Idle thought: What might the world be like in CHINA?

[CaptainPatch]

If Communist China was indeed as American propaganda painted it, then there's waaaaaaaaayyyyyyyy too many Chinese in both RL and FO pre-Apocalypse. A billion Chinese is about 600 million more "useless mouths to feed" -- and to keep control of! -- than what the Communist leadership would view as "optimal". Stalin orchestrated the Holodomor -- which was the deliberate starvation in the Ukraine -- specifically because he found the Ukrainians to be unruly. The closest thing that the Red Chinese did was the Great Leap Forward... which was a sincere effort to quickly industrialize and improve techniques in the agricultural sector. It's just unfortunate (for the roughly 50 million people that starved to death) that the Communist leaders were new to managing sooooooooooo many people and laying out effective policy. [Note: It is usually overlooked as to just how many Chinese most likely have died in the same time frame if Chiang Kai-shek's Republic of China which had an ongoing policy of executing people by the thousands in case they might rebel.] Once the Communists had worked out most of the kinks, the most genocidal pogrom conducted by the Communists was the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution which, though it was a MAJOR shakeup of the Chinese power hierarchy, was a tea party compared to Stalin's Holodomor.

 

On topic: The major upshoot of all this is that unlike the Capitalist USA, Red China had literally hundreds of millions of cheap workers to build THOUSANDS of Vault-equivalents if the Chinese leadership deemed that it would be a Good Idea. [And given the penetration of the Chinese espionage network, learning that the USA was building over a hundred Vaults for what would be surmised as an effort to promote "the American Way of Life" post-Apocalypse, I can't see the Chinesse leaders NOT concluding that several hundred Vault-equivalents would be a Good Idea.] And as pointed out, it is unlikely that the Chinese leaders would essentially waste soooo many resources on social experiments that would produce who-knows-what kind of results (with a heavy probability of "not all that worthwhile").

[dragonslayer2k12]

I think there would only be one vault in china and it would be for their dear leaders lol they see everyone else as beneath them. Kinda also fits in with the america winning situation there as well since it would be more out of desperation than anything else. They most likely don't have a vault tec evil scientist corporation of their own either but instead steal vault tec data from them on a regular basis. From what I have read on wikia pages the enclave started the war anyway by forcing america to fire first otherwise china and america would have fought for some time over resources conventionally.

[CaptainPatch]

I think there would only be one vault in china and it would be for their dear leaders lol they see everyone else as beneath them. Kinda also fits in with the america winning situation there as well since it would be more out of desperation than anything else. They most likely don't have a vault tec evil scientist corporation of their own either but instead steal vault tec data from them on a regular basis. From what I have read on wikia pages the enclave started the war anyway by forcing america to fire first otherwise china and america would have fought for some time over resources conventionally.

I think you are overlooking the Chinese leaders' mindset. For over a decade, they were locked in a war with the Americans TO THE DEATH. Going into their version of a Vault, they would be thinking of what Life would be like when they (or more likely, their descendants) came OUT of the Vault. The Chinese espionage network was so extensive, they MUST know that the Americans had over a hundred community-sized Vaults either already built, or under construction and probably soon completed. Now if YOU were a Chinese leader, how would the thought sit with you that when your Vault finally opened up to the Brave New World, it would be to the same world where there was >100 American Vaults opening up? [i believe it is a safe assumption that they would be unaware of the Vault-Tec social experiments.]

 

Just to have a fighting chance at world domination post-Apocalypse, the Chinese leaders would most likely use their numerical superiority, greater manpower, more bodies to fill military uniforms, and extensive civilian production base to overwhelm those anticipated American survivors when the time came. And that would require LOTS of Vaults to accommodate all of <<those^^ people to restore "the Chinese Way of Life".

