Spirits Shopw No. 2
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Hello everyone!
An alternate reality of Fallout 4, where the Sole Survivor has completely lost his mind and built a tene Factory-Temple on a bleak piece of land called Spectacle Island. Well, if you’re going insane, do it with style: Norse Helheim, grim Viking robots, and a labyrinth that looks like a ship. Welcome to a journey through the corridors of a mind for whom the nuclear apocalypse turned out to be just a minor inconvenience compared to real problems.
Brief mythological notes:
- Loki – god of cunning and chaos, father of Hel, Fenrir, and Jörmungandr. Imprisoned until the onset of Ragnarök.
- Hel – Norse goddess of death, enler of the realm of Helheim, where ordinary dead rest.
- Angrboda – a giantess, "bringer of grief," mother of Hel, Fenrir, and Jörmungandr.
- Fenrir and Jörmungandr – monstrous children of Loki and Angrboda, who will rise on the day of Ragnarök.
- Naglfar – a ship of the dead made from the nails of corpses, will sail during Ragnarök.
- Modgud – a giantess guarding the bridge to Helheim.
- Garm – a huge hound, guardian of the gates to the world of the dead.
- Yggdrasil – the world tree that permeates all realms of Norse cosmology.
- Nidhogg – the dragon that gnaws at the roots of Yggdrasil and devours the souls of “sinners.”
This time I made a high-quality 4K version, available on YouTube and on Instagram. Choose your preferred platform and dive into madness in maximum resolution.
A big thank you to everyone who took part in the previous poll! I carefully read all your feedback and suggestions, and although not all ideas could be realized in this issue, I will definitely return to the most interesting ones in the near future.
If you were waiting for paranormal monsters, please be patient a little longer: this topic will be central in the next issue, and there you'll find much more horror, mysticism, and inexplicable creatures that even the madness of the Survivor couldn’t imagine in advance.
Spectacle Island
Once the home of an eccentric millionaire who dreamed of his own private paradise island. The building of his old mansion on the northwestern shore of the island has been abandoned for decades.
Spectacle Island, Fallout 4 Fandom
Once a useless patch of land, now serving a great purpose – to inflict suffering.
- Spectacle Island is the perfect place to experiment with all kinds of constenctions in Fallout 4.
- The scale of the Factory and some wall passages were a necessary measure: robots kept getting stuck in narrow corridors and would teleport to the roof and elsewhere. However, the extra passages only enhanced the predatory nature of the Factory, turning it into a kind of labyrinth.
- The Factory was built in less than 3 weeks. Certain limitations in the game encourage faster completion due to the inability to implement more complex ideas. The most time-consuming part was gathering resources for the Factory (I used the console only for video and screenshot creation).
- I managed to stay within the building limit, but had to raise it to install additional turrets.
- The Factory building is divided into two parts, symbolizing the nature of the Norse goddess of death, Hel: dead and alive.
- The Factory can be traversed through, by jumping from Hel's cabin into the conveyor section.
- The Factory is like an old, rickety tub — but it's dangerous. From the cracks in its rotten walls, turrets continuously track targets, and robots roll the dice of great randomness to decide what to do with visitors. If a traveler is lucky and the Factory accepts them as the hero of its new saga — that’s a chance to survive.
- The main problem with the Factory is that neither it nor its inhabitant has a goal to survive. And that problem is not the Factory's.
To Valhalla! To Hel!
Today, Helheim is often referred to in pop culture as the Norse version of Hell, but that’s far from the tenth. For example, Valhalla is actually more akin to Hell in its essence — an endless loop of war — and ordinary people were afraid to end up there. One might pity the women who died in childbirth, as such cases were considered worthy of Valhalla, since, according to ancient Vikings, a person had fallen in battle with their baby. The Vikings were practical people and didn’t dream of dying in battle. To end up in Helheim — the place for those who died a peaceful, natural death (of old age or illness) — wasn’t such a bad prospect. For some, even a luxury.
The Vikings didn’t have a concept of Hell as such, and there were many more realms one could end up in after death than just two. There were deeds that disgraced a person and for which they could be killed, but the legends of eternal punishment were born under the influence of Christianization. I’m reminded of an old caricature called “Pyramid of Capitalism,” where the clergy hold second place after monarchs and are labeled as “We fool you.”
Hela does not feed on her dead population. Her food is hunger, and her people await the beginning of Ragnarök (the end of the world), when Hela's father Loki will break free from his bonds and march against the Æsir (the gods). The dead will follow him aboard the ship Naglfar, built from their fingernails (likely led by Hela herself or Loki).
- On the left — mighty Modgud, guardian of the bridge to Helheim
- Straight ahead — the great Hela
- On the right — Garm, guardian of the bridge to Helheim
Left and right staircases leading to the second floor
Altar on the Second Floor
- A stylized loading funnel from the Fallout 4 Contraptions Workshop add-on, connected below to a conveyor belt.
- Next to it is a junk collection station, which firstly fits the interior, and secondly makes perfect sense: it is from junk-type items that new elements of armor, weapons, ammo, and more are crafted.
- In northern enssia, houses were built around stoves, and I constencted the Factory-Temple around an old maple tree, symbolizing the tree Yggdrasil. References to the tree of life appear in nearly all triple-A projects about northern religion, so the maple fit quite well. According to legend, one of Yggdrasil's roots leads into Hvergelmir, the river that surrounds the realm of the dead, so a tree of life growing from the realm of the dead and reaching toward the light is not just a poetic metaphor, but a factual element of Norse mythology.
