I think we should also be open to the possibility that some tech, like transistors, DO exist in the Fallout universe. Consider that the transistor began being used commercially in radios in the early 50s (1952-1954). The first experimental transistor based computer was made in the early 50s. I think the key reason we dont see tech based on this isnt because they didnt have it but because tube-tech is more EMP resistant and thus would be logically more useful in a nuclear-phobic world.

Some ideas to explain some anachronisms:

Tubes vs Transistors : I believe that Fallout world tech was actually very similar to what we have today but as the fear of nuclear war grew in the world, science began re-investing in vacuum tube based technologies. I believe its likely that this interest in tube research began somewhere in the 2020's. Improvements in this design mean that by the 2030's-2040's it was sufficiently advanced enough to be used in robotics (Mr Handy) and by the 2050's-2060's were advanced enough for AI and large-scale systems (ZAX). By the time of the great war tubes could be miniaturized and were efficient to a level that they could be used in Pipboys and other smaller computer devices.

Non-color TV: I believe the general economic depression caused by the resource wars combined with the switch to a new tube technology caused most newer tv's being made to be B&W, the downside being obvious but the benefit being such displays had a longer life. Similar explanation for chrome type computer screens.

Lack of advanced PC Software / UI : I think what examples we have seen of computer games (Grognak!) in the Fallout world are the way they are because the technology was still new to the home and general civilian programming of such devices was reaching a point similar to 1983-1986 in IBC PC programming/software. Clearly military and industrial users had more advanced software, though still limited UI's (text based). The UI limitation may be caused by a limitation in graphics displays.

Culture : The 1950's style culture may just be an adoption of the same for nostalgia purposes. People in this point in time are paranoid and maybe have adopted this culture for the 'simpler', 'safer' time period it represents compared to their own time. This would be why oldies music is prevalent.

Holotape : These are impressive storage devices. Obviously EMP proof and designed for very long lives. That they (only) store 4TB by 2077 says that this was again a new tech that was designed from the ground up to be nuke proof, and probably still relatively new to the time period.

One flaw in the plastic thing is that there are some "green" manufacturers that make plastics from corn. You don't necessarily need oil to make plastic.

no woodstock festival how sad

Obviously, you don't remember the Rockabilly / Swing fetish of the late 1990's in the USandA. I style a couple of vintage bowling shirts on occasion.

If you wait long enough, everything comes back into style.



I prefer "Herr Doktor Merkw?rdigliebe". I'm a traditionalist.

I love where you were going with your train of thought.

Think of how trends can occur in society... compare it to life now... a few years ago everyone wanted an SUV. There a lot of arguments to be made why SUVs are not practical or modern or "smart" to buy, but that didn't stop us Americans from scooping them up as quick as possible. And that was for no good reason...

In the Fallout universe, there is one thing that is very clear. Nuclear Power became THE source of power. All those 50's-style cars, while seeming to be old, are not. All those Ham Radios and functioning computers (even with no GUI) and Robots and even down to the desk lamps are not those of the 50's... the are able to be powered independently through Fission Batteries and self-sustaining Nuclear power (exactly why some are working 200 years later in FO3). In some ways, the Fallout universe became far advanced from us as they progressed... just in different ways. Their focus was different and for good reason...

And if we stay with the "trends" idea I mentioned before... lets say Nuclear Power was the changing moment in our alternate histories. The focus become self-powered "electronics", like refrigerators that didn't need to be plugged in, and that's where all the leading Scientists and Engineers wanted to be. First it's practical stuff for the lady's kitchen... then it's office equipment that costs very little to provide power to... then it's cars and home power and robotics... in their garages Steve Jobs and Bill Gates develope the first Domestic Robots... Steve sells his to the homeowners and schools... Bill get the military and Vault contracts. Petroleum is scarce (Resource Wars), so plastics are not easy to come by, hence things like CDs, DVDs, floppy disks, USB drives are never even developed... Computers are not widely accessible. And even SODA BOTTLES are distributed in a much different form than we've all become accustomed to in our non-Fallout world. Glass, metal, wood, magnetic tape and paper are favored. Etc. etc. etc. You get the idea. Think about how our lives would be difference with these two changes alone: Advances in Nuclear Power and extreme lack of Petroleum... a LOT of things would look very different.

Now imagine those two things happened sometimes starting in the 50's.

This may have been brought up before, and if it has I apologize. (I skimmed through the posts, I just didn't read all of them in-depth, so I likely have missed this.)

