What i do consider canon "breaking" is the weapons though. Is there any explanation to why laser, plasma, and other weapons look nothing like the originals?? In my mind i treat it as if those weapons are different models compared to the ones in the west. That's what helps me sleep at night

They are different models. According to the wiki the plasma rifle in Fallout 3 is a post-war Enclave design while the original is a pre-war Industrial Winchester P94. Both laser rifles are pre-war, but they're also different models.

Considering that everything that doesn't work in real science, is explained with SCIENCE! and the concepts of 50's understanding being actual fact, then this is exactly a breach of canon.
Regardless of whether radiation made the hair fall out or not... The original molerats would not have looked like that if their hair came out... These molerats were obviously modeled after the subterranean species you mentioned first.



People are smarter than birds.... Just cause it's shiny don't cut the mustard.... If you want to go on the rational that bottlecaps are prevalent and light and kinda look like coins.... How about real coins.... I can assure you that the US mint has massive numbers of real coins in circulation... Certainly enough to continue using for hundreds of years after 90% of the population is destroyed...
While your mention of disconnected inventions holds some water, I would point out that manned flight and lightbulbs were very different in concept than the final product.... Think of all the flapping wing attempts at manned flight... While this would lend itself to the argument that disconnected societies would conceive of replacing currency at the same time, the odds of them both choosing identical items (that don't have a history of use in barter or a history of any real value) is beyond astronomical....


As for Harold... I can see nu_clear's points about the advancment of lore... And although I still say he'd have never made it across the continent, and that his tree has grown far faster than previous games indicate (thus existing lore), I will retract him from my list.
As nu_clear points out, things like exploding cars are not referenced in previous games as NOT exploding, I'd say the implication is there... The quest line in FO2 heavily suggests that ANY working car parts are few and far between.... In terms of what FO3 tells us... In a world where mutants and critters and raiders are a constant threat, explosives of any kind would be rather coveted.... Why is no one scavenging these apparently working fuel cells...?
For that matter, why haven't the ghouls outside Tenpenny Tower used them as weapons... Or the raiders.... or the Enclave....?
All that being said... I have played hundreds of hours of FO3, will continue to until NV comes out, and just enjoy the discussion as an excercise in critical thinking, so don't get too offended if I'm challenging you.

Well let's see, plasma weapons seem to use a liquid type of plasma where as actual plasma is ionized gas, or a gaseous vapor with electrons surging about causing the particles to become charged. Laser rifles can unleash burning lasers that could go burn a hole straight through you whilst in real life the closest thing to that is the Boeing laser that is being made for the U.S. Military. That requires a 747 or other large aircraft to house the enormous battery required to make the laser deadly. There's a virus that can turn you into a hulking behemoth, and assuming you're on the West Coast, actually allow you to keep your intelligence, and possibly even boost it, where as a real virus, assuming it could mutate you to those extremes would more than likely make you lose all levels of intelligence and cognivity.

These are all points that clash with realism and with the sillyness that is Fallout. The reason why bottlecaps were chosen in Fallout 1 and Fallout 3 is because it was a popular thing to collect bottlecaps as a kid back in the 1950s. They didn't choose it because they thought "gee, what could be a good type of currency after a nuclear holocaust? -pops an old fashioned coke- Oh I know, how's about bottelcaps?". No, it was to tie in with the retro-futuristic feel of the Fallout universe. As far as Fallout 2 switching to gold, you'd have to ask the developers their decision to do that, because I don't see what purpose to the retro-futuristic icon of Fallout it served purpose to, other than that with the NCR growing they'd need a better currency, especially one that they could create themselves (and with the discovery of the gold mine, got the idea to make gold coins).

In real life yes it doesn't make sense to use aluminum, a common metal, over gold, a much rarer metal, but this is also in a world where more than likely at least 80% of all data pre-war has been destroyed, so we're not sure if people could find data about the value and abilities of gold, or if most people in the wastelands could even read. But then again this is also a game franchise that is based off of the over-the-top ideas of the Atomic Age, what would happen if we got bombed by the Communists (Great War with China, a Communistic superpower), the ideas of what future cars and weaponry would be like, etc.

I think that's fair.

Back to brass tacks, sure there's some inconsistencies - purposeful or not - to be found if you're looking for them. And there are a number of things where I think there's plenty of room for explanations, but where Bethesda just didn't really fill in the gaps or attempt to explain them. Where they could have provided more information (and a couple times where I kept thinking they were going to,) and just didn't go that extra mile with it. But my experience with just sitting down and playing the game, I didn't come across very much that stood out and made me stop and go "hey, that's not right..."

It's been pointed out to me in these forums that, for example, the quantity of nodules on the Vault doors don't match up with the previous games, that Mr. Handy doesn't look the same, molerats used to have hair, etc. But honestly (and I actually went and played through both Fallout 1, 2, and Tactics in the months leading up to the release of Fallout 3, so it's not like this stuff was no longer fresh in my mind,) I didn't really notice any of that stuff when I was actually playing through the game. There were a number of criticisms that came to mind, that dealt with other aspects, or that disappointed me as I came across them (it seemed odd that none of the Followers of Atom noticed that I'd defused their bomb right in front of them, that Lucy West didn't have really any reaction to me completing her quest, the lack of the sort of procedural ending sequence I was expecting as a sort of iconic element of the series, etc.) But canonical contradictions seemed overall to be well within what I'd (personally) consider "artistic license.

(ie, there's a number of things I found while playing Fallout 3 to be critical of - even if overall I did enjoy the game, as well; but canon problems aren't really the biggest bone I'd pick. Overall, they did a much better job in that area than I was really expecting them to, and in general I'd say that they did a pretty good job in that arena.)

