Fallout 3 world

[Belgian_Waffles]

why cant fallout 3 be cannon im not trying to sound like an ass i just really dont understand

Because it regularly violates established lore for the most part. There is plenty about the game that quite simply doesn't make a bit of sense, and much of it revolves around the timeline.

In fallout 1, a few decades after the war, the world is similar to what we see in fallout 3 - settlments stratching out a miserable existance from the ashes and so on. Fallout 2 takes place two generations later (you play as the grandchild of the vault dweller you played in the first game) and the world has altered dramatically. There are once again working cities and towns and a functioning society is present.

Additionally, certain bits are utterly out of place. The FEV, the true source of super-mutants, was the result of a terribly secret project on the west coast that was interrupted by nuclear holocaust. How did it end up on the east coast?

The Brotherhood never had the resources to police more than their local strongholds - the only long distance expedition was born out of a desire to get rid of dissenters by sending them on a suicide mission and that only made it as far as Chicago. Am I to believe that they exhausted the technology of all the vaults between california and DC?

The Enclave were all but cannonically destroyed by the events of Fallout 2 and yet they reappear to play the bogeyman in Fallout 3 somehow.

1. FEV Super mutants have been known to move about the continent of the U.S. it's perfectly reasonable for them to eventually end up on the east coast.

2. It's been 200 years since the brotherhood formed it's feasible that they have acquired more resources

3. Just because the west side is prospering in rebuilding by no means inclines that the east side is doing as well, (see point lookout wasn't even hit by the bombs but may even be worse off than D.C.)

4. The Enclave was destroyed on the WEST side there were more on the east side that had nothing to do with the conflict

In New Vegas your theories would be more apt but Fallout 3 is mostly exempt from the lore of fallout 1 and 2.

 

[Eclectic Dreck]

1. FEV Super mutants have been known to move about the continent of the U.S. it's perfectly reasonable for them to eventually end up on the east coast.

Except the supermutants in the game came from Valut 87, which used a strain of FEV to create new Super Mutants. This explains their unending numbers and proclivity for capturing rather than killing.

2. It's been 200 years since the brotherhood formed it's feasible that they have acquired more resources

Except that, as of last meeting, their power had waned dramatically and they were struggling to survive.

3. Just because the west side is prospering in rebuilding by no means inclines that the east side is doing as well, (see point lookout wasn't even hit by the bombs but may even be worse off than D.C.)

Higher population density on the east coast may mean the east was harder hit by the war, but after 200 years you'd expect something that resembled a society to emerge. You don't even end up with something resembling a city state and even the most basic social structures (family and tribal) are notably absent. I could accept this a few scant decades following the war, but if society didn't pull together after 200 years how do you really expect to maintain dirty miserable outposts in the wastes?

4. The Enclave was destroyed on the WEST side there were more on the east side that had nothing to do with the conflict

The group that became the Enclave happened to be away from the mainland, thus explaining how they survived to play the villian 80 years after the war. Most vaults failed according to Fallout Tactics thanks to a catastrophic disaster at the control vault (Vault 0), resulting in many vaults simply not sealing. All DC area vaults were reserved for people other than politicians. All military targets on the coast were annihilated.

In a world were communication is cut, the ability to travel any distance is wildy dangerous and humanity has resorted to fighting for it's survival against the ever hostile wastes, do you really propose that it just "somehow" managed to survive in SPITE of being annihilated in the first game? And given that records of the events almost certainly never made their way to the other side of the continent (a trip that under excellent conditions takes around a year to complete on foot, and that's before the world was reduced to ash and dust and mutant horror), am I really expected to believe it is a related "branch" that sprang up after the fact?

Yes, the possibilty exists, but I'd simply assert that they could have simply named the Enclave something else entirely and this plot point would be resolved.

In New Vegas your theories would be more apt but Fallout 3 is mostly exempt from the lore of fallout 1 and 2.

