Just how war-driven was Pre-War USA?

[stebbinsd]

In Goodneighbor, you can talk to a pre-war ghoul named Daisy. If you tell her that life before the war was just a bunch of countries warring against each other, she'll agree with you.

But if we really think about it, that doesn't make sense. Ever since the pop culture of the 1950s came to a screeching hault, there was only one noteworthy war before the bombs fell: The Sino-American War, also known as the "Resource War." This war supposedly ended when people mastered the art of fusion, not just as a means of creating electricity from a power plant to be distributed over the grid, but also for residential use, via what is known as "fusion cores." With energy no longer being in short supply, there was no longer any need for humanity to fight each other for resources.

But keep in mind, the Great War happened in 2077. So when pop culture became stuck in the 1950s, that made for a total of about 120 years. If you look at history, you realize that having only one noteworthy war over the course of 120 years is actually a damn good track record!

It would be totally implausible to look at the entire history of war over the course of all of humanity from 5,000BC to the present. So for simplicity's sake, let's look at the USA.

The French and Indian War ended in 1763. Then there were about 13 years of peace before the colonies declared independence in 1776.

The Revolutionary War ended in 1783. The next major war was the War of 1812. So ... 29 years of peace in between those two wars.

That war ended in 1815. Assuming you don't count the war against the Indian tribes where they were forced off their land (since that war doesn't have a clear start and end date), that means we now enjoy the longest span of quote-unquote "peace" in the American history: 46 years until the start of the American Civil War in 1861.

Ending in 1865, we then had a 33-year peace period before we went to war against Spain in 1898. This is the shortest of all the "major" wars in US history, as it lasted less than a year.

World War 1 began in 1914, but we must remember that the US didn't enter the war until April 6, 1917. That means that we were right back at war a measly 19 years after the Spanish-American War.

That ended in 1918, and the US joined WW2 in December of 1941. Only 23 years of peace.

After that point, the Fallout universe seems to have reached a cultural stagnation. So presumably, we can omit the Vietnam and Gulf wars.

 

That means that the USA enjoyed more than a hundred years of continuous peace before 2066, when the China and the USA went to war against each other culminating in the bombs dropping 11 years later

 

An entire century of uninterrupted peace! The longest span of peace in U.S. history up to that point was less than half that long!

 

So when the Sole Survivor opens up the game by saying "War never changes," just know that he's full of sh*t!

[Fkemman11]

Your talking about a fictional timeline. Just because Beth did not make any reference to wars in that timeline does not mean that they couldn't have happened. Besides, there will always be war. War, in my opinion, is part of the natural order of the universe. Chaos and Order. It is a pendulum so to speak. Besides as you pointed out there are many conflicts that are not always called a "War".

So I'm pretty sure this is what is meant by the phrase from the game. :geek:

[Perraine]

The intro movies also mention how resource shortages caused many conflicts, but it never goes into any details about how long those conflicts lasted, who was involved, when they started etc.

 

You can however read terminal entries throughout the game that would suggest that "Cold War Era" mentality and the heinous and imbecilic individuals who thought up the M.A.D. doctrine, were common in the "Falloutverse".

 

After that you'll you'll just have to use "head canon" to try an either justify or dispute the narrative portrayed in teh game/s.

[CiderMuffin]

The various countries of the Middle east and the European Commonwealth were fighting each other over oil fields and while the European Commonwealth fell apart I imagine a lot of the countries that made up it were pretty much still pissed at the Middle Eastern countries.

[Madcat221]

There was a war going on the whole time: the Cold War.

[stebbinsd]

There was a war going on the whole time: the Cold War.

That doesn't count. That's just two nations being annoyed with each other. You can be annoyed by your neighbor without physically fighting him; same goes with countries.

 

To a certain extent, we could arguably be in a Cold War right now against the Middle East countries in the real world. There's currently no active hostilities against Afghanistan or Iraq, and there never has been any active conflict against any other Middle Eastern nations, but it's clear that they hate our guts, just on religious grounds rather than political/economic grounds. So this could certainly be considered "Cold War II" right now.

 

And yet, ever since we withdrew from Iraq, we are considered to be "at peace" with the middle east.

 

That's why it's called a "cold" war. It's just like a "cold furnace;" if it's not hot, then it might as well not even exist.

[Bernt]

The Korean War! Hot from 1950-1953. And a cold war ever since. If the Fallout universe split from ours in the early fifties I guess that would have been in both universes even though Vietnam etc. is absent. And this being an american game we never hear about what's going on across the big dam. Did the wall ever tumble? In that case we had plenty of wars going on from 1990 onwards. Anyone remembering Yugoslavia? But maybe that was only a regional conflict. Like the Korean war was on a limited geographical scale.

[CiderMuffin]

There was a war going on the whole time: the Cold War.

 

Actually in the Fallout timeline the Cold War ended with America and the USSR becoming allies. There was even Russian embassies in America, travel between the USSR and the US was possible and even one of the character choices in Fallout 1 is the grandchild of the soviet ambassador. There were really no hostile relations between the USSR and the US, the only enemy the US had at the time was with China.

[Madcat221]

 

There was a war going on the whole time: the Cold War.

That doesn't count. That's just two nations being annoyed with each other. You can be annoyed by your neighbor without physically fighting him; same goes with countries.

 

To a certain extent, we could arguably be in a Cold War right now against the Middle East countries in the real world. There's currently no active hostilities against Afghanistan or Iraq, and there never has been any active conflict against any other Middle Eastern nations, but it's clear that they hate our guts, just on religious grounds rather than political/economic grounds. So this could certainly be considered "Cold War II" right now.

 

And yet, ever since we withdrew from Iraq, we are considered to be "at peace" with the middle east.

 

That's why it's called a "cold" war. It's just like a "cold furnace;" if it's not hot, then it might as well not even exist.

 

 

And what does a cold war entail? Military chest-thumping. Look at the arms races that went on in just air superiority fighter tech alone.

 

 

 

 

Actually in the Fallout timeline the Cold War ended with America and the USSR becoming allies. There was even Russian embassies in America, travel between the USSR and the US was possible and even one of the character choices in Fallout 1 is the grandchild of the soviet ambassador. There were really no hostile relations between the USSR and the US, the only enemy the US had at the time was with China.

 

 

 

It's clear to me that the Cold War enmity simply transferred to China. Pre-War USA needed some kind of Red Menace.

[Madcat221]

*deleted extra post*