What is the Sierra Madre's Cloud? | Full lore and speculation
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- čas přidán 11. 06. 2023
- The cloud that shrouds the Sierra Madre is an ever present threat in the Dead Money DLC. Where did the cloud come from? Why is it here? What actually is the cloud? I do my best to use the lore to figure out what the cloud could possibly be made of.
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"It's about learning to let go." (Letting go of poverty. As I transport 36 gold bars back to the Mojave.)
The real treasure there is the prewarmoney won by gambling and then exchanging into prewarmoney, weights zero and is worth thousands of caps.
Letting go of poverty lmao
You missed one, bro!
Gotta help Elijah *Let Go* of his head, so you can stuff those Gold Bars in it for easy transportation.
@@erd5prewar money being “scrap” in fallout 4 makes me angry because I learned in the sierra madre that shit is magnificent,
a poisonous corrosive cloud? sounds like the perfect ingredient for a refreshing martini…
Sweet and crunchy with an after taste of old pennies and tetanus
Fun unrelated fact: there's a frozen cloud of methanol floating in space that's estimated at around 100 billion cubic gallons in size.
@@chesterstevens8870 I spilled my drink, sorry.
@@chesterstevens8870 I bet a soon as space travail become available there's going to be a few SpaceShine stores or bars selling that cloud
"A poisonous corrosive cloud? Better spread this across the wasteland!" - A so called Genius
I've seen a theory, that cloud made people inside into some weird spongy thing that moves just like spiders do. Citation: "Each leg's outward movement is controlled through the cephalothroax, which regulates the hydraulic movement and pressure hemolymph". The dude who came up with this theory, said that weird twitchy movement of the ghost people is a result of this hydraulic pressure in limbs. The don't activate muscles by nerves how living things do, but spread pressure around the limbs to move. The Dog also said that when he kills ghost people, they make "hisss" sound and stop moving, which signals about pressurized liquid or gas escaping. Crazy theory, but it caught my eye.
That makes a surprising amount of sense, although they still need muscle control in some capacity, muscles in the prosoma (cephalothorax) are what control that pressure. This does help explain how ghost people can interact with things and hold weapons though, since spiders do have muscles for the non-hydraulic joints. So yeah, they could be using muscles in the torso to control pressure of bodily fluids for the larger joints, then muscles for hands, feet, neck, etc.
That's a fascinating theory
My dude quotes a citation but doesn't post it, we wanna see it too!
@codexmachina1358 I actually found multiple while looking for the theory OP referenced. Apparently the spider theory has been floating around a bit, so I'm not sure which is really the original, but there's also this really interesting one.
"Here's a writeup I did a few years ago detailing my theories on the biology of the Ghost People from back when I devoted an unhealthy amount of thought to such things.
> I'm of the opinion that they move using a biological pneumatics system, sucking in air/cloud and compressing it into internal air bladders (Dog says that they have pockets of pressurized gas in their bodies, and you can see them spraying fluid when killed). This would explain why they can only jump/move quickly in short bursts, in that they need to build up the pressure required to motivate their bodies at those speeds.
> If the pressure thing is true, it would also explain why bullets can only temporarily "kill" them while dismemberment will put them down for good, since their metabolism would be fast enough to patch up bullet woulds and restore internal pressure (you can hear them quickly sucking in air when they spring back up). In contrast, they aren't able to regenerate entire limbs, so while the loss of a limb might not technically kill them (you can still see them breathing after dismemberment), they are effectively helpless in such a state and likely to die eventually from loss of fluids.
> Biochemistry is likely heavily altered as well, as they are able to survive in an extremely toxic and caustic environment with no issue, and cutting into them reveals bright, yellow-green fluids. This discoloration might be a product of the supposedly copper-laiden air they live within, the deformation of hemoglobin and other metabolites within their bodies (as seen in some humans), or possibly some combination of the two.
> On the subject of what it takes to kill them, they seem to have more decentralized nervous systems than ordinary humans, since they don't take extra headshot damage (something which Dean also attests to), and also seem to lack pain reception in a way similar to humans taking large doses of drugs like PCP (they don't flinch or shudder when repeatedly shot). At the same time, their nervous system is still tied together in key ways, as Dog claims breaking their spines in a specific spot along their lower neck/upper back will instantly kill them (like how octopuses technically have nine "brains" but will instantly die if you clamp down behind their eyes). In general, their bodies seem to have devolved to a much simpler state, with emphasis on vascular tissue and heavily reduced instances of things like digestive (they appear to just process the cloud for sustenance), reproductive, muscular (replaced by aforementioned pneumatic system), and even integumentary systems underneath their suits. When you shoot at them, you're basically just hitting a walking mass of nerves, fluids, and air bladders held together by a plastic suit.
TLDR: Basically human balloons with knives and bombs."
Credit to FunGuyFr0mYuggoth on reddit.
@@PhoenicopterusR interesting, ty for posting
What I believe Elijah means by "protecting and preserving" is not entirely literal preservation, but rather, preventing human scavengers from scavenging and scrapping said byildings and relics. That said, the cloud may also perform som preservative function in a way like aluminum oxide, where the corrosion of the cloud only affects the outer layers materials, but paradoxically said reaction creates a protective coating stopping amy further reaction (at least for some materials, others like organic material just corrode into uselessness).
How do you have an 18 hour old comment on a 4 minute old video?
@@GDKF0238 There's a brazillian dude with a day old comment. God damn time travelers - this is why we can't have good things.
I figured it was just killing off bacteria and fungi that would normally cause wood to dry rot, and promote oxidation of metals like steel.
Came here to make pretty much the same comment. I interpreted Elijah’s statement as meaning that only the people he can coordinate and direct around it can make it in to pick it clean and have so much as a shot of getting back out.
@@GDKF0238 The people who pay to support the channel sometimes get access to videos before they're publicly available
Part of me wonders if the darklight suits contain some parts of what went into the trauma harnesses, like yeah they also appear to have been ghoulified but the way they stand back up after death feels very similar to how the tests for the harnesses were described… and who’s to say that the trauma harnesses wouldn’t take a few more hits if they contained a feral ghoul and not just a skeleton
Maybe that's why they get up while they're mending. The suits, trama harness, gets them back up, and then the Ghost person regenerate the damaged limbs, allowing them to manually take back control. That's probably why they have such jerky erratic movements they're used to forcing the suit to stop moving.
