Countries Untouched by the War Would Loot "Dead America"

[CaptainPatch]

 

I didn't say every single country was hit.

Hmm. You just gave me a fascinating thought.

 

Undoubtedly, there would be numerous countries/places where NO nukes impacted. Therefore, in those places, there would be negligible physical damage. HOWEVER, the entire world would have the impact of a TREMENDOUS amount of radioactive fallout, dispersed around the entire globe like a thick layer of pancake syrup, raining down on the planet for decades to come. And naturally that much fallout would practically annihilate the entire human race. Survivors (capable of passing on their genes, not having been sterilized by the sharp upsurge of background radiation), would be those relatively few people that had adequate shelter from the radioactivity.

 

Now, what those places that did NOT have nuke strikes anywhere nearby would be missing are those pockets of intense radioactivity that became the primary reason many, many ghouls were created. So you would have places like Iceland, which most likely did not become a place where any nukes detonated. So practically everything would have remained intact... and no ghouls, feral or otherwise to contend with.

 

What a great place to go scavenging! An entire little country with practically ALL pre-war stuff still intact! Heck, forget about scavenging. Just up and move there!

 

That's a train of thought that I am sure occurred to many, many, many people living in the shattered ruins of the world's superpowers over the generations that came and went after the Great War.

 

Now, what might those places be like in 2287?

Edited August 22, 2017 by CaptainPatch

[DoctorKaizeld]

Iceland is close to Greenland and Britain which were both nuked, the wind would have carried the radiation to Iceland. not to mention there is enough radiation to irradiate the oceans.

[Fkemman11]

Iceland is close to Greenland and Britain which were both nuked, the wind would have carried the radiation to Iceland. not to mention there is enough radiation to irradiate the oceans.

That comes down to how long it takes for fallout to clear. Scientist have estimated that the largest and most pervasive concentrations of radiation and such would be mostly in the northern hemisphere as that is where most of the industrialized world resides and so that is where most nuclear detonations will occur. The southern hemisphere would fair far better than the north. Obviously the south is supposed to be devastated by conventional warfare as well as some nukes, but overall the infrastructure should remain somewhat intact I would think. Even if the surface of the Earth was uninhabitable for several decades, when mankind eventually resurfaces to start rebuilding the countries in the south would recover to a large extent and with no international laws holding them back- who is to say what they might decide to do. I think some of them would at least think about first exploring the ruins of the north, and depending on what they find seek to expand their influence. Even a dead, highly irradiated former super power where the vast majority of the worlds wealth and technology ended up would be an extremely tempting treasure. Remember that the world was not forged by those that sat meekly in their homes or behind their borders.

[Stronglav]

But I very much would like to know who was the insane that launched first?

[Fkemman11]

But I very much would like to know who was the insane that launched first?

Something like that wold very likely not be intentional, but more of a response to either false intel or somehow thinking that your enemy is getting ready to launch their nukes at you. The world has already been on the verge of nuclear exchanges several times in the past. Its almost exactly like playing "chicken" with the ultimate stakes and one side didn't bail in time. Lets say the Commander of the Yangtze got a garbled transmission from his superiors back in China. He was sent to American waters only to respond to a threat but was given clearance to make a decision in the absence of orders from high up. He decides that the garbled transmission are orders to launch and so he does- not knowing that they were actually ordering him to stand down. That is most likely how it might happen.

[CaptainPatch]

But I very much would like to know who was the insane that launched first?

I've heard some speculation that it may have been VAULT-TEC that caused the first button to be pushed. It stands to reason that after having gone to the bother of setting up @100 social experiments, The Powers That Be at Vault-Tec would have been getting anxious about whether that HUGE investment in resources wasn't about to be used any time soon. It is documented in several places that Vault-Tec had been running recurring drills for the imminent A-Day (Apocalypse Day) happening. And that the drills had started to come more frequently.... like someone at Vault-Tec knew something BAD was about to happen.

 

There were literally tens of thousands of buttons scattered about the globe. (President's "football" or no.) All it would take is ONE of those buttons to be pushed, after which EVERYONE else sitting on a button would push theirs for fear that they might not launch in time before a nuke landed on them. All Vault-Tec had to do was manage to somehow control whoever had control of that ONE button.

[Dubbyk]

One would think crossing a super radioactive ocean (given how in FO water seems to hold onto rads forever) with no way of being able restock food or water during the trip would be a daunting task for a post apocalypse people. They would also need to send a sizable force to crack open pre war bunkers and other sources of pre war stock piles as the reason most of them remain unlooted is because they are surrounded by: A: tons of rads B: tons of monsters or C: both, and that is why they didn't get looted. And while the player character runs around killing everything whole sale a "real" person could not. Look at the trouble the Brother Hood had with the super mutants in DC and they where just trying to keep a logistics train from one cost the other let alone across an ocean.

 

And these other places even if not nuked directly would have been EMP'd / irradiated / thrown into civil unrest, and after 200 years many of them might have forgotten the USA even existed or it's simply a myth by this point.

[Dubbyk]

As for the 1st nuke didn't FO2 state that skynet started the war? Or in FO3 the aliens might have started it?

[drach]

(given how in FO water seems to hold onto rads forever)

one of the goofiest thing bethesda did, water itself has no capacity to hold rads for long*, so whole Project Purity on which they'd built F3 story is wrong at it's core, ROTFL'ed myself during first playthrough

 

* silt, sand, clay etc are another matter, therefore lakes and riverbeds would probably still be a deathtrap anyway, but water itself wouldn't be irradiated, even suitable for for supporting life like fish etc.

there are numerous such "mistakes" telling us beth did not do her homework at all, pre-war wood we seem to chop for everything in F4 for one - another deathtrap, sawing planks from a irradiated tree trunk may kill in a matter of hours, days maybe

it's even more weird given all they needed to do is ask for Czenobyl research documents to see what's like after fallout, there is data on rads dissolution in certain materials/condition and all

[solartris]

 

(given how in FO water seems to hold onto rads forever)

one of the goofiest thing bethesda did, water itself has no capacity to hold rads for long*, so whole Project Purity on which they'd built F3 story is wrong at it's core, ROTFL'ed myself during first playthrough

 

* silt, sand, clay etc are another matter, therefore lakes and riverbeds would probably still be a deathtrap anyway, but water itself wouldn't be irradiated, even suitable for for supporting life like fish etc.

there are numerous such "mistakes" telling us beth did not do her homework at all, pre-war wood we seem to chop for everything in F4 for one - another deathtrap, sawing planks from a irradiated tree trunk may kill in a matter of hours, days maybe

it's even more weird given all they needed to do is ask for Czenobyl research documents to see what's like after fallout, there is data on rads dissolution in certain materials/condition and all

 

 

Seriously? Radiation also doesn't cause people to turn into ghouls and a virus can't turn people into super mutants, but those are in game. Is irradiated water really more goofy than those things?