I got the idea for this post when I was reading a page on TV Tropes.

Ever since I first played Fallout, I have alway found the small clues that we get about the world before the Great War to be much more terrifying then anything in wasteland.

Sure, the Wasteland in itself is really scary with the insane raiders, slavers, mutated monsters, etc. But from the limited historical information that we get, the world was much, much worse before the bombs.

The old world was insanely overpopulated, with almost no natural resources remaining. And instead of working together and find a solution, countries in the world invade each other for the few remaining raw materials that the others were hoarding. Most of the world was in a new dark age and in a state of total social collapse, with China and the US being the only surviving functional governments, but even then they were both extremely oppressive police states that have no problem will killing and even outright enslaving their own citizens. The environment was totally messed up with the US strip-mining the Grand Canyon and large parts of Canada, and storing radioactive waste in heavily populated areas. Private business owners buy automated turrets and fully armed robots to make sure their employees work hard and they have no problem with killing the workers if they break any rules or go on strike. The government rounding up ethnic Chinese and send to POW camps. Food riots happening all around major cities, with the New Plague killing millions at the same time.... etc.

It almost feels like the Great War was an act of euthanasia against a world with no future. In fact, I always had the feeling that humanity in the Fallout universe was actually better off as a result of the Great War since it allows them to start all over again.


What do you guys think?

You're right. It's almost as if war never changes somehow....

You sound kinda like the Master.

Depends where in the world you are.

Pre-war is better for America because everythings not radioactive, no ghouls and super mutant armies and Deathclaws running free. America was on the verge of technological breakthroughs and had some technological breakthroughs like GECKs and Cold Fusion. They also started going Green, Solar power and America was kicking butt in China.

I am Canadian so things would not have been so great, under American Control, seeing my people being gunned down but still I would rather be under Americas thumb then Chinas. Pre-War Canada was also not radioacive

I think the key idea behind the Fallout series is that human nature never changes. But I guess "War, war never changes." sounds much cooler and works better as the series' most famous line.

Perhaps. But I am against the Unity since the idea of free will and the freedom to choose is the fundamental principal in which my personal philosophy.

I just feels that is really ironic that the pre-war world was so bad that a nuclear war made things better. With the background information that we were given, the old world has passed the point of no return all the way back when they start running out of fossil fuels. It all went down hill from there...

But one thing I don't understand is that in NV we were shown that there exist promising renewable energy sources such as Hoover Dam and the HELIOS ONE Solar Plant. If only they could have been developed sooner, things would have been very different.

They were trying to use Solar Energy as alternate power, But most of the things relied on fuel and gasoline.

The pre-war fallout world would be awesome to live in. The post war fallout is also fun. But I think the pre war fallout was filled with lies for personal gain (vault tec)

Fallout has such an amazing sad story. Those people at Interplay (those were the guys who made the original Fallout, right?) must've been geniuses. You are completely right, the Wasteland might have killers, thieves, but that's for survival. It would completely svck to live during 2077.

Not only that, but space travel was starting to... ahem take off. If they could have taken a GECK to the moon, or hell even Mars it could have very likely solved the over population issue.

I actually know the page you're talking about. It's the TV Tropes High Octane Nightmare Fuel section for Fallout. In my opinion, the world before the bombs was, far, far worse than anything I encountered in my travels throughout the Capital Wasteland. The pre-war world was a dystopia wrapped up in propaganda. Fossil fuels were almost used up, the world was tearing itself to pieces through war, disease was rampant, and corruption and cynicism were everywhere. While the Wasteland is definitely no cakewalk to live in, the pre-war world was far worse.

From my understanding, the situation of pre-war United States wasn't much better either. Just look at the major cities, there were food riots in Denver, steel mill workers at Pittsburgh getting massacred by the national guard for protesting, etc. And don't forget that the Enclave was running things behind the scene, there were almost no civil-rights for the common citizens and the US military and Vault-Tec were actively conducting experimenting on the people that they promised to protect that can be only describe as cold blooded torture.

Things weren't much better in Canada either. Remember the intro video in Fallout 1?

The space traveling capacity of the world in the Fallout universe is no were as strong enough to support interstellar colonization. Manned space flight was stopped years ago before the Resource Wars due to the lack on resources needed to support space missions. Even then, the only space mission that they had were very limited.

As for the GECK, it depends on which version of it do you think of as canon. The original version is basically just a laptop encyclopedia + home gardening kit + handheld power generator + engineering kit. It is very useful technology, but no were as powerful enough to save the world from collapsing.

Yep things were bad I know that and I did mention how Americans were killing Canadians. Food riots and no civil rights are bad but nuclear armageddon followed by, mutations, ghoulification, Super mutants, slavers, raiders, techo loving killing machines (BoS) and other crazy cults are way worce.

Things would have been ok if there was no nuclear armageddon at least for North America that was the point I was trying to make.