It really isn't. The thing is, I like Fallout 3 quite a lot. I am also perfectly willing to accept that Bethesda now has control over what is cannon and what is not. Several of these plot points could have readily been resolved. The FEV issue could have been retconned in without trouble but they never explained how it made its way into the vault project given it wasn't even close to being finished by the start of the war. The brotherhood and enclave issues are simply the result of the name. You could come up with an analog for either and the problem disappears entirely. In all reality, the timeline itself is really the problem. Were it to take place at the HEIGHT of the brotherhood's influence the cross-continental trip would be plausible. It would also have taken place before the destruction of the Enclave, making their presence all the more reasonable. It would have made the distinct lack of civilization far more plausible. It would resolve the problem inherent to the assertion that 200 year old mass market food stuffs would still be edible and that firearms built more than two centuries before the events of the game took place still worked.

You'd be LUCKY to find a single functioning 200 year old firearm, much less find them so regularly that you could outfit roving bands of bandits.

 

[AMMO Kid]

It only takes the radiation of ten nukes to destroy the whole world, so even if it started in America, it would quickly spread worldwide and destroy Eastern countries.

What? The number of nuclear weapons tests that have been conducted to date exceeds that figure by two orders of magnitude.

As has been stated, and as cursory research will quickly reveal, the entire world was heavily affected by the war. Some places may have received less fallout than others, and some are making major strides towards rebuilding (the best known example being the NCR), but no power is in good enough shape to help or threaten anyone outside their immediate sphere of influence.

Okay then, let me put it this way.

US Nukes - 1,500

Enemy Nukes - 1,500+

Conclusion - 3000+ Nukes getting fired at the same time = Guess What

 

[mad825]

It only takes the radiation of ten nukes to destroy the whole world, so even if it started in America, it would quickly spread worldwide and destroy Eastern countries.

What? The number of nuclear weapons tests that have been conducted to date exceeds that figure by two orders of magnitude.

As has been stated, and as cursory research will quickly reveal, the entire world was heavily affected by the war. Some places may have received less fallout than others, and some are making major strides towards rebuilding (the best known example being the NCR), but no power is in good enough shape to help or threaten anyone outside their immediate sphere of influence.

Okay then, let me put it this way.

US Nukes - 1,500

Enemy Nukes - 1,500+

Conclusion - 3000+ Nukes getting fired at the same time = Guess What

I would like to say that if you going to include realism, the radiation is the least of the problems as global dimming would have taken effect with that amount of nukes.

the ionising radiation can easily be dampened via the environment such as caves and possibly lead structures, if im correct that an natural uranium isotope decays into lead (given some time)

 

[Magnesium360]

Movie: On the beach (1959)
The Fallout universe doesn't work the same as ours in every way (Ghouls for example) but it is very similar. their worl seems to have meant to have diverged from us around the 1950's including the effects of radiation (based on popular belief at the time) and the design of everythring from pre-war furniture and clothing through to the alien blaster. when we developed electronis and computers, they developed nuclear technology and cybernetics. now, mor relevant, in "On the bech", a film from the 50s, there is one large scale nuclear war that causes severe damage to those countries and the rest of the countries deterorate over time as the global economy collapses, governments disband and radiation spreads. it is also worth noting that in a fallout 3 loading screen a headline claims the UN has disbanded. so 200 years after the war? There is still life left but civilisation as we know it is pretty much screwed. also, Doctor Zimmer is from Europe, so why can't moriarty and tenpenny be from Europe too? given the planes found on top of rivet city,even if non-operational, why can there not be any working planes or ships in all of Europe? Fallout 3 doesn't fit perfectly with the rest of the main series, but it fits enough to not be out of place as a main title.

 

[Magnesium360]

Uranium has a half life of 4.47 billion years. this means it would take over 4 billion years to get to one half of its potency, and that long again to get to half of that. given time it would decay into lead but, as the war happened 200 years ago by fallout 3, nothing would have happened by now.

 

[Monstrion]

It only takes the radiation of ten nukes to destroy the whole world, so even if it started in America, it would quickly spread worldwide and destroy Eastern countries.

....

Okay then, let me put it this way.

