User blog:Tocinoman/The Divide - 5

“Who are you, that you do not know your history?”— Ulysses

Last issue's results

Guess who's back. Back again! The Divide is back. Tell a friend.

Ahem. Excuse that cough. Here we are again. Almost a year has passed since the last Divide issue was released. It feels great to have it up and running once again.

The last topic of debate was the setting of Fallout 4: New York vs. The Commonwealth.

• Coming in third, but certainly not last, place is the New York vote, with 13 votes. Wonderful job, The Ever Ruler! Thanks for stepping up for two consecutive issues of the Divide.
• Narrowly defeating New York and coming in second place was the undecided vote, with 15 total votes. This was the vote for the users who believe the game will be set elsewhere or couldn't choose a side!
• Taking first place by a landslide with 34 out of 62 votes was the Commonwealth side, debated by Scarface11235. Thanks for visiting the Divide, Al!

Both of these users gave the Divide their all, and that is all the Divide requests from its participants.

What is going to be tested in the Divide this week?

This week's poll idea was suggested to me by countless users. The topic is quite a controversial subject around Nukapedia, as most users either love it or hate it: The Enclave. Not a day goes by that we don't see people debating the Enclave and issues surrounding it on other blogs and in the chat. I figure it is time to bring these arguments into the spotlight so we can lay it all out on the table. The issues our debaters will address are as follows:

1. Does the Enclave truly represent the values, ideals, and wishes of the United States, or has it evolved into its own organization with its own rules and goals? Why do you think this?
2. Is the Enclave truly the best faction to run and manage the Wasteland compared to other factions like the Brotherhood of Steel, NCR, or Caesar's Legion? Why or why not?
3. Does the Enclave still have the resources and ability to retake the Wasteland? Why or why not? How?

Who will be Dividing this subject?

As much as we loved having him on the Divide literally half the time, The Ever Ruler will be participating in this debate from the comments, as we all know he loves to do. The two users who will be up against each other on this issue are first time Divide debaters:

• In the pro-Enclave corner is your Enclave president, Eden2012!
• In the anti-Enclave corner we have the (mostly) Honorable Dead Gunner!

I can already tell that this issue is going to be awesome because of these two.

Pro-Enclave side

Let's get down to brass tacks, shall we? I myself consider the Enclave to be the one and only (that we're currently aware of, anyway) officially organized remnant of the United States, and no, not just it's government... but the late-great nation itself.

Tell me, who else in the Wasteland (besides the Enclave) have you witnessed or encountered as claiming to represent, belonging to, and/or holding an otherwise constructively positive disposition in regards to the United States of America in the least little bit at all?

I personally have yet to encounter a living soul other than the Enclave, and the Enclave alone keeping the memory, spirit, culture, and ideology of the once great nation alive. The United States is an idea, as is the Enclave. Any idea without at least one persisting messenger, fades away from memory with time eventually, completely and entirely.

In other words, the United States dies forever; not only in the literal sense, but in the cultural, spiritual, and ideological sense.

Fortunately, the Enclave persists for the time being, and thus, so does the United States of America. They are quite literally the very only thing in the entirety of post-nuclear America, keeping the United States alive not only as an ideology... but as a nostalgically favored solution for the future of the Wasteland.

Why or how, you might ask? It's really quite simple: they, and they alone, think about and preach about it to others more than favorably in a now-uniquely concentrated effort to get the Wasteland to remember what it was like before the war, to notify them that this land scorched by atomic hellfire was safe, prosperous, and easily taken for granted once.

And because of this? The Enclave truly are the one and only remaining messengers (and proudly outspoken ones, at that) of the Red, White, and Blue. And that is to say, they, and themselves alone as it stands, are the spirit of, the resurgent remembrance of, and subsequently, the very beating heart of the United States itself. It's been said that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery... and for the sake of my intended point, it still is.

Let's move on ahead to the second question, shall we? I'm more than confident that it can and will be again if the Enclave has anything at all to say about, or provide to in the near or distant future of the Wasteland. Unfortunately, that's just it...

The Enclave has faced extreme, nearly unbearable hardship adapting into any sort of widespread sense of co-existence with the vast majority of the Wasteland's denizens, which is partially their fault, but the fault also partially lies in the Wasteland 'justice' that they have been sent fleeing for their very lives toward, and soon after at the receiving end of, routinely. It would seem the past looks bright, and the future looks gravely bleak for them...

But for one to succeed, one has to face failures and mistakes. The Enclave has indeed been heavily handicapped by certain, hellbent enemies, and quite frankly, plausibly to the point of not being able to reclaim anywhere near the entirety of the North American continent as they had intended and planned beforehand centuries ago.

But does that mean they're just going to roll over and die, that they might as well, or that they ought to abandon their goal...? No, not in the least at all. If they didn't do that before, during, and just after World War III, of all events to endure and walk away from...? There isn't enough conceit on the Earth to sway me into believing anything contrary to them enduring, adapting, and shortly after, prospering in technological marvel they themselves kept and/or produced for a considerable amount of time just as they always have.

Because even at the alleged brink of utter defeat and total extinction, the Enclave still has it's trademark advantages and strengths that the majority of the rest of the Wasteland cannot even comprehend and little lone utilize: the best technology by itself is called 'Enclave technology', the best technological prowess, comprehension, and capability, the most refined and advanced manufacturing capabilities and subsequently the one and only source for building brand new working pre-War aircraft...

With one or two of those advantages, the average bear would have all he/she needed to help him/her insure a pretty successful conquest and/or leadership tenure of small to medium-sized portions of the Wasteland(s)... and the Enclave possess all of those advantages.

