Did anywhere NOT get nuked in Fallout?

[Grygor]

according to wikipedia, depending on the isotope of plutonium it ranges from 84 years (238pu) to 8,080,000 years (244pu).

If it's the 84 year halflife isotope, most of the radiation present in fallout would dissipate in about 200 years. *shrug*

With an 84-year half-life, even after 200 years 20% of the radioactive material remains.

Of course, technically speaking, the largest component of nuclear fallout is short-lived radioisotopes resulting from nuclear fission, not unexploded Pu-239 - for comparison's sake, the fallout from the Chernobyl disaster has a half-life of roughly 4 years. After 200 years, the radiation from such fallout would be practically undetectable.

Not that any of this matters, considering the science in Fallout is intentionally fairly soft.

I wonder how many nukes it would take to literally break the world in half... like if you dug down deep enough and just planted nukes down there, how many would it take to actually split the world in two? I would imagine it wouldn't take 55,000

It would take way more than 55,000 bombs.

Planets are surprisingly sturdy things, and take vast amounts of energy to destroy or even seriously damage. For example, the Earth's gravitational binding energy 224,000,000 YJ (i.e. 2.24e32 Joules) - this is the amount of energy required to flat out explode the planet. (Any less that that and the resulting fragments would recombine due to their mutual gravitational attraction.) And even just cutting the planet is harder than it sounds, because most of the Earth's volume is liquid, and the crust is not one single piece, but several smaller sheets of rock held in place by friction.

Even if every single one had a yield of 100 megatons (the theoretical maximum yield of Tsar Bomba, the largest nuclear weapon ever tested), 55,000 bombs adds up to only 230 ZJ (i.e. 2.30e23 Joules) - only one billionth of the Earth's gravitational binding energy. That's about half the energy released by the Chicxulub impact (aka "the one that killed the dinosaurs") - and while that impact caused massive tsunamis and triggered earthquakes and volcanic eruptions all around the world, it's only lasting influence on the Earth's structure is a 110-mile-wide crater. A ring of 55,000 100-MT weapons would dig a hell of a trench (and probably trigger global seismic activity), but that trench wouldn't even break through the thinnest parts of the crust, much less go all the way through the Earth. Nasty planetary scar yes, planet cut in half no.

And of course very few, if any, of those bombs would have yields anywhere near 100 MT. The highest-yield weapon currently in the US stockpile is only 1.2 MT. Even the single Tsar Bomba that was ever built only had a yield of 50 MT.

 

[razing32]

A european island near antarctica?

Antarctica is basically the South Pole.
Europe is in the Northern Hemisphere.
Did you mean the North Pole ?

No, I mean South Pole Antarctica, there's an Island owned by the french (or islands) down there

I noticed.Norway has the biggest one.I admit , I goofed...

 

[kouriichi]

Many places wernt nuked. You just have to remember that the fallout caused every place not nuked to still be uninhabitable for the first 100 or so years.

 

[MrJoyless]

Its not that everything got nuked its that everything was horribly affected by the fallout from the massive nuke exchange, in the new Vegas guidebook it even says that Mr House saved Vegas from getting hit, then everyone went outside to celebrate, and everyone died from the fallout from all of the other nuke strikes up wind/surrounding areas.

 

[PatrickXD]

Erm, Vegas and the surrounding area WAS nuked, just not as badly as DC. Seriously, bombs did drop. However if you look at Jacobstown, for example, their is far less radiation. I would assume that the smaller and more remote areas near mountainous terrain or other more inaccessable areas like the Gobe desert wouldn't be nuked, for obvious reasons. (ie. cost of bomb > relative deaths)

 

[Kinguendo]

Apparently England was the most powerful Commonwealth country left standing in the world (commonwealth meaning all of Europe) so its likely that somewhere like Newcastle or York + other northern towns would not have been directly hit, London would have been f***ed over..

I also hear that The Institute of Technology in Massachusetts fared pretty well..

The commonwealth isnt Europe, its made up of a lot of the countries that were still in the British Empire. Places such as Canada, New Zealand, Australia, India, etc.

EDIT: AH! WAIT! You mean the European Commonwealth in the Fallout universe? Yeah, that is the games version of the EU. However I dont know where you got your info from because the UK is the only confirmed member of the EC in Fallout, I guess by default that does make them the most powerful but the EC is now one giant state instead of individual ones. The war leading to the Fallout games was basically between super continents and not countries, the European Commonwealth being the one that started the resource wars by waging war on the Middle East because they were destroying their economy through oil prices.

 

[Kinguendo]

Erm, Vegas and the surrounding area WAS nuked, just not as badly as DC. Seriously, bombs did drop. However if you look at Jacobstown, for example, their is far less radiation. I would assume that the smaller and more remote areas near mountainous terrain or other more inaccessable areas like the Gobe desert wouldn't be nuked, for obvious reasons. (ie. cost of bomb > relative deaths)

It wasnt, Vegas was saved by Mr. House. There were nukes that landed in the surrounding areas but New Vegas was fine, hence it still standing in the game.

 

[Kinguendo]

That one green zone in Fallout 3. Or it might have been nuked and that dude just sort of made it green again, by being trapped inside a tree or something. Memories a bit vague.

Yeah, that area was just part of the capital wasteland until Bob (the tree growing on Harolds head) finally rooted while Harold was traveling and that became The Oasis.

 

[Kinguendo]

Yes it did. You meet a Ghoul turned in the war who lived near Mexico City.

