Enteries with their own page
- Fallout 2
- Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel
- Fallout 3
- Fallout: New Vegas
- Fallout 4
- Fallout Shelter
- Fallout 76
- Fallout (2024)
In General
- Actually, alot of other video games follow the same template, So, I doubt it's meant to be criticism of the Iraq war because you see the same story in the Elder Scrolls (Daggerfall, Skyrim) and older Fallout games (Fo 3, Fo 1). It's a very common plot structure used by various different medium.
- And the real-life equivalent to the techno-genius/Humanoid Abomination ruling from the shadows is... ?
- Well, he wants control of the region for his own reasons with complete independence from both sides, so I'd say a face (monitor?) to put to the people or, more likely, the local government that's been repressed by the ongoing conflicts trying to remove both forces from the territory so they can regain control and maintain a level of stability.
- I'm inclined to say Israel, for the sheer anti-Semitic outrageousness of this if it were true. Heh heh.
- Also because of how fitting it is, and how anti-semitic reality tends to be.
- The whole argument falls apart because if the Legion is Al Qaeda it would have to be based on the Afghanistan campaign, not Iraq.
- Possibly had a longer-lasting impact, yes, but the problem is that of the two current political parties, the last time a party has been in control of the white house for more than 12 years was with FDR and Harry Truman - there's also the fact that McCarthy was a friend of the Kennedy family. While it's possible that McCarthy could've ruined LBJ's career, it's very likely that Kennedy would've still been elected.
The Pipboy the players use in Fallout 1, 2, and brotherhood of steel are Pip-Boy 2000 Plus models(modified in the case of Bo S's Initiate) and the Pipboy 3000 are all wrist mounted, and yet the players cannot remove them. That is because the Pipboys are bonded to their hands to administer controlled mutations in the form of Perks into their users to help them adapt and survive the post-apocalyptic world. However the only way it can administer this changes to their user, the user must collect data in the form of experience and train themselves(through skill development) to prepare their bodies to received the tailored mutation. People without Pipboys who develop the same Perks are people who have mutated on their own through the airborne FEV released into the atmosphere from The West Tek Research Facility and the radiation that is pretty much unavoidable.
- In New Vegas Doc mitchell removes his Pipboy, but then he IS a doctor. Pip boys run on a nuclear battery, and old world tech is seen to reform matter in the Sierra Madre vending machines. Nanomachines or the like aren't out of the question, since you can get stat boosting implants.
- Of course, if that is true, and all Perks are controlled mutations delivered by the Pipboy, then The cannibal perk must've been intentional.
- How else would your body spontaneously generate cybernetic upgrades (the "Cyborg" and "Adamantium Sketeton" perks) if not nanomachines, anyways?
- Schools of the New World must be very lax considering that you can change the outcome of historical events, have sex, take drugs,steal and kill practically everyone in what is basically their equivalent of the Oregon Trail game.
- so Steiner Schools then?
- What if it was a reprogrammed version of what was essentially VR Grand Theft Auto?
- Or its used to show how history can change.
- Taking this one step further, perhaps this is how important political decisions are made in the far future. Everyone is immersed in the situation (to get the "boots on the ground" perspective) and then their collective actions are tallied and a course of action decided on.
- These are very superficial interpretations of the plots.
- Fallout 1: The water chip is your first objective, but its optional and much less important than the Super Mutant plot line.note
- Fallout 2: The GECK was your objective and you were trying to get it before the Enclave. "Poisoning the water" is also flat out wrong. They were trying to distribute an airborne version of the forced evolutionary virus, not a water borne version.
- Fallout New Vegas: Water was definitely not the only factor for the NCR defending the dam. It was a defensible location that provided huge quantities of power. Water, if anything, was probably a minor concern due to the difficulty for caravans traveling from California to New Vegas, while power can be sent through power lines. The water caravans were already a powerful group in California before the events of Fallout 1.
- Jossed. Actually, we have no idea, but it does take place in Boston.
- Possibly confirmed, a bomb is said to have dropped into one of Boston's lakes and turned it into a 'Glowing Sea' and a released game background track is titled 'The Last Mariner'.
- Jossed. But for real this time. Fallout 4's main storyline has very little to do with water, with water pumps and purifiers being a staple of every settlement.
- They believed Heisenberg's (incorrect) estimate of critical mass of U-235 being in the order of tons, rather than ~50 kg; thus making it safer for commodity use.
- That works because I, the guy that originally made the WMG, would hate to believe they'd run around with something that liable to cause a dangerous explosion if they weren't assured it was safe. Of course, the fifties people were Too Dumb to Live, so who knows?
- Or perhaps Heisenberg was right in the alternate reality?
- Originally, people in the Fallout universe weren't running around with fission reactors in their cars, nor were atomic technology — well, fission, at least — all that widespread (for instance, the car that could be found ran on electricity supplies by energy cells or microfusion cells, and was not implied or suggested to be special in that. Another example would be the Master, a highly intelligent if also insane character, regarding nuclear weapons with great fear): it came in with Fallout 3. But there is something of an in-universe explanation/handwave for people being willing to drive around with things that go boom and spread radiation if things go wrong: desperation in the wake of the oil crisis. With petrol becoming increasingly inaffordable, the car-heavy lifestyle of the Americans would become impossible to maintain for any but the richest (and towards the end, not even them)... unless cars using something else than petrol as fuel began to made. Since the microfusion cells were only made a fair bit into the oil crisis, the main alternative, given the established technologies of the pre-Great War world, would be... atomic power. They were likely being phased out of use by 2077, with the West Coast being ahead on that (it would explain why less New Vegas cars go mushroomy when shot, and why the Highwayman was not remarked on as special), but then the Great War intervened, and the cars that had been adopted out of desperation to maintain the lifestyle to which Americans had become accustomed were left to rust in the wreckage of the old world.
- Atomic energy actually isn't that widespread in anywhere, except Fallout 3. In the earlier games, anything atomic based was extremely remarkable and usually dangerous, such as Gecko's power plant. Fallout 3 made everything nuclear powered to get around explaining where all the abundant supplies of energy were coming from. People that played Fallout 3 first, then were under the mistaken impression that the technology in the older games were identical to Fallout 3, even though other sources of energy were far more common.
- Yeah I'm one of [1] those people.
- Jossed by the intro to Fallout 4 which specifically mentions the bomb being dropped on Japan.
- According to a framed picture in New Vegas, James and Catherine may have been from Vault 21.
- Fallout = "War never changes."
- Metal Gear Solid 4 Guns Of The Patriot = "War has changed."
- Giant bipedal robot and stealth suit are the constant?
- One other constant: The Guards Must Be Crazy.
- Didn't Cromwell's speech imply that the Big Bang was the Great Division? If so, it'd be a massive coincidence.
- The divine events would have been, in order: Big Bang, Hiroshima/Nagasaki, THE ENTIRE EARTH.
- Alternatively, the Brotherhood are still working for the Enclave, but they're helping themselves to their technology in the process. They hired the Chosen One since the Enclave would know if the Brotherhood of Steel stole their blueprints to copy. Chances are they also stole some of the FEV vaccine for their soldiers to ensure they could survive.
- The Brotherhood of Steel was formed when a group of soldiers discovered the horrible experiments at Mariposa and announced their secession from the US, just before the bombs fell. The Brotherhood told the Enclave where to stick it before they even existed.
- Seems very far fetched. The Enclave are very vocally behind the position that all mutants should be killed and their definition of "mutant" is anyone not a pure-blooded Enclave member. The Brotherhood of Steel originated from a splinter group of the military that literally stood against everything the Enclave stood for despite not actually knowing the Enclave existed.
- Some of the abandoned vaults in the Capital Wasteland have cash registers. They also had Jet canisters inside locked rooms.
- There was cash in Soviet Russia, too...
- This is an interesting possibility, but it is negated by the fact that we already know the purpose of the Vault program. We also know that Vault-Tec was subverted - not by the Communists, but by the United States government, which effectively nationalized the company long before the Great War. The Vault Program was actually a massive psychological experiment designed to test the viability of long-term space travel and colonization, which was the Enclave's original plan for surviving the apocalypse.
- Even so, it's still hard to put down the Communist theory when, after getting onto an old computer in Vault 92, you can look up that there's a new food that can be purchased for ten "work credits." Hmmm...
- In a community where there's only a few hundred people locked into 1,000 square meters it's perfectly normal for some form of regime involving austerity and strict order to exist. Think about it, free commerce and that level of isolation are mutually exclusive. For the same reason having money when there's nothing to buy with it besides food which is already strictly portioned and clothes which are freely available from the clothes extruders is completely pointless. In that respect having the option to work harder to get work credits and get the new type of food is a step towards democracy, since the main point of Communism is that everyone is equal gets equal stuff and everyone who is different acts different or even the possession of something unique, like jewelry or a freaking violin (see China and the Red Army) makes you an enemy of the State worthy of a death sentence.
- Considering how one of the Vault members in the first game is granddaughter of Soviet ambassador in US, I think US and USSR were working together on them.
- One counter-point to the OP would be that not all Overseers were possessed of absolute power, it depended on the purpose of the Vault in question (most of them were, but not all them).
The Enclave is the only faction in Fallout that realizes that the world of Fallout is a Crapsack World that has to be wiped clean if humanity actually wants to survive and thrive. But their plans are consistently thwarted, and by who? Vault Dwellers, sons/daughters of Vault Dwellers, and people who were Vault Dwellers for 95% of their life. Pure (or significantly pure) humans, with initiative and drive to change the world. By "saving" the world from the Enclave, the Player Characters doom humanity.
- Vault Dwellers are actually pure specimens, but I digress; the Enclave are certainly nice guys underneath all the genocide and DNAism. To be fair, there have been attempts to genuinely improve the standard of living; the New Californian Republic is an entire nation devoted to bringing back the United States under a different name, where they actually produce and are trying to turn the tide on humanity vs. radioactive nature.
- Yeah, the Brotherhood aren't' improving technology, but aren't they at least manufacturing new materials and equipment?
- If the Wild Mass Guesser had really played the first two Fallouts, he would have realized that not only have people on the west coast been growing their own crops and raising their own livestock for a long time, but that by Fallout 2, a veritable section of California has cleaned up nicely as NCR and brought order to the wastes without resorting to the Enclave's genocidal methods. Besides, even if you sympathize with the Enclave's goals, the fact that they've consistently been beaten despite having the best technology, arsenal, manufacturing, and at one point, the remaining source of oil in the entire world, proves that they are an utterly stupid and incompetent bunch unfit for deciding how the world should be run.
- Also, as shown by Broken Hills and Jacobstown, among others West Coast super mutants aren't inherently hostile, and can, in fact, become productive members of society. Admittedly, the point about them being sterile still applies. Even the Capital Wasteland Super Mutants aren't all inherently hostile, as Fawkes and Uncle Leo shows.
- I would like to mention to the above-the-above commenter that the Brotherhood cannot manufacture anything, they can only maintain equipment.
- You know, except for all the stuff they manufacture, like basic weapons and armor, ammunition, medical supplies, and various other things. If they were doing nothing but maintaining old gear without making any new stuff they would have died out before too long.
- The Brotherhood's goal is not to improve tech, its goal is to acquire and preserve technology and knowledge so that once society is stabilized, it can be properly studied, utilized, and improved. In a post-apocalyptic society, that's pretty damned useful and important.
- The Draco in Leather Pants view of the Enclave neglects that the Enclave pre-dated the nuclear bombing and helped instigate it. Their goal was to instigate a nuclear war to wipe out all of their opponents, who they assumed hadn't spent a good decade beforehand preparing.
- Are you seriously trying to claim that murdering people just on the basis of being genetically "impure" is a good thing?
- That would explain that green tint that was everywhere in Fallout 3. It's The Matrix!
- This actually makes sense if you read The Manual of Fallout 1. It takes screenshots and uses them as "a simulation". Even referring to different buttons.
- Read the Xbox Live store description of the game. It says exactly what you describe.
- This also explains why the protagonist always has rotten luck. The government is just fucking with him/her.
- That makes Tranquility Lane a simulation inside a simulation.
