I do not think you are stupid.

See above about canon. This from the developers who made the game about in game content, not timeline speculation.

This is the game developers saying they don't know, haven't figured out yet how big they want the NCR.

This is why two different in game documentations say conflicting things. They didn't want to commit to anything.

Basically, I find something that backs what I'm saying, and you can't accept it. Ya know, sometimes you need to think for yourself, and question authority. The 700k makes 0 sense based on FO1. Also, Shady Sands is the capital of the entire NCR, not the state of Shady Sands. Theae are city states. No doubt, the largest is the Hub or repopulated LA.

The 3K is just important when trying to figure out the entire NCR population.

You obviously played the game, if the populations of FO1 booming to 700k makes sense.. I dunno what to say. Why would 697000 other people decide to follow 3000? Lol..

Obviously, I gotta go to the Glow...

Sorry about that comment about you thinking we are stupid. I am trying to work on that, its why I removed it.

3000 people that are organised and powerful can get alot of people to follow them. All they would have had to do is get people like the Water Merchants on their side. NCR makes a bunch of deals with other organised groups and gains more and more power, all the while knocking off those weaker and unorganised, absorbing territory as they go.

Just look at Caesar. He took a weak pathetic group of tribals that didn't even know how to use a gun and turned them into the second largest power in the wasteland in a matter of a what a few decades? It can be done and its what the NCR did.

700,000 is an approximation. An approximation can be seen as an exaggeration. I don't consider the Fallout Bible canon. I also can't see Chris Avellone writing 700,000 when the real number is say 60K and only decribing it as an exaggeration. That is alot more that an exaggeration.

To me an exaggeration is adding a couple thousand, maybe ten to twenty thousand, not adding 640,000.

There are some things in the Bible, when speaking of in game stuff, that should be considered canon, and other things that could be considered more questionable.

For example, the timeline has some canon, when dealing with confirmed in game dates, to "well, Beth can change this if they wanted, or use it".

The NCR disc, is clearly written as propaganda, trying to attract more people to the NCR. Something always sounds more appealing if everyone is doing it. They just do not want to commit to a number. Which is why two conflicting numbers. If they commit, they can't change their mind, can they? Pretty hard to explain a 500,000 population decrease, right?

This is why there are also no set BoS numbers. Writers do not want to back themselves into a corner. I'm sure the exaggeration was put iut there because other people, and more than likely the writers themselves, realized based upon FO1 and population, that number was way high.

But if I see something that does not make sense, I am going to say it. And 700,000 in 80 years does not make sense. And no offense, but the only way to research FO2 is from things like the Bible and info from the designers.

So I dunno.

NCR is too big for my liking...

Their Force size would be roughly 25,000 lives, though I say this because I don't really see them having a one million strong army if they can't even squash the Legion threat in Vegas.

The war is unpopular and the troops they have there are recruits they don't even want to train. We are told all their normal troops are back in California.

Also on the exaggeration of the population thing. It only says exagerrated, not greatly or anything else. And it says it's an impressive amount. To me that would be 400,000-600,000. Not 50,000 because someone is going to notice and make a big deal out of it. And if the post war people were smart they could salvage a whole bunch of material from LA suburban areas, so I imagine LA is the largest city at some point.

And the hub is also huge compared to shady sands. But to determine its size we need a number for junktown.

And I also think the cities represent only bits of the population. Take colonial America for example. Around 1776 there were about 2.5 million people, but the cities were pretty small. Philly -30,000 Pennsylvania - 250,000. One of thethe largest cities only makes up a small bit of an entire population. Boston -15,000 Massachusetts - 240,000 and Mass. Is really small and only a fraction of the people lived in cities. So the people have to be living somewhere. That is how I see the population being dispersed, small urban areas and late rural areas. And California is huge, it would be really easy to spread the population out.

Many are trying to flee the NCR so the high standards probably wont give them extra people.

It isn't 700,000 in 80 years, its 700,000 people in 164 years. I understand you feeling it is a high number, but it is in the ball park. It is just approximation given in the game. Propaganda also doesn't mean it is a lie. Propaganda is also simply boasting about how good you have it. Showing off "Look at how kick ass we are" type talk. If NCR was only 60K and they said they have 700,000, that kind of propaganda would horribly backfire. People would go to check it our and then laugh their ass off.



