Unless, of course, he's talking about that scene at the end of the gameplay trailer, where we see a nuke go off. That could be a big plot point.

For some unknown reason, the text you quoted from my post won't display properly and I can't edit the post. Same goes for the newly amended OP. Maybe it's something to do with the Glowing Sea...

I won't freak you out any further because a particular FO atmosphere song was playing as it all happened.

Now this is just getting weird! I've just turned on my TV and "The Abyss Special Edition" is showing... (UK Sky channel 304)

Illuminati confirmed

Back on topic, I really hope this theory is correct!!

Seriously, City of Lost Angels was playing and it was super creepy. It was like a real life easter egg, not on easter, or with shelled protein. 2 songs before Radiation Storm (Glow).

I read some very interesting points you made, I will have to check the links later. It seems to make sense, though, the water, and I wonder now if there are more than the 1 actual presumed submarine in the game.

Except that the blast you are talking about looks nothing like a nuke going off. I would say it looks more like a directed energy weapon. More accurately what Tesla in his final years tried to create.

The blast being referred to here is https://youtu.be/D5esyZPt5Jo?t=31m35s one shown at the end of the E3 showcase, and looks very much to be post-war. Also, note that the detonation itself is not actually a nuclear explosion, and the location of the detonation shown here would be somewhere in the vicinity of https://www.google.co.uk/maps/place/Massachusetts+Institute+of+Technology/@42.360091,-71.09416,2408m/data=http://forums.bethsoft.com/topic/1526246-the-glowing-sea/!3m1!1e3!4m2!3m1!1s0x0:0xd0e08ea5b308203c!6m1!1e1. The viewpoint in the shot seems to be the top of https://d3pxppq3195xue.cloudfront.net/media/images/12/12/05/MGH_2011AG28.486-edit_big-sky_966x668.jpg building, which is part of the Massachusetts General Hospital as shown https://www.google.co.uk/maps/place/Massachusetts+General+Hospital/@42.3629523,-71.0686975,2408m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m2!3m1!1s0x0000000000000000:0x2e383d76dd5dc79f.

There are plenty of submarines in the concept art, really big military ones with this special design tail fin, and in one of the small images of concept there is a green/brown one with the same tail fin design, but it looks like a single-person one, or atleast very small.

With the additional information showing a big squid (missed that one), I now find it very likely that there will be some sort of below the surface exploration.


Really looking forward to it

I'm keeping my fingers crossed for that as well. Would really like for them to step up under water exploration a bit. The under water segments in Skyrim were cool but you had very little reason to explore them.

I think it's a common theme/request among the fans since Bethesdas earlier games in general, there has always been a huge presence of water, river, lakes and sea, there has been exploration implemented under water to a certain degree, but this time with such a "fleshed out" game as Fallout 4, considering how actually little they've shown so far of the game, and it still comes off as "massive" in content depth compared to previous titles, I am certain that the "water" will be more interesting and fleshed out aswell, atleast in comparison to previous titles.

There might not be that much going on in small ponds on the mainland, but the whole area around Boston itself, the docks and everything, there's so much water, and it is basically on the coast of the Atlantic sea.

Having the game looking so rich on the mainland, with so much extra activities to do, I find it highly likely that Bethesda probably even set up a "team" to handle just the under water environment.

Maybe there is tons of quest related to under the surface, needing its own equipment et cetera and basically "a world on it's own", maybe not, but atleast I am sure that there will a very legit reason as to why NOT go under water if that is the case, as in some insanely irradiated environment, extremely dangerous predators et cetera.

I can also think of so many reasons why wanting to explore the water aswell, all those sunken ships and planes, all "dat loot", war subs et cetera, maybe even a sunken UFO with connection to MIT or the military...

Most likely I think it will be a mix of several things, an explorable environment that is balanced to some degree with the above environment, not just a empty area with one type of shark or whatever to keep you out, the concept art says it all really.

My guess is that the hydrothermal vent with the sub will also be the source of some seriously mutated and very large sea creatures. And I have a feeling that at one point, we will be tasked with exploring it to try and identify the source of the Glowing Sea.

EDIT: I wonder if all of this means that our protagonist was formerly stationed on a sub.

I actually believe that if the player wants to "waste" a good amount of time on just diving and looking for loot inside old sunken wreckages, maybe looking for quest related items, it will be possible to do so, and watch out for that huge mean old squid, maybe a sunken submarine will allow for an underwater home, idk, if not in the vanilla game, I see a mod coming, just look at all that concept art of all the submarines, and wrecked ships!

Yes, and even today's submarines runs on nuclear reactors, so there will be an extra amount of chance for radiation leaks, and possible salvage of "intact" reactors for other purposes.

Maybe the Institute needs a working nuclear reactor.

I bet someone does. But your suggestion sounds very likely.

gkk7z: Is that whole chinese submarine "theory" just all your theory, or did you get the dates and events from fallout lore/Bethesda, sorry if you already made that clear or not, I am not that well read up on the subject.

Anyway, my hopes for finding that classic chinese stealth suit RESTORED! (I bet there will be some cool beans in that wreck besides the reactor leak.

