Hello
Im curious to know what people think on how likely it is that fallout 3 could happen in real life. Prehaps not up to the point of super mutants but the world being destoried by nukes. They game idea obvously was thought up by the fact that its possible. general comments on this topic would be great!

Thank you
GMR

Yes, it is a very real threat, but it would be nothing like Fallout 3 if that happened. The U.S. alone has enough nuclear weaponry to destroy the world 8 times over.

The Fallout world is based on scientific concepts of the 50s, with a heavy emphasis on the science (or Science! if you will) of pulp novels and similar fiction. However even removing the more fantastic elements (super mutants, ghouls, etc.) the scenario still doesn't fit the modern scientific beliefs on nuclear armageddon. For example, Fallout has no nuclear winter.

A barely habitable post-apocalyptic wasteland is within the realm of possibility, but its certainly highly unlikely.

Your version of a post-apocalyptic wasteland is correct and nothing like Fallout's, which is realistic. However, why don't you believe it is likely to happen?

WW3= nukes = end of humanity so yes it cud happen, hope tht day never comes lol

if im not mistaken back in the late 90's we were 2 and a half minutes away from that very outcome. russia wasnt sure if they had incoming attacks and was about to use the "football" in retaliation on the states. when there people rushed into the room and told the rusky prez, that it was actually a satelite launch by a neighboring country. incidently they were notified but since there country is so messed up. the message was simply lost in the shuffle of things. lucky us the world is still around.

Yeah, if something like Fallout were to happen, it probably wouldn't be anything like the game. Did you know that the US in the 50s, 60s, until the mid-70s didn't have a contingency plan for Nuclear war. At least a contingency plan for what they'd do to help their citizens. And if something like it were to happen, it would probably be much more worse and horrible.

Well, the food will be scarcer, the cities will be flatter, the people will be balder and the drug addicted prosttutes will presumably be less attractive. 200 years later, though, who knows. Our projections for the effects of nuclear war only extend a few decades into the future.

I don't think you know what you're talking about. "The football" is an American term, for one.

A Nuclear War, while possible, doesn't seem likely to happen as things stand right now.

All nuclear-power nations are on speaking terms with each other, if not working as allies. The only threats come from North Korea and Iran. North Korea is unlikely to use a nuke, because they know the second they press the button, their nation will be removed from the face of the earth, and I doubt Iran will actually feel like they actually need to use a nuke; they can't attack Israel with nukes because they may damage Jerusalem, and unless they sell nukes to Al-Quada, they're just there to deter attacks and give them more barganing power with the world at large.

The only way a nuclear war could happen is if the Resource Wars happen; where nuclear nations have nothing left to lose by using a nuke. The only way a nuclear war could happen is if there are no options left. And because of MAD, there's a lot of incentive to play nicely with the other nations of the world.

I doubt it will ever happen, ever.

Quite so. In a way, it got to a point where trade is important to stay afloat. We trade with many counties and they trade back. Huge part of this world today is one big global economy.

If it does happen, anyone can hop in my fallout shelter im my backyard if they want. You must reserve about 1 year before the apocalypse comes though.

World War One was fought with guns. World War Two was fought with tanks. World War Three will be fought with nukes. World War Four will be fought with sticks and stones.

Because I don't believe we're in a position where widescale nuclear war is likely. I can't explain why in detail here given the restriction on politics and related issues, but things have calmed down substantially since the end of the Cold War.


There were a number of incidents when garbled communication lines almost resulted in an unintentional nuclear strike. Able Archer 83 is probably the most impressive, but there are quite a few.

However we are no longer in a world with hair trigger nuclear missiles.


The underlying message of Einstein's famous quote is certainly true, but in a discussion of realistic situations it seems rather out of place. A 'world war' scope conflict would require that humanity reach a far higher level of technology. Also, as for the quote, Einstein didn't say WWIII would be fought with nukes, he said he wasn't sure what weapons would be used.

The british tv movie "Threads" sums up the fear of the very real threat of nuclear war between the 50's and late 80's

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M8E9fwQ1Ylw&feature=related

If you ask me its the most realistical and stomach turning ever made. Its much more graphic than "The Day After" and broke more taboos.

That part of the movie that shows what Britain might look like 1 year or 10 years after the war is the most ugly part and nothing for people with weak stomachs.