- You know how at the end of Operation Anchorage you have a chance to persuade General Jinwei to abandon Anchorage? Isn't it odd that Jinwei is speaking Chinese, yet you understand him? You know where else this phenomenon occurs? When a player is playing a foreign translated copy of Fallout 3. The subtitles are translated, but the voice acting isn't.
- Russian fully translated version would gently tap your shoulder and smile while you'll realize you're wrong.
- To be fair, the farming companies who create it originally simply tried to get cover the whole thing up and hide the narcotic(By feeding it to their livestock).
- THOSE BASTARDS! But, wait. Fallout is in a separate time perio — OH MY GOD! Of course! The Doctor screwed up, and is trying to find out where the timeline split! That's why you find his TARDIS in the desert, that was his first search!
- Holy crap, that's brilliant! Fanfic. Write it. NOW.
- Or, they saw a planet where the humans were developing nukes, robots, and space travel, felt threatened, and blew up the Earth to keep humans from taking their aggression out into space. Just like The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951), but with explosions.
- It is implied, at a few points, that China sent the first nukes (backed up by the Shi Emperor's logs and Rickardson's comments). Still, that doesn't mean the aliens weren't involved, and there still is room for America to have sent the first nukes.
- Richardson only mentions the Reds and the communists. It is possible that Russia and China launched.
- Of course, in order for this to be true, something must have happened to Zefram Cochrane, whose invention of the warp drive came a decade before Fallout's Great War. Perhaps he was unable to complete his work due to the components he needed not being invented. Or perhaps he was killed in the Resource Wars. As an alternate theory he lived an entirely different life- perhaps he's still alive, as a ghoul or something.
- Mothership Zeta revealed that the CEO Vault-Tec was horribly tortured to death by the aliens do you want that to happen to Vault Boy?
- Considering that, if this is true, the real Vault Boy would have to be complicit in the unethical social experiments that went on in the Vaults... why not?
- Actually, It was the Vice President of Vault-Tec Commercial Operations.
- Since the only way into the vault is through the underground caverns, the kids would've defended the entrance, and the enclave would end up having no choice but to cut them down.
- Beyond Gameplay and Story Segregation, why are the kids still there when you finish the mission? I just figured that they had something to negate the radiation on the surface entrance.
- Maybe the kids hid / ran away when they noticed a bunch of evil guys in power armor coming in.
- Alternatively, they went through Murder Pass to get to the Vault. They probably would have more then enough firepower to deal with the Super Mutants that are lurking around there.
- Col. Autumn had the Magic Plot Device Serum that let him survive that earlier radiation attack. What's not to say he had more of it and just used the front door?
- The fact that the door is broken shut. And is still broken shut after you return to it. The only possible way he could have gotten through would be Murder Pass. And I actually kinda wish they had the kids disappear after that event, because it would make a damn fine dark moment.
- If we assume that the changes made to Powered Armor in Fallout 4 represent what it was always supposed to be capable of and just couldn't do with older games, I'd say it'd be quite easy to march up and fix the door.
- While I agree that it would have made a fine dark moment, it would have been out of character for Autumn to pull that off. I believe that he told McCready that either they let the Enclave in, or the Enclave will do so by force. Since it's known that Autumn wants to rule the wasteland to build something new, having a lot of kids killed is just not a good idea.
- The fact that the door is broken shut. And is still broken shut after you return to it. The only possible way he could have gotten through would be Murder Pass. And I actually kinda wish they had the kids disappear after that event, because it would make a damn fine dark moment.
- Last we heard of him, he was wandering the Wasteland, old and cynical, but still badass. Due to the doses of radiation he received at The Glow, he's survived through the whole series, watching over events in the Wastes as a silent protector, acting only when something truly terrible, like The Master, arises.
- He actually did show up in Brotherhood of Steel. There actually was a threat like the Master arising, and the Vault Dweller showed up and helped out the main characters. Of course, the game is non-canon.
- The Vault Dweller wanders the wasteland, only appearing when needed? You mean he's the dude with the revolver in the Mystery Man perk?!
- The Mysterious Stranger was already around in Fallout 1.
- Maybe the Vault Dweller is a Time Lord, and the Mystery Stranger is just one of his future reincarnation.
- That Explains the Whale why the Guardian of Forever is there the crashed shuttle Craft and heck why the doctor was there he was checking on the Guardian and besides Magrathea is a wasteland on the surface
- Or maybe the authors just read Hitchiker's Guide and are fans. In Fallout 2 especially they were specifically looking for puns to pull after the more serious Fallout 1. Like "You should have used the amputated toe on Horrigan's corpse" by Random New Reno Prostitute is a reference to old style point and click adventures like King's Quest where you get a counter of how many interactions you've figured out through the game. Like if you did use the toe on Horrigan you'd get max points.
- While Tactics isn't completely canon, Fallout 3 confirmed that there is a contingent of the Brotherhood operating out of the Midwest that's completely ignoring Lost Hills. If the war with NCR is canon, then it wouldn't be altogether inconceivable that members of the West Coast Brotherhood, demoralized after a rather pointless and unsuccessful war, would try to head to the Midwest or the East Coast, where the Brotherhood wields considerably more influence than it does near its own HQ.
- As of New Vegas the war with the NCR is cannon and the brotherhood were pretty much wiped out
- As of Fallout 4, the Eastern Brotherhood's controversial "good fight" policies were reversed by a new jingoistic Elder who is much closer to the Western Brotherhood ideals (not an isolationist, but every bit as much a condescending imperialist). That elder is also the last descendant of the Maxon family that has the dynastic right to rule the Brotherhood, which means that Eastern Brotherhood is now the main chapter and decides on the overall policies of the Brotherhood.
- I knew I wasn't the only one who had this idea. The western feel, mixed with the high-technology, it all makes sense.
- Plus, look at the Alliance's flag (best seen in The Train Job). It's the Chinese flag on top of the American flag. Most importantly, look at the crazy experiments of the Enclave (like, say, the Vaults) and then look at what the Alliance as been up to.
- There is the minor issue that punga fruit is implied to be an hallucinogen...
- Punga seeds, specifically trying to take them from the mother Punga causes hallucinogenic effects, not the fruit itself.
- 1: Melancholy — Seen as a deep sadness, as the AI is depressed that it is not human.
- 2: Anger — The AI becomes enraged because it is not human.
- 3: Jealousy — The AI becomes jealous of humanity.
- 4: Meta-stability — The AI gets over not being human. This is the "Holy Grail" of A.I.s.
- I think that Eden's AI started out as a normal AI, but you just made it go "rampant" for all of five minutes by talking it to death. It goes into the melancholic state (or may skip over into anger because you outwitted it, or maybe even into jealousy) and commits suicide by way of destroying Raven Rock.
- ...Except that you can clearly see the remains of your character in a slide are nothing more than a pile of goo.
- Um, no, s/he's not a ghoul. Broken Steel's Wordof God basically says that an "Energy Spike" of the non-radioactive kind caused Lyons and the Wanderer to be knocked out.
- Broken Steel retcons the original ending, though. The radiation was lethal before, like the zone near the entrance to Vault 87 (which would kill the Wanderer regardless of his radiation resistance).
- I don't think it was so much as a pile of goo as not knowing how your character looked. Also, radiation cannot and will not turn you into a pile of goo.
- Then how do you explain the Plasma rifle?
- ...Plasma?
- I can list a number of other things radiation can't do. Guess how many appear in Fallout!
- I don't know, you tell me, I never stuck around a radiated place long enough.
- As far as I know, the Plasma Rifle doesn't really have anything to do with radiation, just being really, really hot.
- Hot as in Rule of Cool, that is.
- He DID scream like a Feral Ghoul when he fell over...
- Seems like good sound reasoning to me.
- ...Except that if you ask him, Autumn will claim that the plans for the FEV were scrapped "months ago", no matter how much time has progressed in the game. This suggests that he was opposed to said plan long before he himself was in any personal danger.
- That's been Jossed since Fallout 1. The Brotherhood are in fact what's left of the American Army, or at least a band of deserters. Even aside from the official story, you can get the warts and all diary of Maxon, the founder of the group, in the military base, with a couple of incidents that definitely wouldn't be in a piece of after the fact propaganda.
- Also, the reason no Chinese soldier would have Power Armor is that as of the war they hadn't developed that technology. They did have a powered combat suit that diverged in technology more toward stealth-based missions, and it's featured in a recent DLC.
- Plus there was a reason why they lunch the nukes, the US was kicking China's ass because they didn't have power armor
- It's worth mentioning that a fair portion as to why power armor would not have been available to the Chinese had much to do with interest in the U.S. projects. Consider the public "acknowledgment" of a massive project that was guaranteed to wipe out them darn commies probably garnered more attention from the Chinese than their backup development in Power Armor technology. Keep in mind that the curve ball the Chinese was waiting for during Anchorage was Liberty Prime, not the immediate deployment of T-45d power armor suits. In the face of retreat after the death of their general (not to mention the nearly unstoppable U.S. advance), would any have had the foresight to loot the dead for power armor? And that crap isn't easy to carry unless you're already wearing one.
- Perhaps the biggest flaw in this theory has much to do with the Enclave. With a still-existing nuclear arsenal and an orbital nuclear platform, not to mention eyes and ears everywhere, it wouldn't have been out of their power to hunt down the Brotherhood of Steel if they'd considered them a reasonable threat, whether by foot or with nukes (and with predefined headquarters, that would have made it easier)- but even President Eden never took the opportunity to make such a claim. If it had been the truth (and the Enclave certainly had the means to confirm such a "fact"), all it would have taken to dissuade public appeal from the Brotherhood of Steel would be to tell it and provide the proof.
- While that is a good point, for the sake of the argument how would they know that anybody alive actually CARES about that fact? Even if the Brotherhood of Steel started as a Chinese deep cover infiltration unit in the U.S., it's been I-don't-know-HOW long since the actual nuclear war, which has long fallen into the realm of mythology. Nobody save for the Enclave and a few groups with access to very deep databases really seems to know jack schiesten about the war or even prewar history. Cross-ocean travel is probably non-existent anymore and many in the Wasteland probably wouldn't even KNOW the Chinese existed. And besides, assuming this hypothesis is true and the Brotherhood of Steel was a Communist Chinese cell, the Chinese regime STILL nuked the living crap out of them along with everybody else on the Continental US and would probably serve as some proof to the Wastelanders that the Brotherhood of Steel is at least recently sufficiently divorced from the hated great war enemy to be trustworthy, which would make this revelation a very * blank look/huh?* moment as people ask if they should care. Doesn't explain why the Enclave apparently has never TRIED to do so anyway, though.
- This WMG has been explicitly Jossed multiple times. The Brotherhood of Steel weren't actually founded anywhere near DC, and they originated from a group of U.S. Army mutineers at a military research facility on the West Coast. The player can actually find the diary of the group's founder in the first game, which describes the group's creation in detail.
- Also, the reason no Chinese soldier would have Power Armor is that as of the war they hadn't developed that technology. They did have a powered combat suit that diverged in technology more toward stealth-based missions, and it's featured in a recent DLC.
- Since Gary 1 is in the Vault, maybe Gary Staley is actually Gary 0, the source of the Garys!
- If he's the original, then he's not a clone, and thus not ageless like the others. If he is a clone, then it's more likely that he's Gary 2 (or one of the other early ones). The fact that Gary Staley uses the same voice actor as the Gary clones certainly lends credence to this whole theory.
- The power going out wasn't an accident either. Like most vaults, it was part of a social experiment to see how the populace would react.
- Well it would have to be a really big vault since vaults only have room for 1500 people
- "The accumulated rads of all their dirty water and sugar bombs will foam up around their waist and all the mutants and Megaton Settlers will look up and shout 'Save us!' ... and I'll look down and whisper 'Tunnel Snakes Rule.'"
- Alternatively, Veidt's plan worked... technically. In Watchmen, tensions are high between the Soviets and the U.S.A. In pre-War Fallout, the Soviets and the U.S.A. were relatively friendly, though the Soviets had slid down from superpower status - the war that brought down the world was between the USA and China. And, of course, it was in 2077, not in the late 20th century.
- The ending - "But it is a burden I shall continue to carry, because someone must. And I am a man of responsibility" - pretty much tells you he's still out there, looking for evil bosses to work for.
