Grounded Commonwealth mod for Fallout 4

What Does The Mod Do?

It overhauls hundreds of NPCs, quests and the game's writing and dialogue so that the experience now aligns more with what you would expect from a caricatured America that never moved on from its 1950s Atomic Age culture. No more sassy girl boss raiders, modern demographics, modern political posturing or modern writing tropes.

Dozens of main characters have been reworked and revoiced, and the dialogue of several quests has been adjusted along with several scenes being changed. This project was massive, and it took almost a year to complete.

Example of such a change (Warning: Harsh Language):

Obviously the behavior displayed is not in any way endorsed or condoned and is meant to depict an objective moral evil. This shouldn't need to be said, but that's where we are.

Notable changes include but are not limited to (skip to avoid spoilers):

The Minutemen
Preston Garvey is now a red head with a Boston accent, Ronnie Shaw is a man, and most of the Minutemen are… well, men. Female settlers will still engage in combat when a settlement is attacked, but you won’t find uniformed “Minutewomen” patrolling the Commonwealth.

The Brotherhood of Steel
Proctor Ingram, Scribe Haylen, Knight Lucia and Knight Astlin were reworked and revoiced as men. (Lucia is now Lucas, and Tara Astlin is now Troy Astlin) Captain Kells, Sgt Gavil and Scribe Neriah were reworked as White. (Kells was revoiced) Aside from Neriah all Initiates, Scribes, Knights, Paladins and even Squires are male. (The Prydwen is an expeditionary military force, not a colony.) The quest “Blind Betrayal” was renamed “A Friendly Face” and now behaves as if Danse was human, but was killed and replaced with a Synth by the Institute in order to infiltrate the Brotherhood. The basic outline remains the same, but much of the dialogue has been reworked.

The Institute
Newton Oberly, Max Loken, and Justin Ayo were reworked and revoiced as White. Madison Li is now White and her surname is spelled “Lee.” X6-88, Enrico Thompson and “Eve” were redesigned as White.

The Railroad
Glory, Doc Carrington, Tinker Tom and High Rise were all reworked and revoiced as White. I replaced a substantial amount of the female field agents and Heavies with Gen 2 Synths; The faction is a fringe intelligence network and not a standing army, so it made sense to have some female agents, however, it also made sense that the pro-Synth faction would retain and deploy previous iterations of Synths.

The Gunners and Raiders
All generic and named raiders and gunners are now men. Tessa was reworked as a man named Terry, so the Leveled-Item “Tessa’s Fist” was renamed to “Terry’s Fist.”

The Drumlin Diner and The Quest “Order Up”
Trudy and Simone were redesigned as Thomas and Puck. Ultimately Trudy’s dialogue seemed more appropriate for a man, and the idea that Wolfgang’s muscle would be a petite woman was silly.

Goodneighbor
KL-E-O is no longer a “fully independent small business owner" with obnoxious misandrist undertones. KL-E-O now goes by the name Rhombus and has a masculine body and voice. All assaultrons share his voice and body type with the exception of P.A.M. who retains her unique voice and body type. Fahrenheit, Hancock’s bodyguard, was redesigned as a man. The Quest “The Silver Shroud” was reworked so that Kendra and Smiling Kate are now Ken and Smiling Sam.

Parsons State Insane Asylum
Maria, the Gunner captain, who is in charge of the men outside the location, was reworked and revoiced as a man named “Micky.” The Raider Boss inside the location is also a man now.

Companions
Cait was redesigned as a man named Brandon with an American accent, and the romance option was removed, due to it not fitting his character. Male romance options were removed for Preston and MacCready. MacCready’s companion dialogue has been reworked slightly to reflect this. I did what I could to remove the constant undertone of budding intimacy. Paladin Danse can no longer be romanced, (this is due to changes made to Blind Betrayal) and much of his affinity dialogue was altered to reflect the Haylen sex change.

Diamond City
The Bobrov brothers, Vadim and Yefim, were redesigned as Calvin and Teddy Copeland and were revoiced with American accents. Arturo Rodriguez was redesigned as Georgie O’Gill. Malcolm and Nelson Latimer along with Eustace and her son Hawthorne were reworked and revoiced as White. Professor Scara was reworked as a male. Doctor Sun was redesigned and revoiced as Doctor Price. Pastor Clements was reworked and revoiced as White, and the “All-Faiths Chapel” is now “Christ’s Chapel.” One of the two city guards was revoiced as White. Myrna was reworked as White. Mister Zwicky can no longer marry his robot assistant, Miss Edna, (A serious church wouldn’t allow this) and the Lone Survivor’s interactions with her have been altered. Sheng Kawolski was renamed to Shay Kawolski.