Thank you for posting this, and I have to agree - it is a very graphic look at the initial moments of nuclear war. Those that die in those scenes are the lucky ones.

What is far more horrifying to, and Carol in the Underworld eludes to this in her re-telling of the war as well, is that the days and weeks After the war will in fact far More horrible than the day of the war. Starvation, diseases and the total breakdown of society will turn we humans into the worst creates imaginable. We will do things to each-other that we can scarcely envision today.

Makes a Vault sound like a good idea eh?

At this point though, I really don't see a global nuclear war taking place. Terrorist nukes yes, all-out war -not likely.

From the game, the only thing really missing is the rain. There would be rain, no matter how many nukes we drop. We would have to move the planet out of alignment (which would kill us all anyway) or evaporate the oceans to prevent the rain. I play Fallout3 with the Rain and Weather Mod as well as Fellout, and envision the world would look alot more like that.

Miax

maybe everybody should take comfort in that we have nuclear defences. = Safety - no nuclear war

There is an argument that such shields actually make the chances of a nuclear war more likely.

Countries that do not have these defenses could simply build more nukes in a plan to overload the system (The old "I only have to be lucky once, you have to stop me every single time" trick)

Countries that do have these defenses may feel that without a major threat from retaliation, that they're free to launch away safely.

A nuclear war is, of course, a theoretical possibility, nuclear weapons exist, and if someone were to use them to wage war, then you have nuclear war. It seems highly unlikely, as there is nothing to be gained by nuclear war, if one side uses nuclear weapons, the other side must respond in kind, having nuclear weapons used on your soil is very bad, very bad indeed. So bad in fact the fear of such a thing, I suspect, is the main reason why nuclear war didn't happen when the fear of it seemed worst. However, if nuclear war theoretically did happen, there would be massive destruction, radiation, hostile wastelands, radiation poisoning, all the really, really bad things. Now the giant mutated scorpions and such, on the other hand, probably aren't going to happen, and while victims of severe radiation burns might not be a very pretty sight, they'd probably live much shorter lives than ghouls. Things would be very bad, and if you survived the initial blast and the radiation poisoning, there'd likely be a good chance that you wouldn't survive the chaos that follows.

In short, while Fallout may be fun, if anything remotely resembling it happened in real life, it wouldn't be at all.

There is a "Enhanced Weather Mod" for F3 on Fallout3Nexus.com

Its really cool and adds light and heavy rain aswell as snow in the winter months to the game. (The rain is radioactive aswell) One of my favourite mods ! :fallout:

Looks very realistic, propably extracted from Oblivion. :goodjob:

A nuclear apocalypse like depised in Fallout (or most other PA fiction for that matter) is completely impossible. Atomic weapons aren't as powerfull as most people imagine, nor are their effects as long standing. Around 80-90% of projected casualities would happen because of the famine, riots, etc, which would probably ensue from the chaos and panic a nuclear war would probably cause, not the direct effects of the weapons.

I think its completely the other way around. People tend to vastly underestimate the power of nuclear weapons.

The majority thinks of Hiroshima when thinking about the effects of nuclear weapons. They say , Hiroshima is ok again so a nuclear bomb is something terrible but you can get over it.

They completely ignore the difference between a atomic bomb and the hydrogen bomb, often thinking its just another name for the same thing and that modern weapons are identical in power to the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs while they mostly have a hundredfold of their power in a single warhead.

This is propably due to the missing modern footages of atmospheric nuclear tests as a result of the test ban treaty aswell as schools and tv largely ignoring in depth coverage of the history of nuclear weapons beyond the second world war. A high-def 7.1 dolby surround recording of a multi-megaton atmospheric test in primetime tv would change the perception of people immensely.

People who not go for informations themselves like watchting old test footages simply do not get how many times the scale of power was multiplied and how gravely the effects and persistence of radioactive contamination were underestimated at first.

It is a good film, and in fact, the BBC released the entire film for free on Google Video, here:

http://video.google.co.uk/videoplay?docid=-2023790698427111488&ei=mwfeSvedLIaO-AaKq9maCg&q=threads&hl=en-GB#


Its certainly worth watching if you find yourself with a spare hour or two.


-TTP

Agreed.