- Talk to Manya about the town's history and she'll confirm this; in fact, the bomb was still attached to the plane when it went down. And more material was obtained from a nearby airfield that had already been looted of everything except those planes.
- Aside from superficial similarities, the two stories are quite contradictory, seeing as in Dr. Strangelove the war was started by a rogue general against the USSR, and the mineshaft was a last minute effort to save humanity, whereas in Fallout, the bombs were dropped by - presumably - the Chinese as a last ditch effort, while the Vaults were a pre-planned measure taken years in advance, and weren't actually intended to save anyone in the first place (mostly because there was no expectation of an actual nuclear war).
- That's because it is.
- What is what? Do you meant this was stated in game? If so, I never saw anything more than the implication.
- Daring Dashwood calls it the Trog City of Rockopolis
- That's because it is.
- That would also explain why the wasteland is still in such bad shape after 200 years. There is plenty of old technology left to scavenge yet you're the only one who does anything about it. Old power stations, fission batteries, robots and radio transmitters are in operating condition and only need a little bit of work to be brought back online, yet most Wastelanders just sit around doing nothing while the world continues to decay.
- On the other hand, both of the Lone Wanderer's parents were wastelanders, so s/he comes from that same genetic stock. Maybe it's environmental, rather than genetic factors, that made the Lone Wanderer into a superhuman.
- Then again, the Lone Wanderer also plows through the crack shocktroopers of the Enclave, who are pure-strain humans in Powered Armor. Maybe L.W. just inherited massive badassery from his/her daddy, Liam Neeson (if you follow him from Vault 112 to Rivet City and watch him fight the many hostiles in the way, you'll notice he can apparently shrug off several missile launcher shots to the face without much difficulty).
- Thus making the Lone Wanderer's daddy a Badass Longcoat Science Hero. Apparently said badassery is genetic!
- Or maybe the energy unleashed by the nuclear war breached the fabric of reality and gave James the powers of another Liam Neeson character, Qui-Gon Jinn. This subconscious Force ability was then transferred to the Lone Wanderer!
- Your dad is an Important NPC, so he's nigh impossible to kill and will just fall unconscious anyway. Clearly, you inherited that perk. Loading a save after you die is just you waking up!
- Or possibly its a combination. Wastelanders have had to survive for generations in an irradiated resource scarce environment and in general have gotten 'tougher' genetically. However, they don't have as ready access to the clean water and nutrients they need to grow up to be as strong and smart as they could be. The Lone Wanderer however has the toughened genes of two of the wastelands best scientists and grew up in a vault where they got plenty of water and green vegetables to grow tough and strong. Thus, Lone Wanderer is tougher than most wastelanders due to having a good diet growing up and is tougher than Enclave forces due to inheriting the strength of the wasteland survivors. The Lone Wanderer in effect combines the best of both 'pure humans' and 'wastelanders' while being unable to fit in with either of them.
- You're all thinking too hard. The vault dwellers have been eating clean food and drinking clean water. Every piece of food and every drop of water the wastelanders have ever taken in has been radioactive. They all have cancer and/or radiation sickness. Radiation sickness cripples your stats, and well the cancer is obvious. After all, you're the only one who is using rad-away. If everyone was constantly using it, it wouldn't have lasted 200 years.
- Lets not forget that most people you attack do not have Pip Boys. Vault tech Assisted Targeting is the superpower our little Lone Wanderer has in his holster.
- Three Dog does mention and suggests using rad-away in one of his few speeches that aren't related to the Lone Wanderer, so the concept of using rad-away isn't unique to the Lone Wanderer.
- The protagonist can easily subdue several vault security guards in body armor and helmets using only a baseball bat, at level one. These are people trained to be tough and combat-capable, whereas the Lone Wanderer might have been working as a fry chef or tattooist for the last few years. Evidently, being Vault-raised and Vault-bred is not a strict formula for making you better than everyone else.
- Out of the four protagonists only one was a true Vault dweller, Fallout 1's The Chosen One was a tribal, The Lone Wander was only raised in a Vault and the Courier was from the NCR.
- Perhaps it's the Pipboy that makes the LW so powerful? That would explain why Dad, as well as the protagonists from previous Fallout games are always so badass.
- NUCLEAR Winter! * ba-bump TING* I'm here all week, folks!
- Billy Knight? What are you doing here?
- Of course, if the U.K. and Ireland were in a better state, why would they cross the ocean in the first place? And Fallout 2 showed that capable vessels still exist, and Tenpenny is rich enough to buy one/pay for a trip.
- James states that part of his training as a doctor was being able to tell if a kid was just acting sick in order to skip class. He may have been joking, judging by his tone. But perhaps he's telling the truth. If he is, then we know he's not from the Capital Wasteland, because there are no schools there. Obviously, this means that he is from England and England still has functioning schools. Why are there functioning schools in England? Because England wasn't destroyed.
- "Training" doesn't necessarily equate to "medical school." It may have just been learning medical abilities from other people who happened to know something about medicine. Unless you think all the other first-aid givers in the game, like Red and Doc Church, also crossed the ocean after they graduated?
- It's about the "skipping class" part, not the medical training. Kids cann't skip class if there are no schools.
- Since when you need a school building to have classes? All you need is a teacher and something for him to write on. Kids don't show up when he tells them to = skipping class.
- Actually, there are two schools that have been shown. One in the Republic of Dave, the other in Little Lamplight. And I'd bet a large sum of money that there are still educated adults who pass on what they know to the next generation (at least, those that will listen, anyway). Rivet City almost certainly has a sort of education system due to the presence of the science lab and that there preservation society museum-thing. And then there's everything OUTSIDE of the Capital Wasteland, like in Virgina, Delaware, and Maryland, that could have a place secure enough to have a sort of school system. Perhaps even a compulsory one, which is really the sort of education system James seems to imply to be used to. Alternately, he might just be talking about his twenty years in Vault 101. Lotta school years there...
- There's also a school at the Nellis Air Force Base in New Vegas.
- "Training" doesn't necessarily equate to "medical school." It may have just been learning medical abilities from other people who happened to know something about medicine. Unless you think all the other first-aid givers in the game, like Red and Doc Church, also crossed the ocean after they graduated?
- They also could be staying out due to the Enclave. Considering these guys conquered Canada for oil, staying away from the incredibly well armed nutjobs seems a good idea. The NCR is way to far away to contact, and they're the only organized group that might make friendly contact.
- Hell the Enclave may still be up in Canada (which would be in a lot better state than the U.S.) this explains how they can still get all those solders, and weapons after losing their oil derrick. they still have a few more and whole cities still intact they only choose DC as there main base because it's the former capital
- From a strategic point, the Enclave (I assume that's the Enclave you mean?) wouldn't do things halfway; they'd either keep themselves in a safe place until America could be taken back or they'd move all their resources to D.C. in order to keep morale up amongst their subordinates. Besides which, the predecessors of the Enclave sought refuge on an oil derrick when the bombs fell, then moved back to the mainland after it had cleared somewhat.
- According to http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Resource_wars, about 20-25 years before the USA vs. China war that went nuclear, Europe was wrecked in what were called the "Resource Wars", when the European Commonwealth took military action against the Mid-East in response to raising oil prices, and everything quickly went From Bad to Worse. Of course, since it seems no nukes were used in Europe, they'd probably still be in better shape than the US and China...
- Probable, if only because it didn't seem at that point that other countries had the means to wage was as the US and China did. Given the fact that all Fallout 1, 2, and 3 all open with narration that the entire world was destroyed, 'a little better off' probably isn't that much better.
- The Troper thinks the UK probably suffered like the rest of the world, so odds are places like London and the Home Counties will be in a similar state to Washington. If it has picked itself up again, odds are it's split into nation-states, like a possible Republic of Cornwall, or the United Soviets of the West Midlands. I imagine Scotland may be better off, and Ireland has probably sealed the borders as it's a smaller island and lacks a nuclear deterrent, and isn't as much of a target.
- Seeing how the only Nation that took part of the Great War war the US and China they may be the only two nation that fired Nukes, radiation, would still effect of lot of areas. So most of the world are fine and just staying the hell away for the wastelands
- Opening narration for all three main games state that 'humanity was destroyed' during those two hours. (Paraphrasing here.) I'm sure Ron Perlman wouldn't be saying that if all they meant was 'all humanity within the U.S.A. and China.'
- "And by "America", I mean The World!" -The Amazing Screw-On Head Given the glimpses we've seen of the state of pre-war American democracy, we can assume that the Narrator is being a little biased.
- All right, assuming you don't want to believe Ron Perlman: Narrator, look at the time line as presented in the games and supplementary material: Europe is already at war with the Middle East in 2052, and the European-Middle Eastern conflict's nuclear exchange spurred the creation of Vaults. Even assuming Europe/the UK/so on weren't involved with the U.S./China debate, they would have been in turmoil over the oil the U.S. was bogarting. This resource conflict outright bankrupted smaller countries and exacerbated the Europe/Middle East conflict, which only ended when their oil ran out and both were almost ruined; this would be when the European Commonwealth split into nation-states to fight over whatever's left on the Continent, presumably retaining the Commonwealth's nuclear weapons. It's only after this that China becomes desperate enough for oil to get aggressive, spurring the US/China conflict that led to World War III. Even if the rest of the world wasn't drawn into the U.S. vs. China event, there was plenty of conflict beforehand to ensure they were ruined or near-ruined before America or China launched their missiles; once that happened, we know that at least China, the US, and the U.S.S.R. launched full-scale nuclear attacks. Even assuming the other countries had no nuclear participation in that war, and taking into account the military buildup of the U.S. (from which we can extrapolate that their nuclear arsenal must have been considerable, with the other two powers maintaining similar numbers to serve as effective checks), the radioactive fallout alone from such a large-scale conflict would have been enough to poison anywhere the wind could carry airborne particles. Unless someone managed to build super-science force-fields over entire continents - which were, as stated, devastated economically and possibly sociologically from the build-up and the effects that would have on the population - it's likely that the rest of the world suffered irradiation as well, if not direct hits. Most of the damage would have come from fallout anyway as opposed to direct strikes, when the radiation deadened the soil/plant life and poisoned anyone who survived the initial blast... which would be just about everyone in not-targeted countries. So sure, maybe the U.K. and Europe (that isn't the U.S.S.R.) and Asia (that isn't China) and Africa were spared direct hits... assuming the targeting computers weren't just shooting nukes off willy-nilly like bottle-rockets... but they still get to deal with radiation poisoning, blighted landscapes, and presumably mutant animals and ghoulified survivors. The best thing that could be said was at least they'd be spared intentional experiments like the Super Mutants and FEV, and that's assuming there weren't mad scientists or paranoid governments elsewhere in the world
- Seeing how the only Nation that took part of the Great War war the US and China they may be the only two nation that fired Nukes, radiation, would still effect of lot of areas. So most of the world are fine and just staying the hell away for the wastelands
- This troper's personal theory is that nukes were dropped on everywhere but because Vault-Tec was a sham in the U.S. other nations had decent government and privately owned Vaults in place. Britain was nuked as hard as America but almost everyone survived. Then when they came out there was nothing in the wasteland for everyone. The population of the UK is more packed in and whilst most Americans were dead, leaving enough scavenging for all the British folk didn't have enough food to go 'round and it's a heck of a lot worse. I personally think the only country leaved unschaved was Australia. Seeing as how the universe is kinda set around 1950's ideas and all there'd be a situation like "The Beach" where the folks of Melbourne are staring out at the wasteland and wondering if anyone else's still alive.
- Vault-Tec appears to be a U.S.-based company; probably there weren't international Vault-Tec branches, and if they were it's likely that they had the same proportion of safe-to-experimental Vaults. Maybe privately-owned vaults existed, although given the lifestyle of America at the time you'd think they'd have more personal Vaults in the US. (They might have, we just don't see them.) Australia's being all right, like everywhere else, would depend on how much sway (and how many bases, ect.) China or the US would have there. Even one base or resource holding would be enough to make it a target, and in case of a nuclear war I'm assuming that seventy nukes are as good as one.
- See the succinct discussion here.