Bunker Hill
Mayor Kessler is now a man. Doctor Kay was reworked as man, so that he and Deb are no longer a lesbian couple with a daughter. Deb’s looks were redesigned, and she was given a pretty dress rather than a mechanic’s outfit. Replaced the two female Caravan Workers with males who have new voices. Most Caravan guards in general should be male now.

Vault 81
The Overseer Gwen is now Glen. Horatio is Hollie. Holt Combes is now of Italian descent. Doctor Forsythe (revoiced) and Katy were redesigned as White. The residents no longer discuss “anti-Commonwealth” attitudes and there’s no awkward subtext that views the situation as an analogue for modern immigration debates. There’s still concern and hesitancy, but there isn’t a modern political undertone. All the guards are now men. (A new voice type was created for this.)

Concord and Sanctuary Hills
Jun and Marcy Long are now “John” and Marcy Long. The characters were swapped in the Creation Kit; Jun’s entry became the new Marcy, and Marcy’s became the new John. This was done because Marcy behaved in a more masculine way than Jun. John (old Marcy) is no longer absurdly hostile and ungrateful to the Lone Survivor. Marcy (old Jun) is now a mother distraught over the loss of her son. She is the emotional wreck now instead the old Jun. The lesbian couple was removed from prewar Sanctuary Hills, and new voice lines were added for the husband.

Random Commonwealth NPCs
Trashcan Carla is now Trashcan Carl. The merchants Cricket and Stash, as well as their hired muscle, are now men. Ness, the woman who gives you the miscellaneous quest for Skylanes Flight 1981, is now a man. Mac, the traveling bartender is now White. Preston Garvey’s “impersonator” was reworked to fall in line with the new Preston design.

The Mechanist
The Mechanist, i.e. Isabel Cruz, is now Ian Caldwell.

Far Harbor
The Japanese Nakano family, Kenji, Rei and their daughter Kasumi, were redesigned as the Newton family, Clark, Robyn and Kelly. Dejen (renamed Devin), Brother Kane, Zealot Ware, and Teddy Wright were reworked and revoiced as White. The Mariner and Captain Avery are now men, and a good portion of their dialogue has been reworked. Neither are as openly hostile toward Allen Lee whose caricatured Trump-like rhetoric has been toned down. Allen Lee is still weary of outsiders, and The Mariner and Avery are still willing to give the Children of Atom the benefit of the doubt, but a lot of the modern political subtext has been removed. Old Longfellow’s face was redesigned to look more like the concept art, and his original hat that was cut from the game was re-enabled.

Nuka World
Nisha and Dixie are now Negan and Daryl. Lizzie Wyath is now Larry Wyath. With the exception of Mags Black who rules the Operators with her brother William, all the raiders are men. (Several new voice types were created.) Keith Dawkins was redesigned as a woman named Carina, and Lauren Plummer was reworked to be more of an actual slave instead of a sassy grandma whom the Raiders “fear and respect.” Fritsch is no longer a generic shady Mexican. Gage’s and Shank’s faces were reworked to be less racially ambiguous. Colter was revoiced with an American accent. Commander Kaylor, Sgt Lanier and Sgt Marcks of the Gunners were redesigned as men. The Dunmore family was redesigned as White. Cito was reworked to get away from the Jason Momoa aesthetic.

The mod requires the base game of Fallout 4 and all of its main DLCs (including the workshop DLC featuring the vault). Nothing else is required for it to function.

Simply download the main file and install with either Mod Organizer 2 or Vortex by pressing the corresponding button to install a mod from an archive and then select the archive file downloaded from here.

It can also be installed manually by placing the contents of the archive (not the archive itself) into the game's "Data" folder which is located where the Fallout 4 executable (Fallout4.exe) is.

For information on how to use the patcher to automatically solve conflicts, refer to the Compatibility section below.

All fixes from the Unofficial Fallout 4 Patch and FATE were forwarded to this mod.

Without the Patcher: By default, anything that changes NPCs directly will not be compatible or will cause issues and should be loaded before Grounded Commonwealth to ensure proper function.

Texture and mesh replacements, weather and lighting overhauls, weapon and armor mods and so on should all work just fine.

A few cell edits were also necessary: All-Faiths Chapel, Prydwen Main Deck , Cappy’s Cafe, Dugout Inn, Museum of Freedom, Arturo’s House, Doctor Price’s House, Listen Post Bravo, Hancock’s Strongroom, Sheng Kawolski's House. Anything that changes these cells will conflict (although likely only in changing their names back to what the old one was if loaded after this mod.

To use the patcher you will need to download Synthesis according to the guide and simply follow its usage instructions. Every question you could possibly have is answered there.

From then on simply double click the .synth file (as shown in the instructions) that you download from here under the files section and you can simply click run. The rest is handled automatically. If you have any issues while running the patcher try setting the patcher's versioning to Match.

