I'm new to the Fallout series and have a question:

Why does the future have a retro-1950's look to it? Is this something common to the entire series, or something unique to FO3?

It's a trademark of sorts for the whole series, a large part of it if not all is based on how people in the 50's thought about the future.

Fallout is set in an alternate timeline that diverged from ours in the 1950s. In the 21st century, it looked like the future as imagined in the 1950s pulp science fiction. E.g. instead of transistors you have huge lamp-based computers with artificial intelligence, robotic servants, a pseudo-utopian society based on 1950s values, black and white TV, music from the 1950s considered all-time classics, and most modern musical genres never appearing, etc,. Weapon development was also different from ours and thus plasma and laser weaponry was introduced, 10mm became the most common ammo type, etc. The modern high-tech weapons were never created - instead, weapons based on how people in the 1950s thought 21st century weaponry would look like are used. And in 2077 all of that was nuked.

For more information, see:

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

Fallout's universe is the future as seen by people from the past as imagined by people from the present.

Effin brilliantly put Gez.

Thanks for explaining that! I'll take a look at the links.

I've been reading through the timeline...wow, what an interesting backstory! Some of it seems strangely current. This stuff would make for an interesting book.

there are afew books that are similar in genre to fallout, I just cant remember titles at the moment.

I'm always looking for new reading material, so if you come up with any titles, be sure to let me know.

PS: The only book that I have read that sort of reminds me of Fallout is L. Ron Hubbard's Final Blackout.

The Road is often mentioned as kinda a storey like fallout. But i would say the best place to look for similaritys are movies. 50's sci-fi, the Road Warrior, and Escape from New York kinda movies.

Thanks! Never heard about The Road, but it seems that http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0898367/is coming out in 2009. I've seen the Road Warrior series, but never really cared for them. Mad Max was the best. I thought The Road Warrior was just too over-the-top for me. Escape from New York...classic.

For me, Threads is the best movie about life in a post-nuke world. Chilling and very realistic.

Books: like I said, Final Blackout is good. WarDay is great! It's out of print, but if you can find a copy, read it!

Hmm...maybe we should start a thread about book and movie tie-ins in the general forum?

I just finished reading The Road (ok, I have 20 pages left). If you like survivalist fantasy it's good. There are some pretty horrific moments in the book. It'd didn't really remind me of Fallout per se, but the settings are similar and characters from both series deal with similar issues.

I intend to pick up The Road when the movie comes out. Before that, I think I will try Wasteland, which is a compilation of End of the World tales, or World War Z, a zombie book.

I am currently finishing off Thinking About the Unthinkable in the 1980s, by Herman Kahn. This is a classic book about real nuclear war and is a fascinating read. Even though it deals with the Cold War, the strategic lessons are still applicable today.

You really should read "Alas, Babylon" if you like Post-Apoc stuff. It was one of the first written, back in the 50's, and as such, before nuclear stockpiles got so large that they would decimate the whole planet.

Since the original question is asked and answered and this isn't a book club thread, I will go ahead and close this one.