@@zenoblues7787 Actually this gives great precedent to the idea that the cloud residue can self propagate or self catalyze, being that it can infinitely create more of itself it may be safe to say the people in the suits have either become or been turned partially into the residue and this residue is what heals them but loss of a limb is just too much for the residue to fix in such a short period of time so they bleed out and die. The fact the suits are also still pressurized after all this time despite the fact the gas can still penetrate the materials may also mean the de-pressurization when killing a ghost person is cloud leaving the suit which may also account for why it becomes so difficult for them to regenerate and not die. It may be the case that like the trauma harness's there is nothing actually left of the people and are long since dead perhaps taken over by the cloud in some way due to some substance that is not known to us and may be fake as it seemingly still allows some intelligence to remain being they can set traps and use weapons. We may never know what every last component of the cloud is.
(A side note. I believe the first instances of contact where they called it a rust like cloud may be because the gas has already been corroding at the ventilation in the Sierra Madre. The idea that the red coloring could be copper oxide may be what is in the residue while rust from corrosion of metals over time in the Sierra Madre is what's really making it so red and able to even blot out the light from the sun being that it would be solid rust particulate flying through the air.)
These were my thoughts too. It feels strange that it'd be a coincidence that the two instances of "suit that makes you functionally immortal whether you want to or not" were designed by the same people.
Combine that with strange self-propagating gas probably interacting with it all in some way or another and you've got yourself a spooky science casino ghost.
That was my theory as well.
I always assumed they used the same tech
Remember that Big MT already has trauma harnesses that can 'preserve' or at least take over the functions of the wearer's body after death. The darklight suits may yet be an attempt to upgrade the survivability of the suits by subjecting them to seriously deadly conditions such as the Cloud. Given that the ghost people could still 'technically' be considered living, this is at least a partial improvement over the walking skeletons we see in OWB, especially by Big MT's fast and loose standards.
This is what I'm thinkin
I first thought of that to but the problem is that have some intelligence to make spears and they seem to worship the holograms
They’re not related to the Hazmat Suits, separate projects.
When you first start the dlc, you're stuck there from beginning to end and you can never go back. I think it makes it super unique and one of a kind. It's a once of a life time experiences that the courier lives through.
Losing all of your weapons and having to scavenge whatever you can find from the environment is a great change of pace too
@@hughjanus2935 totally agree bro
@@hughjanus2935 i mean yes but it also means the DLC isn't always liked. you can't go into Dead money without a plan and a melee build which kind of takes away from it a bit. i like just jumping into things and experiencing them, but with dead money to not get extremely frustrated you have to have specific builds.
@@sovietunion7643 depends when you do it tbh
@@sovietunion7643it makes you have to use what you have. I was happy that I didn’t just brutally murder everything with a sword
With how crazy a lot of Big MT’s experimentation is, it wouldn’t surprise me if there is a sort of nanobot component to the cloud, which could interact with components within the suits to engage some sort of dormant life support system or create a chemical mix to transform the occupants
It makes me think the same. Fallout science isn't super consistent, but given that the vending machines are probably doing either energy to mass conversion or some kind of very funky nanodeposition printing, the idea that there might have been nanite based earlier test methods that then got translated into a component of a gas for... some... purpose, isn't crazy. Enough to help maintain structures and machines while the gas itself keeps micro-organisms off, helping to give the ghost people some vague form of guidance or directive as they shamble through the resort as well as help them recover from less devastating wounds, and so on.
So yeah, nanotech makes sense to me, too!
The problem with that is that Fallout exists in a world where integrated circuits were never invented. Their technology is still based on vacuum tubes. That makes any kind of nanotechnology virtually impossible.
@@Maria_Erias Depends on how it's set up. If it's something like "soft" nanotechnology, more or less custom micro-organisms with extra aftermarket features, or even just externally controllable pellets of "smart" materials that are activated by the rest of the gas and whatever else they're interacting with, those could work. Nanites don't need to be anything like conventional robots but small. There are a lot of really neat options! ^v^ Doesn't need to be one strain of them, either, could be a whole mix of flavors.
@@avitraangelica9278 The problem comes from having those nanomachines (whether artificial or augmented biological) "think". Sure, you can send them their instructions from an exterior brain (which could be any size), but you're still going to need technological components on those nanomachines. Receivers, sensors, motive systems, relays, etc. Anything that the nanomachine needs to figure out where it is, whether the material it's interacting with is the correct material, and so on. And those would need to be constructed with vacuum tubes and resistors instead of integrated circuits, which would be absolutely huge, comparatively.
@@Maria_Erias not true you could theoretically create a completely biological piece of nano tech that wouldn't require any of that , they are called cells and with the existence of FEV-unnamed(the new kind of fev that is in the air and such released after the facilities holding it were destroyed during the great war ) and FEV(raw form)
It's entirely possible that some kind of parasitic or symbiotic supercell has formed in the cloud as a result of FEV being airborne because we know the cloud existed pre-war but the ghost people didn't so maybe it was the radiation/fev catalysing something in the cloud that created the ghost people from entirely biological components
It's amazing how the Big Empty is responsible for everything in the other dlcs. Also the spore people in Vault 22 and in Zion. Also the meaning behind this DLC has helped me a lot with letting go of unhealthy things.
And the Cazadores and Nightstalkers
And the nightsalkers and cazadores in the vanilla game.
I needed Jesus (not Ghoul Jesus just regular Jesus) to complete the cycle for me to start changing my ways which given my birth doesn’t help much but the very prospect of a way out is miraculous
The Big MT wasn't responsible for the spore people, that was Vault Tech. However, the Big MT is responsible for the tribes of Zion as some of their ancestors escaped from Big MT. Honest Hearts is, imo, the DLC least connected to the other three. In Dead Money you learn about Big MT via terminals, Christine, and Elijah. You also hear about the other courier from Christine, Elijah, and one of the ending slides. Big MT has mentions of Christine, Elijah, and Ulysses plus the Sierra Madre. Lonesome Road doesn't really talk about the other DLCs aside from a holotape left by Ulysses. The only time you hear about ANYTHING related to the other DLCs during Honest Hearts is talking to Joshua and it was just one line of dialogue.