The only people fleeing NCR are those that have anything to do with the Enclave and Great Khans. The average wastelander might complain about NCR, but they aren't fleeing it it like it was some sort of ruthless invading army coming to slaughter everyone.

No thats not everyone, there are others that dont want all the taxes and laws. Play the game and see for yourselves, not only the Enclave and Khans fear the NCR

I have played the game. No one in the game that complains about he taxes and Laws are from the NCR. Those people are from the Mojave and are going to become part of the NCR, and yet they aren't fleeing because they know they have nowhere to go. If they keep going east they run into Legion lands and that is a worse than being in the NCR.

Yes i think there was this one guy somewhere in the area around Vegas (i might be confusing the Enclave guy but idk) ill check it out and give you a name, give me three days.

You're probably thinking of that Nash guy in Primm. If NCR annexes Primm he complains about taxes, and like Styles said he wasn't an NCR citizen, and he hasn't gone anywhere.

It is 80 years from FO1 to FO2.

In that time, you are trying to say these small communities of 500-5000 people formed a nation of 700,000 people.

That is what does not make sense. I'm not talking about the entire population of the world or the US or the state of California, Nevada, etc. It is difficult to figure out entire surviving populations, because we do not know:

Exact population numbers. Casualty rate from the bombs and subsequent fallout.

All we know is, there were what? 400 million in the USA? And the bombs put mankind on the brink of extinction?

After the bombs, man died from famine, disease, etc.

So, you have to go by what you see in game. What we see in FO1 are small towns. In FO2 we see the same, even Reno is like 5-7K, Shady Sands is now 3K. Even if the Hub grew to 20K, or LA grew to 20K, you are going to be 600,000 short.

In the FO world, 50-100K people is a lot, and impressive. They would be the largest faction in game, regardless.

I would also say that while rural areas had the better shot at survival, they would be forming back into primitive urban areas, like we see in game. Mainly for protection from raiders and dangerous critters. Tribes and such are probably in the size ranging from 300-1000 for a large tribe.

Also, not sure how someone is going to check the NCR accuracy of their boast, or why they would care.

The population wouldn't only consist of the people of 5 small towns.

There's probably 50.000.000 inhabitants in California by 2077, right? (in real life, today, it's around 37.700.000 but the Fallout world pre-war suffered from overpopulation.) Then let's say 97% of people die when the bombs fall. How many people are then left in entire California? 1.500.000 people is left by quick math. Then of course there's radiation, famine and anarchy raging after that, how many is then left? Say 80% of the survivors of the initial firestorm die during the 10-20 years that follow due to the reasons I mentioned, maybe that's an extreme estimation, I dunno, but for the sake of you, evilbastard, who likes to guess numbers, let's say it is 80%! That leaves us with 300.000 people in all of California. How much will that number increase in the years to follow from now on, around 2097? How many people would that be in 200 years? And in the last 100 years, the NCR has existed (since 2186) and with NCR, increased security, clean water and living standards.

Sure, by 2242, NCR only had the southern half of California.
But still, keep in mind these numbers - ca 50.000.000 by October 22nd 2077, 300.000 by ca 2087-97 and then how many by 2186 (NCR's founding), 2242 (NCR owning half of California) and 2281 (NCR owning whole of California, southern Oregon, western Nevada and parts of Mexico)?


Edit: looking up numbers, and it seems that my estimation of 97% initial casualties is an exaggeration...

You are a supporter of the population doubling every 30 years am I right? So in 2161, 84 years after the Great War. Now the population in 2241 is 700,000. So I will try to do the math (I svck at math).

2241-2161 = 80 years. Population doubles every 30 years, so that means since 2161 the population doubled 2.6 times. So this means the population of the wasteland in 2161 wasn't 700,000 people. It would be 2.6 times smaller than that. So if I did the math right (remember I svck at math) the population of the area that would become NCR in 2241 would only be 175,000 people.

175,000 people in the area that would later become the NCR of 2241. Not 700,000 people in 2161.

175,000 doubled is 350,000. 350,000 doubled is 700,000 and there is still the remaining .6 to deal with.


We are debating the definition and context of: propaganda, exaggeration and approximation. Propaganda isn't always lying.

