I'm confused.
The Great War was in 2077 right?
Then why is there:

*40s/50s music?
*cars with fins?
*computer terminals that look like it's from the 1980's?

There is a 50s leaning time split. Even though it was 2077 in fo world its alot like our 1950s, but with tech way past our own.

Everything does not have to be 50s, but it leans to the 50s

I suggest you read these two articles:

http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Divergence

http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Timeline

thanks

It never ceases to amaze me at how this remains one of the most commonly asked questions about the series :laugh:

In short for those who are to lazy to read the Wiki, I'm not refering to you siKe!, but to anyone reading. The series splits somewhere around 1950, where as we advanced in culture and some aspects of technology, the universe in which Fallout exists is basically America envisioned by 1940's and 1950's America's idea of 'The World of Tomorrow!'. We have iPods, computers, and various things. They have nuclear powered cars, energy weapons, power armor, Vertibirds, simulation and stasis pods, huge fallout shelters. et cetera. All of their technology is in the vein of that 1950's aesthetic.

^^Above posts say it all.
But, on top of that, the 'futuristic bits' of stuff lying around in the 50s style genre were what Science Fiction writers of the time thought the future would be like.

Anyone read Ray Bradburys earlier stuff, such as his Martian Chronicles?

Its pretty much like they never got out of the 50's time period.

I mean what else can yous say...the 50's is SWINGING.

Mhmm. Just remember it doesn't have to be realistic, or make any sense, because it doesn't. Just enjoy it for what it is... make believe fantasy RPG'ing based in an alternative universe that would be pretty darned unlikely. The world of 2077 was basically a fantastical cartoon-dream imagined by people from the 50's experimenting with substances that wouldn't be controlled until later in the 60's. Don't try to make any logical sense out of it, and you'll be ok

Yes but if America did stay in the 1950's SOME of that stuff could happen and be true. Like the technology and etc.

Think of it this way,

Maybe the style of the 50's was back in by 2077, and most of the styles of America turned to 50's style. This would mean 50's music, 50's clothes (Duh) and all that jazz.
Or maybe when it was the 50's they just kept the style because America liked it. To be honest i kinda like the 50's style and stuff. Find it cool. But anyway you could use those 2 theoreys. The second one i said was what
the war-never-changes announcer says at the beggining of fallout 3. But who knows? Its RPG My friend, use your imagination!

Like the solar/satellite tech at Helios, yeah, there are a few future-tech things in the game that fit with a truly advanced technological society 66 years beyond our own. And yeah, who knows, maybe the jaded designers of the future got all nostalgic for naugahyde and avocado kitchen appliances, and 1930's all-metal toasters. Hey, it could happen! :whistling:

But the cars and trucks and airplane designs... hehe... those, you just have to do a , smile at the joke, and carry on.

Some things can be plausible...

Yeah, and my great-uncle Wilbert is a one-legged Albanian transvestite midget.

Oh, wait....

I can do without the Rude sarcastic comments...

My apologies, Ace, I wasn't intending to be rude... it was 'said' with a grin and a smile, on my end. Forgot the emoties

I agree that some things from this fantasyland could conceivably exist in a techno future 66 years ahead of ours, in an alternate reality. But when I referred to the atomic cars, all of which apparently were modeled after an oversized Edsel with an atomic reactor in the back seat (that is fond of exploding in a radioactive fireball during any accident over 30mph), and the military and commercial trucks with the bulbous hoods over which the drivers wouldn't even be able to see anything on the road in front of them for over 100 yards, and the aircraft at McCarren and elsewhere (seriously? 120 years later and the epitomy of transport aircraft is still a small, fat C-47 clone from the WWII era?)... that stuff, any designer in ANY universe is going to be laughed off the shop floor for suggesting anything so utterly stupid and/or unworkable. Those are tongue-in-cheek rib-tickler cartoon dreams, nothing more. That is the stuff I'm referring to.

Yes but i was referring to other things.

Actually... The Fallout future is manifest as their pop 50's ideal of what the future would be like ~with nuclear cars, and robots and such, then blown to wastes by a nuclear war to end all wars. It also exhibits alternate physical laws that are in step with their popular fears and ignorance of certain things ~like the effects of radiation actually turning folks into green monsters.

If you look at the series as a whole, you find that it appears that the 50's were gone with the bomb, and those that remain (survived / and their descendants), are just living in the remnants of that old 50's paradise.
You only find greasers and other anachronistic NPCs in Fallout 3 and New Vegas. In Fallout 1 & 2, the only 50's you see is 50's style junked cars and salvage left over from the days before the war.

Still... Fallout's populace has (and will probably always have) the 50's aesthetic for design and parts of the culture.

Such as?

Style friend, style.... and a http://www.damninteresting.com/the-atomic-automobile/.
http://www.classiccoe.com/oldcoetrucks/3947.htm
http://www.classiccoe.com/oldcoetrucks/Custom.htm
http://www.classiccoe.com/oldcoetrucks/canball.htm

Oh, I understand, nothing needs to be explained to me about the stylish absurdity they were reaching for, in the cultural/techno aspect of the game world design. But much of it is so beyond-absurd that it never ceases to elicit a headshake and a chuckle, when I see it ingame.

Trucks,Cars, Robots, Bombs, and etc.

Mmm, maybe some of them. Some others, i find implausible purely on a functional design standpoint (the cargo trucks with hoods so huge you couldn't even see the road ahead for 100 yards, the nuclear cars that would blow up if you backed into somebody in a parking lot, etc.).

Yes that can happen but they are plausible nonetheless.

You're forgetting, these aren't just nuclear cars. These are cars that have gone for 200 years without a regular tune up. So their reactors have become unstable.

Yes, as plausible as my uncle Wilbert being a one-legged Albanian trans.....