Edit: Also, is this submarine event the scenario that triggered the whole apocalypse/war?

Well the US and China were already in a 11 year old war, so the loss of a single sub causing the nuclear escalation is probably the weakest part of the theory.....unless the sub was carrying a nuclear payload and prior to this neither side had attacked the others nuclear sites/subs, then the supposed attack on the sub could be seen as the beginning of an attempt to remove China's nuclear capability.

Thank you, I see, so is there any info on when the nukes started flying, had they been used prior to the event in the war, or did they fire nukes in the war in relation to the whole submarine incident?

To me it seems that once someone starts using nukes, thats the "end" of it (everything), but maybe it was a prolonged nuclear war and the "side-effects" and collaps came creeping after more and more was destroyed along with resources to maintain more organized operations in society.

Who started the nuclear conflict is totally unkown in the Fallout universe, all thats known is that the nuclear war was short and very bloody......most of the knowledge of the war probably comes from ghoul survivors, local lore and salvaged computer data.

According to the wiki...

I think the part about the weather is really important, as http://www.erh.noaa.gov/lwx/swep/Spotting.html require huge amounts of moisture and warm, unstable air in order to form. And a radiation storm would also require the moisture to be heavily irradiated as well as carrying a higher than normal electrical charge. And so this idea would actually fit perfectly. It would also explain why the storms can often end up inland over the relatively 'dry' areas around the other two blast zones, as was suggested during Todd's interview.

Also, just looking at the sheer size of the sub in the concept art, whatever reactor or group of reactors it runs from must be enormous. And so I would imagine that they could potentially provide an almost indefinite source of heat, radiation, and electromagnetic energy. This may also explain why the Chinese would react so aggressively to it's being destroyed, especially if it were some kind of prototype, or perhaps a flagship model. (The same as if a $2 billion B2 bomber had been shot down without firing first). This would make even more sense if it were, as you suggest, the first nuclear target to be destroyed.

As for the three nukes in Boston, the Commonwealth could have been protected by something similar to that used in New Vegas (due to the amount of valuable tech in the area). And the three nukes that hit were the ones that 'slipped through the net'. Incidentally, the large crater seen in the concept art would signify a ground burst, where a substantial amount of released energy would have been absorbed by the impact. This also ties in with how near we can see buildings that survived the blast, including the Bunker Hill Monument to the right of the crater.

And speaking of weird, I literally couldn't believe that as I was posting all of this up last night, "The Abyss Special Edition" came on TV, complete with the familiar sound of sonar, followed by this quote by Friedrich Nietzsche: "...when you look long into an abyss, the abyss also looks into you."

The Chinese Sub having a nuclear payload would be an attractive treasure trove to certain factions.

Helljumper: Thanks, but if the whole "end of the world" took place on the same date as the Chinese submarine incident happen, it looks to me that is exactly what triggered the devastation.

The sub was intruding on enemy/US water, that happens every day, it got wrecked though in the midst of all tension, maybe the reactor got damaged and went into a meltdown and blew up, either side took it as a conscious action from the other, and [censored] just escalated.


Out of topic (but maybe not): At one time in my life I was serving in the military of a European country, I was happening to be on board of this boat with command, during a drill where "my" country dropped some mines on domestic water, a USO (Unidentified submersed object) took off and left a huge radar signature, it had been lying undetected on the bottom, and I was informed that it was pure chance that the drill of letting down mines right above it, the USO ofc immediately evacuated, since I happened to be on the command boat, I was informed of the event and the situation turned into a "live situation", we all armed ourselves and started organize ourselves for a possible hostile situation.

Anyway the USO just took off, and I was never close to it, I was just on the boat where the intelligence passed to the command, and I thought it was just a drill until I saw all clearences and later was briefed and ordered to not go public with the event.

I was told that the Pentagon had claimed responsibility for the USO, and I wasnt told, but assumed that it was a US submarine, and even though my country isnt officially an "ally" with the US, as a ex-marine, I know for sure that we are no matter what the public believes.

Now, this whole USO incident has always stuck with me, I am no longer in duty, I guess it's still "classified" and I am not supposed to talk about it, but I dont really know anything besides what they decided to tell me anyway.

However, I've always thought that these sort of things happen all the time, but I also realize how "dangerous" it can be, like most subs seems to run on nuclear reactors, and a lot of them surely carry nuclear missiles, if a submarine like that is "destroyed", on purpose or not, to me it seems that so much can go wrong, miscommunicaton and false intel making someone think that it's an act of war, or just the scenario if a nuclear reactor would somehow have a reaction leak, I'm sure it's happened, how does one deal with it, I guess they just put a huge lead-lid over the submarine, bury it and threaten people not to talk about it.

Totally out of topic and not really fallout related, but I couldnt help to think about it

Which would suggest that if we go exploring, we may come across a little 'competition' from a different faction. Possibly even something like the underwater rig from 'The Abyss'.

Wow! I would say that was most certainly related to the thread, and so it's not off topic.

A very interesting piece of information that adds a useful perspective to this theory

EDIT: I've just noticed the suddenly huge relevance of the quotation in my signature!