Fallout 3 Plot holes? Issues with the story

[SingingThroughTheStorm]

I really do like Fallout 3 (and I probably seem to nitpick way too much), but here some other annoyances I have with the story.

I will do these in quick bullet points since the chances of many people reading this is low, and a small chance anyone will reply:

 

Time setting and the environment. 200 years and barely any life has popped up in the nuclear wasteland. Something isn't right here.

Fallout 3 feels like it is set within 20 years of a blast, and numerous things point to this. Chernobyl happened roughly 25 years ago and caused mutations and other crazy things, but look at it now: http://maps.google.com/maps?saddr=Chern ... ra=ls&z=17

 

Technology progression is odd. Most technology should have stopped around 2075, but various things are out of place. Terminals have a old non color display, and it seems most computers were simplistic, yet Robots with fairly decent AI still go through the wastes. I love the music in FO3, but damn does it not seem to fit the timeline. So color monitors don't exist, but energy weapons and advanced hydraulic armor does.

 

Civilization somehow existing without any realistic means of survival. Where is the food coming from? You can go through the whole wasteland and not really find any form of farm, yet people still seem to have plenty of food. What do the Brahim eat? Can't be grass because there really isn't any. How is one of the biggest in population (Rivet City) surviving without any food source?

 

The world going to war over natural gas. Okay, I can cut this some slack, but it still doesn't really work. Natural gas caught on because it was insanely cheap, but now that it is expensive other types of power sources are being used more than before. Wouldn't it make very little sense for Europe to invade the Middle East for Oil if Oil becomes so rare you need to invade other countries to get scarce amounts of it? It seems that it wouldn't be a sound idea financially, logically, or from a tactical perspective.

 

Natural Gas is insanely important; things still seem to run fine without it. Electricity is still running in the DC Ruins after 200 years of decay and a nuclear war, so why was Natural Gas so damn important? It seems the Enclave has no issue sending vertibirds after you if you just wander the wastes, so it doesn't seem they are trying to reserve fuel too much. Did you notice the mood lighting? Look at Megaton's decorative lighting; don't need to save power there. What is powering all these robots that float? Mr. Gutsy seems to burn fuel 24/7 and doesn't seem affected by a shortage. How are massive vertibirds being produce at a level that seems near mass production?

 

Ammo. You can scavenge tons of ammo and energy cells in various ruins, but it doesn't make a lick of sense! Standard shell and round ammo shouldn't functioning after 200 years of s***ing on the shelf. Energy cell ammo should also be completely drained and worthless.

 

Super mutants are always hostile towards you. This doesn't make sense when they are tying up captives and hauling them off to Vault 87.

 

Towns surviving with various illogical problems. Super Mutants are supposedly very powerful and able to put a fight up against the well equipped and trained Brotherhood of Steel, yet young kids seem perfectly safe. Little Lamplight is located RIGHT NEXT to Vault 87, but it seems to continue to thrive.

Various towns have these issues that don't make sense.

 

Loot. Wouldn't most of the loot be gone in 20 years tops? Supposedly some resources are in short supply, so why are the local places still full of certain items? People are dying of thirst, but it seems Nuka-Cola machines are everywhere and they have numerous drinks in them.

 

There are more issues, but for now I will leave it at this.

 

In short it seems the Fallout 3 world was meant to be set almost right after the blasts (15 years or so), even though that probably quickly causes a plot whole in the original games.

 

One other thing. Why in the world did Bethesda get Fallout? The original games seem to have been produced by another company ages back.

Why didn't they just start a new IP?

[Greslin]

Maybe because Fallout already had an established fan base and a fairly well-developed storyline/creative portfolio - in short, built-in profitability?

 

Your last question suggests why you don't know the answers to your earlier ones. Go back and read more about the earlier games - or even better yet, play them - and it'll make more sense. (That "other company" was Black Isle Studios, by the way.)

 

A few small points:

 

The 2051-2077 war wasn't over natural gas, but oil, uranium and land. Oil prices went way up, the U.S. invaded Mexico, Europe went to war, China invaded Alaska, then the U.S. invaded Canada and took back Alaska. Then the missiles flew. It was a general grab for resources.