That the pre-War Fallout universe has that 50's "world of tomorrow" vibe doesn't mean that society didn't go through it's own phases. There could very well have been hippies in the 60's in the Fallout universe. Or disco, or punk rock, etc. It doesn't mean that for us to get the end result of Fallout, that we just went into a standstill in every respect save technology for over a hundred years.

It only means that by 2077, we have coincidentally ended up with a world very much as it was envisioned to be in the '50's. It may have actually been purposeful. Maybe with all of these technologies coming out, people were realizing that all of the hopes and dreams of 1950's pulp culture was coming to fruition. Perhaps the designers and trend setters of that period around 2077 capitalized on this and the overall mood of the times and ran with it. That's how I sort of it, at least. All the fifties vibe you see in the pre-War remains of the rubble is because that particular "retro" wasn en vogue at the time.

Also fits because likely situations were actually quite similar. All this new technology coming to fruition, along with all the optimism and wonder that brings. Countered by growing paranoia of a world on the brink of destruction, and the conservatism something like that would likely bring. People were likely going through something of a future shock in 2077, unable to fully integrate themselves into all these new products and robots, etc - and this also is something of what we were going through in the fifties, to a lesser extent. With all of this new stuff going and all the fear - I find it small wonder that maybe people would long for a "better, more wholesome" time. Maybe the preceding decade was really crazy and out there, and now people were just looking for something safer and more tame. And what better era to replicate than the 1950's if what you're looking for is a return to down-home family values?

Anyway, that's how I reason it out. Whatever fits you best, there's nothing in the Fallout fiction that at all insists that just because our timeline split in 1950, that it means society didn't progress in any fundamental ways.

Actually, 1950s science fiction mostly focused on gadgets and did present future society as being pretty much like the one in 1950s. They did not predict the social changes of the 1960s.

Thats the theory I go with too, that the culture went all 50s because it represented a simpler, easier time to Americans. The people of 2077 were probably more paranoid than those of the 1950's! I also would imagine its possible that a lot of technologies we have today fell out of use due to the energy crisis. You dont see as much widespread plastic use because of the lack of oil, for instance. You see them favoring vaccum tubes over microchips for their EMP resistance (I choose to believe), and Americans dont have color tv's because China stopped the export of them hahah!

Socially things may have changed like they did in our timeline, but presumably via alternate means, as artistically things remained in the 50s. Much of the art of our timeline post-50s has driven, and been driven by, social change...

No Woodstock/Summer of Love? No Motown? No Andy Warhol?

The furthest any cultural revolution via art may have gotten was apparently Elvis Presley. Perhaps blacks were indeed still down the back of the bus until the war turned America on it's head.

No Woodstock, or Andy Warhol...now how great would that be. As for popular culture, Elvis, The Rat Pack, and the ever amazing Marilyn Monroe...with all that good stuff for the next few hundred years...who needs a painting of a "Campbell's Soup Tin"

Please tell me that was sarcasm lol (though I agree about the soup tin).

Yeah, it was sarcasm...though I still stand by my anti-Warhol comment!

Maybe the people of the 2070's, started to save money so they could pay for a home in the vaults, and that way the fashion went away, because that the people wanted to be protected by the nuclear bombs. The vaults did propably cost thousands of dollars, because the government could get alot of money that way. Peopple simply stopped to by expensive clothes and gadgeds, and the fasion designers, quitted their work.

Fashion, never really evolved in the Fallout Universe. Fedora's and 3 suits, remained the norm for men, and as for women, it was long skirts, and modest tops. Basically,if it were acceptable to be worn on "I Love Lucy", or "Leave it to Beaver", then it would have still be worn up until 2077.

Vault 13 was projected to to be built for $400 billion but was finished at a cost of $645 billion. This was in 2069 dollars so with inflation it would be more like $68 billion and $109 billion respectively in 2009 dollars. That means on a per-person basis everyone would need to pay $109 million per person to cover just the cost of the vault (figuring 1000 people per vault max).

Ive always rationalized that the cost of the vaults were heavily inflated. I believe that Vault-Tec lied about Vault costs to the public and a majority of the 'cost' was actually money funnelled to the Enclave to secretly fund their projects and operations.

There's no reason it has to be that way, though. There's always a "retro" influence on fashion and design. Back in the 70's retro-50's was a big thing (ie, "Happy Days,") during the 80's and early 90's the whole hippie culture of the 60's was a big thing; and in the 90's we saw disco make a brief comeback (retro-70's which was in itself influenced by the styles of the "retro" fashion that was en vogue at the time.)

