We here at the Shoddycast love our fans. Your passion and insightful comments definitely
don’t go unnoticed; comments like the one we got from GamerMike413, who helpfully informs
us that a ghoul you encounter in Fallout: New Vegas named Raul “is actually based
upon [his] asshole”. Thanks GamerMike! It’s insightful comments like yours that reminds
us we’re on YouTube. But seriously, you guys have always brought all of your knowledge
and love of gaming to the comment section and we wanted to celebrate that this time
around by doing our first ever Viewer’s Choice edition of Hidden History. That means
that every reference used in this episode is directly inspired by one of your comments!
God, helps us.
Commenter Ethan Schenck dug deeper into the history of the gun that inspired the Lincoln
Repeater, the Henry Rifle. We’ve already told you how the Henry Rifle was used during
the Civil War, but it also has an interesting connection to Abe Lincoln himself. A special
gold-encrusted version of the rifle was given to President Lincoln by the New Haven Arms
Company in hopes of convincing him to purchase their weapons for use in the US Civil War.
That’s not the
only notable fact about the Henry Rifle however, the gun has been enjoying a second life as
the Hollywood Western’s rifle of choice. It can found in films like Cowboys & Aliens,
Dances With Wolves, Django Unchained and both versions of True Grit.
TangoCharlie also had an interesting gun-related fact to share, the “Zhu Rong Chinese Pistol”
appears to be named after Zhu Rong, an ancient Chinese god of fire. If you’re familiar
with the gun, you know just how fitting the name is. This is because the pistol just happens
to fire highly dangerous bullets capable of setting your enemies aflame. Zhu Rong would
be proud. Jumping from the ancient past to the sci-fi
future, Vault Boy dropped in to let us know that the .223 pistol from Fallout 1 and 2
(called “That Gun” in New Vegas), is modeled after the weapon carried by Harrison Ford’s
character in the 1982 movie classic, “Blade Runner”. Speaking of Harrison Ford, according
to commenter Jamey Ridenour, the Broomhandle pistol that inspired the Shansei Type 17 also
served as the design inspiration for Han Solo’s iconic blaster in the original Star Wars trilogy.
Robbiewazup points out a fairly obscure reference, the New Vegas male haircut option “Terrorsaur”
is actually named after a character in the Transformers’ spin-off Beast Wars. In the
show, the evil Terrorsaur sports a head crest that would go on to inspire one of Fallout’s
many unique looks. Jake Ference commented to tell us that not
only is New Vegas’ Goodsprings a real small town in west Nevada, one of the in game locations
there, the Prospector Saloon, actually has a real-world counterpart in the town, the
Pioneer Saloon. The bar has apparently become so popular with Fallout fans, that a copy
of the game’s cover now hangs on a wall inside the bar.
Most Fallout fans will be familiar with the New Vegas mission where the player must bring
the wreckage of a crashed B-29 Bomber to the surface of Lake Mead, but you may not know
that the plane actually exists. As commenter Doug Peck helpfully pointed out, in 1948 a
real B-29 did crash into the lake and remains there to this day. In fact, if you really
want to prove your Fallout fandom, you can join a public diving expedition into the ship,
which just reopened to the public in April of this year.
YouTube user Mrdonnydude brings up an author who should be very familiar to Hidden History
fans by now: horror author H.P. Lovecraft. His short story “The Dunwich Horror” is
referenced in Fallout 3, serving as the inspiration for the Dunwich Building. Many of you probably
already knew this, but you might not know the more subtle Lovecraft references found
in the eerie basement of the building. There players will come across an obelisk engraved
with skulls and whispering the same few words over and over again, “Alhazred”) and “G’yeth”.
Both of these words may sound like gibberish but are actually hidden references to Lovecraft’s
work. Abul Alhazred is the fictional creator of the evil Necronomicon and “G’yeth”
is thought to be a homage to “R’lyeh” ) , the ancient underwater city where Cthulhu
lies in slumber. Lastly, and this one is really going to blow your minds, did you guys know
that according to every YouTube commenter ever, the Fat Man nuclear catapult is named
after the codename of the nuclear bomb that was dropped on Nagasaki in 1945? Of course
you did. Okay, how about the fact that the eyebots are based on the design of the Soviet
Sputnik satellite? You knew that one too, huh? Hey, we had to include them eventually
so there you go. We hope you all have enjoyed our very first Viewer’s Choice episode of
Hidden History. Do you know of any other references we didn't cover here? Share them in the comment
section below and we might include it in a future episode. If you like Hidden History
don’t forget to ‘Like’ and ‘Subscribe’ for more.