If it weren't for those unique advantages, and it's routine utilization by them in getting things the Enclave needs to survive up, running, and optimized in a time period that makes the rest of the Wasteland out to be proverbial cavemen, it would have been over for them a very long time ago...

In conclusion to my side of the argument, is the Enclave the be all, end all faction to just, one day strike gold and take over the entire North American continent? In a word, no. There is no faction that could, would, and most importantly should fit such a large bill in fact, in my humble opinion.

And besides, comparing the capabilities of the manpower the Enclave and/or the Brotherhood of Steel houses, to the absurdly gargantuan capabilities of the manpower that NCR and Legion house... is er, how you say, inherently unfair and disproportionate.

The Enclave needs to be taking slow, easy, baby steps and setting realistic goals suited for them and the shape they're revealed to be in, so that they can (more or less) easily and safely carry out initiatives that doesn't overwhelm them by their very nature, and at the same time, get them somewhere or net them something of value other than their classical assumed position of 'backs to the fucking wall'.

Otherwise... the Enclave may as well just bunker up for the end of the world as they know it all over again, because I'm pretty sure yet another generalized demigod player character coming after them (yet again, I emphasize) is curtains for them and curtains for America...

This is your President, Eden2012, signing off from the Divide. Thanks for having me Toci.

14:45, July 16, 2014 (UTC)

Anti-Enclave side

I'd just like to start off my argument by saying that I have no problems with the general Enclave fanbase this site has, so any arguments against the Enclave that I have put out there are not arguments against the fanbase, but arguments just against the values of the organization itself.

To start it off, I don't think the Enclave is the USA anymore, but I also don't think it's necessarily a bad thing. The Enclave adapted to a changing world (somewhat) and made new rules and guidelines about how to live in their post-apocalyptic world. While most of the original force is US military members (from what I know) and the leadership claims themselves the remnants of the US government, this isn't a bad thing. You can't run a country the same when it's been struck, country-wide, by nuclear weapons. You can't really tax the populous anymore, but this isn't where the Enclave slipped up. The Enclave slipped up not by simply changing the rules, but by how they changed the rules.

They seemed to have made the exact same mistakes that many others made before them: not allowing people into the Enclave if they weren't born into it (with very few exceptions), using random wastelanders as test subjects, and even going to the point of seemingly imprisoning a supporter in Raven Rock.

I'm not sure if the Enclave really has the manpower or firepower to re-take the Wasteland, but it's not really known how many other forces they have scattered throughout the Wasteland. The nuking at the Oil Rig, which is canon as Marcus talks about it in Fallout: New Vegas, was a major hit to the Enclave and left them wounded severely. The idea that the Enclave simply does not have the forces to re-take the Wasteland makes way to my next point, that no faction really should be vying for total control of the wasteland.

At the end of the day, it doesn't matter if you're Enclave, Brotherhood of Steel, or NCR/Legion, you shouldn't be trying to take over the whole wasteland. It's too chaotic of a zone to try and annex whole regions, instead, watch out for yourself and your people, hold down a piece of land, and help each other out when another person needs it. I don't condone the nuking of the Oil Rig, but the Enclave posed a serious threat. They went looking for trouble, and when they got it, you now see every Enclave supporter crying about how they're the victim, when really in the end, they were asking for it.

I wouldn't mind if the Enclave took a piece of land, word got out that they kill mutants and ghouls on sight, and anyone who wandered into the town was told to leave or they become a test subject, at least the Enclave is letting people go about their business and only punishing those who want to interfere, but this simply isn't the case, they want to takeover any spots of land they can to try and increase their standing with the members of the Wasteland, but all they end up with is falling back into another zone every time.

A good little thinking exercise I like to do, when making decisions or taking action about something, is to flip the situation:

Let's say there's a faction out there that supports mutant and ghoul purism. If you aren't a mutant or a ghoul, you're gonna be the death of the wasteland - hell, humans are what CREATED the wasteland, so how could humans possibly be saviors if all they do is fight? They get very good equipment and start holding down a zone, turning any wanderers into test subjects that attempts to turn them into new mutants or ghouls or something else entirely. Over the course of a game though, you realize that these people are not the saviors of a Wasteland, their ideas are flawed, and you have to stop them. These ghouls and mutants simply don't care to discriminate between a human that doesn't want to fight, and a human that will shoot at them immediately.

So, to any Enclave supporters who support the killings of all ghouls/mutants for whatever reason, if you aren't a total hypocrite, please also support The Unity. They fight for almost the exact same thing, and those poor souls got wrecked at the end of Fallout 1. Poor victims.

^{"Semper Invictus"} 10:05, July 16, 2014 (UTC)

Conclusion

So...you've heard it, Nukapedians. With whom do you agree?

Also, let me just add that the purpose of this blog is for you, the reader, to suspend all knowledge of the topic at hand. Think of it this way: if you knew nothing of The Enclave before coming in here, what would you think after reading these debates? That's what your vote should be based on.

Remember that if you have any poll ideas or suggestions to improve this blog and/or make it more user-friendly, please feel free to leave a message on my talk page.

P.S. Special Announcement

I must announce that I cannot commit to making the Divide a bi-weekly segment as I had originally planned. On July 22nd, I will begin my life at the U.S. Naval Academy Preparatory School, where I will not have much outside contact other than handwritten letters for the first three weeks (I get all of my electronics back after those three weeks, so no worries there). With that, I will begin a mentally, physically, and emotionally strenuous 10-month period of training to prepare me for success at the U.S. Naval Academy. I will still be active here, no doubt, but my outside life comes first, and I cannot promise a regular schedule of Divide issues. They will be sort of a spur-of-the-moment thing, which I actually kind of like.

Poll

Poll:With whom do you agree