Hi,

I just wanted to know what real life events happened before things transpired. Was there a John F. Kennedy who was never assasinated? A Nixon who was never caught? Civil Rights movement? Hippies? Other things I'm too tired to think up right now?

Oh and why is everyone so fine and dandy with asians and other races, it's unrealistic. I'm not racist or anything, I'm half asian myself, but you'd think after being part of what destroyed the world, they would be treated the same as the American Japanese in World War II. Well maybe not as severe as that, but having just a little would make it feel more real.

One reason I'm curious about all of this is because I had a few mod ideas and I wanted them to be lore-friendly.

Probably because this is 200 years after any 'back of the bus' racism existed as a social norm. When there stopped being buses to put blacks down the back of (among other changes that are likely to occur in the event of nuclear apocalypse), people had other priorities. The war was probably a great equalizer in that regard.
Hell, it's only been 40 or so years since 50s intolerance in *our* world, and look at the changes. 200 of instability and constant change would be more than enough to mix things up in the racism department.

As for your last comment, you appear to be confusing China with Asia. For all we know, Chinese people may indeed have been discriminated against post-war. The game obviously cannot depict that though without stepping across political correctness lines. But yes, that would have been realistic, and can be assumed. Fallout's people are very much anti-communist, for instance. It's still no reason for people in the game to dislike Asians though. During WW2, did America intern all people of European heritage because of the Germans? Of course not.

And the racism was mostly transferred on mutants. That said, vaults probably should be more racist than they are in the games.

probaly one way or another they didn't care anymore, specially not after a [censored] up world after the great war, and about the 'events' in our universe, they didn't happen there, or did have another effect ... Elvis Presley didn't make any breaktrough Rock music, maybe stayed with fifties music, or went into the army .... since the chinese invaded south east asia the vietnam war most likely never did happen in that universe, the korean war was winned by the chinese ... woodstock never did happen ..... Martin Luther King might not have been shotted, and Kennedy might never maked a run for being a president at all ....

it's alternate universe everything can be different, on the other hand i am currently reading a book where Lindbergh the navigator is elected as president during the second world war, such maked america neutral during the world war and a inliveable place for jews thanks to lindenbergh and his connection to nazi germany.

There are pictures of Elvis in FO1 and 2, so he definitely was popular there as well, but he probably stayed with his 50s style.

We do know that Nixon was likely president in the Fallout universe too, though, since there's a Nixon doll in FO2. However, Nixon was already a prominent politician in the 1950s.

And Curtis' diagloge suggests that even after the bomb he is a well known "Crook"

I'm not sure myself how much sgregation was an issue with the fallout universe, I think like with Colonization its something that the devs specifically avoided in order to avoid contraversy... I think the closest they got was the deliberate choice of Lynette's racial background for Irony.

If race was an issue, I cant see african Americans being admitted to the general vaults, although a black only vault experiment would be something I'd expect from Vault Tek; much less rising to a position of power.

the god of men says racism is bad!!

As far as it comes to racial tensions...I would assume that in the Fallout South, you would still have the "White" and "Colored" rest rooms(as well as many other amenities with the "White" and "Colored" logos). There wouldn't be any hippies...as that was the 60's, but there would definitely have been a strong beatnik influence. Richard Nixon, appears to still have been the President, and being that he was a pretty staunch anti-communist, it makes sense that he would have still taken the presidency. JFK....honestly I'm not sure...
Also, in regards to the Civil Rights movement, it just depends on who was in power, and what racial tensions were like.

With Kennedy you stop the Cuban Missile Crisis, with Nixon, remember he ran against Kennedy and almost won within 500,000 margin (it is much more plausible in this environment a Cold War fearmonger would become president rather than a hopeful and inspiring leader), you would have won the Bay of Pigs and saw a further deterioration of Soviet, specifically the Soviet Union's, influence which could have meant a much more aggressive China taking center stage from a weaker Soviet Union. With policies of detente, I'm not entirely sure, because we know for a fact China used American corporations to create weapons for them. So, of course, Nixon's presidency probably went along those same lines, if it did I could be entirely wrong about Kennedy and the Cold War.

