#If you like Nisha and the Disciples thats fine! Good even!

[fuzzydreamin]

per my Disciples Nuka World post;

no, no. please get into it. i'm working on a deep-dive into why the disciples are "like that" and i would absolutely love to hear other peoples' thoughts on them.

Well okay! Ranting under the cut!

So, the Disciples. They're boring. At first I was intrigued by them. They do look cool, and Nisha is presented as a scary character, but... we aren't shown anything to back that up in the end. There's nothing else really there. They don't really have a theme beyond being the same average boring raiders Bethesda always gives us.

I like the Operators and the Pack because they show the reasons people might turn to being raiders in a world like the wasteland. They're still bad reasons, but most reasons to be a shit person that turns harming others into their livelihood aren't going to be very good.

But we're looking at the writing of the gangs and how they justify themselves here, not whether those justifications are valid (they aren't) in any real or even fictional sense.

In the Operators case they are all about getting ahead in their endeavours. They're almost business-like, but they aren't afraid to openly take out their competition if they have to. They're the overlap between what makes a person a raider or a triggerman, with the savvy and viciousness of both, but willing to go to lengths that triggermen usually don't.

Their leadership came from the highest class society you can find in the Commonwealth: Diamond City's Upper Stands. I'd say that a lot of their members also seem to reflect this, either coming from similar lofty circumstances or wishing to climb that ladder and act the part. Systems like that inherently run on putting others below you - ruining lives either figuratively or literally. The Operators understand and embrace this. They lie, cheat, steal, blackmail, and will use sex and mind altering substances to make sure that they will get their way.

They aren't as interested in killing people so much as they are in controlling them in some way - they're the gang who is likely most favourable of slavery, as they're always looking for ways to use other people, and you can't really use a dead body for much.

They're also the gang mostly responsible for building the gauntlet. Their people are educated and skilled, value teamwork, and are cunning and intelligent, all in addition to whatever bloodlust they might have.

The Operators want control.

With the Pack their themeing is obviously being othered from society. Both the animal(furry) aspect and their cannibalism show this, with these themes being used in the usual way to symbolise a disconnect with the subject from the rest of humanity in some way.

They're people who's desires and/or view of themselves didn't fit in with the norm of society, even for the wasteland. Now of course, not everyone who fits into that would become a raider like the Pack, but this is about themes, and it's easy to fall into being the bad guy when society already treats you like one for aspects of yourself that you can't help and/or don't want to hide. Especially when you live in a place like the wasteland, where raiders are already common enough. The Pack exists to catch those who do decide to become the bad guys they're likely already viewed as, or see themselves as in some way due to the way they feel. To let them live a life with the freedoms that polite society doesn't allow.

(As a side note, I highly recommend Lola Sebastians video essay on youtube about the subject of cannibalism in media - it's just 2hrs long and very good.)

I also find it interesting that of the three groups, the Pack is the only one who has a single leader with no chain of command sitting under them. Both Mags and Nisha have a second hand, and then another person to rely on too further down the chain. The Pack only has Mason. It's clear that Mason is both brawn and brains, and none of the pack seem to defy him - at least not openly. I don't think that's an accident either. I think Mason and the Pack are running on a very 'law of the jungle' type system, where if somone were both strong and clever enough to take him out then that person would simply deserve to be leader in the eyes of Mason and the Pack. But it does bring into question what would happen if someone were to kill Mason without taking over the Pack - or taking the rest of them out like the game forces you to. It could have been interesting to see that power struggle. Oh well.

The Pack wants freedom.

So what do the Disciples want? As far as can be seen, they just want to hurt and kill people. To cut them up and make them bleed and string their bodies up as nasty, smelly decor. Just like every other bland raider we've already encountered in the Commonwealth.

They're only shown to be interested in killing. Not teamwork, not building skills, nor living by any law or code of their own besides the usual "raiders be raidering". They have no motivation or meaning. They're serial killers - just ignoring that serial killers rarely work in teams, let alone huge ones, and often still have their own motives for doing what they do. Especially in literary works. Simply saying something like "but people like that do exist in real life!" doesn't justify Bethesda's bad writing here either. This is still a story, and in 99% of stories your bad guys need a better justification than just "they're bad!" (The only time you don't is in like, a monster centric horror movie, where the monster just exists to tear the dumb victims apart for the quick amusement of the viewers. Even then, the narrative is boosted by having a monster with a reason for being the monster.)

Nisha herself is presented to us as an interesting character; she's the one who makes a warning comment to Gage upon the player being made the new overboss, which immediately puts her in a spotlight and position over the other two gang leaders by interacting with you in the story first.

We can also learn that she's the boss that Gage fears the most. But beyond her liking to cut people up, there's no real reason for her to be so scary - not in comparison to the others. A big point about Gage is that he hates to use chems or alcohol because he dislikes not being in control of himself, which would open himself up for being killed or harmed in some way. Logically this should make The Operators his biggest concern. But instead it's Nisha. The defence for this is that Nisha is meant to be very clever. We're told this. But we aren't shown it very well, if at all.

She's meant to come off smart through our conversation with her, I guess. Because talking in a sneaky manner makes a person clever to Bethesda. We also learn that despite the truce that is meant to be in place between the three gangs she still lets her people kill members of the other gangs, just so long as they don't get caught. But... they do. We can find mutliple instances of Disciples doing sloppy jobs hiding their crimes. It's not a secret they're doing it. This makes Nisha look bad, because she clearly doesn't have as much of a lid of things as she would like to claim.

It also ignores that the Operators already have 'intelligent and sneaky' covered in their own themeing. By giving these traits to Nisha too Bethesda is simply doubling up on them but without the justification to back them up for Nisha and the Disciples. It comes off like Bethesda went "Smart guys (Operators), Animalistic guys (Pack), and... uh... let's just do regular raiders but also try to make them smart too?" And it didn't work.

Hell, you can't even argue that they're at least still better than the Commonwealth gangs, because I am far more interested in the lore behind The Forged and Judges Jury than the Disciples. And that's mostly just from notes and terminal entries! They at least have reason! Culture! In the end the effort that went into the Disciples is about the same as some of the more mid Commonwealth gangs.

There could be some arguement with the fact that the Disciples are largely made up of female NPCs over males, with enough male NPCs to count on one hand, but again there's nothing actually done with that. It could have been really interesting if it was! But it wasn't! It's just a random thing you can note yourself by running around their base. It's not actually brought up at all.

Ultimately I think a lot of the Disciples and the Nuka World DLC being "like that" in general is because there were probably plans to do much more with them but Bethesda rushed it out to get it done, meaning a lot that likely had been planned got cut, leaving us with nothing but glances beyond an ultimately disappointing experience. Like they do with everything.

Maybe in another version of the DLC Nisha and the Disciples had more of a role to play which would have fleshed them out more in opposition to the other gangs, but that's not the reality we got. We got nothing.

So. Yeah. That's why the Disciples are my least favourite of the Nuka World gangs. I'd love to see your deep-dive when you get to it. Feel free to tag me!

#To other people reading this: #If you like Nisha and the Disciples thats fine! Good even! #But youve probably added more to them in your head than the game actually gave you #I wanted to like them but I cant. But I dont hate them either. Theyre just... boring on their own #fuzzy.post #fallout #fallout 4 #nuka world #nisha #the disciples