Fallout: Not Like a Real-Life Nuclear Holocaust

[alexwars1]

Fallout? Unrealistic? Nonsense! The giant scorpions, virus mutated ork-men, and little green space-people are all very scientifcly plausible!

 

[LondonBeer]

Renowned physicist Dr. Michio Kaku points out water is wet & the sky is blue. Also gravity pulls things down.

 

[DTWolfwood]

I love this man, he is so charismatic when it comes to explaining Physics to the layman. Science made easy by Michio Kaku! XD

 

[Silva]

I'm interested in why the article doesn't mention nuclear winter, which was also conveniently absent from happenings in the games. Of course, nuclear winter is just a theory, though it's enjoyed popular support for a while in the layman community since Carl Sagan popularised the notion.

What? Has he been in a nuclear Holocaust?
I dont think he knows what one is truely like unless hes been in it first hand.

Just like we don't know a country exists until we've been there?

We can study from known phenomena and theorise quite definitively what would happen in a nuclear war. Yes, some aspects remain unpredictable, but we do know that it'd be very, very different from the kind that we see in the Fallout universe.

 

[haaxist]

If you get the special edition of the game, it comes with an artbook, and the section dealing with the environment tells you that the developers actually did a lot of research to see how much stuff would still be around in the event of an actual nuclear holocaust. Obviously, the answer was "not much", but that wouldn't make a very interesting video game, so they took a lot of liberty in making the game. So even the developers knew that it was highly unlikely that the events in the Fallout games would happen. The section with the creatures also tells that they just wanted to make creatures that might have come to be due to mutation.

Not trying to be a know-it-all or anything.

 

[DaMan1500]

Whoa, are you telling me that a nuclear holocaust wouldn't actually create a race of giant green people? My entire graduate thesis ruined in an instant!

 

[HentMas]

At least Pipboys? Please, doc, tell me I can have my PIPBOY!

you already have like a thoudsand pip boys!

sure they are not in your "arm" or coded to only be able to be used by your specific DNA, but have you watched at what the pip boy does? and what your laptop, Iphone, Cel phone, Notebook (etc etc etc) can do!?

just, find a display small enough, build a case in shape of your arm, place the componnents of a mid range lap in place, add some custom switches and buttons (keyboard, ball for mouse etc) and you are set!

 

[kouriichi]

I'm interested in why the article doesn't mention nuclear winter, which was also conveniently absent from happenings in the games. Of course, nuclear winter is just a theory, though it's enjoyed popular support for a while in the layman community since Carl Sagan popularised the notion.

What? Has he been in a nuclear Holocaust?
I dont think he knows what one is truely like unless hes been in it first hand.

Just like we don't know a country exists until we've been there?

We can study from known phenomena and theorise quite definitively what would happen in a nuclear war. Yes, some aspects remain unpredictable, but we do know that it'd be very, very different from the kind that we see in the Fallout universe.

Well ofcourse its not going to be a perfict copy. If aliens are real i dont expect War of the Worlds to happen. Its something you dont need to point out.

But ofcourse, we have no clue what it will be like. Like when you plan to travel abroad and you end up passing through a slummy area you wernt expecting.

 

[kouriichi]

What? Has he been in a nuclear Holocaust?
I don't think he knows what one is truly like unless hes been in it first hand.

Computer Simulation. Also Common Sense. We have no idea how long these effects will last or what exactly will happen, but Common Sense helps us figure out it takes MILLIONS OF YEARS FOR ANY KIND OF MUTATION TO TAKE PLACE THAT DOES NOT KILL YOU IN A FEW MINUTES. Please don't take the caps as anger, I am just trying to stress the point. Computer Simulation + Common Sense = What MIGHT happen during a Nuclear Holocaust.

Just because I haven't been shot doesn't mean I don't think it hurts like hell. You don't have to experience everything to understand something.

Well no, i just mean, in general, he cant be right about everything.

I'm not saying mutations alone. I mean the whole atmosphere. He says it would be a lot worse then portrayed in Fallout, but that's only speculation. You can simulate all you want, but it doesn't mean your going to be 100% right.

The sims is technically a simulation. But that doesn't mean when theirs a fire someones going to stand there screaming and pointing at it.

All I'm saying is, no matter how sure you are, things can always be different. If the population is going to be as low as he said it would be, then that would mean food would be much easier to acquire and keep.

"A nuclear war is going to be much worse, so we're talking about perhaps civilization as we know it crumbling for perhaps millennium."
And we wouldn't go back to the stone age. I doubt every book, computer, and instruction manual on the planet would be destroyed. Civilization will regrow, and be back up and running within a few hundred years at the most. People get together, we would get electricity working ((portable generators or better)), contact other people, breed, and civilization is back on track, but with less traffic.
Sure, inbreeding is problem, but we would eventually get past it.
people really over dramatize the end of the world. Not every country is going to be nuked. Not every civilization will die. Sure, 70% of the population could burn in the radiation, but that would still leave 30% to regrow and repopulate.

1.) The Sims is a simulation turned into a game. They had to add video game elements for people to play it and not get bored. Most simulation games are quite boring.

2.) He never said he was 100% right, though I do see your point.

3.) The thing about "low Pop = more food" seems like a good thing, but you have to remember. Unless a lot of the food was sealed up and did not get completely disintegrated or irradiated you won't be finding a lot of "clean, uniradiated foods" around. Even if you do, more than likely there will be others that will kill you just to get the food.

4.) Civilization will go back to the stone ages just because of that alone. We will become a tribal people. Even if computers and stuff still existed, people will need to band together create a community, find a livable place (if not just become nomads) and have to learn these complicated jobs like building computers, electricity and what not. After a few generations have gone by, a lot of the children will not have been schooled or anything like that. Civilization WILL start back to stone ages if not earlier due to that fact alone. So say Hawaii got off relatively safely and they have all of their population and "smart people". Yet the entirety of the world is still scared shit less and just trying to survive. Just because there is one small island that is "safe" doesn't mean civilization is just back up and running like that. It will still take YEARS for the world as a whole to go back to what it once was, and even then it won't be all that great. There would be no central government or anything of the sort around. We would techincally be all "nomads" until we settled down and started from the beginning. Though we may have guns instead of swords it still doesn't stop the fact that life will never be the same, if life ever continues that is.

But thats the thing about it! We cant go back to the stoneage. There will still be hundreds of thousands who know how to read. Books will still be plentiful, and teaching is something every parent does for theyer child. ((well, most anyway)).
There will always be technology. To think everyone will abandon it entirely is kinda........ well, theres only one word for it xD

Every place that doesnt get nuked will already have civilization. You dont have to change anything there. If greenland doesnt get bombed, theyer still going to have a goverment, a working civiliztion, power, and food. xD they arnt going to go back to the stone age. And after a while, places like greenland that arnt the main targets of nuclear war, will be the places true civilization will start back in. Not the nuclear waste lands.

 

[jimduckie]

gee andy i figured that out along time ago,i cant wait for new vegas to come i just hope it is fully debugged b4 release