I recall hearing that (supposedly), the flesh-ripping sandstorms of the Divide are the result of a malfunctioning, sort of weather-device of their design, crash landing somewhere in the wastes - and still remains online.
I think the darklight suits were intended to test the penetrative power of the cloud, as the Big MT scientists were egotistical in their work and liked to do horrible things to people in a quest to one-up their colleagues. The metal was chosen to easily corrode and then force an extended stay in the suits. They work as chemical suits, as you see when you find one, but the cloud is a super successful experiment. I also think the darklight portion does more, possible some super low level radiation and other effect that changes how body chemistry works on a small scale and time frame.
There were real human experiments attempting to create ideal antibiotics that would eliminate bacteria in people. But that always included gut flora, which lead to death. So far as I've heard. That might have been yet another Big MT experiment. Cleansing and preserving humans, also attached to additional tech in the suits.
I also always assumed that way down deep, maybe in the area below Sinclair's vault, was The Cloud Machine, with a huge container of cloud juice. The lower levels really have a lot of unnecessary machines and ducts. It seems that delivering the cloud was intentional but maybe the shoddy work made it more easily released, and that's why one egotistical researcher thought to leap to another experiment right away, to one-up the cloud guy.
It would make sense to me that sinclair planned on using the cloud to create a moat between him and ang communists attempting to seize his casino/vault. He turns the surrounding area into a toxic cloud. And theres really no point to it, anymore.
I think, in a way, the ghost people are a creation of both latent radiation that spread from the bombs, and the cloud.
I thought mig Mt created them because I see the ghost people in old world blues
@@ManyDogthey created the suits, they can’t take off. The suits more or less keeps the body alive but brain dead. If the suit is ripped open, the ghost person dies dies.
The skeleton suits are the same way but more robotic. Fallout has “zombies” but not like undead skeletons.
I like how all the new vegas DLCs connect to eachother. It’s cool and illustrates non linear stories.
However it also has the drawback of making the world seam much smaller.
It's all Nevada and a bit of Utah and California Arizona
Honest Hearts isnt really connected, except for one mention of Ulysses.
@DeadManSinging1 the White Legs' story is the story of Ulysses though.
I wouldn't say it's Sinclair's ego that made him create the Sierra Madre. If so, it wasn't a malicious or arrogant ego, but a man who envisioned what he could create with his wealth that could last beyond him.
Perhaps "Hubris" would be more accurate
@@nolan92491 I am not sure. Naivety maybe. But he has suffered before, so he wouldn't be naive. Just hopeful, a dreamer.
Desperation of a Dreamer in Love.
"a man who envisioned what he could create with his wealth that could last beyond him." Sounds like some form of Ego to me, Reminds me of when Bender from futurama wants to create a huge statue for people to "REMEMBER ME".
@@MrRattlebones640 So anyone who desires to use their wealth to better people and society (safe haven for survivors of a nuclear attack) and wants to not just bleed money know but invest in the future is somehow egotistical? Being philanthropic and well known tend to go hand in hand.
The Sierra Madre was built as a testament to his love for Vera Keyes and to protect them both from the progressing war, Sinclair says this pretty much verbatim in one of his logs, not sure how his ego came into the equation here, he is depicted as an incredibly positive person who tries to see "the bright, shining future in everything" according to Dean, which doesn't mean he is completely selfless but it does paint him in a particularly different light
In some of the logs he learns of the affair between Vera and Dean, so he begins to convert the bunker into a prison for them both. Then has a change of heart and does what he can to undo the changes before the bombs drop
sinclair is a genuinely good person, his "big ego" is just dean projecting onto him. dean is a deeply insecure and narcissistic person to the point where passing a single benign skill check in conversation with him, no matter how nice and helpful you are, makes him hostile at the end of the game
Ya the only reason he thinks its ego is because radking clearly took what dean said at face value
Dean is a narcissistic sociopath whose incapable of self reflection or understanding even for a moment that people do things without even thinking about Dean.
Dean thinks sinclair built the casino and invited him to take part in it to stroke sinclairs ego
Sinclair- at least at one point- was good friends with dean. He wanted to protect his friend. But then all the shit with vera happened and sinclair saw dean for who he really is
"I love you so much, my beloved! If you ever cheat on me though, I'm locking you in a bomb shelter with no way out and no food."
True love.
@@user-ts2ug1il7c"good people" don't plan to kill their ex in a fit of rage.
The fact that Elijah travelled to all these places without dying is impressive. He was completely insane but he must have been a skilled BoS soldier….Because these guys take aLOT of bullets to put down. And so do the robots in the Big Empty.
Robots - he use electromagnetic weapon, ghostpeople - he use holographic weapon, he's not lot-a-bullets type of guy, when he goes to meet you, he pack Gauss rifle since you likely have body-armor
Honestly considering Fallout 3 states a laser Pistol can cut a man in half at the waist I suspect they're extremely effective vs. Ghost People.
If you use his actual gear(LAER and Holorifle), it's not hard to see how he got it done. Man was an inventor and a tech wiz, he made his weapons work for him.
Me, I take the Pulse Gun to Big MT.
@@kingofthegrill I use the Holorifle all the time. You’re right. Elijah had some of the best weapons in the game
@amuroray9115 it's what the Brotherhood do, they acquire some seriously good tech. The Greased Lightning you can buy off of them is also insane. So isn't Christine's gear, all of it: her recon armor, her CoS armor, and her CoS sniper rifle.
Small personal theory of mine is, there are other ghouls in the Sierra Madre... the ghost people mutated to feed off cloud instead of radiation.
Wait you might be on to something
Hmmm interesting.
Could make sense. The other DLC with the nuke heads everywhere has ghouls hanging around sources of radiation that heals them even as the sandy winds (or your bullets) tear at their flesh. And after a time the Madre denizens will stand back up if you don't destroy their limbs Dead Space style.
My personal theory is that the red cloud is a type of "smart matter" which can be configured and reconfigured at will by the vending machines. It was stored in pipes and reservoirs beneath the Sierra Madre and when it leaked it was toxic because it was not configured, so it imitates whatever material it integrates into. The tokens are a combination of currency and power source.