 

There's plenty of life in the Capitol Wasteland. Animal life is everywhere. While there is a lot of dead grass and trees around, if there weren't live trees/grass around, there wouldn't be dead ones. What you're seeing isn't a dead zone, but an environment where things are barely surviving and not for long. Meanwhile, FEV (the effects of which have been much longer and more widespread than just Super Mutants) has wreaked havoc with biology in general, and has been responsible for most of Wasteland mutations. One effect of FEV is that it toughens up organisms that it doesn't kill, in particular strengthening their defenses against radiation and disease. It's very possible that FEV is the only reason there's anything still alive at all.

 

Re: technology progression, a lot of the more awesome tech advances in the Fallout world happened in the twenty year period before the bombs fell. In other words, war time. Breakthroughs in power armor, networked computing, fusion reactors, etc. didn't happen until just a decade before the nuclear war.

 

So it's not at all unusual that progression would be uneven, and skewed primarily to the needs of immediate combat demands. Our peacetime domestic society is similarly skewed in favor of consumer electronics and other flashy home toys. If all those minds developing cute iPhone apps were busy working on fusion instead, we'd probably have it by now.

 

Most of your other issues boil down to 1) that Fallout was never meant to represent the real world, but instead the 1950s comic book/B movie idea of the future world, and 2) it's a game, for crying out loud.

 

If reality is what you're looking for, go play Skyrim. Or Bioshock. Or Dead Space. Or Deus Ex. There's plenty of rigid adherences to the laws of reality there to choose from.

Edited March 29, 2012 by Greslin

[Sarissi]

Fallout 3 is Science Fiction. Sure, there are tons of things that don't make any sense in the game. However, it is a game.

[CoreXion]

What Greslin has said is correct, that the Fallout universe is based on what the people of the 1950's expected the future to be like and their understanding of radiation at the time. You can find a great deal of interesting stories and articles from back then if you look hard enough, and a great deal of the things are in the game as well. Such as ray guns or laser weapons, even aliens in a classic 1950's saucer UFO and their main weapon is a Death Ray. Another way to look at it is the Back To The Future movies, where the second movie shows a future Earth that is set in the year 2015, and some things that might be around there or people would most likely imagine the future to be like in 1985 ( yes the movie was made in 1989-90, but it is set from the 1985 view ).

 

The Enclave does the ability to manufacture materials, such as the Hellfire Power Armour that you can get later in the game. It was developed after the war along with a lot of the Enclave materials, such as their large amount of Eyebots that fly around the wasteland.

 

The music of Fallout is also taken from the 1940-50's, a sort of nod to that era of history and story making. A lot of the music is from popular recording artists at the time, or features them in the songs, such as The Andrews Sisters and most well known The Ink Spots. So the music is a fit for the games, if you know the history behind them and the universe that is Fallout.

[7thsealord]

As with any fictional world or background, INTERNAL consistency is the important thing. In short, whatever goes on there, does it fit into that particular setting? If any claims had ever been made as to historical or technical accuracy in FO3, then there might be a problem. But this hasn't happened, as far as I know.

 

The DC Wasteland has some things loosely based on real-world equivalents, but not all and not completely. Generally, it is every bit as fantastical a place as, say, Oz or Eberron or Capital/Core or Ringworld.

Edited March 28, 2012 by 7thsealord

[quicksilverva]

 

 

Super Mutants are supposedly very powerful and able to put a fight up against the well equipped and trained Brotherhood of Steel, yet young kids seem perfectly safe. Little Lamplight is located RIGHT NEXT to Vault 87, but it seems to continue to thrive.

 

 

if you listen to the super mutants talk to each other while you are in vault 87, they will say why they dont attack little lamplight

[madman132]

The Fallout timeline diverged from our own somewhere in the 1940s or so. Culturally, it got stuck there for some Reason, they stopped making new music apparently for some reason and all the Designs of pretty much every single thing is super charged with "art deco".

The Fallout Universe is a portrayal of the golden age of scifi, complete with Robots with wavy arms and as we saw with Mothership zeta, the Aliens and the theremin music fit right in. And with the Mirelurk kings or Lakelurks we even have the "Swampthing". We have giant Ants, one could assume that "they came from the Desert"...