- I like the theory that while America is horrifically torn up, most over countries are actually doing fine. Travel to America is forbidden due to the high radiation levels. Of course I'm likely overlooking many details and the effects of radiation, but this'd be funny as heck.
- Link's broken. It's still a silly idea.
- I like the theory that while America is horrifically torn up, most over countries are actually doing fine. Travel to America is forbidden due to the high radiation levels. Of course I'm likely overlooking many details and the effects of radiation, but this'd be funny as heck.
- From Fallout New Vegas opening Narration:"When atomic fire consumed the EARTH...". Every nation was affected.If there were a nuclear attack on the one nation, would a very close nation retaliate with them? Yes, and so on, ad oblivion. As for private Vaults,it is said in the game that any personal shelters in the US were terrible unless you were rich enough to contract Vault-Tec into making you a personal one, like Mr. House. While other nations would have had good shelters in place for COG, it is made clear that the US was the only nation with a Vault program. And the Vaults, while they were sadistic experiments, they were the only way humans survived at all, fitting perfectly with the Grey and Gray Morality of the Fallout series.
- Mr. Tenpenny came to the Capital Wasteland from England. How screwed up must England be if D.C. is better by comparison?
- Not much - indeed, it can be better off, from the perspective of an outside observer. Mr. Tenpenny has his tendencies towards being a self-centered, bigotefactd jerk, so that he regards DC as better by comparison might as well mean that England is under the control of an NCR-style state (complete with de jure ghoul-smoothskin equality and a legal system that frowns on eccentric millionaires doing whatever they feel like) as it can mean a nuked wasteland harder to survive in than even the Capital Wasteland.
- It could just mean that there are fewer people in the Wasteland and no real over-arching law, so he can do pretty much whatever he likes. If the UK population survived in any kind of number, and given how much smaller it is compared to the U.S. - even per-annexation - it's possible the Wasteland just offers more freedom due to its size and the comparatively skeletal population. Given the tech and organization needed to survive a nuclear holocaust, even one you're just a footnote to, it's just as easy to picture what's left of the U.K. as an iron-fisted fascist state, geared towards preserving what exists at the cost of innovation or anything that could be described as dissident. Does that make Tenpenny less of a bigot? Not at all. But in such a hypothetical situation, a drunken egomaniac would seize the first chance he had to give himself the life he thinks he deserves. Or, you know, maybe England is a mythical fairy realm of magic and daffodils, and King Arthur rose from his ages-long slumber just before the bombs dropped to erect a mystic shield over the land he once ruled, enveloping it in a protective mist like Brigadoon. But no, turns out King Arthur's a ghoul and the Knights of the Round are battling mutant Gauls along Hadrian's Wall.
- Regarding Australia (and as an Australian) I think it's fair to say we probably would have been wiped out one way or the other. We're a major resource exporter including natural gas, coal and uranium. I'd guess that either we'd have been conquered for our natural resources or we'd have allied with the US in exchange for letting them use us as a nuclear missile base (giving the US a better base to strike out against Asia). Either way, we'd be targeted (nuclear sites first, then cities). There would certainly be places where the bombs didn't fall but as mentioned above the nuclear fallout and climate changes would still be significant.
- Mr. Tenpenny came to the Capital Wasteland from England. How screwed up must England be if D.C. is better by comparison?
- However he is impressed by Roy Phillips ghouls killing everyone in Tenpenny Towers.
- Siding with Phillips gives Burke access to a small army of Ghouls and Feral Ghouls. The Enclave have shown itself to be perfectly willing to use and control muties (Deathclaws, all the creatures being experimented on in Raven Rock) for their own purposes.
- Also, Burke seems to have an intense fascination with death, which would probably cause him to be impressed with any town massacre, even one committed by muties.
- The main problem with this theory is Wernher himself: namely the fact that if you side with Ashur, Wernher more or less goes into a rage and condemns everybody. Now, unless he was having one HELL of a Heroic BSoD, this seems to indicate he wasn't nearly as well-intentioned as Moses was.
- In the Bible, when Moses came down, he saw the Israelites worshiping a golden calf. He proceeded to smash two tablets inscribed with the Ten Commandments, destroyed the calf, burnt it to dust and mixed it in water and forced all the Israelites to drink it. Earlier in the Bible, Moses' son hasn't been circumcised yet, so God decides to kill him until Moses' wife cuts the kid's foreskin off and throws it at Moses. In literally the second and third passages he's referred to by name in, the first and second of him as an adult, Moses kills an Egyptian for beating another Hebrew. Returning back to the golden calf, after forcing everyone to drink it, God has Moses and his allies kill everyone that was worshiping the golden calf. It's said in the Bible to be 3000 people. So, Wernher is still a far kinder person than Moses.
- There are a lot of flaws in that theory. One, they wouldn't just stay in front of Vault 101 until they starved to death - they'd eventually give up and do the best they could in the wasteland. Two, there's no evidence anyone inside the vault is aware of the dead bodies; this propaganda is unseen by those it is meant to influence. Three, the Overseer didn't lock them out, because canon establishes that the lock is just a password, and the password changes for the first time when Amata changes it to her name. Which leads to: four, it requires the search party to be stupid enough to leave without knowing how to get back in. Possible, I suppose. Five, where in the Fallout wasteland would they find markers and cardboard to make the signs?
- Except that a large chunk of it is located on some of the most stable rock in the world. If anything Canada would be better off, because there are less people and would therefore not be nuked as much.
- Alternatively there's a more sinister option. Maybe Lamplight has an army of crazy kids that have been abused to the breaking point and become like raiders, attacking and killing anyone who so much as looks at a kid funny. Hurt a kid and they'll kill you and rescue the child. They are like Talon Company but in scout uniforms. Trinnie, the alcoholic junkie from Rivet City is a former member.
- A more Squickful, yet not unrealistic option, is that they are indeed maintaining their population naturally. Lamplighters don't get exiled to Bigtown until they hit 18, yet puberty — functional puberty, at that — hits several years before that. Sometimes as early as 11 or 12. Between the hormones, and the fact that it's extremely doubtful that they have contraception, it really isn't impossible that any female Lamplighter has already had a couple of kids by the time she's grown old enough that it's time for her to go to Bigtown. Yeah, that sort of thing is highly illegal in our world, but these are a bunch of kids living in what MacCready himself calls "fucking anarchy" and who've been in a hole in the ground for two centuries without any form of adult supervision. If nobody's going to stop them, those kids that are old enough doubtlessly have sex, and once she's had her first ovulation, she can have her first child. Something similar happens in Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome, where it's stated that the youngest children were all born from couplings between the older ones — there's a pregnant 16-year-old girl who already has at least one baby old enough to be a toddler, who gets pointed out to Max when he's being told about how The Tribe got started. Still doesn't explain why the Super Mutants don't try and grab all the kids they can, though.
- If they just took all the kids at once, they'd have a huge haul, but it would also be their last haul. If they leave some kids, they'll eventually reproduce, ensuring a constant supply.
- Or, y'know, kids that were conceived in Bigtown just get escorted to Little Lamplight.
- Before the Lone Wanderer shows up, it's made pretty clear that most Lamplighters are poorly equipped to make it to Big Town, and most don't, hence the small population of Big Town even before the latest raids. It seems unlikely that they'd be able, or willing, to trek back to Little Lamplight, given how difficult it was to leave it in the first place; at the very least, the odds of it happening would fluctuate depending on the current population of Big Town, and whether or not they have any adept hunters/fighters (most inhabitants didn't seem to have a trade or specific skill-set).
- The great war was only between the US (and Canada) and China, while everyone else was busy with other stuff. And I don't think the two it the type to randomly fire nukes that other nations for no reason, also since radiation doesn't work the same in real life, odds are it wouldn't spread to other areas via win.
- Not compatible with the (semi?)official timeline. Europe's already in ruins by the 2077. Regardless, global nuclear war and the following winter would badly hit pretty much everything.
- One Problem. Canonization in the Roman Catholic Churuch is a long, complicated process. But in short, you need to be:
- A. Catholic, which there is little or no evidence for.
- B. Dead, which is a problem if you bought the "Broken Steel" add-on, negating the "Sacrifice" part of your Heroic Sacrifice.
- Then a bishop has to give permission to do research, the body must be checked for heretical activity, the Pope must make a proclamation of the guy's virtue, etc. All of which are nearly impossible in the current state of the Fallout world. Also I doubt the Church of Atom would make the Lone Wanderer a saint for disarming their bomb, and I don't see any evidence of the presence any other organized religion in the Capital Wasteland.
- But who says they're Catholic? This ain't A Canticle for Leibowitz, you know.
- You forgot the bit where the Vatican is probably destroyed, and even if it isn't, the church in Rivet City has no way of contacting them. They could make anyone a saint if they darn well pleased.
- Well we don't know the anything about Europe over than the EU broke out into civil war.
- We know a hell of a lot more than that. Europe wasn't in a civil war; they were fighting with the middle east, and nuclear weapons were most definitely involved. It's strongly implied, though never outright stated, that both were involved in the Great War, and are thus just as much a radioactive ruin as North America. Considering the religious undertones of a European-Mideastern conflict, it's safe to assume the site of the Vatican is flat as a pancake.
- So would Mecca and Israel probably. Holy sites tend to be nuke magnets during global thermonuclear war.
- Well we don't know the anything about Europe over than the EU broke out into civil war.
- And his Alternate Mode is...
- Chuck Norris.
- No, it's Teddy God-damn Roosevelt.
- Nuka-Cola probably did catalogs full of toys; a rabid soda fan explains that after the success of the drink, the Nuka-Cola corporation released promotional items, like the trucks with the Nuka-Cola logo on them. It's entirely possible that they kept this 'caps-for-gifts' program going on even as the bombs dropped: maybe they added 10 mm pistols to the prizes? That's why everyone wants caps! To get that neato Nuka-Cola merchandise, of course. And it explains how there is any form of economy at all; Nuka-Cola continues to be made, caps continue to be collected, and caps get exchanged for guns, either via shop or mail-order. TL;DR the Wasteland's economy is kept alive via a softdrink prize campaign.
- This whole theory goes out of the window in Fallout 2 where caps are pretty much worthless and the $NCR has taken over
- This theory explains the economic predominance of Caps in Capital Wasteland and East Coast. An economy propped up by neo-Nuka-Cola never gained predominance in the core regions.
- The "any form of economy at all" part was disproved for the west back in Fallout 1 - the bottle caps were explained as backed by water (as a way to simplify things for the water merchants), and the why of having bottle caps as a currency were that they were hard to counterfeit and easily transportable and stored.
- Maybe there was a different reason for adopting Caps on the East Coast?
- This whole theory goes out of the window in Fallout 2 where caps are pretty much worthless and the $NCR has taken over
- This very premise is used in parts of the first game's manual, though it obviously isn't canon, given the sticky-notes pasted over much of it.
- Accept your perceived Reality.
- Notice that if you fully explore Vault 106 the hallucinations stop appearing (IIRC), this isn't because you've gained immunity to them, it's because they've stopped being purple.
- Alternately, you do leave but continue to experience hallucinations. For instance, not all NPCs are really there.
- The raider's mention in game that their main job is to raid caravans for food. Plus they have the train system to get to the Capital Wasteland where they could hunt and trade for food.
- The primary purpose of the cure is to allow residents of the Pitt to have children so they can stop having to enslave new workers. Once TDC is eradicated, the Pitt isn't a terrible place to stay. It's got shelter, space, and safety. They might begin farming the surrounding countryside. Also, remember that Werhner touted the cure as a 'cure for mutation', not just TDC. With a bargaining chip like that, they'd be able to acquire whatever resources are needed. Considering most everyone in the wasteland has at the very least a sixth toe and most probably have some form of cancer...
- Indeed, Rapture may have been inspired by (or the inspiration for) the Vault Project. Maybe Ryan once knew House.
- Well, unless poisoning Project Purity/ letting it explode is canon, (Which doesn't exactly leave much room for a continuation of the story of the Capital Wasteland) Megaton is getting Aqua Pura from Brotherhood of Steel water caravans.
- That they knew it was coming is almost confirmed; just look at all of the advertisements that point out that you will die in the coming nuclear apocalypse if you don't reserve a spot in the Vaults. The other half seems likely as well.