Tiberium, but dodging EA copyright
lolwut
When I played the game I always thought the cloud was some kind of simple nanomachine type tech. The cloud particles being the nanomachines themselves, and the gas being some compound, or mix of compounds needed for the production/maintenance of the machines. The residue being the nanomachines having fallen from the air and collected in some place while undergoing some regenerative process. I thought that the reason it never spread outside the area was because it needed some power source or else it would eventually break down, with the gas potentially having some component that was a chemical energy source. The reason for the ghost people being that inside the suits they had something to modify the nanomachines and give it new instructions including repairing the host body, just like how one can craft something from it that will heal you. The reason it destroys some things while preserving others being that it was meant to bypass what people would use to protect themselves, like gas masks, but like other chemical and biological weapons one of the goals is to leave the infrastructure and existing tech intact for capture and repurposing.
I'm surprised Saturnite ore wasn't mentioned here. Big MT's "natural resource", similar colour, extensive testing, etc.
I think saturnite is an alloy so it couldn’t come from ore
@@tlshortyshorty5810 "ore" (n): a naturally occurring mineral containing a valuable constituent (such as metal) for which it is mined and worked.
"Alloy" (n): a combination of a metal with at least one other metal or nonmetal.
"Saturnite" (n): a clay-like polymer alloy.
@@Seventh_Beanare you dumb or something
Love this channel.
It amazes me that Fallout has so much lore that multiple channels can generate enough good content to actually have traction using games from over a decade ago
Dead Money is my favorite fallout DLC and the cloud, and its oppresive atmosphere, is a huge part of that. The history behind it and the merciless maze its turned the courtyards into make Dead Money. The story on top only puts the cherry on Dead Money's sunday.
Thank you for explaining what’s happening to New York
For people in the future. This is funny because at the time there were huge forest fires coming from Canada that completely smogged NY in smoke.
Maybe I didn’t explain it funny but it is .
@@SherryNiles1312For people in the further future: Once upon a time, there used to be this place called the "United States of America"... New York was a place in the northeast section of this "United States". And further north of New York, there was once a place called "Canada". It was a large, open, polite, well-led country that was on the northern border of the United States...
@@wayneigoe6722 For people in the furthest future:
🎉😅😅😢😢🎉🎉🎉😂❤😢
Great analysis and you didn't leave anything out. The Cloud has always fascinated me and I see it as a unique work of diabolical chemical engineering, like FEV but its own thing. Inspired by the real world agents you mentioned but its own synthetic design. As you noted, it can be hard to reconcile its corrosive properties with the way Elijah describes it preserving Old World technology. I recently found myself wondering if perhaps the Cloud has a particular chemical reaction with the Saturnite alloy (also developed at Big MT) which could explain why the Cosmic Knives decay from exposure to it. Perhaps the mechanical locks on the Darklight Suits were also manufactured from Saturnite? If that were true, it would mean that, while the Cloud attacks living tissue like a form of necrosis, it leaves inorganic matter alone save for its corrosive chemical reaction with Saturnite. I think that Big MT's experiment with the Cloud at the Sierra Madre was both to observe its effects as a biological agent against the inhabitants (probably to test its use in war) as well as to test their chemical suit prototypes against it and observe the effects of the Cloud leaking into the suits at a much slower rate over time. Elijah's comments about how the Cloud "preserves" seem best understood as veiled references to using it like nerve gas, fumigating places of their living inhabitants while leaving the technology his for the taking. I have also wondered if "Cloud residue" might simply be the remains of organic matter that has been killed and broken down by the Cloud over a long period of time.
There could also be something antagonistic between the Cloud and radiation. Sinclair's automated security systems were careful to screen any traces of radioactivity from admittance into the Casino and Dean, a Ghoul, is both immune to the general toxicity in the air as well as being able to travel through concentrated Cloud much longer before suffering any adverse effects. Dean can even temporarily shield the player from the effects of the concentrated Cloud if traveling with them, which again could imply that radiation is able to protect one against its effects at least temporarily.
The color of the cloud reminds me a lot of bromine although bromine is a liquid but it does release a red/brown gas that can cause coughing, troubles breathing, headaches, irritation of mucous membranes, dizziness, and watery eyes. Getting bromine liquid or gas on skin could cause skin irritation and burns. Maybe it has some bromine in it but who's to say.
i think the suits are the only thing "alive" about the ghost people.
they may be another version of the trauma harness from the big MT (cheaper for mass production, and therefore more janky).
that would account for the fact that if you have to dismember the suits (think stopping the suits digital, or mechanical processes when ripped apart, and thus stopping it)
so, the "cloud" would have not biological aspect what so ever, and its simply a "preserved", or very slowly decaying corpse that the suit is keeping moving via mechanical means.
Yet, we know that the Ghost People are intelligent in a way. They set traps, make improvised weapons, drag people into the Cloud, and (according to some dialouge, ending slides, and that one scene in a wine celler) have a religion of sorts, or at least some customs.
This behavior is far beyond the simple movements and actions of the Y-17 trauma harnesses in Big Mt. Those suits just walk around and shoot things.
The Ghost People show some sort of intelligence, and aren't just continuing some failed programing like the Y-17 suits.
There is absolutely nothing to indicate that.
@@tinaherr3856 That's a fair counterpoint. Personally, I'm one of the folks that have always thought the darklight suits were a trauma harness prototype, but you are totally correct in pointing out that the Ghost People do behave in a much more sophisticated manner.
Part of me does wonder, of course, if the suits were a prototype to test more advanced programming of the suits that never had the chance to get reintegrated into the mainline project; it seems sufficiently plausible to me, despite never being explicitly stated, but I must admit that could be my mind reflexively jumping to defend headcanon that has been pretty well entrenched for quite a few years now.
@Ulfgard or perhaps the trauma harness is the prototype... or they are similar projects being developed by different teams.
Its not uncommon for government agencies to develop parallel systems. The trauma harness could be intended for military use, to return wounded soldiers/keepbthem fighting. The darklight suit may be something simmilar,utilizing different tech, or intended fir a different setting
You can see them breathing, quite literally the Achilles heel to this take.
