H-hello? Is anyone there? Seriously...you’re watching this right now? I’m kind of shocked
actually. I figured every Shoddycast viewer in the world had probably locked themselves
into their own comfy Vault-Tec vault to play Fallout 4 until at least 2017. But hey, thanks
for watching! So while our highly trained team of scientists studies Fallout 4 for references,
we thought it would be a great time to revisit the other new Fallout game, Fallout Shelter!
But don’t worry we will soon be back with a new Fallout 4 episode. We have top men on
it. Top. Men. But Fallout Shelter is a pretty huge deal in its own right. In fact, it’s
apparently made more than 5 MILLION dollars on the Apple Store alone! It may be a small
mobile game but it’s had some huge critical and financial success .
Let’s take a look at some of the many weapons found in the game. First up we have the Hunting
Rifle, which appears to be entirely based on the first version of the Winchester Model
70. Introduced in 1936, this model quickly went on to be called the “Rifleman’s Rifle”
among hunting enthusiasts. In 1964 Winchester finally retired the first edition of the gun.
Next we have the Gauss Rifle. This highly dangerous coil gun is used to propel a ferromagnetic
projectile by accelerating it through a process of magnetic induction. The name is derived
from Carl Friedrich Gauss, a German math genius nicknamed “The Prince of Mathematicians”.
The name was chosen because of Gauss’ extensive work with magnets...which honestly we’re
too dumb to do any justice to by describing to you. But take our word for it...the man
knew his magnets. The real world coilguns are um...a little less exciting to be honest.
But what about the weapons without a real world counterpart? Guns like the Laser Pistol,
Alien Blaster or Plasma Pistol? The inspiration for these weapons is a little bit more complicated.
We take for granted the concept of a laser gun now, but it actually used to be a pretty
crazy idea. The first real use of alien weaponry in fiction was the alien’s heat-ray in H.G.
Well’s influential The War of the Worlds, published in 1898. But those weapons were
used exclusively by extraterrestrials, not not human characters. No, what really popularized
the idea of handheld Alien Blasters in America was the pulp science fiction published in
the 1920s and 30s, especially the character Buck Rogers. Buck started out as the main
character of a short story, before going on to star in a comic strip, radio and television
shows and a number of films. The Buck Rogers franchise is what really put
the idea of the alien weapon into the public imagination. In fact, his signature gun was
a hot selling toy for children in the 1930s. If you have one laying around, you’re in
luck, because they’re worth upwards of 300 dollars today. There’s even been some attempts
to bring these fake alien weapons into the real world. Like the Arc Attack, which uses
a very steampunk looking Tesla-Coil based technology to fire electricity. These are
being created mostly for the awesome look though, and thankfully aren’t actually dangerous.
Now for our Comments Showcase, this week’s great comment is actually about Fallout:New
Vegas. Nicholas McCreary brings us an interesting theory related to a location in the game:
the Ultra-Luxe casino. As you probably know, the Ultra-Luxe is known for their upper-class
clientele and their um...questionable choice of meats. This could
be a reference to the classic essay “A Modest Proposal for Preventing the Children of Poor
People From Being a Burthen to Their Parents or Country, and for Making Them Beneficial
to the Publick” written by Jonathan Swift in 1729. In the essay, meant to be a scathing
takedown of the rich in Ireland, Swift satirically proposes that the upper-class should literally
eat the babies of poor people. Maybe the staff at the Ultra-Luxe weren’t quite in on the
joke. Next up we have our Bad Comments Section which
comes from FifthDB who says “Ya guys think that Fallout Boy MIGHT become a character
in lunchboxes to obtain in Fallout Shelter? Maybe maxed out everything?” I hope not
FithDB...I really hope not. So last time we asked you what actor voiced
the Halo character Edward Buck and many of you answered correctly: Castle and Firefly
star Nathan Fillion. This time around we of course have a Fallout question for you: the
sound that is heard when firing the Fat Man Nuclear Catapult is actually made by what
object? We hope you’ve enjoyed our second episode covering Fallout Shelter!