- Adding to that, if you do in fact, collect all of the bobbleheads "Vault-Tec C.E.O isn't just an achievement, but is in fact, the official way Vault-Tec planned on having a new C.E.O. They were all originally put in vaults, or left with the Enclave (There are bobbleheads in Vaults `101, 106, and 108, and one in Raven Rock) But most of them were scattered, by people who escaped the vaults, or Enclave patrols. Anybody who collected all of them would need to then go to Vault-Tec headquarters in Downtown D.C. and get into the mainframe to be officially made the C.E.O, but this information was never known to the player character.
- Adding to this, the Giant's weapons spurred the United States to put in large amounts of funding into energy weapons research, soon proving Tesla's theories correct. From there, by records of the Giant and through examining the remains of the tanks the Giant destroyed, as well as possibly recovering some pieces of the Giant in Iceland , the first energy weapons of the Fallout Universe were created. The plasma weapons you see are a direct attempt to mimic the weaponry of the Giant.
- Continuing this theory, House could possibly be an adult Hogarth. He might have been put into a government think thank to give input on the design of Liberty Prime. His name was changed to keep the project covert.
- Totally impossible. The reason the Great War stated in the first place was because of the world running out of sources of energy. If an energy source as powerful as Tiberium exist in the Fallout universe, there won't be a Resource War in the first place. Also, the radiation levels on the West Coast (as seen in Fallout 1 & 2 & New Vegas) are not where as high as the DC area. Finally, the very nature of tiberium and the way it spreads will make the vaults totally useless.
- The game seems to support this with most nuclear weapons that appear being similar to those dropped on Japan in world war 2.
- Surprisingly, neutron bombs are still nukes and make one hell of an explosion. The reason they were developed was less to kill people and have the infrastructure still standing, but rather to kill soldiers in armored vehicles, who aren't all that affected by heat and blast waves. Detonating a nuke over a city creates a field of rubble.
- That is the best way to justify Fake Difficulty I have ever seen.
- The Pip boy has translation software, occasionally it doesn't work properly. There may also be similar software in terminals he runs across.
- The stealth instruction manuals are a bit easier to explain away than the emails. It stands to reason that in the years leading up to the war, the Chinese would've begun a massive draft to try to maximize their quantity advantage. Comic-book style manuals on stealth and weapons handling, illustrated very thoroughly so that they could be used by anyone from any language background or even the completely illiterate, were distributed to resistance forces in Europe in WWII so the partisans could improve their soldiering skills quickly. It worked then, at least somewhat, so if the Chinese had a language barrier and/or illiteracy problem within their own forces, language-neutral training materials might help. Now, the real elite special forces types probably wouldn't be trained out of books, heavily illustrated or not, so I suspect the comic book fields guides would be geared more towards training sappers quickly from among the conscripts.
- Jossed heavily in Fallout 3. The old woman in Vault 101 remembers the old days from her youth when there were more people, the 1000 people in the Vault have dwindled to a few dozen, your Pip Boy records the time as 200 years after the war and has no reason to be wrong.
- Jossed again by the presence of Harold and Bob/Herbert. Last we saw Harold was 40 years ago in Fallout 2, and the tree in his head was quite small. The tree in Harold's head has now gotten so large that he's taken root in DC. It does take a while for trees to grow to that size... let alone take deep root.
- Lyons and several other characters tied to the main quest do flat-out state that the Super Mutants are the main reason why there hasn't been very much development of human civilization in the Capital Wasteland area.
- Raiders are doped up and have probably acquired some serious brain damage from all the drugs they're taking.
- Those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it. Slowly, advanced technology is re-introduced into the wasteland. The Brotherhood wisely stays OUT of the power structure.
- They don't necessarily have to control everything. Perhaps the Brotherhood, using the new water purifier and all the advanced suits of power armor they are getting from the Enclave, will turn the Capital Wasteland into a federation of sorts, with the Brotherhood forming the military wing. The Brotherhood will have no shortage of recruits aching to join them, and with the water purifier and the research done on growing vegetables in Rivet City, all settlements will have large farms outside their walls and will breed brahmin, finally giving the wasteland a steady source of food. The Brotherhood, using it's massive amounts of power armor and soldiers, will steamroller south to Point Lookout and conquer the tribals there, which shouldn't be too hard if Gameplay and Story Segregation is in play. They will turn most of Point Lookout into a massive Punga-Growing operation. They will also move north into the Pitt, where Ashur, surprised that the Brotherhood is finally making progress, will join them as well, with the Pitt becoming the main industrial zone for ammo and weapon production and for repairing power armor. This will also let him abolish slavery. Before long, they will turn the wasteland into a prosperous nation to rival the NCR. Running to low on weapons or power armor also shouldn't be a problem, as long as they make sure to maintain their equipment, since the Enclave had MASSIVE stores of the stuff.
- The final quest, if achievements are anything to go on, is called The Legend of the Star.
- [[Jossed]] The Legend of the Star deals with you collecting fifty special bottle caps as part of a centuries old Sunset Sasparilla contest, sort of like collecting mcdonald's monopoly pieces.
- Not Jossed, Play through The House Always Wins quests. Robert Edwin House's plans include space travel to find a new planet for colonization, like the Vaults’ original purpose.
- [[Jossed]] The Legend of the Star deals with you collecting fifty special bottle caps as part of a centuries old Sunset Sasparilla contest, sort of like collecting mcdonald's monopoly pieces.
- The Resource Wars was a civil war between the European Union. Still an interesting theory.
So were did aliens in '50s sci fi typically come from? Mars! Keep in mind that the Fallout world not only has different history than ours, but different laws of physics. (Ex. radiation makes ants become giant)So maybe in the Fallout world, Mars is capable of supporting life, or was sometime in the past. (One of the alien captive logs was made around the 1600's)
- If a Good/Neutral character is canon, and so is Broken Steel, then the Capital Wasteland Brotherhood of Steel is in control of the Capital Wasteland. They're purifying as much water as possible, which is going to go a long LONG way if people are thinking of fixing the wastelands. All of the technology they're scouring from the ruins of the Enclave means that they've got the best toys in the area. The Outcasts, even if you give them a crapload of Tesla Armor and Plasma Rifles, have slim to no chances of keeping up with them. And adding to the fact that the Capital Wasteland Brotherhood Division will now probably be seeing better trained, not Red Shirt recruits because there's no immediate crisis going on. Once contact is finally reestablished with Lost Hills, way in Californey, after some much desereved "And you probably thought we wouldn't last!" The current Brotherhood leaders in the main base will be forced to start paying more attention to Lyons and his crew. The fact that they're losing power in the West Coast is also a major factor, and if the Capital Wasteland Brotherhood and the NCR come into contact with each other, working together would be a huge plus for quite a lot of the wastes. The Brotherhood supplies the water and tech, and the NCR is the government.
- As an extension, the Brotherhood becomes a part of NCR and the original organization is restored, with the Brotherhood returning to its original role as the military under command of a civilian government, with NCR replacing the civilian leadership role that the Enclave was originally intended to fill by the prewar powers.
- That could work...But to continue the game you HAVE to leave. Otherwise that's not really Wild Mass Guessing.
- yes you doubt that is only from a gameplay and mechanics standpoint to support the Wide Open Sandbox having no real end. but from a story standpoint and even from a player standpoint you arn't required to leave you can just abandon that profile and start over. again this is assuming a Linear progression of events as I have outlined. and ofcorse there IS the fact that if This Galaxy Aint Big Enough is the last quest that isw done chronologically the Lone Wanderer has nothing left to do baring any mods
- Well you could say that after the events shown in the game, he/she decides to leave Earth.
- It's how I ended my game (as noted, I had pretty much done everything by that point, and my character was a scientist...).
- yes you doubt that is only from a gameplay and mechanics standpoint to support the Wide Open Sandbox having no real end. but from a story standpoint and even from a player standpoint you arn't required to leave you can just abandon that profile and start over. again this is assuming a Linear progression of events as I have outlined. and ofcorse there IS the fact that if This Galaxy Aint Big Enough is the last quest that isw done chronologically the Lone Wanderer has nothing left to do baring any mods
- ...and the three could be referring to the holy trinity!
- Hell it is used as part of the Caravan lunch in New Vegas. Guess it was used to mix up the instant mash
- Not really, since you don't get drunk or lose Perception from it. Besides Rad Away is orange so if it was any kind of alcohol it'd be whiskey not vodka. Either that or TANG.
- Supported by the Mojave chapter doing something similar to Veronica, who was a relatively respected scribe with subversive ideas. It could be unofficial Brotherhood policy to give troublemakers out-of-the-way jobs.
- That would be a great theory, but there are events referred to by several characters in New Vegas that clearly occurred in Fallout 3. Meaning the events of Fallout 3 would have to be real.
- Maybe the simulation was loosely based on real events?
- That would be a great theory, but there are events referred to by several characters in New Vegas that clearly occurred in Fallout 3. Meaning the events of Fallout 3 would have to be real.
- Picture this. You're trying to get into a highly irradiated area. Despite having a huge amount of rad-away and your intelligence at 10 and a medicine skill of 100, you still end up collapsing due to radiation sickness. But maybe you're character doesn't die. The game just reloads a new save file. Because if it didn't, maybe you're character would wake up in that irradiated area, still gaining rads, but radiation sickness effects are starting to lessen. As you wander, you take a look at your chacter from third-person view. There seem to be open patches where skin used to be, and other parts of your skin seem to be discolored. Congratulations, you've started the process of ghoulification.
- And think about the part of The Wasteland Survival Guide where you need to get irradiated. If you go the extra mile and get the amount of rads for the bonus, Moira says you're now suffering from a small mutation that will heal your limbs whenever you get up to at least Advanced radiation sickness. Full ghouls are healed by radiation. So, if you complete that bonus objective, you've become a partial ghoul, without any of the negative affects, such as losing skin and hair.
- The Americans and The Chinese made a deal to avoid hitting the ships with the nukes so they could leave, they leave behind the experimental Vaults (control Vaults are experimental), The Mutants (Ghouls, Super Mutants, Wastelanders, etc) and the "Rejects" (the Enclave, they didn't heve room or didn't liked them for any reason... WOULD you travel god knows how many light years with a jerkass. They also got leaved behind with out their knowledge.
- Skynet in 2 believes this to be possible, so why not?
- The Vault Dweller, the Chosen One, the Lone Wanderer, and the Courier are all the same character: a Time Lord in its various incarnations.
- The player is his own grandpa?
- Clever, but the death ray hit a very sparsely populated area of Canada, so no Canadians were harmed.
- And anyway, the US annexed Canada back in 2075-76, so if anyone was hit they'd still be Americans.
- So... you're saying... I should kill Moira because then she can go to heaven? Because, I'm not sure I have the heart to do that.
- Moira is a staff member, a test of morality, bad people kill her and get to stay longer, good people help her and ascend quicker.
- No, it happens at the same time. Why else would they avoid the surface?
- Jet wasn't forgotten. Myron's epilogue states that the creator of Jet was forgotten.
- Expanding on the this, the next fallout game will feature the remnants of Caesar's Legion (having been decimated from their loss to the NCR) travelling across the mainland and invading the Capital Wasteland, now more or less rebuilt because of the large number of Brotherhood Peacekeepers than the Project Purity making agriculture possible. The central conflict of the game will be a fight for the lands a few hundred miles west of the Capital Wastes (the ruins of Cincinatti)? Between the Capital Brotherhood, the Legion Remnants, and a new resurgent Enclave force, having rode in from the North on a pair of Mobile Base Crawlers.
- The problem with this theory is that the only thing that is canon about Tactics is that there is a chapter of the Brotherhood somewhere in the Midwest. None of the endings for it can possibly be canon, including the "fascist" ending, because of elements, groups or technology that do not exist in the series canon.
- Actually, a bit more than that is supposed to be canon - the Broad Strokes of the overall storyline of Tactics are canon ("major events", and the war that dominates the entire later half of the game can hardly be called anything but major). The fascist thing was not a reference to a specific ending, as such - actually, we do know which ending is canon, since there is only one that leaves the Midwesterners a weak group (the Calculator has *not* been made un-canon, but it must have been destroyed) - but more to what they were doing across the entire game. And desperation has a tendency to breed harsh measures...