If the dark light suits are radiation suits, the cloud could be dense radiation or mustard gas
Edit, could also be Copper oxide
Maybe iron oxide somewhere? I mean it’s naturally red so
Elijah tells you the cloud is copper oxide and sulfur amongst other stuff at the beginning of dead money
@@MacinteuchPlus maaaan my dumb ass went and did research 😂
@@Youdontneedtoknow_-00 no worries lol, I think he only tells you if you're playing in hardcore difficulty cause on hardcore you constantly lose health while outside and your vision blurs from the effect of the cloud
@@MacinteuchPlus that explains it, I ain’t never played hardcore
Its friction, moving objects, like suits that people wear as protective gear are rubbing against the heavy corrosion of the cloud, eroding them, but static objects like builds arent affected as they dont move. The cloud must be akin to toxic sandpaper in a way, working much faster against moving objects, like people etc
Maybe the major development with the toxin cloud was not its lethality, but its self propagating/self catalyzing effect. It would make for a particularly effective bio weapon if it was able to spread over a whole country on its own. I wonder how it was able to stay as contained as it was for 200 years?
Perhaps it is because of the unique geography/area the Sierra Madre was built in? We know the landscape of an area in Fallout can affect dangerous substances, like how Zion's geography and winds cleared the radiation from the park.
Perhaps the inverse happened here, keeping the Cloud contained in the Sierra Madre
@@tinaherr3856 I agree it feels strange that it only starts to spread in the evil ending maybe that's another reason it was experimented they since if it went wrong it wouldn't spread maybe that's why big mountain is in a hole as well in case it leaked out plus the other experiments
@@azeria1 the Cloud spreads in the evil ending because Elijah and the Courier weaponized the Cloud and set it on the Mojave. Elijah wanted to use the Cloud as a weapon, and in the evil ending, he used it. The Cloud didn't spread on its own
The cloud and its mystery is one of my favorite bits of lore in fallout. it isnt over explained and has just enough details for the player to come up with theories of their own. which is peak fallout storytelling in my opinion.
Sounds like lazy writing to me.
The red cloud could have trace amounts of FEV mixed in combine that with radiation it would explain why the ghost people look and act somewhat like ghouls
I went into Dead Money for the first time when it came out hearing everyone complaining about how bad it was and hating that it was restricted and you couldn't revisit it, and it was just a straight forward story without many branching paths....
Okay I get it, I do. You went into it expecting more NV in a smaller contained area. I went into it expecting to find a Main Quest and some side quests and lore, and boy fucking howdy did I get what I came for.
Dead Money is hands down the best NV DLC for its amazing storytelling, characters, set design, and atmosphere, and yeah you do get less afraid as you get near the end but damn it you feel like you earned it to get that sense of safety, and when it was all over I felt satisfied with everything that was delivered to me. I feel really sorry for the people who can't see how brilliant this DLC was.
Mhmm. And the game messes up your feeling of safety with the use of the holograms in the casino.
I always thought the "clouds" Must be a heavily modified bromine gas; Bromine is heavily corrosive and severely toxic And it's usually a liquid at room temperature and it can escape through almost anything except for glass capsules I can't remember if it can rust metal but in contact of human skin it's usually fatal and very large and even small doses
I also forgot to mention bromine has a very deep blood or old blood look The gas it produces keeps the color but in very low concentration it looks more yellow
I actually had the same exact idea myself. The blood-like color and hue especially in high density, the insane level of toxicity and corrosive potential, it just always reminded me so much of that cancer concoction. I'd be quite surprised if at the very least the devs didn't use it as an inspiration.
Surprised nobody got the idea in real life to create a Cloud/Bromine concoction for war.
@@orionmanke5727 but bromine does not repair metal elements. Simple gas corrodes everything indiscriminately.
Dead money was the hardest dlc in my experience. It was so good though, gritty, like a cormac Mccarthy novel.
glad i'm not the only who thought that, the whole dlc made me think of blood meridian for some reason
Ghost people suit is the darklight suit with the Y-17 override harness inside. Uses the cloud for fuel and the body trapped inside for basic structure and computational ability, limited though that may be. Sinclare bought this as a package deal. He knew full well what he was doing and Big MT didn't trick him at all. 1) An area that you can't get cars up to easily. 2) A cloud that kills the unprotected, and eats destroys robots and presumably power armor. 3) Construction that is claustrophobic and forces close quarters combat. 3) A construction company full of people you don't have to feel bad about turning into ghost people. 4) A casino that acts like a Vault-tec vault, filled with the ultra wealthy and Sinclare approved Glittering people, plus staff and is immune to the cloud. 5) Machines that can turn chips into almost any kind of loot you need. Points 1, 4 and 5 give you a fortress no invading army (chinese or american) or group of hostile survivors with mil-spec equipment can push into. Points 2,3 and 5 give you an army to fight back if part of the fortress falls. The hologram weapon system reinforces the army concept and allows Sinclare to maintain control of HIS casino (just in case).
I loved the DLC and the survival horror aspect, it reminded me a lot of the stalker games. Being sneaky, scavenging in the ruins, choosing your fights in a dark desolated hell of an environment
A good day when both Rad King and Synonymous upload their videos.
I think it's based on Chloropicrin, a gas used in WWI, either by itself or mixed with Phosgene. The Chloropicrin would degrade the gas mask or cause severe sneezing fits (different sources say different things online), which would force the soldier to remove their mask or render it useless. Then, the Phosgene would kill them
Wouldn't gas settle or disperse very fast? It's 200+ years later, why is it still there? There can't be so much in stock, right? Either there is something that constantly produce it, or there is something else.
@@user-jh5dq9vc1v It's supposedly self-replicating. Maybe there was enough that it couldn't be wiped out by time or environmental factors like wind
34:48 I think it's probably just some kind of ghoulification, without a logical/realistic explanation, BUT being that thing from Big Mountain it could also be something like the Y-17 trauma override harness, maybe there is something attached to the body that controls it after death (though barely, seen how the ghost ppl tend to twitch and move erratically). Maybe the hazmat suits were meant to be for combat, like many other Big MT projects, and after the user dies it reverts to a primal combat-like stance where it sets traps and tries to kill any other creature that doesn't wear the suit (so, avoiding friendly fire and still being useful in the battlefield).
