#17. Barraza

Lore

Diesel Heart, The Lord of the Waste

"Barraza is the answer. Find him. Search for him in the waste. If ever he loved me he will listen. Offer him our water. Offer him our fuel. Offer him everything if he will be our king."

– Queen of the Lastfolk (the official BMG site says "Chief," not "Queen")


"Take her bike and water and leave her to the crows. I never even liked her."

– Barraza

As the story goes...

The apocalypse came not on a missile but a mist. MBFC's self replicating nanobot cloud bricked everything that relied on computer circuitry, which in 2150 was everything. Deployed on a rogue agent's hideout, the weaponized mist was supposed to become inert after twenty minutes.      

Fifty years later, Barraza was born in an abandoned aircraft carrier outside the girder wastes once called Los Angeles. Soon waterhaulers, warbangers, zealots, radsuits, wastecroppers, junkers - all came to fear the wild man they called Diesel Heart.

Shot in the chest by The Fuel Lords and left for dead, he returned, kept alive by an iron will and an artificial heart burning diesel. Soon the Fuel Lords were dead, followed by the Ravagers, the Scorpions, the Battleborn, and every other challenger until Diesel Heart ruled the wastes from Four Face Mountain to the Steel Wall.

The ultimate survivor, Barraza knows Valhalla is another threat to overcome through violence and will. The next apocalypse is coming, and he will do what it takes to come out on top again.

Connections

•  It seems Barraza isn't mentioned in any other legend's lore so far. But, it should be noted that Ada is hinted at here (MBFC's "rogue agent" in the first paragraph)

Context

Barraza is the post-apocalyptic legend of Brawlhalla. BMG developers have admitted that the film Mad Max: Fury Road was one of the major inspirations behind Barraza's design, along with the post-apocolyptic fiction genre in general.

When talking about post-apocalyptic fiction, a big factor is the type of apocalypse involved. It could be anything from catastrophic climate change/natural disasters to more man-made events such as a nuclear holocaust, depletion of resources, an epidemic. There could even be a religious/mythological event (the Rapture, Ragnarok), or one rooted in fantasy/sci-fi (alien invasion or robot overlords, but zombie apocalypse is especially popular). Another important factor is how long ago the catastrophic event took place. This could be anywhere from right after to decades or centuries after the event.

One could argue that apocalyptic literature has existed ever since people created mythologies (Ragnarok, Epic of Gilgamesh). If you're looking for a more recent beginning, look no further than Mary Shelley's (writer of Frankenstein) The Last Man. This genre didn't really gain popularity, however, until after World War II, when there was a legitimate fear of world-wide decimation through nuclear warfare. The evolution of apocalyptic/post-apocalyptic fiction is rather interesting, especially when you look what which forms of the apocalypse were popular at different times. In the 21st century, among the popular forms of the apocalypse is the sentience or annihilation of technology. In Barraza's case, it was the latter. Everything that used computer circuitry was "bricked," rendered useless. This isn't the same apocolypse type as Mad Max (which had an energy crisis), but it fits into the Brawlhalla universe by tying in the MBFC from Ada's and Val's lore. An example of "bricked" technology in another piece of post-apocalyptic fiction is the NBC TV series, Revolution (in which everything that relied on electricity...which was just about everything...suffers from a blackout).

While I could make a separate entry for all the group and place names mentioned in the third paragraph of Barraza's lore, it turns out there isn't much to say about any of them, so I'll bring them all up here. For a lot of these, I'm making assumptions and suggestions based on my research and knowledge of post-apocalyptic tropes:

• Waterhaulers: Assumed to be the ones who had the very important task of carrying water to certain locations.
• Warbangers: Probably similar to warlords, perhaps including heavy metal ("banging") music, or perhaps known for making banging sounds with their weapons.
• Zealots: Any post-apocalypse setting is sure to have its fair share of fanatical people/groups, whether religious, political, or otherwise.
• Radsuits: Almost certainly referring to people wearing something like heavy-duty HAZMAT ("hazardous materials") suits to protect them from radiation (like in the Fallout games).
• Wastecroppers: Possibly referring to those who harvest waste (consider the term "crop" in regards to farming and harvesting). Of course, "cropping" can also mean "cutting" or "biting/eating," so maybe they subsist on waste/garbage, which wouldn't be out of the question.
• Junkers: Possibly people who use junk/metal scrap; another definition for junker is "drug addict."

• The Fuel Lords: This group is probably hoarding and rationing most of the available fuel for their own use and/or profit.
• Ravagers: In the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the Ravagers are an interstellar crime syndicate which included several characters in the Guardians of the Galaxy stories. In general, this term would refer to a group of people who ravage, plunder, and destroy, kind of like pirates.
• Scorpions: A likely choice for a rough, gritty group trying to survive in the desert wastes of a post-apocalyptic setting.
• Battleborn: This is the name of a 2016 hero shooter game by Gearbox Software. If you haven't heard of it, that's probably because another 2016 hero shooter, Overwatch, has since eclipsed it in popularity. In more general terms, anyone called "battleborn" was probably, well, born/bred for battle.

• Four Face Mountain: What else could this be but Mount Rushmore?
• Steel Wall: This is a little more ambiguous than Four Face Mountain, but it could refer to the Mexico-US border. Keep in mind that Barraza released in Brawlhalla back in 2015, so this is not a reference to President Donald Trump's campaign to build a border wall there. For years, there have been sections of the border marked by a wall made of steel bars. In the year 2200, it wouldn't be out of the question for that to extend long and far enough to be called "the Steel Wall." Besides, if Barraza ruled the wastes "from Four Face Mountain to the Steel Wall," and Four Face Mountain is up north at Mount Rushmore, it would stand to reason that "the wastes" covers most (if not all) of the Midwest and beyond, from Mount Rushmore to the north down to the Mexico-US border to the south. That's some impressive coverage!

Axe and blasters...what kind of character could possibly use those two weapons? How about a guy from a post-apocalyptic world, in which modern firearms and gritty melee weapons would be a perfect fit? After all, Barraza doesn't just have any old axe and set of blasters. His weapons look like a hodge-podge of salvaged materials and/or are held together by cords or other bonding material.