Do you guys ever play Fallout like THIS?

[trob1000]

It is idiotic that there isn't any vegetation in the fallout world. Plant life is the basis of all life, without grass or any plants, there wouldn't be food for humans or anything else. There then wouldn't be anything else for us to eat. Also, it was pointed out that Chernobyl has plant life and the melt down was in 1986. Even if there weren't large forests in the DC wasteland, there would still be grass, shrubs and maybe small trees. I know that hardcore fans don't like the idea of greenery, but LA is a very dry climate anyways, so a large amount of environmental damage could be possible. There was also rain in Honest Hearts, so there would still be rain and other precipitation in the world. Unless the oceans were boiled away and the water sent into space, there would still be water for rain. There would also be many low priority targets that would have little to no radiation. Portland or the northern Plains would still be green because why would someone waste a bomb on Montana? The oceans would also absorb a lot of radiation, so not all of it would have ended up on land. Most of it would be in the oceans, damaging that environment.

[7thsealord]

There would also be many low priority targets that would have little to no radiation. Portland or the northern Plains would still be green because why would someone waste a bomb on Montana? The oceans would also absorb a lot of radiation, so not all of it would have ended up on land. Most of it would be in the oceans, damaging that environment.

 

Most of your points are well-taken. but .....

 

W-e-l-l, at least during the Cold War, a fair few missile silos and other Air Force bases of note were sited in Montana. So, given the First Strike apparently tried on the US at the start of The War, Montana might have copped more than its fair share of nukes.

 

I also think the oceans would have stood up to radiation fairly well, actually, if only because of sheer volume (ie. lots and lots of space to "dilute" fallout). Noting too that some deep-ocean vents and trenches are particularly radioactive (via natural processes) anyhow

Edited June 24, 2013 by 7thsealord

[trob1000]

Yes some military targets would get hit in rural areas. I mean Montana wouldn't get carpet bombed like DC was.

[7thsealord]

Yes some military targets would get hit in rural areas. I mean Montana wouldn't get carpet bombed like DC was.

 

Agreed, Montana would probably not attract as much attention as some other places.

 

But note that the DC area was, by the strict definition of that term, NOT 'carpet bombed' at all ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carpet_bombing ). Wasn't even hit by any particularly large nukes, otherwise there would be pretty much nothing left standing at all - just a few VERY large craters ( http://www.nuclearsecrecy.com/nukemap/ ).

 

According to the lore (as I understand it :wink: ), pre-War treaties had severely limited the nuclear warhead sizes / yields of both sides. So the DC area was hit by what amounted to (by our standards) multiple "tactical" strikes - which is why so many structures remain (more or less) standing, even in areas that should have been primary targets (the Pentagon and The Mall, for example).

 

All things considered, whilst I accept that most destruction happened during The War, I also wonder just how much extra was done in the general mess that followed (talking to Underworld's 'Carol' is quite revealing on this, IMO).

Edited June 26, 2013 by 7thsealord

[trob1000]

There would still be green, like I wrote above, there would still be grass and other small plants. There would be many parts of the country that wouldn't have been bombed and not have been exposed to as much fallout from rain. Zion and the Mojave were left relatively unscathed by the fallout. Areas like this would exist on the East Coast and would reseed the region as the evolved to tolerate radiation. Life is stubborn and not just animal life would survive.

[7thsealord]

There would still be green, like I wrote above, there would still be grass and other small plants. There would be many parts of the country that wouldn't have been bombed and not have been exposed to as much fallout from rain. Zion and the Mojave were left relatively unscathed by the fallout. Areas like this would exist on the East Coast and would reseed the region as the evolved to tolerate radiation. Life is stubborn and not just animal life would survive.

 

Preaching to the choir on that one, matey.

 

Even if the entire DC area had been cratered by a 100 MT warhead ('Tsar Bomba'), two centuries would be more than enough time for at least some kind of ecosystem to reeestablish. Of course, a strike that large would probably also make survival of most structures in or close to DC (including subways and most of the local Vaults) kind of a moot point.

Edited June 26, 2013 by 7thsealord

[trob1000]

There were some tactical strikes, but look at the trees outside of the DC ruins. All of them are burned like trees you see in 1950's bomb test videos. There were at least a few large bombs dropped in the world. Also who would follow a treaty in the chaos that led up to the war? The UN was gone and there was no one to the the US and China what to do. It would be logical to assume that the both built some larger bombs to do more damage. They may not have had time to construct many large bombs, but some would have been built.

[lordDerpHerpington42]

1) as of The Great Wat, nearly all of earth's fossil fuels had been burned

2) according to canon, during The Great War "Continents were swallowed in flames and fell beneath the boiling oceans"

3) a week after the Great War came a global four day straight rainstorm of radiation and various other poisons that killed most of whatever was left (which was a lot, actually)

 

 

 

to whoever claimed the buildings shouldn't be around after 200 years i'd like to point out that there are still plenty of buildings that are older than that, even ones that have been abandoned for centuries.

[trob1000]

Yes that is what the lore says, but do you know how much energy it would take to boil the oceans? It would take an estimated 4.6x1026 Joules to boil the oceans. That is just an estimate by Michio Kaku. The US uses more than 9.53x19 Joules of energy per year. That number is from 1998. To boil the oceans, we would need to produce more energy then we ever could.

 

If all of the plants were killed in the world because that is what the lore says, how do you explain the plants in New Vegas and Zion? If plants have survived there, then pockets would exist elsewhere to reseed the world. How mutated they are is yet to be determined.

Edited June 27, 2013 by trob1000

[7thsealord]

2) according to canon, during The Great War "Continents were swallowed in flames and fell beneath the boiling oceans"

 

I think someone's hyperbole was showing on that one.