There are phones in Fo3 and I think FoNV. They are generally not connected to anything and the earpiece doesn't tend to come off of the receiver when knocked over, but they are clearly wireless. They may have mastered some form on wireless home-phone system. Also, it is stated that they never managed to perfect miniaturized electronics the way we have. Microchips are all but unheard of. The Platinum Chip (FoNV) is one of the if not the only one known to man in the Fallout universe.

Couple of things to consider.

They have plenty of lasers laying around.

So say you were in a large centrally located skyscraqer with plenty of computing power, then it would be fairly easy to take wornout laser rifle emitters and use them to create a point to point laser link communication system using your skyscraqer as the hub.

Bulky as hell but once they were in place they would require little maintenance.

Basically any where you could see from the top of the tower, you could have a direct communication link to.

Of course MIT would offer this from the goodness of their hearts and would never monitor any of the conversations.

You could even set up links to places fairly far away provide you put their laser links up high.

It should work except in the worse weather conditions and it wouldn't take much to create a mini internet provided MIT would allow access to their mainframes and they had the surplus processing power.

Now if MIT can produce Synths that are indistinguishable from humans, even if they had to basically be hand crafted by teams of Synths and MIT personal rather than being mass produced....

Well it implies a certain level of technology base that should be able to maintain and expand their computer mainframes.

On the other hand, if MIT was producing good reliable radios which are childs play to synths and mainframes, then that may be all the Boston Wasteland really needs at this point.

Of course with MIT able to manufacturer their own work force to feed, protect, and support them, they may have turned isolationist and only share enough technology to keep the surrounding communities happy and able to produce enough of a surplus to feed the MIT infrastructure.

Not sold on Laser-com. Simply because it's not a documented technology in Fallout and we've had intimate contact with various high-tech factions over the games. It's not really a retro-futuristic tech and doesn't seem to fit the setting.

Radio, walkie-talkies, robot-snailmail (eyebots as couriers) seem to be more fitting to the setting.

As mentioned by before - maintaining hard com lines through hostile territory is likely beyond most factions abilities. Hell, most settlements seem to struggle with the basics of food and water.

There's also no miniaturization the likes we know - microprocessors are not there. The platinum chip might have been one, but it's experimental tech and more likely it's simply a data storage device. Fallout relies on tubes and transistors - processing power is slower and much more limited - until you reach super computers who go completely the other way and can successfully house functional AIs.

Tubes and transistors explain why technology can be McGyuver'ed - taking a screwdriver and hammer to things to fix them. Try that with a microprocessor. Replacing parts there is much more complicated. In effect tubes make the tinkering work in the setting.

Divergence also explains why we have no flatscreens and instead radeon-tube monitors that fit in a pip-boy. Instead of finding a new better way to make displays, they found ways to make their better, smaller, flatter. It's Science! and may have no possible way to work in the real world, but it helps the setting of the game. It gives Fallout unique character.

Which is way I'm against cybernetic enemies - they do not fit the setting. They're a more modern concept and clash with Fallouts setting and chip away it's character.

I'm pretty sure there are phones. I could have sworn when I looked around in buildings in Fallout 3, I saw phones. There's also the telephone poles so there is long distance communication. Like others have said, there are radios and telegraphs.

Power Armor and Vertibirds are run from nuclear energy, just like the cars in the Fallout universe.

Well yeah, there's telephones. Nobody needs to scavenge them since they're useless now and have no worthwhile parts to loot that you could get elsewhere easier.

And while we have poles, cables are lacking - they'd be easy to salvage and have a wide variety of uses - building, fences, tying things together, electrical wiring and whatnot.

It is a fairly simple application that if anyone could do it, it would be the boys and girls at MIT.

Especially if they are trying to communicate over hostile areas.

I do think they would save it for only major communication hubs, but it sounds just like what MIT would use to stay in touch with their own remote sites.

Have to see how Bethesda handles it.

I'm betting the Laser Musket was created by the Institute/MIT.

We already know the Institute produces cyberware because Dr. Zimmer will reward the Lone Wanderer for finding his runaway Synth with Wired Reflexes.

Since they been creating Synths that are indistinguishable from humans for years they must have licked the lack of microchip problem some how.

And since they have, why wouldn't they create replacement cyberware for the maimed?

Advance medical knowledge, treatments, and medicine is a win/win for MIT because you get to take advantage of it for yourself and it is priceless to the surrounding world.

And once you can cure the blind by replacing their eyes, it is trivial to add in night vision.

Of course this is all done by more or less by hand and not mass produced so very rare and expensive.

With a very crude economy to work with, MIT likely is used to trading for favors or valuable salvage.

They also likely charge a premium when it takes them away from their research.

They might have either screws or steel now in Fallout 4 to make weapon parts with.

I am not sure FO was ever a case of microchips not being a thing.
The first IC prototype was patented in the 1940's.
I think what we see isn't a case of "we don't see it post war, so it couldn't have been an option pre-war".
In a world expecting nuclear war (the size and scope of vaults speaks to this), perhaps many devices were made with the knowledge that tubes are less susceptible to EMP damage, keeping the vast majority of the electronics market tube-centric.
Once the bombs did drop, what we see post war is what is left in working order- vacuum tube stuff. All of the IC stuff was fried and useless as a result of EMP and ESD.

At least, that's what the security cameras (with their small form factors) in F2 made me start thinking.

What about the cyborgs enemy/companion NPCs in Fallout 2?

(Even the PC could get cybernetics.)