[Haukaido]

I doubt china has FEV , so we can assume there won't be any super mutants or deathclaws.
China was a highly populated communist empire who also happen to be extremely racist and extremely dependent on tradition , this how I assume it'll be:

• 80% of the surviving population would be feral ghouls
• about 15% of the surviving population would be normal ghouls who are at war (due to tradition issues) with the other 5% of the surviving population
• about 5% of the surviving population would be descendants of the Chinese military , their decent technology allowed them to develop a mini civilization of steampunk themed cyborgs and their plan is to eradicate all ghouls in their land. (almost same ideology as the Enclave) , they'll have really sophisticated stealth cyborgs.
• Most of the landscape would be dead and I assume big parts of china would be underwater by now (probability of an underwater base for this military faction)
• the livestock would be rare and the few living ones would be mutated like the ones in US , the cyborgs would most likely protect this live stock for "tradition" which forces the surviving ghouls to turn to cannibalism.
• There would also be 2 ghoul factions , the majority (the normal people who turned to ghouls) and the minority (the monk ghouls) who believe this was a gift from the Divines (almost like the children of atom but less extreme) and they try to live in peace while also working on recruiting more ghouls and convincing them to appreciate their gift and work on growing a life of their own by breeding heir own live stock and straying away from cannibalism. -> this'll be the "good" faction and they'll also be facing the threat of being eradicated by the military but they are safe for now since they're hiding in their secret temple.

Edited August 14, 2017 by MrPandaz

[CaptainPatch]

 

• 80% of the surviving population would be feral ghouls
• about 15% of the surviving population would be normal ghouls who are at war (due to tradition issues) with the other 5% of the surviving population
• Most of the landscape would be dead and I assume big parts of china would be underwater by now (probability of an underwater base for this military faction)

Just where are you getting your numbers? 95% of the population would be ghoulified? In North America, by my guesstimate, only about 10-20% of the existing population has been ghoulified, and that is a constantly shrinking percentage.

 

Have you factored in the aspect that GHOULS CAN'T REPRODUCE. (Same goes for Supermutants; they are made, not born, by converting an otherwise normal human being.) Ghouls are literally products of a very specific environment. And what few new ghouls that might be created represent a small percentage of normal humans that were subjected to the conversion process. For example, if 100 humans were subjected to the conversion process, MAYBE as many as 10-20 would successfully ghoulify AT MOST. Greater than 99% of 2287 humans are third, fourth, fifth, or more generations descendants from the Great War survivors. That means that from whatever humans survived the initial bombs, they represent a GROWING population. Conversely, since ghouls don't reproduce in the traditional manner, they represent a constantly SHRINKING population.

 

As for the underwater premise, I don't see any reason why so much more of China would be submerged than how much of North America got flooded. We can surmise that despite climate change and rising oceans, in 2277 ocean levels were approximately the same as they were in 2077. The indicator of this is the Poseidon Energy oil drilling platform where the US Prez fled to just before the bombs fell. An oil drilling platform sits X feet above the normal water level, allowing for wave action to NOT wash over the platform, even in a hurricane. In 2277 that platform was still in use and presumably a safe height above the ocean. Ergo, ocean rise didn't amount to much over that 200 year span.

[pra]

Hm, the ghoul thing might be a plot point, actually. Take a city which used to be very densely populated before the war, and have it get an almost direct hit, so that it's mostly still standing, but ends up heavily irradiated.

 

Some, mostly high-ranking politicians and their families, got into shelters. There every new generation got indoctrinated into communistm. In some shelters, it actually worked.

 

From the people on the outside, most died, the rest got turned into ghouls, who live in the ruins. They still remember the day the bombs fell, they remember how they weren't let into the shelters, and they remember how The Party used to f*ck them over, and they absolutely do not want the communists to take power again.

 

Now, 200 years later, the radiation has somewhat subsided, and the first group opens their shelters to rebuild the Glorious People's Republic and finally bring the survivors on the surface the joy of communism... and they meet the second group.