US Nukes - 1,500

Enemy Nukes - 1,500+

Conclusion - 3000+ Nukes getting fired at the same time = Guess What

Well you can put it any way you want, but your first post was BS. I can see no problem in dropping 10 tactical nukes (low yield) in actual battle, either as area denial weapon or just fortification buster. It wouldnt destroy the world, nor would it trigger global scale nuke exchange. WW III will be hell after all.

 

[AllLagNoFrag]

Is it ever made clear whether or not the entire world is effected by the nuclear death of the US or if the rest of the world is dead too. If the world is still alive, why is no one helping us?

no body knows, accept for the occasional chinese soldier that seems to have sprung up. It's part of the mythos.

However, it's a good bet that the rest of the world was laid waste too. I can't imagine that there wouldn't have been a peace keeping force, or at the very least, a foreign nation sending in task forces to steal Vault-tec and other military technologies from the United States.

Exactly, and how some people did not make it into the vault (or afford a spot) and had to stay outside and suffer ghoulification. You would think they would have at least went to a safe haven in some unaffected country. My question is, did every country have its collection of vaults and fair share of vault hunters? I know Japan would have advanced vaults etc etc but, what about some countries with really high poverty rates? Did they have no vaults and the whole population wiped out/ ghoulified? Hmmm...

Actually, we really can't guess what the rest of the world was like. The only other nation mentioned besides the US and China is Canada, which was annexed by the US. Ten Penny was supposedly British, however there's a debate about whether or not he was actually British or he said that to sound more elegant. Assuming he actually is, we can guess that England was at least as bad as America, otherwise why would you trade England for the Capital Wasteland?

What we do know is that the US was supposedly the only country to create vaults. The Chinese may have, but we have no evidence of this. We also know that during the close of the war, the world was in economic chaos caused by the sudden disappearing of oil. It's likely that the entire world was essentially destroyed. Even if the US and China were the only nations to get hit, the nuclear fallout and nuclear winter that would have followed would have been enough to destroy almost any remaining civilization.

And speaking of Japan specifically - because of the economic downturn in the 2050's, it's likely they didn't have much of an economy at all. Further, being between the Chinese Empire and America, they could have been the location of a warzone. That's purely speculation, but the point is that the world before the nuclear holocaust of 2077 was not a nice place outside of the US and China. Few, if any, probably survived.

EDIT: oh, and one more thing, not everyone who didn't get in a vault was turned into a ghoul. there are countless examples in each game of characters surviving the fallout without ghoulification. It just depends where you were when the bombs fell. For example, the first raiders were surviving humans.

I do realise that however, I was trying to draw out some conclusions (mistake). This speculation can actually go on for ages. It leaves alot to think about especially about what happened to the rest of the world. Hmm... leaves for questions yet to hopefully be answered in upcoming sequels of the fallout universe.

 

[Duskwaith]

In fallout 2 though isnt it not stated that only the enclave nuked america and blamed it on the chinese in order to create a super race?

Its contridicted by fallout 1 and in mothership zeta when you look down at the earth the entire place is just green and silent planet looking

 

[DigitalSushi]

The Irish would still be there, we can survive apocalyptic amounts of alcohol. A bit of nuclear fallout is nothing to us. We are used to shit weather too. In the end of days only cockroaches and the Irish will survive.

Did you know that the Irish can live without its head for an entire week?, before succumbing to starvation.

 

[Kuchinawa212]

My friends and I have determined perhaps small areas in Europe, some islands, and the poles should be okay. But other then that...nah we're done for

How do you figure the poles? It's assumed that when China and the U.S. began their all-out nuclear exchange, Alaska would've been one of China's foremost targets...possibly even their first, given their previous occupation of the region. So if we're going to assuming that their initial strike was as overcompensatory as the rest of the exchange (as it would've had to be to reduce so much of the world to ashes), wouldn't the fallout have reached at least the North Pole?

[sub]Yes, I'm a fanboy. So sue me.[/sub]

Hmm good point. Okay the north is lost. How about the south pole?