- We do not know which ending is canon. Keep in mind Caesar's Legion is a We Have Reserves force and the biggest weakness of the Brotherhood of Steel has always been numbers. Even with unlimited recruits, the Brotherhood is still limited by the amount of armor and weapons they possess. Given Caesar's anti-technology stance, it is very plausible the Calculator could have survived Fallout Tactics, but been destroyed early on in any conflict between Caesar and the Midwestern Brotherhood.
- Also never mentioned the Calculator was not canon. It is comparitively one of the more plausible elements from Tactics with similar technology being seen in the mains series.
- Turning into a facist organization requires some Character Derailment. Only one ending really allows for this to occur in a plausible fashion and this ending is probably the only one that is definitely not canon. The Midwestern Brotherhood has shown no intention of rejoining the main branch and the only plausible reason behind this is if they wanted to maintain their more inclusive policies.
- Point to point counter: it was mentioned that the Calculator was not canon. "Only thing that is canon... there is a chapter of the Brotherhood somewhere in the Midwest", if you look above. Caesar's Legion is highly unlikely as the cause of a fall: when the Capital Wastelanders-to-be reached the Pitt (IE, after they passed the Midwesterners' potential territories), Caesar had just established his first capital, and at no point before or during 2281 did Caesar's Legion reach northern Utah. Not that kind of fascist organization - more willing to accept recruits, but also inclined towards labour and concentration camps, forcibly acquiring control of towns, etc... as during the game, rather than the non-Good karma Calculator or Barnaky Calculator endings. Granted, it might be easier to get the Enclave's Better Side and the Midwestern Brotherhood to meet at the middle than to get the Enclave to be the better side of the two.
- The counter to the Calculator is not a counter: by Word Of Fallout 3 Lead Designer, Bethesda considers "most of the major events as more or less canon, just not the details that contradict Fallout and Fallout 2". The Calculator is not a contradiction to either of those games (Vault 0 might be seen as it, but not the Calculator itself), and most of Tactic's plot derives from the Calculator, IE it being made uncanon would make most of the major events uncanon. Now, it is an easy mistake, since the only thing that Fallout 3 establishes as canon is the existence of a chapter of the Brotherhood somewhere in the Midwest, but Bethesda does not consider only that as canon.
- Actually, a bit more than that is supposed to be canon - the Broad Strokes of the overall storyline of Tactics are canon ("major events", and the war that dominates the entire later half of the game can hardly be called anything but major). The fascist thing was not a reference to a specific ending, as such - actually, we do know which ending is canon, since there is only one that leaves the Midwesterners a weak group (the Calculator has *not* been made un-canon, but it must have been destroyed) - but more to what they were doing across the entire game. And desperation has a tendency to breed harsh measures...
- The South, particularly New Orleans: The bayou is infested with horribly mutated gators and just barely settled by mutfruit planter nobility, and fought over by such factions as "The Code" (trying to rebuild society, led by the Quarter-Master who lives in Napoleon House), the River Barons (raiders who use Playing Card Motifs), and Saturday's Children (voodoo tribals).
- The Rocky Mountains, likely centered on Denver. Imagine getting across swathes of radioactive snowstorms via a system of ancient ski lift gondolas.
- Black Hills, South Dakota, just for the chance for us to see what's become of Mt. Rushmore. My guess is that the neighboring settlers have made the presidents into a sort of King in the Mountain legend, destined to someday set the world aright again.
- Almost definitely false. Considering the implied child of the Chosen One is in New Reno, that is a huge leap considering virtually no one crosses the state, let alone the country. In addition, if you assume the Vault 21 picture is canon and not simply an Easter Egg, it is completely impossible for the Lone Wanderer to be related to any other character no matter how you try to massage it. James and Catherine only had one child (so they can't be siblings), some dialogue marks the Courier as being active before Vault 21 opened, and no one entered Vault 21 before it was opened.
- The problem with that is the timeline. Anchorage was retaken almost a year before the first bomb dropped and the Chinese. In addition, the simulation is not an accurate assessment of what happened in Anchorage. General Chase was starting to go insane at that point and was modifying the simulation to suit his delusion of what happened there.
- Liberty Prime, which didn't exist in the original games, would have been tactically insignificant. It's a walking tank, that's it. If anything, it would have been less important than a tank because tanks move faster and have smaller target profiles.
- Liberty Prime is a walking tank that throws nukes. Libery Prime is a Metal Gear.
- The United States tactically had the larger incentive to use nuclear bombs, just beyond the fact that every pre-War US commander was shown to be an arrogant, partially delusional, hardcore military officer bent on wiping out the Chinese completely. China could win the war through attrition due to greater numbers. They could make the same assaults over and over again until they finally overwhelmed the defenders.
- That last one was probablly wrong, because the capital of China was about to be taken. and while Prime might not be significant, the armies of powered armor were.
- AUSTRALIA: Australia's fate in the lead-up to the war wasn't pretty. While other countries had the ability to wage war on others for their oil resources, Australia didn't, meaning that it had no choice but to teeter towards bankruptcy as fuel prices soared and petrol ran dry (sorry, no Mad Max here). But Australia did have one thing going for it; lots of natural resources including iron ore, rare metals, and uranium. Unfortunately this just meant that Australia was another victim of the Resource Wars - the UK tried to bring its former colony under control but was too occupied with the Middle East to do much; China invaded to take over the vast mineral deposits; then the US invaded to try and wrest it away from China. Australia tried to side with the US (Australia adopted a lot of the Red Scare fever along with the already present Yellow Peril fears), but as massive mining machines tore up the land and people died in skirmishes across the country, Australia was just exhausted of being fought over like a bone between two massive war dogs. The last independent remains of Australia's army tried to take back some key areas before the bombs finally dropped and ended it all.
Australia had no official vault system in place - it was just too chaotic to get anything done, especially with the economy already crumbling from lack of oil. But ironically, all those mines turned out to be a godsend; they were deep and winding enough to shield people deep inside the earth while the surface was scorched with atomic fire. Most of the east coast cities were wiped out, killing a large portion of Australia's population. But in smaller remote towns, far away from any strategic areas and too small to be noticed, were spared any direct nuclear attack. The vast central deserts of Australia were mostly untouched.
But nuclear war and the resulting fallout was only the beginning of Australia's problems. Being one of the harshest contintents in the world, living in the sun-baked deserts was hard enough with human infrastructure; now that civilization had fallen, no more water was pumped across drought-infested farms, no more truck envoys delivered supplies, and no more people could travel the distant highways. The people who survived were now utterly at the mercy of an unforgiving country ... and an unforgiving wildlife, which had changed and mutated over time. As it once had been when Australia had been colonized by the Aborigines and the British so many centuries ago, life in Australia would be a long and bitter struggle.- Also, there's probablly insane, Nightmare Fuel monsters. If Death Claws and such are what come from America's wildlife, imagine what the nukes did to salt water crocs, and kangaroos!
- I've been thinking quite a lot about that - totally not because I'm making a fanwork based on this idea, or anything - and I'd love to utterly screw with people's expectations of what the wildlife would be like. "Oh god, a giant Huntsman spider! Wait, it's green on my compass? It's harmless? Oh, well thank god for that. ... Oh hey, a flock of mutated sheep! Neat! ... Wait, why are they — oh god! They're trying to eat me! Nooo--"
- Anyone else hoping for koalas mutating into drop bears?
- Also, there's probablly insane, Nightmare Fuel monsters. If Death Claws and such are what come from America's wildlife, imagine what the nukes did to salt water crocs, and kangaroos!
- USSR: We already know something from canon to extrapolate from, that's: USSR existed until the Great War without breakup, but it became a Vestigial Empire and not a major world power; it was still something of a Cold War-esque rival to USA, but not as major as China, and Soviet-American diplomatic relations were still going on during the War; there are still enough high-tech left for Dukov to cross the ocean; and not all of the world was frozen in the 50s, only USA. So my (aurora369's) version is the following:
- The time period it is stuck in is late 1980s - early 1990s, the time when the real USSR was a crumbling Vestigial Empire. The computers are Mikroshas, Korvets and Robotrons (roughly ZX Spectrum and Amiga in terms of advancedness), the city architecture is very similar to one in Half-Life 2 except more ruined, the country architecture is all wooden log houses, all rusted cars are VAZ and Volgas with fusion cell-powered motors and even these are not nearly as plentiful as in USA (the automobile revolution only happened in The New Russia), the clutter found in ruins is all from these photos. The local counterpart to GNR plays Vladimir Vysotsky, Viktor Tsoi, Nautilus Pompilius and Mashina Vremeni, the local counterpart to the Enclave Radio plays The Union Indestructible, Slavyanka's Farewell, VDV March and so on. Still no sex.
- Little or no actual nuking of the country took place, since USSR did not take a side in the Great War, only sold uranium to China. It is also so unbelievably huge that even just-in-case nuking would take no less devices than a thorough nuking of China. Most of the apocalypse and depopulation was from fallout and famines caused by nuclear winter. Moscow definitely wasn't blown up (it has a dedicated missile defence system in Real Life), but most of the city fares little better than Washington, D.C. Possibly some American nukes fell on the uranium mines in Siberia.
- No supermutants, because of almost no FEV ending up on Soviet turf (some minuscule amounts carried in by global wind patterns, enough for huge radcritters but not enough for supermutants). Quite a lot of ghouls, especially on the Chinese and Western borders where fallout was most severe; possibly some ghouls predating the war by a century as a result of Chernobyl/Techa/Semipalatinsk. There should be an all-ghoul kolkhoz town that finally perfected real communism. Possibly a unique local variety of mutant to replace supermutants, springing from Soviet Superscience.
- BTW, much of that superscience is a Darker and Edgier variation of stuff from Alice, Girl from the Future. Clunky Werther and Rusty General lookalikes replace all those Mr.Handys and Protectrons, and the local plasma pistol is the blaster from that 'verse.
- Alternatively, let Mr. Handies just be Mr. Handies. 1980s USSR was known for cloning Western tech without asking permission. So you can find a robot that is totally a General Atomics Mr. Handy with some superficial differences (four arms instead of three, a sassy cussing saleswoman personality instead of a polite British butler), claimed to be absolutely not a Mr. Handy but an Elekronika RB (Robot Bytovoi) 203 by Angstrom Zelenograd.
- The local Hunting Rifle, on the other hand, is an old, trusty Mosin-Nagant, complete with a bayonet.
- Much colder climate because of leftover glaciation from nuclear winter. Because of that, huge rad-gnats migrating south from the taiga to the former temperate zone.
- Scared of the Yao Guai? They are harmless, cute and cuddly compared to the Siberia Guai, after all, the former were originally just little black bears! And the latter grizzly-sized brown bears were dangerous enough before mutation; now they are the size of a rhino, ten times the ill temper of a rhino and would scare a deathclaw to death with their roar. And yes, they really do walk the streets of ruined (and possibly some surviving) Russian cities and towns where drunk Russian men come out of bathhouses to wrestle them. Probably that's why Dukov sits in a building in a dangerous ruined city filled with mutants and worse, drinks, parties and is not afraid of anything. What the white bears have become is the reason no one goes to the frozen North.
- The vaults are replaced partly by metro tunnels, partly by simply living in the vast forests. It's Truth in Television that all Soviet Metro stations and tunnels were built deep underground and fitted with massive sealing doors and life support to double as Vaults.
- The political landscape is pretty much eternal Civil War again, now with Soviet Hardliners/the local Enclave, similar in conviction and cruelty to the Bolsheviks of old, vs Disaster Democrats.
- To put it all simple, more cold snow, cool vodka and hot lead than ever before! And we Russians like it that way!
- What if Metro 2033 is the USSR in the fallout universe? You've got horrifying monsters, some psychic abilities, bastions of underground survivors... Maybe they only use regular firearms as opposed to energy weapons is because they were too poor to have such expensive things around before the war, and for obvious reasons there aren't any around afterwords.
- Why, it's quite possible. The M2033 expanded universe books add details about the Russian countryside after the apocalypse, and it's an okay place to live in, much better than Moscow and quite comparable in habitability to the Fallout setting. It's even habitable enough to allow a semi-literal Hidden Elf Village of peaceful Tolkien nuts to exist and not be wiped out in a matter of months.
