an abstract fallout universe question

[Rattlerx5150]

this idea came to mind, there is no right/wrong i just want thoughts

 

If all the powers that be put everything into developing fusion power,, could the pre war world of fallout be saved? According to fallout history, the world ran out of petroleum and uranium. Fission comes from hydrogen and can be extracted from sea water.

 

Any thoughts?

[SayinNuthin]

Fallout is fantasy dressed as sci-fi or pretty bad sci-fi depending how you choose to measure it. What was apparently achieved in the pre-war Fallout universe overcomes some serious hard physics limitations in ours. The energy weapons alone, plasma, energy were we to develop anything like fallout's devices, would revolutionize a myriad of technologies across the board.

 

Hell, just give me one of the microfusion cells your going to use to power a Fallout laser weapon and I will turn our world's transport industries on their heads. Let alone overcoming the horrendous mechanical difficulties involved with producing the 'pocket' nuclear reactors they apparently fit into automobiles - basically not do-able without some appalling risks.

 

Fallout tech is one of those charming things that doesn't bear too close scrutiny I'm afraid. People in this forum have complained about plot holes... try being interested in the history of technology then :laugh: It's complete nonsense on so many levels. But to be fair much of it was meant as a joke, or whimsy or fun, not analyzed and discussed in detail a decade later. Had the devs even suspected that would happen I'm pretty sure they would have been a lot more careful. Therefore the original game wouldn't have been so entertaining, Ergo, it wouldn't have been such a success...

 

Hmm, think that's whats known as a paradox.

[FallenSanity]

It's worth remembering that the Fallout universe was created by Interplay, a bunch of morons who don't know much about anything other than coding and liking old post-apocalyptic games/movies/books. SayinNuthin pretty much covered it all. While we use nuclear energy, and have since it was really introduced, the degree to which it was utilised in the Fallout universe is really nonsensical, even if it makes for a unique and interesting universe. Ford was the only company to ever propose a nuclear car, and it didn't get past the concept stage.

[SayinNuthin]

Ford was the only company to ever propose a nuclear car, and it didn't get past the concept stage.

 

Dear God, I didn't know that... :ermm: Did you know that in the 1970's someone was trying to sell BP nuclear plants for their super-tankers? Someone with enough juice that BP had to get their senior engineers to look the proposal over - then comprehensively trash the idea for reasons you do not need to be a marine engineer to see. :laugh: Such as why would an oil tanker not run on oil...

 

But the internal logic of the Fallout universe has... something like a 'resolution' beyond which the picture dissolves into a mess of jaggies and artifacts and any sense is lost. The (pretty unfeasible) technology is there to provide a background for the 'social-sci-fi'. The story of what people do and how they develop, and provide toys like energy weapons and colourful explosions of course...

Edited July 14, 2014 by SayinNuthin

[FallenSanity]

 

Ford was the only company to ever propose a nuclear car, and it didn't get past the concept stage.

 

Dear God, I didn't know that... :ermm: Did you know that in the 1970's someone was trying to sell BP nuclear plants for their super-tankers? Someone with enough juice that BP had to get their senior engineers to look the proposal over - then comprehensively trash the idea for reasons you do not need to be a marine engineer to see. :laugh: Such as why would an oil tanker not run on oil...

 

But the internal logic of the Fallout universe has... something like a 'resolution' beyond which the picture dissolves into a mess of jaggies and artifacts and any sense is lost. The (pretty unfeasible) technology is there to provide a background for the 'social-sci-fi'. The story of what people do and how they develop, and provide toys like energy weapons and colourful explosions of course...

 

Honestly, plasma weapons, laser weapons, power armour, etc, all of it makes sense (or rather, I can at least understand it) up until the energy aspect is raised. That's the only major flaw to it, and you can even see that both Obsidian/Interplay and Bethesda are aware of that in New Vegas, when Helios One and the Dam became major sources of power - solar and hydroelectric power, rather than nuclear. And of course, this is all coz of the massive Cold War aspect of the series, and the nuclear holocaust background.

Here's hoping the Commonwealth don't all run on nuclear power.

[SayinNuthin]

It perhaps only reflects my personal interest but it's what is known as 'Materials Science' is where the Fallout universe breaks out of earth orbit and heads off the direction of cloud cuckoo land. What the proposed ideas ask of the materials that are going to physically make them work... Not in any causal universe with recognizable laws of thermodynamics they're not. All, I think we agree, just entertaining nonsense that requires suspension of disbelief.

 

But the Hoover Dam / Helios thing is just another example of the devs (somewhat desperately) trying to backfill these gaping holes in the internal logic. Trying to create a veneer of sense over the mountain of nonsense we're stuck with because the architects were more interested in being entertaining than portraying 'a reality'.

 

The funny thing is, we in conversations like this are contributing to the zeitgeist/Lore and in a way, forcing their hand in this whereas a different strategy might be to say;

 

'Sod it! It never made sense and everything we do to make it look as if it does (a) makes it less fun and (b) isn't going to work beyond a point anyway. So why don't we just keep working on silly and if we can keep the players laughing perhaps they won't ask hard questions'.

 

And you could argue that, that would be in the spirit of the Fallout universe with it's bottlecap currency, two headed cows and nuclear motorbikes. Has anyone asked Taylor or Hendee recently what they make of what 'we' (us, here) are doing with the game?

I suspect they'd say that somewhere along the line, we missed the joke.

Edited July 14, 2014 by SayinNuthin

[TrickyVein]

this idea came to mind, there is no right/wrong i just want thoughts

 

If all the powers that be put everything into developing fusion power,, could the pre war world of fallout be saved? According to fallout history, the world ran out of petroleum and uranium. Fission comes from hydrogen and can be extracted from sea water.

 

Any thoughts?

 

Fusion power was developed. Chryslus Motors began manufacturing fusion-powered vehicles in 2070. It was placed in small cells and used by the military for powering plasma-based energy weapons. So maybe you're asking if everyone had put their resources behind developing more efficient fusion technology and not just the US, could the great have been prevented; I don't think so. Even if an incredibly efficient way of powering all of the globe's technologies with fusion were developed in a day, the geopolitical environment would have prevented nations from cooperating to implement fusion technology and even if they did cooperate, the logistics of moving from a primarily oil/fuel-based society to a fusion-technology based one would have taken far too long to make a difference in easing already escalating tensions between global superpowers.

 

It doesn't require the development of some miracle technology to solve energy issues and the issues that stem from having energy issues, but instead the right political climate and muster to oppose vested special interests. I don't think there was any real hope for a solution before the Great War.