It didnt, Mexico is presumably still intact... Raul still lived on his ranch in Mexico after the War with his entire family, the reason he left was because angry refugees that were turned away from the Ranch because they already had too many decided to burn it down killing his entire family except for one of his sisters... who got murder later while Raul was sick anyway.

Mexico City on the other hand was completely obliteratd by a nuke... but thats the ONLY place in Mexico that has been confirmed to have been hit by a nuke.

(Also, Raul is AWESOME! Voiced by Danny Terjo. )

 

[Kinguendo]

just wondering did anywhere NOT get nuked in Fallout because most of the major cities seemed to get leveled and even whenever places like New Vegas AREN'T nuked they still seem to be a wasteland, so aside from the threads obvious question another one would be which countries weren't affected? my guess would be the likes of Ireland, Finland, Norway and a few asian and african ones

No, Nevada's doing really fucking well for having practically NO maintenance for nigh on a quarter of a millennium. I'm rather surprised towns still have running water and electricity if you do that one quest. Working radios? Who the fuck remembered how to make radio stations from scratch? AND HOW WAS THE MUSIC INFORMATION KEPT?! Even CD's will degrade in under two decades, and they are some of the longest-lasting media storage devices.

Holotapes as the other fellow mentioned... and as for the knowledge. As you know some books survived, some computers were still functional and contained pre-war data also you have to remember that there were many, many robots that were created to help any human and Ghouls that were alive pre-war.

EDIT: Also... erm, the vaults.

 

[FalloutJack]

just wondering did anywhere NOT get nuked in Fallout because most of the major cities seemed to get leveled and even whenever places like New Vegas AREN'T nuked they still seem to be a wasteland, so aside from the threads obvious question another one would be which countries weren't affected? my guess would be the likes of Ireland, Finland, Norway and a few asian and african ones

Sorry, man. I'm from THE PITT.

 

[vrbtny]

I would've thought Africa would'nt be directly obliterated, just severe radiation poisoning, unless NATO siezes the oportunity to take out Mr Mugabe. I would love to see a Fallout game set in London, yeah seeing the DC Ruins and the Mojave Wastelands is cool, but I really want to experiance a post apocalyptic game in England, also wandering through the deserted corridors of Buckingham Palace or The House Of Commons would be pretty cool.

Yeah, Totally this. Imagine walking alongside the Thames...(Shiver)

 

[MikailCaboose]

I'm fairly sure that Easter Island didn't get nuked. *shrugs*

 

[whtkid6969]

vegas

 

[Starke]

Apparently England was the most powerful Commonwealth country left standing in the world (commonwealth meaning all of Europe) so its likely that somewhere like Newcastle or York + other northern towns would not have been directly hit, London would have been f***ed over..

I also hear that The Institute of Technology in Massachusetts fared pretty well..

The commonwealth isnt Europe, its made up of a lot of the countries that were still in the British Empire. Places such as Canada, New Zealand, Australia, India, etc.

EDIT: AH! WAIT! You mean the European Commonwealth in the Fallout universe? Yeah, that is the games version of the EU. However I dont know where you got your info from because the UK is the only confirmed member of the EC in Fallout, I guess by default that does make them the most powerful but the EC is now one giant state instead of individual ones. The war leading to the Fallout games was basically between super continents and not countries, the European Commonwealth being the one that started the resource wars by waging war on the Middle East because they were destroying their economy through oil prices.

France is a confirmed member of the EC as well IIRC. Except the EC isn't one big state. In the 2060s it tore itself apart over oil. As Fallout puts it the EC "dissolved into bickering nation states."

It's not completely clear who went after the middle east. The European Commonwealth is a good bet, and the Soviet Union isn't an unlikely suspect. On top of that South America and Africa were probably caught up in the resource wars as well, because of the oil down there. Now, I'll admit there's no cannon cometary on either, but both are major sources of oil, and given that that was one of the key flash-points in the resource wars... So, even if they weren't hit in 2077, they were almost certainly ravaged by warfare beforehand.

 

[Starke]

in the new Vegas guidebook it even says that Mr House saved Vegas from getting hit, then everyone went outside to celebrate, and everyone died from the fallout

Now thats just funny

That's what fans of the franchise were missing in Fallout 3.

Im guessing africa and the middle east are fine seen as I dont hear much about american or chinese annexing those countries for resources.

China did do some annexing. But I can't remember the details.

But if they did nuke africa, only once thats gotta be harsh isnt it? All the violent animals, diease, famine, rebels and being poor you just fucking nuke erm? Like it didnt suck enough.

Africa would be, in a word, fucking-awesome. Just think about the setting you just put together as a role-playing environment.

Would be cool exploring other countries though seen as Im sure they have problems that america doesnt as they have the super mutants

There was a canceled XBox title (not BOS) that was intended to start in Canada and work its way up through Alaska and then down to the Forbidden City where a Chinese remnant force was planning on conquering the world through the use of a doomsday device (IIRC). Unfortunately it did not go anywhere.

 

[Starke]

just wondering did anywhere NOT get nuked in Fallout because most of the major cities seemed to get leveled and even whenever places like New Vegas AREN'T nuked they still seem to be a wasteland, so aside from the threads obvious question another one would be which countries weren't affected? my guess would be the likes of Ireland, Finland, Norway and a few asian and african ones

Sorry, man. I'm from THE PITT.

So's my mother. She was genuinely disturbed by how much it looked like Pittsburgh did during the 1950s.

 

[TheDudeMan14]

I'm going to say Hawaii, or Delaware. I bet the Chinese never even heard of Delaware. Christine O'Donnell lives another day....