This Wouldn't Still Work....Right?

[scottym23]

The lighting in the buildings/stores within fallout 3 wouldn't still work after hundreds of years of non maintenance...right? Not to mention the infrastructure for the power grid being functional after that long, no corrosion or work needed, ect?

 

It's just a thought that enters my mind consistently whenever I decide to play :P.

[Ranx31]

That thought has occurred to me as well and there are a few ways to rationalize it and console yourself about it... Keep in mind it's a fictional parallel universe where anything is possible is one way to think of it. Another is that in that universe maybe industry didn't build things to just last for the short term or designed products with built-in obsolescence eg. I've heard that when first built, fluorescent lights were supposed to last virtually forever (no moving parts, sealed gas tube, etc.) but millions were spent to come up with a way for them to fail so that companies could keep selling more.

 

On the flip side, materials and metals being what they are, you'd think things would eventually break down no matter what. Metals corrode and oxidize after all. Electronic parts tend to also break down from heat, stress, etc..

 

Even if the grid were down, keep in mind that some areas seem to be lit using portable generators that don't seem to require fuel or maintenance. It is a parallel universe after all...

 

I tend to think the game's designers may have considered some of these things but made concessions to have a workable game. After all, who would want to play a game where you stumble around in inky-black interiors and no machines work because nothing has power? Add to that the atmosphere it creates when you have various lighting effects to ramp up the excitement.

 

In the end, it's worthwhile to ponder these sorts of things but it is just a game and one doesn't want to look too deeply down the rabbit hole over details or you might just end up on the evening news some day :) .

[vforvic]

There are actually quite a few things you could punch holes in as far as the Fallout world if you used our own world as a baseline. But this is a fantasy parallel world in which we are playing with it's own set of rules and history, much of which we do not know about. This is how I get around these types of things. You kind of have to disengage your brain a little to enjoy it. Kind of like many action movies made these days. You fill in the unknown voids with your own ideas to make things work.

 

Just for kicks. Yes, after 200 years it would be almost impossible for the power to work. Of course we could always go the route that the Fallout universe never implemented designed failure like our world. They did not have batteries designed to fail in 1 year, or light bulbs designed to fail at a set number of hours, or parts on cars designed to break after the warranty expired. The light bulbs themselves would be no problem in this case. Even standard incandescent bulbs in this world were originally designed to last an extremely long time. Who is to say FO3 uses standard incandescent bulbs or our power type anyway. The grid itself you could say might or might not still be usable if designed with the right materials, technology and plan. The actual Power Plants themselves? On a large scale we know that they used a form of Nuclear power even in their cars along with hydro power and Solar. When we are talking Nuclear power I don't think we know for sure if it is our type of Hot Nuclear power or some other type of Cold Nuclear or Cold Fusion or what. Some of the smallish power sources I have come across are the common generator we see all over the place fueled by what we don't know, a small portable Fusion generator, the Turret Generator we see around, the Enclave have some type of power in the form of those blue/green glowing towers and the Vaults, which are still operating, use some form of Fusion designed by Poseidon Energy. We also know they used standard fuels like oil for something.

 

You could always say that they had a more decentralized high tech power grid. Maybe they used smallish underground power generators, of some type, and an underground power grid of some type spread out in great numbers in the larger cities? Heck if we were able to totally redesign our power and power grid we would not do it the same way. Perhaps the large power lines above ground were for remote areas or for supplemental power sources. The Vaults show they were capable of designing and implementing long-term power systems that work. Yes the Vaults were maintained in a mostly controlled environment, but it at least shows the tech is sound enough to last 200 years.

 

It is fun to think about, but in game I try not to look too closely at things. I just try to enjoy what the authors put before me.

[7thsealord]

As said, best not to look TOO closely. Noting also that FO3 is very '1950s Mad Science' in style, and deliberately so. Given a lot of the stuff that goes on and what passes for tech in the basic game, I think it is easy to imagine it all being part of a 50's horror/SF epic of some description.

 

Regarding the idea of a decentralized power grid, I think this has merit. For one thing, it may be one explanation for the various "rad pits" one finds scattered around DC. Rather than being ground zero of various nuclear strikes (seem kinda small for this, and there are NO craters), they might actually be the remnants of small nuclear power plants that failed (Chernobyled, China Syndrome'd, whatever) either during The War or in the period since. Would also explain why the DC Wastes remain as irradiated as they are even after a couple of centuries.

Edited July 28, 2014 by 7thsealord

[greenknightfury]

I lived in a house that had it's original wiring, from the 1830s according to the glass domes used to secure it in place, still running through much of the house (everything that wasn't a later addition). Only house I ever lived in that never had any electrical issues no matter what kind of power load we were using.

 

As long as Fallout America didn't lose the "build everything to last forever" ethic that we had for a long time there is no reason buildings couldn't last far longer than 200 years, though them doing so in a coastal area is a stretch. As to if bulbs could last that long http://www.centennialbulb.org/ there's a bulb that has burned for 112 years and that was one of the earliest every bulbs, which makes you really realize how much they screw you with the "this will last a year if you are lucky" modern bulbs. It proves however that a bulb can be made that lasts a huge amount of time, and by 2077 in an America determined to make everything last it could easily be they built a bulb good for hundreds of years.