The one thing I still don't get about Fallout

[Mr. Google]

So after reading the full stories of fallout 1 and 2 and playing 3 and NV I still don't understand why everything is stuck in the 50's I know it will be easy to clear up but Ive been searching this for awhile now and no one can really explain it well.

Edit: All questions have been answered http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Divergence
Thank you MorcePacific. And everyone else who helped and gave their insight.

 

[MorsePacific]

http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Divergence

This basically explains it all. I don't think I could do it on my own, but I hope that helps.

 

[Mr. Google]

To put it simply, it's an alternate world, based on the future they thought we were going to have when the 50's where around.
With SCIENCE!!! instead of science.

See thats why people are saying everywhere but I just don't understand. So the alternate world is for the FO universe correct? Alternate being not ours? And its going by what they thought their future would be like in the 50's?

 

[Boxer.H1x]

After the atom split, the universe split into two. One universe was ours, and the other belonged to the Fallout universe. The thing is, while our technology improved and adapted, the Fallout universe tech stuck with nuclear power instead of alternate sources of energy. (This is why most Power Armor is nuclear powered. Or, at least, the Enclave Power Armor is nuclear powered. I'm not certain about everything else.) Culture and tech stagnated fairly quickly, but tensions between the Free World and the Reds didn't.

That's how I understood it, anyway...

 

[LarenzoAOG]

That's just Fallout's thing, it apes what the people of the 50's thought the future would be like, while making fun of the fashions, art styles, culture, and U.S. patriotism and fear of communism during the 1950's.

 

[Mr. Google]

http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Divergence

This basically explains it all. I don't think I could do it on my own, but I hope that helps.

AHH! thank you. The fact that I didnt stumble upon this myself is annoying but regardless thank you a lot I get it more now!

 

[Astoria]

I always thought it stayed in the 50's because when the war started society kinda stopped advancing and everyone and everything was focused on the war. Obviously everything would've stayed the same after it because there is no society to change. I could be completely wrong but that's what I thought.

 

[ChupathingyX]

See thats why people are saying everywhere but I just don't understand. So the alternate world is for the FO universe correct? Alternate being not ours? And its going by what they thought their future would be like in the 50's?

Yes, in our world our culture changed and things like punk culture and goth and all that devloped, not in the Fallout world. It basically stayed like the 50s.

It's like Watchmen, it's still our universe except with a different timeline, like how Nixon is elected three times.

And yes the world is based on what people thought the future would be lik in the 50s, such as robot servants, nuclear powered cars and radiation makes insects grow.

 

[MorsePacific]

AHH! thank you. The fact that I didnt stumble upon this myself is annoying but regardless thank you a lot I get it more now!

Not a problem. I have The Vault bookmarked for when I need to look something up anyway.

 

[Lt. Vinciti]

I always viewed it as the 1950s look of life.... Where because we never did Korea or Vietnam that Americans still loved the government and we kept the ideals we had set as we came home from World War 2....

I enjoy looking at that type of lifestyle...I dont know why...seems more family orientated and such...

 

[MrGalactus]

So after reading the full stories of fallout 1 and 2 and playing 3 and NV I still don't understand why everything is stuck in the 50's I know it will be easy to clear up but Ive been searching this for awhile now and no one can really explain it well.

Have you seen A Boy and His Dog? Fallout is based on a game called Wasteland, which is based on the lore from that film. In the film, WW3 happens in the 1950's and lasts through the 80's.
It's not totally the same in Fallout, but there are events that lead up to the splitting of America into 13 commonwealths and conflicts surrounding that.

 

[Jake0fTrades]

I still don't understand why everything is stuck in the 50's I know it will be easy to clear up but Ive been searching this for awhile now and no one can really explain it well.

It's an artistic choice, when most people think of the 50's they think of the prosperity that followed after WWII, they think of the perfect American society, when the U.S. was "on top of the world" and "invulnerable."

The concept of an idyllic, invincible society being decimated by Nuclear War is meant to be ironic. Plus, the U.S. was actually under the threat of Nuclear War during the 1950's, that was the beginning of the Cold War.

 

[Pyro Paul]

the basic diffrence:
the Transistor was never invented.

the Transistor is seen as one of the most important inventions of the 20th century and is considered key to the development of everything we take for granted to day... with out the transistor, the computer never becomes as compact, powerful, or cheap enough in the Fallout universe for it to have as suggnificant an impact as it did in our universe.

 

[Drizzitdude]

My two theories were always that

A: The fallout universe focused more on nuclear technology and science took a different path than ours today

or

B: It is simply our universe but where the 50's were making a HUGE comeback.