on to some less gruesome stories, next
up is Ada, the new companion in the Add-On. Much like how the Fallout 4 companion Curie
gets her name from famous scientist Marie Curie, Ada’s name also seems to come from
a very important female science pioneer: Ada Lovelace. Lovelace was a English mathematician
and writer, known for her work on Charles Babbage's early mechanical computer, the Analytical
Engine. Her notes include what is thought of as the very first algorithm intended to
be carried out by a machine. Because of this, she often is said to be the very first computer
programmer. Ada isn’t the only reference to this historical figure in Fallout though,
an assaultron named Lady Lovelace also bears her name. Going to show that even in the post-apocalyptic
future of Fallout, Ada Lovelace’s contributions haven’t been forgotten.
Next up let’s get to our comment showcase which this week...well, it’s pretty weird,
we’ll let you guys decide what you think. So according to commenter Freak Out At the
Club, the Fallout 4 character Jack Cabot references...us! Yup, us! By referencing the storyteller's
signature line “That’s a story for another day” and mentioning “hidden histories”.
Which c’mon, kind of seems like a longshot to us. But Jack Cabot’s Fallout wiki page
is also claiming this to be the case. So what do you guys think? Did we score ourselves
a reference in Fallout 4, because we genuinely cannot tell. But hey, pretty cool nonetheless.
Thanks for comment! Next up is our Shoddy Comment, which comes
to us this week from Eli Loftin who says: “The problem with Fallout is that it isn't
good. Let's be honest. Its bad. In fact, all video games are bad except maybe Mrs. PacMan.
And Candy Crush. Other than those though every single one, but especially Fallout, is just
incredibly terrible.” Hmm...well. Not sure you’re going to find a lot of people here
that agree with you too much on that. So, at last, we come to the trivia. Last week
we asked you to name the very first Reaper in Mass Effect lore, the answer as many of
you guessed, was not Felicia Day, althought that’d be pretty cool but it was B) Harbinger!
To answer this week’s question though, you’ll need some pretty current Bethesda knowledge:
What new Commonwealth faction was introduced in Fallout 4: Automatron, was it: