Enter Steven Seagal...Chef of Death!

You tell that to the 4 men it took to operate it. Meanwhile, Ellen Ripley kicks alien ass in an industrial power loader.

Seriously ~you think? In a better living through technology culture? Of course they would use them in industry... and they would have them in the military. It's difficult to imagine them not using them to load munitions.

I wouldn't be so sure. Even a veteran would balk when they see what looks like a living zombie down the street pleasantly chatting to a dude wearing leather and car tires. I would probably want to pull someone aside and ask why some of them look like zombies.

I have no problem assuming that the PC was in a combat role in the war. All that just kind of makes sense.

Assuming that he can therefore easily adjust to the time-jump is a stretch IMO. Sure he's seen war, etc., but mutants and the death of everyone he'd ever known would be a blow to anyone. You don't train for that.

The point is the tractor was made into something that could work in a war setting. The same applies to power armor. Aliens was a silly movie.

My post was in response to the likelihood that the SS was just an industrial worker for the military. It's more likely he was not and that he was using power armor purposed for combat. It would also explain why the SS will be more proficient at firing guns (new shooter overhaul) immediately without the need of leveling his small guns skill.

I was referring more to the state of the environment and less to its inhabitants.

Exactly. To go from getting ready for a speech one minute, to running for your life to a Vault the next and the next thing you know, it's 200 years later and everything you've ever known has either changed, or are irradiated hellholes. No amount of training will prepare you for that.

Oh, and let's not forget that to you, the Old World felt like it was hours ago, you can probably remember smelling the morning coffee the day the War broke out. But to the rest, the world you remember is so distant, so alien that it's like us imagining what life in 1815 was like. Short of brains in robots or pre-War Ghouls, Sole Survivor would have NO ONE from his/her time to talk about the pre-War World

Ghouls, Super Mutants, Mole Rats, Deathclaws, etc., all may be normal (to an extent) to Wastelanders, but to you? It would feel like you've just stepped into a horror movie of which there is no escape. At least Lone Wanderer would've had some idea of what it was like outside the Vault, but you, Sole Survivor, would have no idea.

I'm honestly surprised Howard didn't curl up into a fetal position and begin weeping in the E3 Demo.

That is most likely, I think. It sets up the PC as the returning hero dropped into a crisis at home.

If Under Siege is any evidence a cook is a one man army, at least if that cook happens to be Steven Seagal. So that might make him more powerful if he is a cook.

I could see the SS develop a real connection with Ghouls who were alive during the war, once the 'WTF is that' phase is over of course...

Some Ghouls will probably hate your guts as a kneejerk reaction, with the thought process being "we've been through hell and back for two f'ing hundred years and now this smoothskin from before the war appears? scotfree of radiation?!"

And what are those angry women doing wearing only metal cups on their... instead of a respectable parkstroller outfit ??

Personally I'm with Morchai on this if i don't tell my PC to say something he best keep his mouth shut there's nothing worse than auto dialogue. It irked me in ME3 and that won't change in FO4.

Also I don't like all these assumptions some people are making on how the PC should react to stuff that should be up to the player RP'ing the character.

when the servivor gets out he's running and panting and armed i bet vault 111 isn't a nice place and the cryo isn't for storing people rather test subjects.

To be fair to Sole Survivor, he/she would've been trained on how to keep it together mentally. There would coping skills, one of which would be to focus on whatever duty he/she needs to do, or think of someone he/she cares about (*ahem*wife/husband and child*ahem*) and keep going. To say he/she is going to keel over and start sobbing like an infant is a tad insulting.

True, but the emotional impact is likely to kick in at some point (player choice permitting of course)...

Indeed - I mean look at the female soldiers in Operation: Anchorage which wouldn't exist in a true representation of the 50's with their chauvinism (at least not in real battles - there would be nurses and maybe doctors but that's it)

As for a culture shocked protag? - Sure...but not in the way you think IMHO...I'd imagine a protag who doesn't accept what the world has become at all and strives to drag it back (kicking, screaming and resisting if need be) to civilisation (convert the savages with fire (lasers etc.) and steel (guns!))...at least that's what I will play as (I do a self-insert and I could never (not in previous Fallout games either!) accept the world as it is after the war with raiders everywhere and even slavery being a common thing (!), it's why I helped out the fledgling NCR by first saving Tandi as the vault dweller and later helping her out with her troubles as the chosen one...not that I like how that turned out (I'd have loved a more ideal version of the pre-war US...not an even more corrupt version of it where the corporations (van graffs, brahmin barons etc.) sit in the parliament directly - instead of just working behind the scenes and bribing politicians!)

greets LAX