Cybernetics/androids are hardly a "modern" concept.
1927, folks. 1927.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metropolis_(1927_film)

And Androids... 1959: https://www.youtube....?v=TZyCG2fVKTc?/a>(Probably not the first either.)

ah, that old chestnut. Yet more evidence that androids have def been a concept in sci for some time.

Consider the Wasteland.

Radios, especially HAM Radios, need very little infrastructure that can be defended by an overall settlement.

Telephones require long stretches of cable that has to be both maintained and defended from every Raider/Mutant who decides to just cut the lines again. Cell Phones require even greater infrastructure - towers and satellites.

While in the West I could see the NCR rolling out phone lines (The Telegraph's expansion matched that of the Rails, and the NCR has rail capacity), in the East where things have obviously been hand-to-mouth for a lot longer, Radios would be a better match for their needs.

I'd like to think it's a far cry between a cybernetic dog, a brain in a jar and a full cyborg. The cyberdogs and cyberbrains we've had - are living brains controlling a mechanical or cybernetic body. Each AI we encountered was based on supercomputers - now we face humanoid AIs? It's a bit of a difference. It implies we're dealing with a whole different level of technology now. That's what has me odds.

The PC could get implants, yes, enhancing him. Cybernetics would be replacements for what he already possesses, e.g. artificial eye or limbs.

As far as metropolis goes - I was actually waiting for that as counter. Metropolis Maschinenmensch always strikes me more as a robot, it literally translates as maschine person.

Cyborg (to me) means something build to look and work like a human, pass for a human. Cybernetic implants are things that replace something, take over it's functionality. A cyborg would be the attempt to complete the whole set. Cyborg in my eyes is more technologically advanced then robot.

Either way, to me retro-futuristic implies lots of chrome, nuclear powered, robots, rayguns, big-ass bleeping computers and rocket spaceships.

When I hear cyborg on the other hand I think Aliens - Bishop. Passing for human, super-human abilities and weird white blood.

P.S. tried to send you a direct message a while ago, but your mailbox must be full.

Not seeing why they would take the time and effort to lay the infrastructure for something like that when they could just use a radio...

oops, double post, see below

The thing about Metropolis is that it is early on- you had said that Androids were too "modern". While they may not have called it an android, that is certainly what it was- a Robot that has the likeness of a human.
In the movie, the "robot" was passable as a human to the point that it lead people away from their children- it wasn't until after they set it of fire that they realized it was a machine underneath.
Even if you cannot agree that the false Maria from Metropolis was an android, the term was coined in the 1800's- so it is definitely not a modern idea.

What you are describing is an android and not a cyborg. Bishop is an android.

A cyborg has organic biology, along with boimechatronics. You have to have organic biological material. The only thing "created" are the cybernetic parts.


And so what if it is a whole new level of technology?
each game has introduced "new" technological advances.

where phones even in the fallout universe i mean pre war as well? didn't that thing that happened after ww2 make phones not happen

Are you implying that some kind of Dragon Break occurred in the Fallout universe that prevented Alexander Graham Bell from inventing the telephone in 1849?

Because you can clearly see telephones in various places throughout the Wasteland(s).

No matter how you slice it, a Bishop or a Harkness is way more advance than a Steve Austin or a Winter Soldier.

The hardware and software to develop a sentient being that is indistinguishable from humans is an order of magnitude more advanced.

All you have to do is interface the mechanics of the cyberware with the human nervous system.

And since they have brains in a jar, they must have that licked.

In our own world we are already on the threshold.

The blind being helped to see.

Replacement arms that are responsive enough, flexible enough, and can even allow the user to feel the pressure being used that the user can handle an egg.

And the Pre War Fallout world is over 60 years a head of that.

See, phones need a certain amount of infrastructure. Beyond the obvious raiders shooting crap up, you have radiation that would probably wreak havoc on the electronics. Radios are easier, and likely go for ten miles considering everything is flat and desolate.

Totally true about the radios.

But I could still see it being used between Institute sites.

Lasers are impossible to intercept and would allow a broader bandwidth.

If there was something like an internet and they had multiple users, a laser link might make more sense.

wait.. how are lasers impossible to intercept?

Even easier than lasers would be an LOS form of communications utilizing say, microwave transmissions.

Though, I have to wonder. What is the need for this high tech communication?
Even simple 10W radio setups can be encrypted, furthermore, can be set up to where you can't even access the frames the data is sent in, if you do not have permission to use the orderwire, which is set by the channel controller, who basically plays the role of operator.

I'm not a scientist so I'll admit I know little about this and will bow before the experts.

But my understanding of laser links is that they are point to point.

So unless you can move a receiver between the two and intercept the beam which I figure would be rather noticeable, you can't intercept the beam.

I only suggested laser because I'm certain that even with Laser Muskets being popular, there has to be lot of laser pistols and rifles to salvage.

Don't get me wrong, I definitely think they are viable to send information on But, just like LOS, there are bound to be RX/TX arrays whose locations could be compromised. From there, anywhere between could be a point of interception. I think any form of communications (even hardwired- via induction) can be intercepted. Lasers wouldn't take much more than a mirror and something to RX, split and re-TX the data with. Radios would be easier, if it means anything.

This is why I mention that it would really be about encryption and a half duplex services that require channel controlled orderwires. That's what's going to stop... er, deter people from intercepting your communications.

But I still wonder why there would be a need for laser comms. Admittedly, I am assuming there are radios laying around everywhere in Boston, and the downside of laser technology is that it would need to be calibrated fairly precisely. If you are talking any real distance that they intend to communicate across, being off by 1mm, on either end could mean not syncing up, Radios, they radiate out much more, even with the use of a wave guide setup.

Sorry for rambling. I used to work in communications and don't get the chance to prattle on about it as much as I used to.