Given that the Y-17 Trauma harnesses are *way less* advanced than what the Ghost People can do, I don't think that is the answer. The Y-17 suits can only walk around and shoot things, and even the roaming feature was a bug, due to no "home base" being set.
The Ghost People set traps and make weapons, something that is far too complex for the Trauma harnesses
I think you're bang on about the Y-17 trauma harnesses. Honestly while the Hazmat suit is a little more advanced I wouldn't call it way more advanced. The only thing the ghost people have over the Y-17's is that they are a little more agile, have a slightly better defense, and they seem to regenerate. They don't actually regenerate actually, we can prove this. Their limb health isn't restored. What is more likely is that they have something like fix-a-flat and when you poke holes in the suit the hole fills. When you do big damage to a limb the whole suit dies. I think it's an Upgraded Y-17 that keeps the occupant bathed in a goo to keep them lithe. And when you get really close to the Haxmat suit in Big Mountain you find it has artifacts from the Y-17 buried under the rags.
Just found your channel and I adore your content already. Your passion for these lore explorations is infectious and it’s hard not to be drawn into the investigation! Keep it up man, you’re doing awesome and I can’t wait to watch more from you :)
I'd point out the mention of the trauma harnesses in the first terminal entry. Those are the space suits that house the skeletons that we fight in Big MT. I think perhaps this version of Darklight suit shipped to the Sierra Madre was intended to be the next prototype. Perhaps the very intention was for those trapped within to just become part of the structural component of the suit? Or perhaps for their decaying remains to somehow provide power? Maybe the pressurized gas trapped within the body is what powers the suit? That part might explain why they cease to function (yet still apparently "breathe") when a limb is torn off. The gas trapped within is expelled, thus starving the equipment of its power source. This might also explain why Ghost People abduct people, or take corpses, dragging them off into the cloud. The onboard systems might be able to harvest the afflicted bodies for more gas. Alternatively to that, we know that there are always more ghost people. So, perhaps the people or corpses dragged off are placed into newly fabricated suits, created by machinery we don't see under the streets, exposed to the cloud, and turned into new ghost people. The ghost people not attacking each other, and seeming to show reverence to the holograms might support this idea, as it would be an IFF (Identify: Friend or Foe) system. Similarly, we don't see the holograms attacking ghost people until we reprogram them. Getting only signals from each other as friendly tech, both would simply follow programming to attack. But why? Because the Think Tank probably though of the Darklight suits as a type of possible soldier in the war. Only for the nukes to come down before their experiment could bear fruit.
While the traima harness theory sounds good, I think the ghost people show too much intelligence for that. In my thoery, I think the Cloud may also contain a mutagen agent, possibly a strain of FEV or similar compound, resulting in the creation of the ghost people.
I wonder if the gost people themselves make or alter the cloud. Not in the sense that they go to a Lab,but in that they internally produce it like a infection spreading out.
You could sum up the pre-war history of this DLC with two words: Faustian. Bargain.
Between Sinclair signing on with the Big MT for new tech, Vera and Dean playing Sinclair, Elijah trading away lives for access to the vault, Sinclair trading Vera to get back at Dean... Its just one bad deal with a devil after another...
The fact the ghost people are still apparently sapient is the worst part. Imagine being stuck in your suit for 200+ years and biologically morphed to the point where you're not even human
The red color probably comes from nitrogen dioxide. I’ve worked around it before. It’s also has some similar effects to the cloud. It’s also highly corrosive and oxidizing.
I'm listening
Interesting
Love the idea of the ghost people and would love to see a concept of one with their mind intact
It'd be nice for Fallout to go back to the cross-dlc storylines. You can see Father Elijah's work in Big MT, among other plentiful crossovers.
The ghost/hazmat suits and gas combined might be a experiment that's either a adjacent way of achieving what the trauma suit was suppose to be or a prequel or sequel to the trauma suits
Probably that faral gouls and gas exposure mixed to gether
There’s no evidence the hazmat suits are mechanical in nature.
@@quagmoe7879 never said it was ???
@@williammartin500 You compared the Darklight suit to the Y-17 Trauma Override Harness, so yes, you did. The two projects aren’t related. The Ghost people have no actual explanation. It’s probably just a case of Ghoulification, except they’re trapped within hazmat suits. But the Y-17 theory doesn’t have a shred of evidence.
@@quagmoe7879 I was theorizing was they could be, not what they are in cannon. And it's actually no too far fetched that they might have a shared purpose but went along different ways. Pure speculation
Have you seen bromine? It's an element related to chlorine that is a dark red liquid and easily vaporizes into a dark red gas - the only way safely store is in glass ampules, glass tubes that are melted at the ends to completely seal off a substance, and have to be broken open to use whatevers inside. Like chlorine its not good to be exposed to. I dont think its necessarily a component but the two seem very similar to me
Yeah, the blood-red color in high concentrations, the high levels of toxicity and corrosiveness... It reminds a lot of bromine for sure to me as well. Would be surprised if the devs didn't take at least some inspiration from it.
The Darklight hazmat suits could have something to do with the Y17 trauma harness development seen in Big MT. It could explain why the ghost people are still "alive", despite no apparent means.
Unrelated projects.
This video was so incredibly detailed I love all the science facts you brought you really did your homework on this man bravo this was amazing
Your content always gets me to go back and jump into Fallout all over again. I don't know how many times I have reinstalled a Fallout game after watching you videos. Thank you.
I left my ❤ in the Sierra Madre 😢
Begin again? Yeah, I started over real easy with all those gold bars I smuggled out in the cold stoney heart that bearded man left behind.
I think a nanobot cloud seems like a really likely candidate. Designed to attack "enemy" personnel, counteract attempts to disrupt or protect against it (attacking through suits/damaging the suit), and preserve architecture/infrastructure. The "ghost people" could be an intentional side effect to further disrupt attempts to stop the cloud, or a glitch produced by the cloud functioning for 200 years. Further, the specialized suits may have unintentionally created a new "programming" in the bots, or been designed to create the ghosts.
A ghoul who survived the worst for long enough may have enough offline nanobots in his system that the cloud struggles to recognize his presence and explain his partial resistance.