 

Now you have a problem: on the one hand, the ghouls have all reasons to just kill everyone who comes out of these shelters. On the other hand, the ghouls cannot procreate and get fewer and fewer, and unless they integrate some regular humans into their society, it will go extinct.

Edited August 15, 2017 by pra

[CaptainPatch]

There every new generation got indoctrinated into communistm. In some shelters, it actually worked.

Just a side note: The theory of Communism works just fine. It is, after all, essentially just "Share and share alike" mixed with "All for one and one for all!" Unfortunately, its Achilles heel is that if the people in charge are corrupt or become corrupted, the equitable distribution becomes not at all equitable, with the bulk of Wealth going to the people in charge. However, there ARE ways that The System could minimize the chances of that happening, especially in a high-tech society. [Hook the leader up to a polygraph and ask him, every day, "Have you served The People, honestly and with dedication to them every minute of the last 24 hours? Have you misdirected any resources to other than where they are most needed by The People?" Any indication that he's being not entirely honest leads to an intensive (and painful) investigation that may very well end at the end of a rope.] UNFORTUNATELY, it's kind of obvious the corrupt people were already in charge, and undoubtedly took measures to make sure they stayed in charge.

[Haukaido]

 

 

• 80% of the surviving population would be feral ghouls
• about 15% of the surviving population would be normal ghouls who are at war (due to tradition issues) with the other 5% of the surviving population
• Most of the landscape would be dead and I assume big parts of china would be underwater by now (probability of an underwater base for this military faction)

Just where are you getting your numbers? 95% of the population would be ghoulified? In North America, by my guesstimate, only about 10-20% of the existing population has been ghoulified, and that is a constantly shrinking percentage.

 

Have you factored in the aspect that GHOULS CAN'T REPRODUCE. (Same goes for Supermutants; they are made, not born, by converting an otherwise normal human being.) Ghouls are literally products of a very specific environment. And what few new ghouls that might be created represent a small percentage of normal humans that were subjected to the conversion process. For example, if 100 humans were subjected to the conversion process, MAYBE as many as 10-20 would successfully ghoulify AT MOST. Greater than 99% of 2287 humans are third, fourth, fifth, or more generations descendants from the Great War survivors. That means that from whatever humans survived the initial bombs, they represent a GROWING population. Conversely, since ghouls don't reproduce in the traditional manner, they represent a constantly SHRINKING population.

 

As for the underwater premise, I don't see any reason why so much more of China would be submerged than how much of North America got flooded. We can surmise that despite climate change and rising oceans, in 2277 ocean levels were approximately the same as they were in 2077. The indicator of this is the Poseidon Energy oil drilling platform where the US Prez fled to just before the bombs fell. An oil drilling platform sits X feet above the normal water level, allowing for wave action to NOT wash over the platform, even in a hurricane. In 2277 that platform was still in use and presumably a safe height above the ocean. Ergo, ocean rise didn't amount to much over that 200 year span.

 

I said "the surviving population" which means those who actually manage to survive the nuclear detonation would mostly be ghouls because it's very unlikely the peasants of china have access to vaults , so they're either dead or ghouls.

As for the ones who actually manage to survive in their "human" form would most likely be military officials considering only people with high rank military presence can enjoy anything luxurious in a demented communist empire.

 

And yea , I guess I didn't notice that sea level in the fallout universe is most likely the same , I just assumed there's a high likelihood for china to be flooded due to global warming.

[pra]

 

There every new generation got indoctrinated into communistm. In some shelters, it actually worked.

Just a side note: The theory of Communism works just fine. It is, after all, essentially just "Share and share alike" mixed with "All for one and one for all!" Unfortunately, its Achilles heel is that if the people in charge are corrupt or become corrupted, the equitable distribution becomes not at all equitable, with the bulk of Wealth going to the people in charge. However, there ARE ways that The System could minimize the chances of that happening, especially in a high-tech society. [Hook the leader up to a polygraph and ask him, every day, "Have you served The People, honestly and with dedication to them every minute of the last 24 hours? Have you misdirected any resources to other than where they are most needed by The People?" Any indication that he's being not entirely honest leads to an intensive (and painful) investigation that may very well end at the end of a rope.] UNFORTUNATELY, it's kind of obvious the corrupt people were already in charge, and undoubtedly took measures to make sure they stayed in charge.