Say you and I were in a room with 48 other people. Without taking the time to count everyone in the room, I take a quick look around and say "There are 54 people in the room." Now say you knew that there was 50 people in the room. You could see my number as an exaggeration. I would see it as an approximation. I could be forgiven for sayin 54 and not 50 people but now consider the following:

Now say I said "There are 5000 people in this room." You wouldn't say I was simply exaggerating. You would say I was a complete idiot that was blind or something.

Given the nature of the Fallout Universe, a couple million people being alive in all of California and America after 200 years isn't unrealistic when you consider it was 400 million. If I did my math right it should speak for itself.

If it doubled 2.6 times, then they started with 105,000. And it had been 84 years since 2077, so lets use 2.6 again.

105,000 divided by 2 = 52,500

52,500 divided by 2 = 26,250

26,250 times .6 = 15,750

So half of California had 15,750 people, a seemingly too small number.

So you are saying 15,740 survived the great war in the area that would become the NCR of 2241?

So did I

2241 to 2161 is 80 years so it would have to be halved 2.6 times

700,000 divided by 2 = 350,000

350,000 divided by 2 = 175,000

That leaves .6 left so you multiply 175,000 to find what 60% of it is

175,000 = 105,000

So that is the population of the southern half of California in 2161

To find the population of the state at the start of the great war, and using population doubles every 30 years we subtract 2161 by 2077 which equals 84 close enough to 80 so we use 2.6 (though we should use 2.7)

105,000 divided by 2 = 52,500

52,500 divided by 2 = 26,250

26,250 times .6 = 15,750

So after the great war half of California's population was 15,750 at the end of the Great War.

Indeed, if my estimation gave us 10 times of that 20 years after the war :/ but yeah, my estimation is probably way off anyways since if I double 150.000 (half of California post-war) 2.6 times, then we get 960.000.... Probably have to kill off 99% of 50.000.000 instead (although more people die from the famine and fallout that follows than the initial blasts) and then another 99% in the 60 years that follow, maybe? Gah, I dunno, I'm not that good at math either!


Edit: Keep in mind though people, that the 50 years or so after a nuclear war, population most likely doesn't double. Loads of people die of famine and diseases in decades. So I dunno how population increase numbers will look like up untill the security and good living conditions of NCR arrives (2186 it is known as NCR)

Math is power

So it is realistic that by 2241 the population of NCR would be around 700,000 people. The population of the that same area in 2161 would only be 175,000 people. So it is realistic.The math doesn't lie.

Then you double the size of NCR and then double the population of NCR we get around 2.8 million people. That is rounding down because it was 40 years not 30, 1.3 doubled.

700,000 times 2 times 2 = 2.8 million.

So then there would be tons of people living in rural spaces, which I have been trying to point out.

Evlbstrd is off right now, but when he comes back I bet he will try and thwart our efforts.

http://www.johnstonsarchive.net/nuclear/nuclearwar1.html if someone wants to research the effects of global thermonuclear war a bit. You know, to get good estimations of numbers, people killed and how immediate post-war conditions would be untill, well, things gett "better". (better being NCR?)

He can try but the math speaks for itself.

I read that before, but the countries stop at half their arsenals, so it is only sort of helpful. I also saw this study done around the time of the Cuban Missle Crisis, that said 14,000 bombs would be used in a nuclear war between the US and USSR, and it would kill about 40% of the world's population, and the population was about 3.7 billion then, so it would kill about 1,480,000,000 people. So to somewhat accurately determine how many people survived we would have to know the arsenal sizes of the countries. It would have to be a lot if the world was turned to cinders, and humanity was almost wiped out.

So double the numbers! 28.000 bombs wipe out 80% of world's 7.4 billion inhabitants!!! But well, that is still off, seeing as there existed 70,000 (iirc..?) nukes at the most and that number would've only increased since the Cold War never ended, and then the over population might've put the total world pop much higher. If USA was 400.000.000 by 2077, a 33% increase of today, then apply that to the world and we get 9.310.000.000 people?

But still, I put 97% of Californias inhabitants to die during the Great War and it still gives us a high number that could explain an NCR population of 2+ million by 2281. Even if I put the death toll at 99%, we still get a high number of survivors.