Would there be any rural places in the U.S. that are left completely unharmed by the Great War?

As in no nukes hit?
Or completely unaffected by the war?

The first, I'd say yes.
The second, definitely not.

Where wouldn't the nukes drop? According to New Vegas... New Vegas...
If I were gonna wager, where else? Most little country-bumpkin communities wouldn't get directly nuked...
Unless there were military/politcal strongholds, or we assume that the nukeage got kinda 'chaotic' as the war progressed, there would be less places nuked than "un-nuked".
It was the fallout (hence the title) that created the greatest negative effect on the US, and THAT would have drifted everywhere.

I meant totally unaffected. So even very rural places up on mountains or deep in a desert would be affected? Man thats rough.

I think that's the point though...

Likely there would be very small pockets that didn't even get to great a zap of fallout, but 200 years later.... Well the implications on the environment after a total nuclear war... Even if the fallout or the bombs didn`t get you: raiders/cannibals... mutated animals... ghouls and supermutants...devastated economy... failure of infrastructure like communications... climate shift due to nuke winter...
Nothing would stay pristine for very long.

Why? What was your idea before I dropped that depressing bit of info on you?

I was thinking that places like Point Lookout had mutations becaause they had a big source of water that was irradiated and that as long as a place was rural and wasn't close to a large or important city and didn't have a big irradiated swamp or lake or river they would mostly be fine. But I guess theres other ways for radiation to spread.

It would be extremely hard for anywhere to be totaly unafected. If the nukes didn't effect them, you 've got the loss of civil order (bandits, slavers), long distance trade (noone to sell products to, noone to buy medicines and non-local resources from), manufacturing on anything but a small scale (No new farm equipment, no replacement parts) no electricity, etc, thats going to get them.

The only places that might be "totaly unaffected" are small tribes, etc, living in rainforests and other hard to reach places that have absolutely no contact with the outside world, and even then they'll be effected by the likely change in weather patterns.

"Entire continents sank beneath the boiling oceans" -Ron Pearlman, Fallout 2 intro

I'd say probably .2 percent of Earth was unaffected by nukes.

Nearly no place on earth would remain unaffected. Certainly not within the USA when it gets hit.

However , if you are thinking about a non-hit area and only minor affected by radioactive Fallout coming from places that were hit, yes there would be several places within the USA.

Everything that is far away from anything remotely important. Small rural towns far away from military installations , far away from any huge city, far away from industrial or logistical hubs.

The fictional town of Jericho, Kansas in the tv series with the same is the role example for such a place. A absolutely isolated place in the middle of nowhere would be a good place to live in case of a full nuclear strike on the USA. If you want to witness and live in the world that comes after that.

Considering that, it may be better to search oneself a place near a important military installation like a nuclear missile base or airforce base to ensure a quick and painless death taking no longer than a second. :nuke:

You've reminded me of that great and pivotal quote from the early games, and that has tweeked my curiosity on a side-topic:

If the oceans boiled, what percentage of them would have been lost to evaporation? Would the US have perhaps, increased in top-side landmass as a result? If so, we could see completely undiscovered areas of coastal US used in future games right? Any thoughts?

A lot of the opening speech I dont think can be taken litterally - don't confuse literal hyperbole with facts.

But if you're interested in what effect a lowering sea level could have, there's an entire "Missing country" in the English Channel formerly full of Mammoths, sabre tooth tigers, and other critters.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doggerland

If, for some reason radiation and direct nuclear attack would not effect a town, then chaos and a breakdown in society will. Unless its Jericho....