- aurora369 here, author of the above WMG. I have contemplated a Metro 2033 fanfic about a thinly veiled expy of the NCR, a faction that managed to get civilization together once again, located along the Baikalo-Amur Mainline. The only thing that stopped me from doing it is that I never travelled in the region myself to do some research and have only second-hand reports of what's going on there IRL.
- However, there are two things in the way of considering M2033 part of the Fallout universe as is. First is obvious: the date. In that universe, nuclear war happened around 2013. Second, the pre-war civilization in that universe is very obviously the Federal regime, not Soviet, and the communist faction are quack politicos that haven't read their Marx, not remnants of lawful authority.
- SINGAPORE: There could be two possible fates for the island. Either the Chinese annexed it and was using it as an important port (much like Hong Kong) or the US maintained an alliance with it during the American-Chinese War, possibly using it as a base of operations to strike upwards into Southern China. Either option would make it a militarily significant target, which almost certainly means it was nuked to oblivion by either side. However if the Chinese saved all their nukes for the American heartland and it escaped relatively unscathed I would imagine it to be a primitive pirate base of operations, complete with a thriving Slaver's market.
- ENGLAND: England has undergone a cataclysm. Nuked by various middle eastern countries, completely run out of fuel and a series of riots completely destablizing what order remains, leaving a broken husk of a country. The surviving authority figures declare England to be the last surviving section of the Commonwealth, and start Operation ANGEL. Hundreds of years pass. London is seperated by zones. There is the Pacified Zone, where everything is in a pre-war state, much like the Strip. However, there is only one (Birmingham Palace) since Operation ANGEL began and it is highly controlled. No-one gets in or out. Along with that, there are the Controlled Zones (Government soldiers in towers, vague law, similar to Freeside) and the Uncontrolled Zones (Similar to Capital Wasteland. Mutants, no law and occasionally settlements). There is also a unique zone called the Prison Zone, formerly a dock, where the massive husks of aircraft carriers are put to use as prisons. All is not stable in the London Ruins, as a civil war is going on. The Rebels have fought the Government multiple times in the Controlled Zones, and the Rebels are hidden within the Uncontrolled Zones.
- The Government is highly incompetent. This is mainly because Operation ANGEL was not very well planned. They cannot replicate their best weapons, their ammo is reused and they are running out of food, water and materials. They cannot even call for help due to the waters being dangerously radioactive, all their planes requiring fuel to get across the Channel that they do not have and all their radios being broken due to age of all the replacement parts. If they do not do anything about the resource crisis they will completely destroy what little remains of England. The Government control one of the last fuel deposits, under Birmingham Palace. However, they used a lot of it when they sent a plane across the channel (It did not come back) and they are hoarding it. They only control the London Ruins (Barely). They have three types of soldier. The Pacifier wears Riot Gear, wields riot shields with shotguns and patrol with five other Pacifiers in uniform fashion. They are deployed in Uncontrolled Zones. The Patrolsman wears Urban Camo Kevlar Armor (UCKA) and wields a L85A2, and are usually in Controlled Zones. The Guard wears the British equal of Power Armor, wields a high power sniper rifle and is deployed in the Pacified Zone as guards.
- The Rebels are a strange mix of communism and democracy. They wish to keep the "Everyone is Equal" part of communism along with the "Everyone Decides Who Is Leader" part of democracy. This would be utopian, but it's unrealistic. They are mainly based within the Uncontrolled Zones, and attack Controlled Zones regularly. Their main goal is to take control of the Pacified Zone and begin their new government. Their weapons are improvised from the environment or stolen from the Government. Molotov Cocktails, lead pipes, pistols made out of scrap metal or hastily repaired Government weapons are only just to start with their arsenal. They pride themselves on their improvisation.
- The UK could have some form of a Enclave in the scottish coast, based on plans to make the royal yacht a bunker in the case of nuclear war.
- Plus, wouldn't fighting a jerk final boss Charles the XXVI be awesome?
- Wales, Scotland and Ireland are all fine though.
- I shall add more at a later date. Watch this space.
- Nothing, I say NOTHING will happen to Indonesia, because nobody know the existence of Indonesia so it left mostly unharmed
- In fact, the Indonesian is unaware of what happened to the outside world, and all they can do is wondering why the satellite TV is out. They did, however, slowly regressed as they slowly learned the fact of the world and the complete lack of global trading...
- ISRAEL: They obviously got involved with the Resource Wars, and it's pretty much certain that they were targeted with nukes. There are two possibilities:
- The European Commonwealth had reacted to the rapid raising of oil prices to unacceptably high levels by the Middle East's oil-rich states in 2052 by unleashing military action in that region of the world. This intervention ultimately resulted in the destruction of the Israeli city of Tel Aviv in December 2053 by a terrorist nuclear device and a limited nuclear exchange between the conflict's participants in 2054, the world's first since 1945. This is official in universe canon. Israel did not fair well.
- Most likely, Israel suffered widespread nuclear destruction. Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, and Haifa are gone. The Galilee is a republic trying to rebuild Israel the way the NCR is doing. Their main advantage is that they have plenty of food. The Negev is a more arid version of the Capital Wasteland, with a few communities along the Jordan River, not to mention the Israeli equivalent of the Enclave operating out of the Dimona nuclear facility.
- CONTINENTAL EUROPE: As stated/implied in the games, Europe was badly ravaged by the Resource Wars (which included nuclear exchanges), even before the Great War came. The result is that most of the continent is an irradiated, unlivable hellhole. At most, some tribes and communities survive here and there in the less hostile pockets of land, and as far as anyone knows that’s what’s left of Europe’s population. That is incorrect. In real life, during the Cold War, Switzerland was already making plans for sheltering its entire population underground in case of a nuclear holocaust, and its numerous mountains (and associated highway tunnels, railway tunnels, mines...) provided excellent locations for fallout bunkers, most notably the 1,550-meter-long Sonnenberg Tunnel. In the Fallout verse, this would never have been discontinued: in fact, as the global situation deteriorated and it became increasingly obvious that the world would burn, other European nations with claims in the Alps (or eventually other suitable mountain ranges) began to do the same, digging in deep before the bombs would fall.
- Obviously, this wasn’t perfect — resource deprivation and political and social deterioration from the scarcities and wars and all — but it was enough for a decent fraction of Europeans to survive underground. Problem was, they couldn’t just leave after a while like (theoretically) Vault-dwellers could — in the world above, conditions like those of the Glowing Sea would’ve been the rule, not the exception. So they stayed put, and learned to live underground. Most of these bunker complexes likely failed, their inhabitants dying out or degenerating into creatures like the Trogs or the Tunnelers, but some survived and adapted, learning to exploit hydrothermal or geothermal energy to grow food and keep their bunkers running, or finding ways to use shafts and windows to let light but not radiation into their tunnels to form simple farms, becoming increasingly adapted to their new home. By the time of the games, they’re thriving to the point of expansion, tunneling from beneath the mountains to beneath the surrounding flatlands — and they aren’t recognizably human anymore. Generations of life underground and the occasional radiation leak have made them hunched, pale-skinned, squinty-eyed Morlock expies, like a more extreme version of the Slags from Fallout 2. When, one day, radiation levels die down enough for regular humans to begin to spread through Europe once more, they may be in for a bit of a surprise...
- MIDDLE-EASTERN EUROPE: Mostly unharmed from direct atomic bombing, but having lots of irradiated forests and rivers. The few survivors are in a medieval-esque time, very few guns, mutated horses (or something filling that role) and arrows used mainly for warfare, castles made from scrap rule over the fiefdoms, while smaller bands rampage around. Most are in constant fight with each other, oblivious on what happens beyond their horizons. If one of them would get an old USSR truck and fuel, they would probably start a raid never saw since Attila the Hun. Some possible examples of cultures emerging: post-apocalyptic huns, hussars with bayonet-rifles, knights in scrap-plate armour.
- Turns the entire game into Unreliable Narrator because you can visually see the area you enter Mothership Zeta without being close enough to interact with it.
- No other games in the series treats aliens as canon. The Great War and the nuclear escalation weren't surprises, which is why the Enclave had years of time to prepare for it.
- Alternately, it's Enclave social engineering, as they favor the authoritarian government-meets-1950s American Dream that makes up what we "know" of pre-War Fallout. By the time the Enclave began laying the groundwork for their plan, they'd decided that contemporary America wasn't what they wanted and made the "remnants" of the Old World an elaborate setpiece for their ideal America: An "innocent" time when obedience to the government promised baseball and apple pie, mixed with reliance on Enclave technology, that would attract those living in a post-nuclear world and make them easier to sway with promises of "the good old days."
- Odds are Alaska has little to no oil left. The Enclave refer to the Oil Rig as being over the last accessible oil field. If the Alaskan oil fields were still productive, the Enclave would have fortified it. Although I will concede that a previous never-mentioned, super powerful branch of the Enclave appearing randomly would be Bethesda's style.
- Alaska also isn't a frozen wasteland.
- At this point, oil isn't that important a resource since almost no one has the manufacturing capability to make anything where oil is that important. The reason oil was so useful for the Enclave was because the Enclave had vertibirds, which used oil up until Fallout 3 randomly decided to make them nuclear powered.
- The NCR is over-stretched militarily. Unless they find a way to directly transform electricity into people, then having more energy is not going to improve their situation.
- Mounting expeditions to far away lands because there might be something there is also an egregious waste of resources. Which is part of the reason Fallout 3 is so absurd to reuse West Coast factions.
- Jossed, it's in Boston. DLC is still possible
By the time the Seeds teams wake up from hibernation, however, most if not all of these shelters would have long been dead. With Osaka's Ryugyu shelter ending up as a sort of Japanese Vault 22.
- Another example is Fugi #8: a top secretand long-abandoned self-sustaining ship that may have been an attempt to one-up the Enclave's Poseidon Oil Rig. It was designed to contain a veritable arsenal of weapons and even its own built in missile silo that's aimed at Japan as an ultimate form of national suicide.
The fact that 7 Seeds happens on a meteor apocalypse instead of nuclear apocalypse makes it more suited to the Rageverse instead.
too bad you up and killed them,
- .....Oh dear Atom, why else would they not freeze or execute Sally for her frequent escapes?
- Going along with this, there was no technological divergence either. Instead, there was a movement in the pre-war world to create technology that is resistant to explosions and radiation, resulting in bulkier and lower-tech but much hardier and long lasting machines. However, it's difficult to find a reason why they'd be so prevalent in the general population since it's unlikely that most people would be willing to downgrade their technological experience.
- Confirmed. Fallout 2 mentions "the Reagan era" in a holotape.
Post-apocalyptic wasteland? Check.
Non-native Americans in tribal Native American-esque setting? Check.
Some time in the future of the Fallout timeline, the Americans will become the Yangs and the Chinese will become the Kohms.
- China is probably even worse off than the US. Given the US campaigns mentioned, it's likely that they'd already lost quite a bit of land, meaning it might have lost part of its nuclear arsenal. The presence of large numbers of US soldiers on China's soil would make it possible that some of them survived, though probably mostly as ghouls (With the disturbing possibility of ghouls in power armor). We know that FEV was originally developed for deployment against China, and there might have been some quantities present for testing, but probably not nearly as much, meaning less horrible mutants. Given the resource wars and the mention of the chinese army in Mongolia, it's likely that China took over the surrounding countries much like the US did, and much of east and south-east asia would have likely suffered the same fate as china. Depending on whether or not India and Pakistan had nukes, they might have avoided this fate, but in that case they probably nuked each other during the Resource Wars.
- Oceania is probably doing the best out the various continents. Resource shortages would have led to civil wars, and the larger islands (Java, Sumatra, Australia, New Guinea, etc) might have seen foreign intervention to secure resources or tactical locations, which could have in turn led to being nuked during the Great War. However, there's a lot of tiny islands out there, distant enough to not suffer nuclear explosions, and small enough to not be worth conquering for resources. The biggest problem would be radiated or FEV monstrosities from the US and chinese coasts roaming the seas, but those are pretty survivable. This is really the only place (besides possibly the Soviet-Union, see below) where remnants of pre-war governments could still be in place.