^^
You had to go and bring up the vault doors, didn't you?

Sigh.... The teeth on the door certainly are different, but like yourself, I never found myself especially bothered by that. The door issue that bothered me (and to this day have seen NO good explanation for it) was the direction it opened. The fact that the vault doors RETRACT into the vaults, flies in the face of standard fire safety procedures followed in the US since WW1.... During an emergency, exit doors MUST open outwards to avoid the weight of panicked people from holding the door shut. This could be waved off through the argument that they did not intend for the vault dwellers to leave the vaults in any kind of emergency situation..... That being said, if I were constructing a vault to protect my from an outside nuke explosion, I would NOT build the door in a way that the force of that explosion could push it open....

All in all, you're right, the canonical issues presented in FO3 are the least of the problems with the game. Without bringing technical foibles into question, the quality of the storytelling and dialogue bothered me more than any lore based changes that were made...
If I were to complain about the lore/canon in a way that did NOT present any individual examples, I'd say something along the lines of: While the changes are minor, and even debatable in some cases, the lack of explanations where they are made seem like a massive lack of understanding on the developers side. The problems brought up in this very thread include some things that require changing to maintain balance in a new game engine, while others seem like poorly implemented attempts at fan-service. This seeming misunderstanding with the lore associated with the Fallout franchise begs a larger question: Was Bethesda really the team that should have built Fallout 3? Could ANYONE have done it properly? Obviously I am glad to have Fallout back in the gaming universe, and I can't wait for the next one, but do find myself occasionally wondering...

However, having the moving apparatus on the outside, as presented in FO1 could result in you never being able to get out - whereas the moving appartus being in the inside means it can be maintained and repaired, and no fear of falling rocks getting in the way.

Yeah, as far as the Vault doors opening inward or outward...

I'm not sure which would make more sense, really. I mean, we're not talking about a door that swivels, even if it were pushing the door outside instead of inside, we're only talking about needing enough clearance on either side to make room for the door itself. Either way, it probably makes sense for the actual machinery to be inside the Vault itself, I think - the whole point of a Vault being that you should be able to keep everything inside fairly well intact.

Myself, I think if I were designing the Vault, the first thing that comes to mind would be that I'd do it in Fallout 3's manner, actually. If the Vault door pushes inward and then slides open, you know you'll be able to make sure that area is clear. But who knows what's going to be happening outside of that sealed enclosure - rubble, rock-slides, etc. I wouldn't want to find out, come time to open that door, that the whole thing gets jammed on a boulder just outside the Vault and can't open. Most modern-day shelters have safety measures for those contigencies in the form of explosive bolts, etc. But most of those have doors placed vertically in the ground - it's more for cases where rubble is sitting on top of the door. I think in the case of the Vault doors, it probably makes more sense to keep everything enclosed inward, and opening in that manner.

Once the door is actually sealed, the way it's constructed, it doesn't really matter which way the door itself opens, the way I see it - it's equally susceptible to forces from both sides, as it simply sits within the frame (and presumably clamped on both sides, as well.)

But true - that's all rationalization. I can explain to myself basically any changes that did or could have occured. That's not the same thing as coming across in-game explanations for things. (ie, none of what I said really matters in the grand scheme of things...)

^^
All good points... I still contend that these kind of things need ingame explanations, or they oppose existing lore, and come across as change for the sake of change... I'm almost certain (any developers out there, feel free to correct me) that the reason behind the vault door change was to make the exit from the vault more dramatic.... That Bethesda felt it was more important for players to see the mechanism on the vault door, than it was to be faithful to the previous models....

Well...considering how heavy the vault door is according to 3 Dog, I don't see how anything short of a nuclear blast right outside the door would force it open if it opens inwards. As nu_clear_day stated, it would be more logical for it to open inwards. If the cave outside has collapsed it would be easier to dig your way out if it opens in. If it opened outwards, the door wouldn't open thereby trapping the inhabitants of the vault inside.

Well remember, the blast door is essentially a giant gear (except that it's a gear without a hole in the center). The arm pulls out the door and then rolls it along a track. The door opening inward I would see for two reasons:
1) The arm has less distance to travel to open/close the door.
2) If it were pushed outward, the track would also have to be outside. Since the inside is covered in metal and the outside is nothing more than rock, having the track outside could cause a rock to get stuck in the track, stopping the door from opening (if the rock was big enough).

Also this style is different from the usual giant, thick square door that opens up, and as such there's no real reason for it to be a fire safety violation. Yes, it does come in, but the door comes back in about a foot, it's not swinging open a giant 20 foot gap. If it did I could see it as a fire violation, but this seems like it'd fit under emergency protocol still.

Within Fallout 3 itself it was also established that ghoulification is a gradual process, as described by Carol in Underworld. I'm thinking Moira is most likely a one-off occurrence.
EDIT: Upon reading Carol's http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Carol, I noticed that she also says the rate varies from person to person. It could be that being in the presence of an apparently radioactive nuclear bomb her whole life made Moira's body more receptive to being ghoulified, with the massive dose from the detonation being the last push she needed to mutate.

When it comes to Wasteland Currency, and the "Cap" in particular, the strangest thing about Fallout 3, unlike it's predecessors is that there's never any explanation given as to who backs the "Cap" on the East Coast.

A financial history of Fallout:

Fallout 1:
Caps were backed by the Hub

Fallout 2:
Coins were backed by The NCR, Vault City & New Reno

Fallout 3(Van Buren): Coins were backed by the NCR