 

 

A polygraph isn't reliable enough, but we are talking about a setting where you can do a brain scan on a cop and backup his entire mind. You could simply propose an actual mind reading machine. Maybe: they got one of these in the shelter to use it the workers, but at some point they rebelled, and made it so that the leaders are the ones who have to take the test.

 

But, you don't really have to go that far, imo. In a small community, where everyone knows everyone else, it will most certainly "just work", without any actual leaders. Of course that won't be true communism, it would be just the way a small village works, but the people could believe that it's still communism.

 

Also, some form of "communism" might work if you make it more democratic. That is: real elections, no authoritarian leaders. Fun fact: in russia, it wasn't democracy which was considered to be the evil thing from the west, it was capitalism. That means, you will probably be able to sell the idea of democracy to communists way easier than an average cold-war-era amercan might think. It's the whole capitalism and especially the private corporation thing which is fundamentally incompatible. But I can't tell if a system like this could actually work, that's pure speculation.

[CaptainPatch]

 

 

There every new generation got indoctrinated into communistm. In some shelters, it actually worked.

Just a side note: The theory of Communism works just fine. It is, after all, essentially just "Share and share alike" mixed with "All for one and one for all!" Unfortunately, its Achilles heel is that if the people in charge are corrupt or become corrupted, the equitable distribution becomes not at all equitable, with the bulk of Wealth going to the people in charge. However, there ARE ways that The System could minimize the chances of that happening, especially in a high-tech society. [Hook the leader up to a polygraph and ask him, every day, "Have you served The People, honestly and with dedication to them every minute of the last 24 hours? Have you misdirected any resources to other than where they are most needed by The People?" Any indication that he's being not entirely honest leads to an intensive (and painful) investigation that may very well end at the end of a rope.] UNFORTUNATELY, it's kind of obvious the corrupt people were already in charge, and undoubtedly took measures to make sure they stayed in charge.

 

 

A polygraph isn't reliable enough, but we are talking about a setting where you can do a brain scan on a cop and backup his entire mind. You could simply propose an actual mind reading machine. Maybe: they got one of these in the shelter to use it the workers, but at some point they rebelled, and made it so that the leaders are the ones who have to take the test.

 

But, you don't really have to go that far, imo. In a small community, where everyone knows everyone else, it will most certainly "just work", without any actual leaders. Of course that won't be true communism, it would be just the way a small village works, but the people could believe that it's still communism.

 

Also, some form of "communism" might work if you make it more democratic. That is: real elections, no authoritarian leaders. Fun fact: in russia, it wasn't democracy which was considered to be the evil thing from the west, it was capitalism. That means, you will probably be able to sell the idea of democracy to communists way easier than an average cold-war-era amercan might think. It's the whole capitalism and especially the private corporation thing which is fundamentally incompatible. But I can't tell if a system like this could actually work, that's pure speculation.

 

I _did_ say "high-tech". 60 years from now (2077), we WILL more than likely have an infallible (or damn close to infallible) Truth detection system. [Which, more than likely, The Powers That Be will most likely use to root out anyone plotting to overthrow them.]

 

Similarly, most all Communist countries DO have elections. They just limit choices to the one (Communist) Party. [but when you stop and think about it, isn't the USA just as bad? People are convinced that ONLY a Democrat or Republican can win -- and those Parties -- the leadership people thereof actually -- are the ones that decide just who can or can't be candidates for their Party. So even here in the USA, We The People really don't have total freedom of choice, other than choosing from those candidates that We are permitted to vote for. (The ones with an actual chance of winning that is.) And it's pretty obvious that BOTH Parties are in the pocket of Big Money.]