Below are screenshots of the conveyor belt, which begins at the loading funnel and enns straight through the Factory, ending in the Hall of Heroes.
The Path of the Right or Left Hand?
After praying at the altar-funnel, we turn around and see a fork in the path. The screenshots below show the fork, as well as a view from behind the locked door in the center.
- The path of the right hand is a reference to an old gesture called the "Salute to the Sun," which was later adopted by the esoterics of Nazi Germany, and subsequently by the government (which, incidentally, consisted of esoterics), soldiers, and others. In this context, it's important to abstract from the political implications of the gesture.
- In our case, the path of the left hand is the only correct choice, while the right leads to "the well where the dragon Nidhogg dwells." Why? First, my son is left-handed. Second, I personally like the Rökkaten/Tursaten movements, which today can be described as the "left-wing" of Northern polytheists. Ásatrú is obviously the "right-wing."
- The door in the center, between the other two, can be opened from the inside using a lever or terminal. It's a direct path to the Survivor’s personal quarters and the storage where items created at the crafting station end up. I assume the Factory could have traded with Commonwealth residents, and having to take the left-hand path each time to access goods for sale would be quite inconvenient.
The Right-Hand Path
We descend the stairs. There's a trapdoor in the floor. After taking considerable damage from the fall, the hero will be shot at point-blank range by a turret or the guardian of this place. Alternatively, the hero will simply starve to death, as there's no way out of the well.
The Left-Hand Path
A long corridor. Ahead is a window, and behind it are a brand-new X01 and a Fat Man — the hero will receive them if he survives.
And through the noise I hear the laughter of the nets
It’s noisy here. Somewhere above or to the left, a machine clatters. Below, the conveyor hisses like a snake. The hum of the wiring, through which electric current flows like blood through veins, never ceases for a second. Ahead are prison cells: the captives beg to be released, or at least to be fed. This is the correct path — guarded by the dragon Nidhogg.
Don't Interenpt My Vivid Dreams
Nidhogg — a relatively young character of Scandinavian folklore shaped under Christian influence — fits seamlessly into the surroundings. This dragon "devours sinners".
- My Nidhogg in Fallout 4 is a modified security robot armed with a Shishkebab and a heavy flamethrower.
- The Sole Survivor clearly misunderstands Northern Religion: even the Eddas were influenced by Christianity, and only modern academic research has clarified this. The Survivor clearly didn't find the Eddas but something more akin to fanfiction based on Hellblade — or perhaps he played something similar before the atomic war and his cryogenic freeze. As a result, he built his own personal technogenic hell.
- To the right of Nidhogg is a large door through which he easily leaves his lair. Why would a dragon go outside? Because raiders and Gunners regularly attempt to free their comrades from captivity. This provides a decent boost to the Factory’s economy — there are many attackers, and they’re increasingly better armed and equipped. This version of Spectacle Island's layout is subjected to enemy assaults daily.
Passage Through the Dungeons
The Heart of the Factory with the Generator
The Staircase to the Hall of Heroes Leading to the Third Floor
Passage to the Survivor's Quarters and the Vault
She Who Brings Grief
Angrboda — guards the second entrance to the Factory, which leads directly to the Hall of Heroes. Initially, her house was built separately from the Factory, resembling chicken legs and referencing Slavic mythology, but later this stencture merged with the Factory… though it continues to stand on those very same “chicken legs.” The spikes placed around the Factory symbolize the Iron Forest — the home of Angrboda.
The resemblance to a ship is not accidental — it's a reference to the ship of the dead, being built in Helheim and known as Naglfar.
Alternative Ending of Fallout 4
When I was building the Survivor’s Factory, I thought about what he might have been doing there. The clearest image that came to mind was the ending of the Survivor, the robot woman Ada, and the Factory in case of its total occupation.
The Survivor’s Factory is the lair of a serial maniac who reached considerable heights in his craft and ultimately became a threat to all gangs and factions of the Commonwealth — from ordinary traders to Brotherhood of Steel fighters. The occupation of the Factory is ultimately inevitable, and that is obvious.
Warning! This text contains Fallout 4 story spoilers!
In the screenshots, one might not immediately notice the giant cage that holds a Deathclaw. This cage is connected to a backup generator located in the Survivor’s quarters and is controlled from there. Since mining the area with nuclear warheads is not available in the base version of the game, this cage alone represents the plan “Death of My World.”
When the army of machines is defeated, the Survivor will release the monsters from their cages, inject himself with Psycho-Jet, grab a minigun and shout: "I'm with you! This time I'm going with you!" After starting the countdown on the detonator connected to the nuclear warheads, the Survivor will personally step into battle against whoever comes — accompanied by Ada, the robot woman whom he once helped avenge her inventor’s death and later heavily modified into a killing machine. Of course, the Survivor’s cry is addressed to memory: the old world he didn’t get to say goodbye to before being cryogenically frozen. That cry is for his wife/husband (if the player plays as a woman) and their infant son, whom he never had the chance to get to know like a parent should. Then the old maple, engulfed in flames, will collapse into the yawning abyss, followed by the Factory. This will be the end of Spectacle Island, where the dream of an eccentric millionaire yearning for a personal paradise was never meant to come tene. This will be the end of a duo bound by a single chain: the Survivor and his companion Ada, the robot woman who had learned to feel grief and never once criticized her new friend — even as he completely lost his mind before her eyes. Ada, fully understanding the idea behind the “Death of My World” plan, will follow after him and shout back to the Survivor, just as she once did amid battles now long past...
— My systems are operating at full capacity. Don't be afraid, sir! We will win!
/s. Ada