- Africa and South America were probably plundered empty even before the Resource wars in europe and the middle east, because why risk nuclear war if you can still plunder people without nukes? There's several countries in South America and Africa with decent oil reserves, which would make them primary targets. However, because they were already plundered empty by the time the real heavy fighting began, they might not have seen too much nuking. Smaller-scale wars between the various nations over the last remaining scraps of resources, followed by civil wars, starvation and anarchy seem likely, making the current situation similar to Europe and the Middle-East (just slightly less radio-active)
- Speaking of, Europe and the Middle-East were likely torn apart by conventional warfare. The fact that they actually had a nuclear exchange with one another without leading to Mutual Destruction makes it likely that neither side actually had all that many nukes to begin with, so no radioactive wasteland, but there could still be a variety of mutated beasties roaming around. All the big cities would have probably still been hit, but plenty of survivors in the rest of the various countries to wage war for the remaining scraps of resources. Like with Africa and south-america, this would probably have been followed by civil wars, starvation and anarchy. New states are likely to have arisen in the remaining arable areas (which there would be more of than in the states, due to less nuclear fire), but the limited resources means that these probably remain hostile to one another.
- The Soviet Union is the big question mark. It seems to have survived the Europe/Middle-eastern conflict just fine, meaning it's unlikely to have faced much trouble during the Resource Wars afterwards. For any nation in Europe or the Middle east to attack the Union after that would have been suicide, and the Union's vast reserves of resources means it would have little reason to attack other countries. That leaves the question: Was the Soviet Union targeted during the Great War? Was the US afraid that they would join with China's attack, and shoot first? Was China afraid that the Soviets were eyeing their resources, and target them too? If neither happened, it's entirely possible that the Union survived the Great War, though it would still be troubled by fallout blowing in from the east and south. If either of the nations targeted the Soviets, its western cities, eastern sea-board and transcaucasia are likely to look much like the radiated wastelands of North America and China, though there might still be some good arable land in the relatively underdeveloped center.
- New York: A giant crater.
- Chicago: Ruled by the remnants of the enclave scout base that was built there. Largely similar to the ruins of boston.
- Florida: An Overgrown Swampland, with scattered ruins of cities that have been completely enveloped by the swamplands.
- One exception; Walt Disney envisioned EPCOT (which stands for Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow) to be an actual city where people would work and live with new technology presented by the very best in industry. After Walt Disney's death, the company decided against building and managing a city, especially without Walt's guidance. In the Fallout-verse, he managed to finish it before he died, creating a self-sustaining community that weathered the bombs relatively well due to its distance from military targets. It's a bit creepy as they have a Nuka World-esque obsession with pre-war cartoons, but they have continuity with the pre-war US.
- Alaska: Unscathed by the devastation, the few vaults failed miserably and the environment is unsuited for human habitation.
- Mexico: Annexed by the winner of the Mojave war.
- Ontario: Frozen over almost entirely, with well heated and insulated settlements. The Ruling factions are a pre-war militia, which survived the great war, a large group of FEV mutants who were experimented on prior to the war which demonstrate greater intelligence than the East Coast strain and an Enclave group that has been separated from the oil rig and has evolved divergently into a less extreme governing body called "The New American Confederacy".
- Quebec: Be Careful what you wish for eh? The Independent Quebec Collapsed under pressure from the Super Mutants, Weather and the New American Confederacy.
- ''Newfoundland:" A Viking Culture has evolved, primarily raiding, fishing and trading. Despite it's savagery, there are almost no raiders and the culture has remained stable for a century.
- Alberta, Manitoba and Saskatchewan: Frozen Wastes, that lacked any influential factions to build up a civilization. The result is scattered raider gangs and rough frontier towns.
- The Canadian Territories: COLD. COLD. COLD. COLD. COLD.
- British Columbia: Attempts to replicate the success of the NCR and Newfoundlandic Viking Fleet resulted in Mad Max with boats.
- Europe: The Glowing Sea. For Miles. And Miles. And Miles. And Miles. And Miles.
- Australia: A variety of scrubland and quagmires, full of Bunyip (Giant Wombat), Devil Rats (Tasmanian Devils), Drop Bears (Koala), Radsharks (Bull Sharks) Funnel Trappers (Funnelweb Spiders), Pakkieola (Giant Crocs) and the Demonslange (Tiger Snake). The Few communities live in the ruins of urban cities, as the Quagmire is relatively swarmed with deadly wildlife. It is ruled by an NCR like faction, the Australian Protectorate Militia.
- Africa: Due to immense fallout from both wars, there is little human life.
- South America: Hellish. Organized Mirelurk Hives overrun small settlements and the Stonemen Raiders, who wipe towns without leaving any survivors. What few settlements exist can vanish in a day, consumed by the jungle. Only settlements in ruined cities like Manuaus, now under a lawless dictatorship, that avoided the worst are defensible from the Stonemen and the Mirelurks.
- Russia: Caught in the crossfire of the great war, russia is akin to america and canada, except with more scattered populations
- China: The Chinese is largely irradiated, but isolated settlements have evolved in the southern ruins and the mountains, connected by the New Chinese Air Trading Corp.
- Crossover with Jade Empire? Lots of airships; savage, unstable winds that restrict travel, and that one freaky-deaky story in Tien's Landing where a ship crew dies of radiation poisoning in uncharted waters? Magic and chi-based martial arts arising from a combination of Eastern mysticism, Fallout's functional psychic powers, and lack of gunsmithing infrastructure surviving? Me overthinking things like a jackass? Yes please. -Woggs 123
- Japan: The Fallout wiped out everyone who wasn't a ghoul. The lack of vaults meant the japan was stuck with just it's ghoul population.
- In aurora369's headcanon, this was exactly the reason why the USSR is not the leader of the communist bloc; they deliberately rejected the Brezhnev doctrine and retrenched into their own borders to survive the coming apocalypse. Let those cocky revisionist Maoists sacrifice themselves to crush capitalism, the Soviet Union will dig into the ground, it will build secret cities, survive and inherit the world. They did not launch during the actual war, but launched everything as a coup de grace at both USA and China as the dust from the initial exchange settled, to make sure neither could rise from the ashes.
Now, let's add a layer... Dogmeat seems to be very, VERY fond of people in blue Vault suits, doesn't he? Could he have been low-key programmed for loyalty towards american citizens, and so is only truly loyal towards people irrevocably American? Or maybe Dogmeat is simply smart or perceptive enough to know a hero when he sees one? Mama Murphy from Fallout 4 mentions that Dogmeat has a mind of his own, and that he is fiercely independent. She also thinks that it isn't a coincidence that Dogmeat chooses to go with the player in Fallout 4; supporting the theory that Dogmeat knows more than any normal dog would about the world he inhabits!
- While this likely will never be confirmed, there is basis for it in-universe as cyberdogs are notoriously long-lived. Plus, according to Old World Blues, the New Vegas Clinic and certain doctors in Fallout 2, it's possible to create cybernetic enhancements that aren't immediately obvious. As for the theory on superdogs, that's hard canon due to Rex of New Vegas. He's a pre-war cyberdog created for a police K9 unit, and except for curable neural degradation he's in prime fighting condition 200 years later. Plus, Dogmeat in Fallout 1 canon dies after smashing into a disintegration wall only to assist his master's grandson in the next game. While it's intended as an Easter egg, I headcanon it on the basis that there's already a sh*tload of actual magic elsewhere.
- To add more fuel to this, beating Old World Blues with Roxie alive and the Cyberdog Facility operational results in the facility manufacturing packs of police dogs who begin protecting and policing towns across the wasteland. -woggs123
To tie the East Coast protagonists to the West, there's the Sole Survivor and their spouse, who could have been everyone's common ancestor. Nate and/or Nora could have had relatives in California who ended up in Vault 13, whose descendant became the lucky Vault Dweller tasked to find the water chip. As for the Lone Wanderer, their ancestor could be another relative of Nate and/or Nora's, who managed to survive the bombs and kept the bloodline running for two hundred years. One of their descendants became a scientist in the Capital Wasteland, who had a child with another scientist. Said child was taken to Vault 101, left the vault at 19 to find their missing dad, and ended up earning the nickname "Lone Wanderer" during their adventures in the wastes.
- A faction devoted to The Seattle Seahawks in the same vein as The Kings from New Vegas will be prominent (possibly thinking that football players were some form of titans who did ancient battles). You will be able to learn unarmed/thrown weapon combat techniques.
- The player will have the ability to request rides from aircraft and seacraft not unlike the carriage systems in Skyrim, possibly even customizing their own vehicles.
- A major Russian pressence, possibly indicating an attempt at colonization of the former US.
- Also, with what we know about the Fallout US government, how likely is it that they would have bowed to the people after Rachel Carson published Silent Spring?
- How likely is it that they would have let her publish it at all?
- Rad Child, Rad Resistance, Lead Belly, Atomic!, and Ghoulish are the results of your body adapting to radiation. Rad Child/Ghoulish and Atomic! outright allows your body to beneficially utilize radioactive compounds in the manner of extremophilic micro-organisms. Aquaboy/girl is a mutation that creates fully-functioning gills in your character's throat (and, later, chromatophores in their skin), which is why you can breathe under water (and become, aha, slippery when wet at level 2). Refractor is those same chromatophores reacting to laser beams, allowing you to somewhat harmlessly absorb the energy. Nuclear Anomaly is similar to the radiation burst Glowing Ones use, but far more powerful and subject to Power Incontinence.
- The Fallout Wiki states that its taste is actually a blend of 17 fruit flavours, plus cola nut. Likewise, Dr. Pepper.
Their good fortune is thanks to the Enclave. After the Great War, the parts of the US government that would become (or already had become) the Enclave sealed themselves away and kept up work on power armour development. Rather than continue to refine the T-series, they instead started on a new line - for the sake of argument, let's call it the V-Series. None of these models were much of an improvement on existing technology, but they were at least sufficient for duty out in the Wasteland. One such mission was to Illinois to secure Vault Zero and the Calculator, and either the troops sent out were clad in V-Series armour or the Enclave established an outpost in the area that was responsible for its development. Eventually they decided that Vault Zero wasn't worth trying to secure for whatever reason - maybe they didn't have the resources to deal with the Reavers, the Super Mutants, et al., maybe they caught wind of the Bo S airship approaching and didn't fancy tangling with them - and so they pulled out of the Midwest, leaving only an armoury of V-Series PA suits that they didn't have room to take with them.
This also ties into Fallout 3, where the Enclave is equipped with armour that looks nothing like the X-01 armour they were wearing in FO2 - but it DOES look like the Midwestern Brotherhood's armour. It may be that the X-01 was developed on the West Coast - maybe at Navarro, maybe on the Oil Rig - and the creation of such a clear technological advantage over the Brotherhood's T-51, combined with the Brotherhood's decline since the defeat of the Unity, finally gave the Enclave the confidence to come out of the shadows and begin operating much more openly (and maybe even send some missions out to the Commonwealth, hence the presence of X-01 armour over there). Alas, not only did they get smacked back down by the Chosen One for their trouble, but the ensuing war with the NCR destroyed not only their presence in California, but also their capacity to build and maintain X-01 armour, and thus the Capital Wasteland contingent of the Enclave were forced to rely on the older V-Series armour.
Fist of the North Star takes place in a post-apocalyptic Japan. It isn't hard to imagine tales of Kenshiro's exploits would spread overseas. American Action Survivors would very much be interested in a quicker and easier way to kill in a world where killing is most often living, and so tried to replicate Hokuto Shinken through technological means.- There is also the fact that most robots and AI in the Fallout-verse were personable and logical, as if they're "bottom-up" (self-learning) instead of "top-down" (pre-programmed).
- And also how the Robobrain is one of the crude attempt of General Atomics, independent to the CIT, to reproduce the creation of fluctlights through a different method, instead of "copying the soul", they simply directly use intact brains.
Additionally, the nameless "mechanical genius" responsible for the holodeck nursery is almost certainly Stanislaus Braun, who was amused and maybe impressed after he heard that his creation managed to kill two people. It may have inspired the "game" he plays with the unfortunate inhabitants of Vault 112.