2077 January 22: "The first domestic use of power armor within the United States for crowd and quarantine control. Units originally serving in China and the Anchorage Front Line find themselves fighting Americans at home. Food riots increase, and many civilians are killed. Several soldiers defect from the military both in Canada and the United States. They are captured and sent to military prisons

and a few months before that....

2076: August: Food and energy riots begin in major cities throughout the United States. Military units begin to be deployed in cities within the United States to contain rioters, and many temporary prisons are constructed. A state of emergency is declared, and martial law soon follows.


I know we've only seen some of the intro but it didnt strike me there was a lack of power or food or riots, this was a few months before the start of F04 but i thought things would only get worse not better.

Maybe the PC was living in a more 'well2do' neighborhood.

Maybe there's an opening cutscene before the character creation where the riots are shown?

It certainly looked like an upper middle class suburban neighborhood.

That's what I'm thinking.

or since the wife mentions the "veteran hall"(so obviously he was in the military) they were in a protected neighborhood and might be why our character (no matter which gender)was guaranteed access to the vault .

Just because there were riots in the US doesn't mean our character was near any of them. Don't mean to get all political here but... *lightly kicks at the newspapers* >_>

Yup. Why would you riot if you still have Sugar Bombs and cold Nuka Cola and a robobutler?

or the knowledge that if you did you'd get shot without so much as a second thought

Where did you get that historical information from?

People within Boston probably rioted... but where the game begins seems to be more of a suburb. We'll be a character who pretty much lived on the outskirts of all of that. His/her story probably won't include the riots... as it doesn't truly begin until they exit the vault.

Fallout timeline http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Timeline

a very good read if you got the time.


im not saying everywhere had riots but i dont think anyone was doing great.

I don't think the riots happened in the suburban housewife's neighborhood

The place is called Sanctuary Hills

Or the neighborhood could be on a military installation...

OK, I'm trying to find Sanctuary Hills on the actual map of Boston, Massachusetts, but no luck. Is this a made up place or something?

I was going to say, 'Besides, Sanctuary Hills isn't even close to Boston. Here's its location on a map.'

Meh, rioting is a poor man's game. the middle class are all too busy eating lobster and drinking wine out in the suburbs.

The riots were before the bombs dropped as well, we see like 5-10 mins before the first reports of detonations...

I doubt they're all that concerned or hung up about canon. From there perspective, things like gameplay and story are far more important than canon. Especially when they didn't write/develop that canon

I live 20 minutes outside of Baltimore and we just had our little riot. You would never have known by just looking at my neighborhood though.

There may have been riots in Boston, my only evidence for that was how quickly the military showed up in the game-play we seen. That tells me that they were already on alert for something, whether that was the nuclear bomb or civil unrest in the area. It also looked like they were guarding the entrance to the vault, which I haven't seen before in the other Fallout games. Maybe because of the riots the military wanted to make sure no agitators made it inside or disrupted the process? Who knows, it's all speculation from me.

I get the feeling that the people living in Sanctuary Hills are important to the government for various reasons. If that's true it would make sense there are no riots happening there.

It would also explain why there's a vault so close to the neighborhood.

If you have a job you really dont have much time to riot. The PC looks to come from a good relatively well off area, I doubt they are near any of the riff raff.

My thinking on it is riots are generally produced by the lower class of a civilization, the PC seems to be in a middle class suburb. While there may be riots, not necessarily in Boston mind you, that doesnt mean he is affected by it.

I'd point out that the Fridge itself contains very, very little food in it. The only food we even see is a box of Sugar Bombs, which as the protagonist points out, is basically just solid lumps of sugar.

I think that's the reason why everything in FO4 looks more lore friendly... Super mutants, power armor, vault suit...