stebbinsd Posted September 12, 2016 Share Posted September 12, 2016 (edited) I wonder if there was ever given any sort of official explanation about why the world of Fallout is the way it is. Obviously, we have a backstory on super mutants and how they got the way they did. Same thing with ghouls. But what about everything pre-war? Obviously, Fallout is supposed to be a nuclear apocalypse, so it makes sense that the pre-war civilization would have a "Cold War" attitude right before the bombs hit. But what doesn't make any sense is that ... pre-war Fallout is still in the distant future! It's 2077 when the bombs hit, and yet, all the architecture, technology, and pop culture seems to still be in the 1950s. Technology is probably the most glaring. The 50's cars and 50's style of dress (that looks like they were ripped straight out of the movie "Greese") are all one thing. But why does my pip boy only have 64k of ram, while desktop terminals usually only have about 512k of ram? But technology in Fallout does exceed our own technology in two key areas: Artificial intelligence, and weapons technology (such as power armor and laser guns). I can understand this to some extent. We're thrown into an alternate timeline where the Cold War never really ended. That would certainly explain the "constant threat of nuclear apocalypse" attitude of the pre-war citizens, as well as the advancements in AI and weapons tech. But it DOESN'T explain how every other aspect of society is still in the 1950s! The aesthetic design ... the "1980s" computer specs ... the black-and-white TVs ... the video games that are just re-skins of 8-bit arcade classics. In the real world, pop culture still thrived during the Cold War! There was still the looming threat of nuclear annihilation, but often, pop culture of the time went out of its way to NOT draw attention to that ... almost as if it was trying to give people a break from all that scary nuke talk. In fact, the Cold War lasted from 1945 to 1990, a span of four and a half decades. And yet, you could show me two clips, from two separate movies that I've never seen before. One from the 1980s and one from the 1950s. Put the 80's movie through a monochrome filter so they're both in black and white. I would still be able to tell you which one is from which decade, simply by the way the characters are standing, what they're wearing, and their manner of speaking. Pop culture did, indeed, shift during the Cold War If anything, the tech advancements made due to the Cold War seemed to help pop culture thrive even more. Possibly the biggest example is the one we're using right now: The Internet! By allowing people from all over the world to exchange ideas about art and expression in only few minutes apiece, as well as for scientists and engineers to correlate their theories with each other in an equal length of time, the advancements in pop culture & overall technological advancements have, in the past few decades, increased at an exponential rate. It's the largest technology spike in world history. But with the exception of AI and military tech, the Fallout world seems to have had a century-long pop culture stagnation. Is there an official, in-lore explanation as to why the Fallout world is like that? Edited September 12, 2016 by stebbinsd Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DoctorKaizeld Posted September 12, 2016 Share Posted September 12, 2016 (edited) Quick answer yes.... Long answer read the lore scattered through the games (not 4 though as it does a terrible job of explaining the lore) or read the wiki. Edited September 12, 2016 by qwertyzeldar Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DoctorKaizeld Posted September 12, 2016 Share Posted September 12, 2016 To clarify some quick points though. The major differences are that different technologies were focused on over others. Read this: http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Divergence Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
djangoku Posted September 12, 2016 Share Posted September 12, 2016 This is also a good source i think: http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Fallout_Bible_0 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tartarsauce2 Posted September 12, 2016 Share Posted September 12, 2016 right from the beginning, of the beginning! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bmt12 Posted September 12, 2016 Share Posted September 12, 2016 (edited) The overall theme is based around what science fiction writers of that era thought the future would be like, they didn't envision anything like the micro manufacturing revolution that would shrink electronics and expected that commercial styling would remain more or less the same. Think along the lines of Disney Land's "Tomorrow Land" theme if you've even been. If I'm not mistaken one of reasons they went for this theme was to set their game apart from the original Wasteland. Edited September 12, 2016 by bmt12 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cossayos Posted September 12, 2016 Share Posted September 12, 2016 I kinda like that approach. Though I never lived in the US, I grew up in the 60ies and early 70ies and am pretty familar with the Jetsons and other related franchises. The only thing that always surprised me, since the cultural fork between reality and Fallout fiction happened in the year 1945, that it wasn't the soviets but the Chinese beng the enemy of WWIII. That said, I would like to see a European Fallout. Won't happen, probably, since the US is the biggest market. But I would love to see what they made of the Adenauer and De Gaule heritage. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TrickyVein Posted September 12, 2016 Share Posted September 12, 2016 The title of this thread made me really, really sad and worried, but the OP is just pointing out some of the inconsistencies in Fallout's universe and which demand suspension of disbelief, just like any fiction. Discussions about science in Fallout especially, ghouls and how FEV actually works and how the climate would really be changed after global nuclear war are like disappearing hot dogs down a hallway. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tartarsauce2 Posted September 12, 2016 Share Posted September 12, 2016 (edited) I've got a lot of big hot dogs, maybe we can block the hallway after all http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Raider_armor_(Fallout_3)at the bottom there's two concept art pieces, the one on the right's gun reminded me of the video clip and the 60's 70's era "industrial" guns theme, where guns look heavily like they're car exhausts lolsomething about it being goofy and neat at the same time Edited September 12, 2016 by tartarsauce2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DoctorKaizeld Posted September 12, 2016 Share Posted September 12, 2016 I kinda like that approach. Though I never lived in the US, I grew up in the 60ies and early 70ies and am pretty familar with the Jetsons and other related franchises. The only thing that always surprised me, since the cultural fork between reality and Fallout fiction happened in the year 1945, that it wasn't the soviets but the Chinese beng the enemy of WWIII. That said, I would like to see a European Fallout. Won't happen, probably, since the US is the biggest market. But I would love to see what they made of the Adenauer and De Gaule heritage.http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/European_Commonwealth it might happen. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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