Copper being a key component in the bot construction could explain the smell, and the full cloud could include chemicals either released by the nanobots, or a side effect of their presence in the air. The "gas" could have been fresh nanobots who had not yet created/been surrounded by the other chemicals yet.
And in all of this, since nanotech is not well known outside of the prewar scientists who created it, Ejijah wouldn't likely know to look close enough to see the individual machines or may not even possess the equipment
My favorite New Vegas DLC and one of the most memorable locations in the entire Fallout franchise in my opinion. Extremely well done and with proper difficulty level.
Just found your channel on a fallout lore binge. Loving the content! Also from Utah!
What immediately popped into my head is nanites. The trope of a gray goo sounds a bit like the cloud residue (defunct nanites?), and its ability to affect things in different, potentially selective, ways is suggestive of a degree of decision-making capacity. The cloud is also self-replicating, much like nanites should be. A nanite infection might explain the Ghost People, too, as they could be essentially eating the people inside, maybe replacing their neural and nervous systems, and turning them into super soldiers (a common theme of Fallout science experiments). Permanent death only following the loss of major body parts could be explained by the nanites' inability to replicate the larger structures of the human body.
Dead Money was very interesting the first time I played through it, but I confess that I had zero desire for a replay.
I believe a distinct component of the cloud would be Chlorine. A common chemical in toxic gasses.
The main thing is the note of "rusting" which Chlroine has a habit of doing
Oh
You came to the same conclusion
As for content this was something i always questioned as lore runner someone who scouring every loaded area for alll secrets terminals and notes. But just couldnt put it together in a way i could understand it. So thanks for this video!
This was perfect, I was gearing up to start a cosplay of one of the ghost people, got all the info I need right here!
I've always thought it was nano bots. That's why it doesn't destroy everything, like it's targeting certain materials and self propagates.
I feel like the entire second experiment was What the long term effects on the human body would be. So they gave them "hazmat suits" that let the gas through and sealed then inside
I'm glad I decided to take a week to finish this DLC the last time I played it. Was fun learning everything
Love the chemistry angle you take in this. I will say though that it doesn't account for some of the weirder behavior of the gas. The fact that the evil ending says the gas "moved" from the sierra madre to the rest of the Mohave, then the republic suggests to me the cloud is intelligent or controllable in some capacity. This is backed up by the clouds being in select parts of the sierra madre (though it could just be that big MT researchers were intentional with their release of the gas). This explanation also accounts for how the gas could corrode some things but preserve others. Even if the copper and gas components protect against organic decay, they are shown to be fairly corrosive to both organic and inorganic matter, so theyd likely end up corroding everything in its path eventually, unless the cloud was somewhat intellegent or controlled or programmed to only corrode certain experiment subjects while preserving the architecture by keeping the relative concentrations of the gas cocktail at certain ratios.
I enjoyed this a lot! I was always curious as to what the cloud and cloud residue could be made of chemically. I have reasons to believe the cloud and the Sierra Madre gave inspiration for the Glowing Sea and rad storms in FO4. But the eerie factor of the Sierra Madre is just unmatchable.
Can you do a video on the technology of the big MT? I was looking for a video on it last night and couldn't find one...
sounds fun ~shed
Very good an detailed video. Thank you man
You are legitimately the only Fallout-tuber who goes into detail. The rest just go with the lore and leave it at that
"Nano machines Jack" in all seriousness it would explain why the buildings are more or less intact, and the ghost people could be workers be "protected" by the suits/nano machines.
My head Canon for the cloud is that the Cloud is just pulverized wires. That's why it's mostly composed of copper, and because it's entwined with the switching station, gives me the idea that it conducts electricity just like a wire.
(Sorry if I sounded like I was having a stroke, I just woke up 😅)
Copper is definitely a component of it, but it's not just tied to the switching station. Copper is poisonous when ingested, but not corrosive like the Cloud is, so there has to be much more going on there.
@@TheMaghorn That and the big mt released it to force the use of the auto docs meaning its more than just wires and knowing how little we do about the fev its either related to it or not. It would be more interesting if it isnt as every bioweapon being just a offshoot of the fev is boring now it is a personal theory of mine that the vending machines also make the stuff as a byproduct of its use
Your analysis of the Cloud's composition is very well thought out, quite impressive!
I just love your voice. I think out of all Fallout youtubers, you're one of the best. The tone of your voice goes great with fallout lore.
What I don’t get is why it started to do it’s thing all of a sudden maybe the “toxin” wasn’t meant to be as bad as it was if the vents and villas where built correctly and what is the mountains obsession with strange suits that “help” people the suits and harnesses
the suits/harnesses were intended for military application, as is the case with most pre war technological advancements
There are two options regarding the Cloud. Either the ventilation system was always meant to fail because of the Cloud's corrosive effects. Or the Cloud was meant to be introduced subtly under controlled circumstances.
If 2, that would mean the Hazard Suits were not built specifically for the Cloud. That would explain why the latches were made of metal that rust shut. If 1, the plan was likely to see how the gas in combination with the suits physically affects people long term. So the suits were meant to lock up, and the Ghost People were at least partially intentional.
In regards to the suits, I'm pretty sure Big MT was a military research installation. Almost every experiment they ran was either a weapon or had practical military application.
The Trauma Harness was meant to recover injured soldiers or their corpses. The Hazard Suits seemed to be specifically for counteracting toxins since it gives no radiation resistance. And lastly, the Mark II Stealth Suit was an adaptive suit that made people better at stealth.
@@zenoblues7787 I kind of forgot about the stealth suit despite me liking it alot I guess since it actually worked/didn't kill anyone while the other seemed malicious from when they where first made like how the harnesses where the ones to try and lebotomize Christine almost like they where made not help people but act as soldiers/workers who would be able to use human hands and the human body like a reverse robo brain instead of human brain robot body human body robot brain
@azeria1 It's certainly possible near the end the U.S. government had become the Encalve, and we know how little they care about human life.