Honestly, i'm wondering why we haven't seen "Tarantula" or "the Blob" yet.

 

Fallout tries to portray golden Age Scifi and tries to somehow force it into something that makes Sense while trying to make it abundantly clear that this is to be taken with mountainous amounts of Salt.

Point being: This Divergence is not a Plothole, Black Isle meant for this World to be like that and Bethesda like it enough to continue that.

 

I would have liked some more explanations here and there; some Factions and their Dealings make very little Sense by their own Rules. How does little lamplight stay populated? Maybe random Wastelanders just drop off Babies there in Order to keep them safe from the Wasteland?

If Elder Lyons thought of a Program in which the Brotherhood would pay People who bring them Technology he'd probably have the entire Brotherhood sway in the humanitarian Direction. "Bring us a Laser Pistol, we give you some Caps or some Ammo, bring us more advanced tech, we'll give you more Caps!"

Like the Outcasts do. Funnily, i think the western Brotherhood Chapters would frown on them working with random outsiders.

 

But Lyons Brotherhood Chapter is generally liked by the People and if Lyons would have random People paid to bring them Stuff, the DC Brotherhood would be able to build a scale Model of the Lost Hills Bunker consisting entirely out of energy Weapons.

 

The Mojave Chapter fails so spectacularly that i'm wondering why Obsidian even put them there. What a pathetic Band of Morons. They don't search, find and preserve Technology and even with the Help of the Player Character they can't figure out that they couldn't miss the Point of them being there any harder if that Point was in another Country and they aimed in the opposite Direction. They are the biggest Scouting Party ever. And they aren't even all that good at that either.

 

 

Obsidian tried to portray the NCR as an Entity that has become too large and bloated for its own good. And they failed at that. Seriously, the NCR does better then every single real World Government that ever existed or exists. They do a decent Job of keeping their Nutjobs, mad Scientists and loose Cannons in Check.

While the Legion is portrayed as evil. Really evil. Bleh. The Legion doesn't have mad scientists, they all are Nutjobs and loose Cannons are promoted. They are saturday morning cartoon evil. Except for mentions of rape and the slavery. If Nazis where in this Game they'd tell Cesar to tone it down a bit. Seriously, the Nazis convicted rapists. For the wrong Reasons of course because they're Nazis after all and i don't want to get into that any farther.

The Nazis also painstakingly avoided the word "slavery". They had People working for no monetary or other Compensation and they didn't value human Life all that much so its really quite an Achievement to make the Legion even more evil then the Nazis.

 

 

The Khans are no longer evil. And apparently they are pretty oblivious. If i where Papa Khan, i'd gather as much Information about my new Allies-to-be as i can and then discover that the Legion has assimilated any tribe and their Identity they came across. Also, the Legion "frowns" on the only source of income of my Tribe. That's not all that hard to find out. Anders probably would have some things to say about that.

 

The Fiends. The game needs some more generic Enemies to kill and the Fiends are not much more than that. With the Legion, Obsidian tried a flimsy excuse for them being evil, with the Fiends they didn't even try.

The same goes for the Raiders in Fallout 3 of course; there are so many of them. There are more People supposedly making a living by robbing People then there are People that could be robbed.

 

Walking Robots. I have to hold back my Nerd Rage every time i see walking Robots. Developing an artificial sense of Balance is insanely hard. Tube technology will add more limitations and i love the Robobrains for having threads and the sentrybots for the Wheels. You can put Wheels on your Robots and simply avoid the insanely difficulty of developing a artificial sense of Balance.

 

Deserts.

The one thing that will come back if we nearly wipe it and ourselves out it would be the Plants. This irked me with Fallout 3; i'd want a portrayal with the delicious Irony that the Flora and the Fauna would do pretty well without the Humans messing with it all the Time. The Mojave Desert is a Desert, so i don't except large Forests there.

But generally, plantlife would cover the Earth before Humans have the Opportunity to somehow have Brahmin grazing the non-existent Grass.

 

Super Soldier Projects. I hate them.