The theory is that every decade sees a retro resurgence 20 years later (so in 2029 everyone is going to buying your vintage hand-me-downs.) And actually, this fits the Fallout universe. (I'm not saying they did this on purpose at all, only that it works.) If we look at it as 1970 was retro-1950, and 1990 was retro-1970, we can extrapolate that these influences would have a resurgence every 20 years down the line (because if the 1970's were in style at the time, then that in itself was influenced by 1950's styles, so technically the 1950's still influenced the styles of 1990 to a certain degree.) So we go: 1950, 1970, 1990, 2010, 2030, 2050, and we arrive at the decade of the war - 2077. The styles of that time would be retro-retro-retro-retro-retro-retro-50's, if you wanted to get technical.

So it's plausible that fashion and design simply went full circle at that point. Trend-setters of 2077 were trying to reinvent the 1950's.

At least that's the way I see it.

I think you're overthinking it, trying to justify the retro designs in any way other than the fact that it's based on how people in the 1950s imagined the future.

Yeah, I tend to do that.

My theory is that the Church of Atom is correct and that upon the explosion of a nuclear weapon, trillions of "universes" are created (or at least altered). If you take a very close look at the Fallout time-line absolutely everything in history is identical right up until the end of World War 2. What happened right at the end of World War 2? Well, two atomic bombs got dropped on Japan right? I think this was where the "divergence" happened.

As for the fact that the US had not changed culturally in the last 125 years, well... Before the start of the 20th century, music and culture did take hundreds of years to change, and besides, this divergent universe is clearly the exact imaginings of "what the future will be like" during the 1950s when they still didn't fully understand the effects of radiation. In fact, a lot of people actually thought that radiation was GOOD for you back then. Nuka-Cola, with ads featuring people working in nuclear arms factories and a Quantum product that actually contains nuclear particles, is very similar to a product offered in the early 20th century which was literally made from the irradiated water used to store spent uranium (this actually happened in our world, not just Fallout). It might also be important to note that trends in culture tend to happen during times of conflict. Since the 50s, our world has experienced the cold war, the vietnam war, the gulf war, the war on terrorism (or gulf war #2), each of which brought protest songs and revolutionized music and culture; whereas in the Fallout universe, those conflicts never occurred and the US remained an isolationist power right up until the war with China in 2066 with the eventual apocalypse in 2077. With only 11 years to make "protest songs" with an oppressive american government that would likely just censor them, and release loads of propaganda songs, it's fairly safe to say that the 50s culture that they had maintained due to their lack of war up until that point would not change quickly enough to be noticeable in post-apocalyptic america. Besides, they could have always gone through the normal phases: 50s era, 60s hippy music, 70s psychedelic rock and the rise of disco, 80s more disco and punk, 90s grunge, 00s alt rock/pop/emo and then diverged back to, say, classical for a decade and then heavy metal and then trance and then just before the war with china back to the 50s era culture. Who knows, culture is constantly changing and sometimes certain styles see a huge revival.

Also, I think it's important to note that although the actual style of music hasn't changed, the messages behind it have, or at least they show signs of starting to change. For example, the song "I don't want to set the world on fire" is CLEARLY a protest song referring to the war with China and how the man is afraid that this conflict will destroy everything. Then there's the song (I forget what it's called) where the guy is singing about the congo and how society is crazy, clearly an ode to the degredation of society we see even in our world today (and we hear about a lot in songs). The rest of the songs drop hints at something being wrong, but mostly they're pretty tame from what I remember so it's obvious that a full-fledged musical revolution has only started to take hold before the world ended.

Those are real songs from the early part of the 20th century. They weren't created just for the game. "I Don't Want to Set the World on Fire" is by a group called the Ink Spots, as is "Maybe" which is another song you can hear on GNR. The "Civilization" song is Danny Kaye and the Andrews Sisters, and there are other songs that were also done by real world groups. There are a few, which are called generic jazz or something in the game files that might have been made for the game, but the rest of them are authentically old.

In other aspects, the major thing that drove the Fallout society was that the cold war never ended, as it did here. The Red Threat loomed on the horizon right up until the Great War. This shaped much of the culture, as the atmosphere was always one of paranoia and fear. This is most likely what lead to companies like Vault-Tec and the advanced robotics and AI researched that we have not managed in our world. However, overall, the idea is that it was indeed a projection forward of what those living in the 1950's saw the future as, which basically means that the current Fallout world is a bit like taking the World of Tomorrow exhibit at the World's Fair and nuking it. This means that science as we know it doesn't exist, and is instead 1950's SCIENCE! which explains a lot of the odd technical advancements and the strange behavior of the radiation, etc.