Along with being wrong that social movements didn't really happen since blacks and minorities were a factor in electing Kennedy because of his thoughts about Civil Rights and his Vice President LBJ (who ended up passing JFK's major civil rights bill) pretty much went the same until the 90s, the Soviet Union doesn't fall and instead the Cold War goes on until finally it reaches its logical climix in a war.

Then, it becomes very hard to figure in the Art-Deco of Pre-War civilization, it should have transformed with the social movements, and it is hard to make a logical argument about why it was the Chinese to start a war with the United States rather than the Soviet Union.

However, it becomes very possible that none of these actors ever existed and history was totally different after World War II, thus no real life figures, it fits so much easier though.

It's likely that in the Fallout world it was China that remained hardcoe communist, while the Soviet Union evolved towards "market communism" like today's China, and had better relations with the US.

As for Nixon, we know he existed because there's a Nixon doll in FO2.

Also, Ethyl Wright says:



Maybe Nixon in the Fallout universe is considered one of the greatest presidents of all time? Too bad there's no huge Nixon Memorial in DC.

Also, the GNN Transcript in Sierra Army Depot mentions Reagan, but this holodisk is full of timeline errors and is considered non-canon.

If the Fallout timeline follows ours closely until the fifties and stays that way without any type of civil rights movement or political overhaul of de jure racial segregation, their would be vestiges of segregation all over F03's D.C. setting. Brown v. Board of Education's companion case, Bolling v. Sharpe, actually dealt with segregated schools in D.C., giving a separate constitutional rationale (5th Amendment rather than 14th, since the equal protection clause only restricts state govt while the Bill of Rights restricts the federal) for why it wasn't OK for the federal government to segregate. D.C. has a long history of racial segregation, and even when the federal government was coming down on the states in the South for their asshattery, D.C. city officials maintained that their unique legal status as a wholly federal district rather than a state made them an exception to the rule.

Also, granted its a simulation so Dr. Braun can tweak it however he wants to accommodate the VR captives in Vault 112, but Old Lady Dithers is quite out of place in his pristine 50s neighborhood simulation. At any rate, it appears the racial landscape was really shaken up by the war, given that Eulogy Jones and Leroy Walters, the two most prominent/powerful slavers in the game, are black and slaves appear to be people without guns rather than any particular race. Probably deliberate irony on the part of the developers, playing with the symbolism of Lincoln and abolition and all that, but that's the closest they come to broaching the admittedly touchy subject of our nasty history of racial inequality.

IMO if game writers/developers were more bold with this kind of stuff, they might sell less and attract more controversy outside the typical "video games are gratuitously violent and full of six, drugs and cop killing", but it would go a long way toward it being taken more seriously as an art form. For all the crap the Grand Theft Auto series takes, I think GTA IV actually had some balls and tackled some serious [censored] in the story, including the main character's past as a Serbian war criminal, grappling with what the "American Dream" actually means etc. I'd like to see more of that kind of stuff.

I think its likely that a lot of the civil rights movement still happenend in 'Fallout World' because its not like the 1960's didnt exist there. The 1960's here even had a moon landing in 1969 like we did, so possibly JFK and the soviet cold-war did exist as well as the civil rights movement.. the fact that Braun doesnt segregate in his simulation shows that in his pre-war mind, all folks were equal. Also further evidence is that there is a clear lack of segregation in the vaults.

do not forgot that the simulation of braun also was based on his childhood in a 'eastern' germany town, maybe events like the black lady who was sitting in front of the bus and king with his speeches also did happen one way or another.

Ok, since Nixon was around, it is both possible he was a very popular politician, like in our time, and he probably was an actor within the executive branch both as Vice President and President. I would stipulate, in this Cold War gone wrong, that he probably won in a landslide up against Kennedy, events would have to then move up for him to have the same impact his second term would have in our timeline, such as SALT I and his actions in the Sino-Soviet split. It could also be possible he had no hand in the Sino-Soviet split or SALT I, or there could have been no SALT I, since it was out more of desperation, I think it is highly possible there was no Watergate, than legitimate concern for nuclear winter.

