Even though they have clearly renamed the Greater Boston area 'The Commonwealth', and the DC area 'The Capital Wasteland'? Especially if it's in the sea, and even more so if it glows due to the live nuclear reactors throwing out bursts of radiation from a sunken Chinese sub

I noticed in the concept art, the PC's dog is resting on the floor in the Memory Den. Also on the airship, there are 3 signal flags. One is for no militarily officer on board and one is for affirmative. One of the road signs in the art is Route 421, which is not even close to MA. Can't figure that one out. Sorry to go off topic.

Those names are already tied to those areas, though. The Capital and New England Commonwealth (or Commonwealth of Massachusetts), abbreviated The Commonwealth. Those are not new names.

Not sure how long a nuclear sub would irradiate the entire ocean, which also moves about and probably washes stuff out to sea. Same could be said for a bomb, I don't recall seeing how big they're supposed to have been.

The presence of a radioactive source below the seabed would be enough to qualify the name, but this depends of course if I'm right on this being the location of the Glowing Sea. Also, the sub wouldn't have to irradiate the entire ocean (and the expansion of Project Purity would more than likely have cleaned up most of the water in the Commonwealth), all it would have to do is periodically throw out bursts of heat and radiation as described in the OP.

Mnjah...I'm not convinced =)

The US and China were in a declared war with each other (and had been for a decade), the loss of a single submarine wouldn't have triggered an exchange, especially if it was in Boston Harbor at the time.....the PLAN would not be suprised if the scenario described happened, though most likely the families of the officers on board would be rounded up and brutally interrogated to determine why they threw away a strategic asset by driving it into a US seaport....they would assume the crew had tried to defect....it's just plain silly that the Chinese would deploy a ship of that importance inside a busy Enemy harbor. SSBNs stay far out to sea, in remote areas with little shipping traffic....slowly cruising the ocean a thousand nm or more from their targets, twiddling their thumbs and waiting for a Launch Order to come from their Command.

An Attack sub though? That would be a possibility.....some rather interesting events took place during the Cold War that would have caused big problems if the other side had learned of them. But even then, if they were detected and sunk that was to be expected. I think the presence of tens of thousands of US soldiers and Marines in Beijing's suburbs had a lot more to do with the Atomic Exchange than anything that happened in Boston.

'Plausible' is not how the Fallout games treat anything to do with radiation. The more plausible it is in the real world, the less likely it has anything to do with Fallout.

We shall all see in 5 weeks, prepare yourselves!

its a reference to one of two things.

1)the Underground Railroad pre and during the civil war is full of references to the number 421. Partly due to the fact that one of the "founders" lived at 421 26th street. Charlette n Carolina. In fact some fiction referred to it as rout 421 or the road from 421.

2) to be fair this is already one oh those colossal coincidences but what is now 421 Main Street in Boston was reportedly the property of a major supporter of the Underground Railroad back in the 19 th century.

As a side note the number 421 also is a obscure wwII reference, the po box at one point or another of the Mass eugenics society, thee diferent start up or "missionary"churches, a person engaged in the distribution of porm and at least three people engaged in scams of one kind or another, and is currently used by a local Colledge scholarship fund run by a trustee.

Very interesting speculation and theroies, OP.

Somthing I do want to add - I am excited about the dynamic weather aspect. I know some fans are disappointed about the brightness of the Wasteland but in the screenshots where it is cloudy and raining I must say the setting looks post-apocalyptic and errie.

And the concept art is what has me feeling optimistic about the setting and tone. It looks solid

was "consider the following" a bill nye refrence?

How so? Project Purity is a local water purification project. It doesn't magically clean up waterways and major bodies of water hundreds of miles from it.

It's also not needed elsewhere - other parts of the Fallout universe don't have the sort of issues that the Capital Wasteland had with radiated water. That was entirely a local problem.

Not true at all.

The Pitt for instance has three rivers that are hundreds of times more irradiated then the ones in the C.W., which are further polluted by industrial wastes from factories all across the rust belt, so much it literally GLOWS.

These three rivers span into lower New York state, upper West Virginia, and the biggest one runs from Pittsburgh, all along the border of West Virginia, Ohio, Kentucky, Indiana, and Illinois, before dumping into the Mississippi, while running through several major cities including Cincinnati, Ohio, and Louisville, Kentucky, in the process.

As bad as the Capital Wasteland is, the American rust belt would logically be 100 times worse off based on what we see in The Pitt.

Technically, with James' and/or Dr. Li's notes plus the materials (including GECK), one could he built elsewhere.

Not that it's that simple/plausible or wanted, nor implied in his post.

*shrug* Forgot about that.

Well, it's canonically not a problem on the West Coast, and it doesn't look like it's a problem for the Boston area, either.

Yeah it seems to me to be a romantic name for the area - an area on land not water - due to wild weather patterns there and the storms they create.

The http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Glowing_Sea shows a bunch of pictures of the Glowing Sea, all of which are inland areas with roads and roaming land-based creatures (Deathclaws/Radscorpians).

http://s4.imgload.info/6wyx8yjw7k9c4uf.png

True, the irradiated water problem seems to be largely contained to the central east coast area(Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania)

I wonder if Boston having cleaner water is a trait of the upper east coast as a whole, or just the Boston area.

I also if the lower east coast(The Carolinas and Georgia) has clean water, though I suspect we will learn that in Fallout 5. Assuming Bethesda sticks to the major regions they defined in Fo3.

Sanctuary Hills is where Acton is in real life. (There are several hills surrounding it, hence the name) and the nuke we see hit to the southeast of Acton. It's not in Newton.

Take issue with project purity cleaning up the Atlantic. It is located on the Tidal Basin which connects to the Potomac river. The Potomac dumps into the Chesapeake Bay which is the largest inland estuary in the USA (64,000 sq miles of watershed). Then the water would have to travel 500+ miles north to reach Boston Having grown up on the Chesapeake I can tell you it is a large body of water. Project Purity is just not going to be able to handle that much water in a few years time.

I think you got a 50/50 shot on the glowing sea being on the water. I think that the storm being on the water/shore would be good idea. They could you re-purpose the Boston Lighthouse to signal the brewing of a huge rad storm as well seeing as how Beth likes to tie in historical buildings. Boston Light was the first lighthouse in America and I could definitely see that in game.

I just hope there is a vendor named Glowing Sally, so I can buy glowing sea shells from Glowing Sally on the Glowing Sea shore. Glowing.

Glowing Sea, it seems to me that strongly suggests that the area is in fact a large body of water. Cant believe people want to suggest otherwise, what is it really a Glowing Marshland? If it turned out too be a Marsh or other traversable by foot terrain feature that is submerged by water then technically the area its in is still in Boston, a place that experiences freezing temperatures for a good part of the year. So if its a marsh what is it renamed the Glowing Tundra during Winter?

For that matter it'd be odd for a marsh, bog, or what have you to be up around Boston area but oh well.

Its likely the Harbor was just renamed or the Ocean.

200 years, I can see all sorts of area's being renamed by whats left of humanity.

PS

Forgot there is also swamp, an area of land submerged under water, can be quite deep, and in fact what is there could all just wash out if it wasn't for plants being there to hold in the sand, mud, or muck.

I just don't see how that would work.

We've seen The Glowing Sea in gameplay footage. It's a land area with a permanent radioactive haze covering it.

^this

the area looks like it is underwater due to the haze

Definitely the impression I got too!