Question has probably been asked before, but mostly noticed that on other forums and such, but not in the way i was hoping to get it answered though.

Barring more of the outlandish themes of the game, could history have gone the way of this game?

From what little i found says for the most part, no...but since you guys seem knowledgeable on the subject, i hope you wouldn't mind if i asked.

Absolutely.

It's not well known, but there are over a half-dozen instances during the cold war where Nuclear War was almost a certainty. The Cuban Missile crisis is the most obvious one, but both sides could have gone to war because of a glitch (USSR) or because nobody remembered about an automated drill (USA).

The fact that the Cold War ended without nukes flying to and fro is a [censored] miracle.

The original Fallout was a social commentary on the Cold War and concerns that world governments and mega corporations can't be trusted.

In reality, however, there are a large number of people constantly striving to make the world a better place. Scientists are actively seeking alternative sources of energy, one of the US presidential canidates is trying to break up the banks and mega corporations(even if he loses), and conferences are repeatedly being held to make sure no one uses nuclear weapons(Hell, the US supposedly went to war to prevent the creation of nuclear weapons).

The Fallout Universe's Holocaust was a result of the lack of good people trying to fix the world's problems.

Also keep in mind that some of the very early Fallout games actually pin down the launch of the first few nuclear missile due to the AI's we had invented (the ZAX series being a good example). It all could of started because THEY decided it had to start. We havnt come anywhere near to the point of creating anything remotely as powerful as a ZAX style machine.

Also Fallout depicts the world essentially not .. evolving per se after the 50's and 60's. Sure we build Supercomputers and robots and other things, but culturally we dont really evolve : you can see this in how people dress, how they interact, how things .. look. Like Joshua has stated above, there are quite a few people doing things that would never fly in the Fallout universe and the game was always based on the fear (and not irrational fear ) either of a world torn apart by the threat of Nuclear conflict.

What will happen is that we WILL eventually run out of oil as a viable resource we can use. WE have probably already hit 'peak' oil production (that is the point where we really cant produce /process any more than we have now. That dosnt mean neccesarily that we will run out per se, what it means that there will come a point where oil is too hard to access. The cost benefit ratio will be outta wack as its either in an Area that cant really be reached or something else is stopping us reaching it. Hopefully by this point we may have developed Fusion or solar technology or other to the point where its as viable as oil.

That or we have found other locations to access Oil (not neccesarily here on this planet).

Another thing I would point out and Joshua above me hit it full on. The Fallout universe pre war (esp the leadership) seems full of Bad people. There didnt appear to be any good eggs, at least in any positions of power to have any meaning. We do have a lot of world leaders in reality who do seem to have their peoples best interests at heart. Fallout simply caters to the voice inside us who thinks that government/people in power are actively trying to screw us over.

I am not sure what the question is... But if it is about alternative history then yeah. Fallout's history is very different then ours. It started to go differently sometime around the 1950s.

The Cold War turned out very differently then ours. In Fallout it never really ended. The USSR was still around by 2077, but by the China had become the bigger threat.

One event that we know turned out differently in Fallout was the Vietnam War. America in Fallout declared War in Vietnam which they never did in ours. From the Fallout Tactics intro.

It very nearly did.

Rabbit

There's still time - only 62 years to go... in all seriousness the breakdown of international relations outlined in the Fallout timeline is perfectly plausible.

Apologies, i meant could it have gone the way as in relations, tech et cetera among other things. I hope it cleared it up, if not, any questions?

Makes it easier to understand what you're asking.

Tech, yes. We already are on the verge of having vehicle-mounted lasers beyond prototype stages (and man-portable versions probably won't be too far behind), power armor is within reach if we can only solve the exoskeletal power issue (we can make it, it just needs to be tethered to a generator right now), and predictions of turing-test passing AI are at 2045-2050 (which will result in robots that appear to operate on human-level intellegence.)

International Relations, Possibly. Globalization has hit the point where it's generally a bad idea to engage important players in an outright war. The 2008 recession started in the US with a housing bubble collapse, which eventually caused the economy in other nations to be negatively impacted. Things will have to get a lot worse before it devolves into a "every (nation) for (it)self" state. But considering what's going on in the middle east, a prediction that Russia might loose centralized control over itself within the next 10 years (which will make their nuke stockpiles less secure,) possible dissolution of the EU, and petrolium/oil evenetually running out, it can easily go that way.

Nuclear War, Possibly. I'm fairly certain that if (most) nuke-capable nations were forced into a war with each other, the nukes would be the last thing they would want to launch. As in, "we'd rather surrender and sign a peace treaty than have to use these damn things." Only possible way I can see the nuclear holocaust happen is... well, basically conditions of a war escalates to the point where "surrender for a peace treaty" equates to "national suicide." We're not talking post-WWII Japan, we're talking post-WWI Prussia (which was essentially dismantled by the subsequent peace treaty.)