Fallout has to have its own super soldier Project but i'll let it slide because the first fallout games had their botched super soldier Project before the concept was worn down to a bloody Stump, at least in Video Games. I like that the Super Mutants got a smaller role in "New Vegas".

I don't like Super Soldier projects in Fiction because pretty much all of them have immense flaws and are portrayed as something made by a mad Scientist.

Super Mutants are large and i imagine they require a lot of Food. They are not exactly stealthy and even the nightkin are useless in that regard because as soon as they strike, they cause a huge commotion. Also, stick Laser detectors everywhere and you'll know when the "invisible" Mutants are.

Super Mutants aren't useful for infiltration. They may be useful as cheap Shocktroops, except they aren't all that cheap and they aren't really useful as shocktroops either. "Normal" Soldiers in Power Armor are better for that. They can take more fire and they are more versatile. They can be used to carry out advanced tactics right in the Field and they even develop new tactics on thy fly. If an enemy Tank threatens them, Soldiers will probably hide and wait until that Tank is in a narrow spot and then attempt to destroy it. "Enemy Tank" evolved into "Road Block"!

On top of that, the normal Soldier can be integrated into Society in Case of, you know, the War ends.

 

Ghouls.

How is that going to happen? It sounds like being ghoulified is something some People would like. How does it work? You get irradiated and then all your diseases are healed and you live forever? Where's my Pizza with Plutoniumtopping?

At least they say that most People exposed to radiation just die. Also, there are several Strains of the Wondervirus FEV around and maybe some decendants of the "new Plague" are still around doing whatever the Authors need them to do.

Ghouls have no Skin and generally don't look all that healthy. Apparently they can be killed quickly if you damage any vital Organ. Like Humans. Yet somehow they seem to do just fine without this one vital organ that we call "Skin".

But whatever. I'd like to see someone who has some kind of terminal illness and then decides to get irradiated. If nothing else will keep him alive, Ghoulification just might do the trick.

 

 

Vaults.

Why is it that the Fiends of all People are the first ones to come up with the Idea to live in one of those Vaults? I mean, not being able to get out might be terrifying but if you can get in and out whenever you want a Vault might just be one of the nicest Places to live in. Some Vaults have rather sickening social Experiments still running but i'd like to see something that tells me why no one has ever sought shelter there.

Some Vaults are in dire need of cleaning but they are still better then some random Shacks in the Wasteland.

 

 

 

Those are the Peeves that come to my Mind now...

[panzersharkcat]

 

I would have liked some more explanations here and there; some Factions and their Dealings make very little Sense by their own Rules. How does little lamplight stay populated? Maybe random Wastelanders just drop off Babies there in Order to keep them safe from the Wasteland?

Teen pregnancy.

 

Vaults.

Why is it that the Fiends of all People are the first ones to come up with the Idea to live in one of those Vaults? I mean, not being able to get out might be terrifying but if you can get in and out whenever you want a Vault might just be one of the nicest Places to live in. Some Vaults have rather sickening social Experiments still running but i'd like to see something that tells me why no one has ever sought shelter there.

Some Vaults are in dire need of cleaning but they are still better then some random Shacks in the Wasteland.

Because the Fiends murdered the inhabitants as soon as they opened the Vault. The Fiends are from Vault 19, where the Powder Gangers took over. And frankly, unless somebody opens the Vault door for you, you're not likely to get inside.

[7thsealord]

I would have liked some more explanations here and there; some Factions and their Dealings make very little Sense by their own Rules. How does little lamplight stay populated? Maybe random Wastelanders just drop off Babies there in Order to keep them safe from the Wasteland?

 

That's one explanation. The Lamplighters also routinely send out scouting / foraging parties - seems plausible that they would rescue abandoned babies and lost kids when possible.

[VictorianApocolypse]

Ooh, might I add that Micky near Megaton is dying of thirst, while not only a few metres down the road is a full Nuka Cola vending machine?

 

Though he did say that he couldn't drink anymore irradiated "crap" because he vomits it up. Generally I would say the the writers tried to come up with plausible explanation for it all.

Edited May 19, 2012 by VictorianApocolypse