Honestly, and not to sound psycho. I think the real world will be better off. I read about the pre war in fallout right befor the bombs fell and i feel like im raeding a news paper 30 years into our own futures. there is just so much that seems like it will be right in line with the way things are right now. eventually we will be out of oil, eventually other nations will amass nnuclear wepons. and alsaka is full of oil, who the hell wouldnt go after it once we are the only nation with it left and my money is on the US haveing the last of the oil. and i know the real doomsday isnt gonna be like a fun video game where we all find rocket launchers a nd go around killing mutants to i dont want to set the world on fire. its gonna be a bloody nighmare and humanity would be lucky to not go extinct. with the way things are i cant see how we arent gonna end up destroying ourselfs. or maybe im wrong and the 250+ hours iv spent playing these games, watching to much news, and haveing little faith in hummanity has finally haveing advers effects.

I remember a show I watched on the history or discovery channel awhile ago and they gave a senario for a nuclear holocaust/end of the world type of destruction and I remember thinking how similar it was to the fallout timeline. The senario involved a mad dash for the last remaning resources with China flexing their military might so they could get their hands on the last of them (they might have even had a invade alaska senario but i cant really remember).

In any case though, I think that what makes the story of Fallout prehaps the most believable, and scary, setting for a game series (aside from the 1950s motiff and mutants etc.) is the starking similarity to real world events and possible outcomes that it portrays.

I remember reading somewhere that all the experements in the vaults where to see how people would react to long time isolation for interstellar colonization. As for the GECK I am working off of is the one from FO:3 The G.E.C.K. will collapse all matter within its given radius and recombine it to form a living, breathing, fertile virgin landscape and allow life to begin anew.

I figure if the Vaults where never made for the actual purpose of serving as a shelter then it would be safe to assume that the GECK was not actually made to rework the world after the nukes. If the Vaults where for one purpose then odds are the GECK was for the same purpose.

The pre-war world sounded like hell to me. Then again so does the 50's in general. Their society was a failure the moment they decided that a "True American" was defined by his lifestyle instead of his loyalty to the principles of freedom and a nation by the people for the people. In Fallout 3, the only pre-war posters you see are those applauding the war with China. There wasn't a single poster asking people to walk or ride a bike to conserve gasoline, reduce their power consumption at home, grow vegetable gardens to cope with food rationing, or recycle their energy cells. That would be "Un-amercian" of them to do. All these wars and conflicts were done to preserve their wasteful lifestyles at all cost. And if they had to bring the world to ruin to do it so what. America is so much more important than the whole [censored] world! They were already developing the Enclave mentallity of "if you're not an American then you're not a person".

I agree. And I remember finding a holodisk and read about the specs of the T-51 Power Armor back when I was playing Fallout 1. It includes something about a self supporting power generator. I thought to myself, if they would just use that technology for constructive purposes instead of military weapons they can easily solve the entire energy crisis.

Yeah thats probably why it freaks me out so much the setting is to beliveable in those respects. and the show was on the history channel. i remmember watching it and thinking of fallout and they even used that please stand by tv thing in the bigining of the show.

World is changing, currencies are falling, relations getting tense and our apocalypse will come a lot sooner if we dont change

I do not think it is any accident that the world of Fallout's past looks like what may be happening in the future for us. The writers of the game are just as capable of looking at current world events and thinking of the worst case scenarios as anyone else. It's not the world that is like Fallout. Fallout was made to be what the world could become.

I have to disagree on the fact that the Fallout world between 2070-2077 was worse than the Post Apocalyptic world. It was definitely very bad though just before the bombs fell. But the advantage was "Buildings still stood" "Medical care was still at its best" and people could sleep at night knowing they wouldn't be killed by raiders. (Although there was the looming threat of the nuclear war.) Many many billions of people were killed by the war, and far to many unique species were wiped out. Food probably tastes disgusting in the Fallout 3 day and age.

Although in the Fallout universe around the year 3000 I believe a new better society may arise, who "learnt" the mistakes of the old world.

But the real world (In my opinion) will not end like Fallout. Many of the problems will occur, like Over Population, Corruption and Oil Shortages. But thanks to our improved technology (In the form of Minitarisation, Environmental improvements, Computers and others.) we might be able to avoid Armageddon.

Its kind of obvious that the old war is far more better. Mainly because you don't have Mutants, Slavers, Raiders, and Mercenaries to worry about. And things are not radiated There is at least some safety. I could go on but the facts are obvious.

I would argue that even for the poorest of the poor in 2077 things were better than everywhere after the bombs fell. Honestly you may not of had food but at least.
A. You had electricity
B. You had rapid transit
C.You had mass media
D. You had food rations that weren't 200 years old
E. You didn't have mutant animals and humans trying to kill everything.

There are few places after 2077 I'd rather be than pre 77