Lyndon identifies as a “communist-anarchist” in the real world and says this affects how he plays the game. “If the compass was based on what I think politically today, pretty much every faction would be super right wing,” he says.
Last year, referencing streams of online discussion and his own experiences of the game, Redditor Lyndon, who goes by the username Dethhhdog, created a political compass for almost all factions in the game – a political structure of right and left wing ideologies found in the Fallout universe. Appearing in several titles in the Fallout franchise they are a natural enemy of the Followers of the Apocalypse. The Brotherhood of Steel, a religious paramilitary group closely resembling the authoritarian far right, is a quasi-religious group borne from the ashes of the US military that believes technology and weaponry can only be trusted in its hands. The Followers of the Apocalypse, meanwhile, which is found in several Fallout offerings, adopts more socialist and anarchist ideals, including a general rejection of hierarchies and the distribution of power.
Caesar’s Legion, a faction in the game Fallout: New Vegas, resembles a model of hegemonic stability – the theory that a global, single-nation military power is the only way to keep peace and economic prosperity.