Good point.

I wish people were able to think "This is fiction, it's a game, what happens in this game has no bearing on reality and shouldn't offend me or anyone else"
I'm hardly offended by anything, I don't like racism or slavery, [censored], torture and causal city nuking in reality, but most bad things are fun in a virtual world, as it has no bearing on reality.

Am I getting my point across here?

I always felt like the Fallout series started based off 1950's science fiction and visual style, but drifted into more modern ideas (biological warfare used by Chinese, stealth devices, etc.) to be incorporated in later. As for overall visual styles, it always felt like they just sort of added onto stereotypes that existed. Like.... The mobster will always wear the Italian Pin-striped suit, the gang will always wear jackets and wife-beaters underneath, the tribals will wear the loincloths and talk strangely, etc. To me, it feels like the styles seen pre-bombs and post are just exxagerations of what is considered the stereotype.

Hmmm... That sounds an intriguing possibility.
However... It appears that there were also other differences before the timeline split - e.g. Lincoln having his voice recorded on a phonograph.
Which kind of brings me to a question - any mention of WW2 at all in FO? Did it occur and did it officially end with Japan being nuked?

Its like that primarily because it is a vehicle for telling a Retro 50's Sci-fi story. Having said that. after the bombs dropped progress stopped. The only cultural refference people would have would be the pre war society. if on the other hand you mean why had nothing but the technology changed between 1950 and 2077 thats another can of beans. Frankly its nonsense. The only way that could happen would have been if There had been a very conservative Dictatorship that ruthlessy crushed all the counter culture. Also The Korean war would have had to been fought differntly and there would have been no Vietnam war. Thats the only way I can see That 50's culture could have survived. Really its one of those things that is best rationalised by the indevidual playing the game because the whole thing if examined too closely falls apart like a house of cards.

I wouldn't call it nonsense. Look at the Middle East. To the standards of the West, they have barely changed. Its hard for someone from either Europe or the United States to believe culture can not change, but it can stagnate while technologies progress. In their United States, however, if you read very closely you will know the world we know was never created because this world was carefully controlled from the background. It could be attributed to a majority of congressional hawks or a lack of doves. I would not say that now, in our world, is this pinnacle of society or style, but that is hardly the point. Like in the Middle East, a conservative order guided the United States from behind the scenes. Not exactly a dictatorship, but administration after administration that adhered to the status quo because it is beneficial to them.

In their world it seems black power and hippy culture do not exist, white supremacy or militia movements at all. It is very possible either the two wars that were supposed to define the Cold War proxy battles did not take place or not in the same way we know them to have taken place. It would reinforce important facts that exist in the lore. If proxy battles never took place, like the Korean War or the Vietnam War, but most importantly the Afghan War, then there may not have been the same cultural changes.

One of the things about World War II, to a greater extent the Korean War, was the collaboration of black and white soldiers fighting together on the front. War is the great melting pot. The ideas of black power and white supremacy disappeared in the midst of heavy fighting. Those boys came home on the G.I. Bill, segregation and discrimination. This made our boys come home, especially after little celebration for the Korean or Vietnam War, and question the "idealistic" 50's society. This slowly materialized into the civil rights movement and pacifism. As a culture of service, honor and duty fell into the background, sit-ins and free love defined the rest of the century.

Korea would have helped black status. Blacks would have been much more likely to have assimilated to 50's culture than to have fought against it. Vietnam is what made that society incompatible with reality. Hippy culture was integration becoming counterculture. It was what dissenters in 50's society could use to rally against the status quo. The war built social consciousness in the elite and the dissenters. Consciousness allowed people to realize where the conservative order was sending them. Not into some showdown of good and evil but a place where fighting was perpetual and had no real meaning.

Vietnam also saw a huge chunk of courageous WWII vets die in the initial actions. With most of those boys dead, it became evident where the army wanted their recruits from. While rich kids could abstain from the draft and stay in college, poor black and white folks could hardly appeal. Civil rights leaders weren't happy about those who were being sent to die in the meat grinder. The gap between rich and poor also became significant for the first time in American history. That animosity led to "what so wrong with socialism?" Unfortunately, our century has been impacted greater by those who survived it then those who died for it.

It is very possible after World War II that no wars punctuated the remainder of the 20th century. It is also possible that, while the Korean War took place, the Vietnam and Afghan War did not. The proxy battle in Afghanistan destroyed moderates in the region and was the final blow against the Soviet Union that led to weak reformers getting into power. It is possible that this did not happen.