I'll never let go of the Sierra Madre
I’ll never let go of my gold bars
@@Fless77 Elijah's body by the door, caps in my pocket :)
I am somewhat reminded of the preservation suits in the big empty near the large cannons and can't help but think of them being related
glad you covered this topic RadKing
Maybe the suits are made out of a biological material? Like some sort of suit made out of a bacterial/fungal/animal skin? Mix that with radiation and a almost supernatural cloud and you get a horrible mutated human mixed into the biological makeup of the suit. Maybe given the jerky movement and pressurized insides the suit is made out of something from a insect? Such as the carapace or something. The suits trapped the person inside until the rads and gas meshed man and suit together into the most horrifying creature in fallout. Other than the Gehenna which I would love to see in a 3d fallout game someday.
What if all the water that normal humans have is replaced by the gas in the ghost people so instead of being 75% water they are 75% gas
My absolute favourite DLC of any game! I remember when I first got my PC and modded it out turning this DLC experience into a nerve wracking survival horror game that I never wanted to end! Wish we got more time and answers out of the Sierra Madre, perhaps a giant sprawling tunnel system dug out for some odd reason by the ghost people and at its heart the scourge of the cloud leak? I just loved the entire vibe of dead money 😢
20:34 i dont think Elijah necessarily means preserve in the structural integrity manner, but rather its free of wasteland mutations, infestations, raiders and scavs.
14:24-14:40 epilepsy warning.
the king shall know ~shed
Ayyyy super glad to hear and see more Sierra madre content!
I think the word(s) you were looking for in reference to the “Cloud Residue” consumable was/were: accretions or accumulations.
As some Big MT magic, corrosion causes a Marked Man kind of non-feral ghoul, then the rust scaling ability applied to body decaying microorganisms "pickling" the body, but both doing nothing to stop radiation.
I almost wanna say the red cloud as a base is a bioengineered microorganism that was made to create various chemicals by eating material in the air and earth, it’s one of the few ways I can think to explain the “self reproducing”,
The copper taste could also be explained by blood since the guy says that the cloud is messing up your insides
I think it's an organic fungi since it regenerates and the corrosive aspect of it is a type of "feeding" for the cloud as for the preservation effect merely a side effect of the waste byproduct of the fungi.
My theory is that the gas is actually consistent of Bacteria or some other kind of augmented microorganisms. This would explain numerous things that are otherwise unexplainable.
This is what I was waiting for. A video that elaborates more about the cloud.
Really like the analysis here, alot explained imo. I would have to imagine there was other... Fallout unique components involved with the cloud that made it more difficult for the workers to nail down what it was specifically they were dealing with.
Perhaps new experimental drugs mixed with one or more of the standard components that either altered the composition or was able to hide within the chemical structure of the cloud, that causes the zombie-like effect that was the actual Big MT experiment in the first place.
We know from that DLC that the scientists care for results over the safety of the people involved in said experiments so it wouldn't shock me if the Sierra Madre was just another example of a place with people who were doomed from the start.
Anyways, good video indeed.
Copper was known as the "green lion" in early chemistry, because you could see it change or corrode very quickly and was therefore very potent.
Copper is a fun metal but the salts are just as reactive
The chemistry explanations at the end made me feel like I was washing NileRed, which I say as a high form of compliment. Well done sir, the speculation coupled with chemical facts was very nice!
Replaying FNV right now, and I'd bought a cheap package deal a few years back, so I had this DLC, but never played it.
The build up was great - a resort created by a megalomaniac like Howard Hughes or William Randolph Hearst. But I was a little disappointed - everything was so dark, so many ways to die, Dog/God muttering threats every few seconds. I will say that the voice acting of the guy who was setting all the traps was excellent. I gave it my best shot, but I just wasn't having a good time, so I loaded an earlier save.
I'm getting near the end of the main game, and I heard you should play through the DLCs first. So it's just The Reunion to go. Have no idea what that's all about! I was very impressed by Honest Hearts - the Apocalypse Now vibe at the end was brilliant.
Maybe the dust cloud/residue is a genetically engineered bacteria which produces the gas. That would explain how it's able to replenish itself, which can't be explained with any purely chemical explanation. And it can make lots of useful chems because it's just highly nutritious, like vegemite (which is made of yeast). The copper taste might be because the bacteria have a lot of copper based chemicals/enzymes inside them that make the gas. The bacteria is immune to their own toxic gas, but most other microbes are killed by it, explaining why stuff doesn't decay. Microbes normally are the ones to do that.
This video probably came out of it while ago and I'm not sure if anybody has commented on it yet but way back in the original Fallout game one of the catch-all explanations for how so much mutation has occurred was that one of the facilities experimenting with the FEV was hit by a direct blast and since they had been experimenting with the FEV and radiation already it was immune and the blast dispersed small portions of a primitive form into the atmosphere raining down with the ambient radiation. Like ghouls and several other common mutations the ghost people could just be a form of primitive FEV mutation that the cloud directly influenced.
My theory has always been that the Darklight suit was in the same family of technology as the Y-17 Trauma suit, some kind of extremely invasive and advanced life-support system that kept the Ghostpeople alive despite their continued exposure to the Cloud, which would only lead to further mutation over the next two centuries.
I'd say it could possibly preserve organic matter while keeping it alive in some scenarios. Maybe prolonged, constant exposure to smaller amounts, as what happened to the ghost people, keeps parts of the body running, while full exposure would just completely kill you and preserve anything, such as the skeletons you find
This is one of the DLC's I have yet to play, but now I want too.
Dead Money was my least favorite DLC when I first played through them all but over the years it really grew on me and I came to appreciate it more and more. Now it's easily one of the things I look forward to most when replaying New Vegas.
I always thought that when Elijah talked about the cloud “protecting” he meant it shielded him from the curious and killed all those who attempted to get near the Madre
the ghost people exist because the suits are automated, i'm fairly sure thenthapple goes over this, with the suits cannonincally failing to register the occupants death and therfore returning back to base. instead meandering around carrying out their basic function of assisting the wearer in whatever maintenance they had the do. the attacking being what remains of the assistance, at most the cloud preservers the body inside, explaining why some have half rotten corpses instead of the skeletons found elsewhere int he wasteland.
we get that suit and besides being a good suit for toxic enemies its just a hazmat suit now the trauma harnesses were even less developed by the time so it wouldn't fit the timetable if it had the same mechanism, but it might have an auto blood cleanser which might have explained why the ghost people mutated with radiation.