 

[Danny Ocean]

Is it ever made clear whether or not the entire world is effected by the nuclear death of the US or if the rest of the world is dead too. If the world is still alive, why is no one helping us?

Even if the rest of the world was fine, why would we help?

You sir, stole my point. Thanks. No, but seriously, who the hell would help us? Wouldn't they be a bit more concerned about themselves. Also, they're not stupid enough to divert precious resources somewhere else when its needed at home, unlike us. America fails.

That's not what I meant.

If the USA or any country was nuked to such an extent as to raze it to the ground and reduce it to a wasteland, the safe assumption is that no-one survived. The land is now unusable and the environment too harsh. There would be no point in going back there, so why bother?

 

[DigitalSushi]

It only takes the radiation of ten nukes to destroy the whole world, so even if it started in America, it would quickly spread worldwide and destroy Eastern countries.

What? The number of nuclear weapons tests that have been conducted to date exceeds that figure by two orders of magnitude.

As has been stated, and as cursory research will quickly reveal, the entire world was heavily affected by the war. Some places may have received less fallout than others, and some are making major strides towards rebuilding (the best known example being the NCR), but no power is in good enough shape to help or threaten anyone outside their immediate sphere of influence.

Okay then, let me put it this way.

US Nukes - 1,500

Enemy Nukes - 1,500+

Conclusion - 3000+ Nukes getting fired at the same time = Guess What

I thought that the US would have 1500 Nukes under the START (Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty), but ignored it completly and there are about 65,000 nukes between the US and USSR.

One of which has a blast radius of 9.6km, to put that in perspective the Hiroshima bomb had a blast radius of 300m....

I despair.

 

[cordeos]

Europe was in bad shape before the War happened, i assume Africa, South America, most of Asia were still 3rd world countries before the War, and China obviously got nuked like crazy. Also the War between the US and China was around resources, i can only guess that if the two greatest powers were fighting over resources, they were sorta cutting the rest of the world off. So the rest of the world was in bad shape pre-war, however they probably weren't hit as directly, but i don't think they would have vaults.

In conclusion, everyone got boned.

http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Resource_Wars
http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Europe
http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/China
http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Middle_East
http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Soviet_Union

 

[PoliceBox63]

The Irish would still be there, we can survive apocalyptic amounts of alcohol. A bit of nuclear fallout is nothing to us. We are used to shit weather too. In the end of days only cockroaches and the Irish will survive.

Win

 

[TheFacelessOne]

Well, I assume that the whole world got the FAPOOM treatment. I mean, if someone fired a nuke at you, what would you think? I'd think "Crap, this is the end...FIRE BACK! Then SHOOT AT EVERYONE ELSE FOR THE HECK OF IT!"

 

[Mechsoap]

alistar tenpenny is from britain, showing that he wanted to move to america properly means the rest of the world is too, and if you play fallout 1 you get to know the whole world was in one gigantic war, and it rained acid for years wich would make it impossible for ages to grow anything

 

[JEBWrench]

I'm amazed that people don't know this.

Games that are canon: Fallout 1, 2, 3, and New Vegas.
Games that aren't considered to be canon: Fallout Tactics, Brotherhood of Steel.

And also: The Vaults weren't created to protect anyone. They were an experiment to see how human beings would react to various aspects of confinement.

This was part of the original plot line of Van Buren. So no, it wasn't added by Bethesda.

 

[FallenJellyDoughnut]

I say since Australia (though no doubt a great nation) doesn't really get that involved in giant wars............well look at this I like to think that Canada would be drastically different due to the different climate and wildlife.............and all that fresh water would provoke someone to purify it...........I mean if project Purity was the first time I'd be kinda disappointed.

Doesn't get involved in great wars?! WE DONATED 50 000 TROOPS TO THE US DURING WWII! Not to mention the Anzacs!

 

[Mechsoap]

I think they are keeping that under wraps so more games/lore can be expanded on. xD

excellent point, though i think that the fallout universe focus much of the humor on the massive propoganda let in america