I don't know if China remaining hardcoe communist fits with the same China that contracted American companies, if you remember the Soviet Union only stole technology from the supposedly "decadent West", to make their weapons even at the height of the tensions between China and the United States, which has been proof to me that Vault-Tec may have also built them Vaults sometime before the war.

If China also remained exclusively communist, one without two systems and only one, after the death of Mao it would have remained very backward, especially with the failure of the Great Leap Forward. I could see a much less communist Soviet Union, however, surviving by really following the lead of Khrushchev, which would mean his domestic plans, which were similar to those after Mao that involved de-collectivization, would have worked instead of failed. We're assuming, of course, both countries had their respective periods of Stalinzation and then following rejection. If that is true, it is even more possible presidents after Nixon helped the Soviet Union and communist China "stay the course" sort of speak into the 21st century, getting rid of Stalinization and a form of EEP being implemented back into both countries, but not the full elimination of communism within both societies.

It becomes possible then that as paranoia arose the people didn't want these "laissez-faire" presidents anymore and would elect Reagan, who was more known for his stiff hand against the "Communist Threat" and with Reagan you have the idea, vis-?-vis the idea behind the Enclave, of corporate infiltration, Iran-Contra scandal, into the highest office in the land.

I would have really like to have seen a long nosed likeness of Nixon somewhere near the Lincoln Memorial, they would have been an ironic comparison, there still is a whole other segment of DC undiscovered though, but, of course, there still isn't a statue in DC for Reagan either.





There has never really been any inferences, implicit and explicit, to present or past racism within the Fallout universe and I have had suspended belief around the entire subject, especially with how pro-communist black people were at the time, there would have been greater suspicion about them. Once you are thrust out into the wilderness, all alone, however, I think if you are a white person and stumble across someone who is black the last thing your going to do is say anything about skin color.

Survivalist groups, however, like Aryan Nation or the KKK, who would have probably purchased their own Vaults out in the middle of nowhere where bombs probably didn't even fall not surviving made no real sense to me but I could understand not wanting to depict bigots, because even in our own timeline they made little sense. I could see the government cracking down on separatist militias, especially with the huge riots that were taking place just before the Great War, thus eliminating them.

I doubt, with such a controlling government, MLK jr. would have been allowed to proceed with a march on Washington, which explain a sort of pressure exploding out from all levels of society lashing out just before the Great War climixed. As for why there aren't "No Colored People Allowed" signs in store fronts dotting DC, I can't really explain, its hard to see a Maryland without the occasional KKK member or skin head. But that doesn't mean there wasn't racism or segregation, racism with all the prosperity in the 50s was a "taboo" subject to broach, which I said before would have led to Kennedy losing and Nixon winning, there may not have been explicit racism by the Great War anymore but society had worked so harshly against other races its possible implicit racism was extremely prevalent. I also think Rosa Parks probably would have been killed along with King to control the populace, I could have seen the NAACP becoming a "terrorist" organization for inspiring "anti-war" sentiments in its infancy and connections to communist "sympathizers" like W.E.B. Du Bois.

I think this has been said before, I know I have said this was the silent irony behind Fallout, but, black people would have been as poor as they were in our timeline, if there wasn't a desegregation movement, then they would have been dirt poor and the only way for any of them to get into a Vault would have been running in at the last minute AFTER all the other rich people would have made their way to a cushy seat waiting for them. It explains the sparse prevalence of black people, this argument could be used for a typical white racist like a KKK member, who wouldn't have afforded their way into a Vault either unless they ran into one.

It most likely happened not to upset any Chinese players of the game.

If this was real then it is highly possible that Chinese were extremely discriminated against because of the nuclear war. Hell if your country was at war with another country who nuked you and turned the world into a barren wasteland, don't you think you would be a little bit pissed with them?

It would be the exact same with Americans in China except the Chinese would blame them.

There is evidence of Chinese-Americans being rounded up for internment (or worse), compare the treatment of Japanese-Americans in WWII, in Fallout 3; near Raven Rock there's a truck full of skeletons. A computer explains that they were on their way to internment camps, and gives a list; they all have Asian surnames.

My guess would be that JFK probably lost to Nixon in 1960 in the Fallout world.

What do you mean 'Asian'? Do you mean Chinese?