If not using the patcher, Grounded Commonwealth should still load after those two mods, but also after any mods that change NPCs.

If you are running mods that add more raider faces or NPCs, they might reintroduce female raiders, gunners, minutemen, etc. An option might be added to the patcher at a later date to address this.

This project required me to do an incredible amount of work and spend quite a bit of money. I had to purchase recording equipment for actors and purchase various software licenses. Donations would be greatly appreciated. Sharing it around and leaving a review also helps a lot.

Fallout takes place in an alternative timeline that diverges in 1945. The universe is based on a tongue-in-cheek caricature of a hyper-capitalist, anti-communist White America that never moved on culturally or politically. This was a traditionalist period when modern progressive values of diversity and inclusion were not embraced. Fallout’s America would look and behave very differently from ours.

I am aware that lore-wise there might have been mass-immigration from around the world, but the rationale behind it is anything but convincing considering the subject material, thus the mod. It's not meant to be "lore-accurate" as that's exactly what I've taken issue with in suspending disbelief.

1. There would not have been a 1964 Civil Rights Act in Fallout, and segregation would’ve continued. Note here that in our timeline Boston public schools had to be forcefully desegregated with the infamous busing programs in the mid 1970s, and that White residents were not happy about it. Curiously, the Fallout series actually uses various analogues and proxies to discuss segregation. The most obvious one is Ghouls. Elements of the topic can be seen in Fallout 1’s Necropolis and Fallout 3’s The Underworld and the Tenpenny Tower quest line. New Vegas’ quest “Come Fly With Me” has the player help a band of Ghouls fly away in rocket ships to escape prejudice. Even Fallout 4 broaches the topic with Diamond City’s exile of Ghouls, and the Ghoul settlement “The Slog” which was formed in response. Fallout 4 also repeatedly treats Synths as proxies for African Americans during Slavery. This is where the Railroad faction gets their name, from the real-life Underground Railroad during slavery.

2. There would not have been a 1965 Hart Celler Act that allowed for demographic change. America was around 90% White during the 1940s, and this likely would not have changed in the Fallout universe. Most non-White Americans were Blacks who lived in the South. Very few of them lived in New England. Boston proper had a very small population of them, but most people in the city would’ve died following a societal collapse. If any African Americans survived and were somehow accepted into a White community outside the city, there simply wouldn’t have been enough of them to maintain a genetic phenotype in the region after 200 years. Consider the graphs below and how the demographics of Boston in 1945 would’ve continued in Fallout’s timeline up to 2077. This ties into the general issue of Fallout 4 having tons of very distinct ethnicities in relatively confined spaces after 200 plus years of supposed intermixing. People like Doctor Forsythe, Arturo Rodriguez or the Bobrovs simply wouldn’t exist as distinct ethnicities.

3. There would not have been a second-wave feminist movement, much less a third and a fourth. The 1950s were a time of traditional sexual norms. Even if there was a feminist movement, sexual equality is a luxury belief system that can’t survive a post industrial collapse. After the bombs fell, most women would not have opted to become raiders or engage in active combat roles. Those who did likely would not have had children and whatever abilities or predispositions that allowed for this behavior would’ve been rapidly selected against.

4. International travel would’ve ceased after the Great War in 2077. No one would be speaking with foreign accents in Boston 200 years later. Thus characters like the Bobrov brothers are wildly out of place. Traversing the Atlantic ocean after an industrial collapse wouldn’t be impossible, but it would be exceedingly unlikely. Moreover, there isn’t even an attempt to explain how or why they came to Boston. The Fallout ambiance is one of relative geographic isolation, because travel is difficult and dangerous.

It’s true that Fallout has several fantastical premises, for example, that radiation can turn animals into giant mutated monsters. But consider Skyrim. Dragons and wizards are quite fantastical premises, but that doesn't mean cars and firearms thematically fit. The magic has a feasible in-universe explanation and a set of rules that define its boundaries, otherwise everything would feel incoherent and meaningless.

Fallout is based on a particular set of fantastical notions of the 1950s Atomic Age. People during this period had specific ideas about about society, politics, and the future. Fallout is basically 1950s retrofuturism, or what people in the 1950s imagined the future would be like. Things like diversity, inclusion, and feminism are simply out of place.

It will not be everyone's cup of tea and it clearly wasn't meant to be. If you don't want to try it in fear of inflammatory or disparaging content then be reassured it doesn't contain any such things, nor does it contain any express political references.

Part of the aim of the project was to remove these things and keep the narrative and political expression of the game self-contained without distinct real-world references or stand-ins for different racial or ethnic groups and also to highlight how much more enjoyable even something that is considered "mediocre writing" can be when it's not plagued with the baggage of ham-fisted political signaling and modern writing tropes that people in general are starting to be fed up with.

I hope you enjoy the mod and have fun!