So again, we often discuss whether NCR, Legion, House or Indy will be canon, but equally as important is the ending to Lonesome Road.

It should be noted that while you can basically dig up a quote of almost ANY of the developers naming Indy their favorite option, there's a clear Divide between the two main developers on how Lonesome Road should end. Chris Avellone has been quoted saying that he thinks humanity in the Core Region has advanced too far and he agrees with Ulysses that it's time to wipe the slate clean, whereas Josh Sawyer, when asked about what direction he'd like to take Fallout in the future if given the opportunity, said he's quite fond of the post-post-apocalyptic feel and would like to focus MORE on the politics of rebuilding after the dust has settled and the world isn't as chaotic and irradiated. (Before anyone asks, Avellone said so in an article whereas Sawyer elaborated on his formspring; afraid I have neither on me atm, but trust me they exist) Avellone seems to support bombing both the NCR and Legion as being canon, whereas Sawyer seems to support bombing neither. Hell, I've even joked before that by the way things sound, Avellone = Ulysses and Sawyer = the Courier.

Which choice do you think is best as the canon choice? I'm limiting the poll to launching both nukes or neither, because to be quite frank, it's both a matter of the devs specifically discussing the OTHER two options and the bombing of only the NCR or Legion seems more like a personal player grudge rather than a viable canon option; AKA I can't imagine why the devs would decide to nuke only one and not both. If enough people complain I can edit the poll to add those in, but the way I see it it's probably all or nothing as far as the bombs go.

Personally, I agree with Sawyer on this one. I find the post-post-apocalypse far more thought-provoking and interesting, and wiping the slate clean again just seems like a cheap cop-out. Not only do I think people would quickly tire of Fallout and lose respect for it if they just periodically re-nuked everything, but I also can't help but feel like re-nuking everything is a situation where the setting holds precedence over the story and is considered more important. A lot of people complained New Vegas didn't feel post-apocalyptic, right, but post-apocalyptic media is a dime a dozen. Despite this, Fallout is basically the undisputed king of the genre, and you know why? Because Fallout doesn't limit itself to "the struggles of surviving day-to-day in the post-apocalyptic world," but rather asks rather intriguing philosophical questions about how we got there to begin with and how to prevent war from happening again, if at all possible. Despite the obvious respect Avellone deserves as a writer, I cannot help but think re-nuking everything would be a poor choice entirely.

I'm in the Sawyer camp as well. I still believe that the "nuke everything" option is just there so that Bethesda can do their own writing and make the entire U.S feel like Fallout 3.

I can't believe the writers would go "time for a new beginning. Let's bomb everything!"

But I can believe, "We don't control the story anymore. Let's give the guys who do the option to do what they please."

I'm going to for the "Tunnelers spread and destroy everything, making if you nuked anyone or not pointless, because either way they are still both dead" ending. However, if I had to pick between the two, nuking everything leads to a far more interesting game world.

Going into the post-post-apocalypse only leads down to a more modern game world, suffering from modern problems, and while that does lead to "philosophical" situations, the problem is that all of that "philosophy" has been done a million times already, and the game would be nothing more then a tired re-tread of the same overused philosophical situations and conclusions that every other piece of media, be it games, movies, or even TV shows, that has ever tried to be "philosophical" has used.

Literally anyone who has watched anything, with even the slightest hint of some philosophical message about humanity, could tell you exactly how that type of game, and its factions/people, are going to play out in the first 5 minutes of the game. It ends up turns everything into just a boring parade of "listen to us spout the same philosophical messages you have heard everyone else spout". And this is what ruined Fallout New Vegas for me, I simply can't find a game enjoyable, or smart, when I have to listen to someone parrot the same [censored] everyone else parroted 500 times already. I would rather the game just roll with its own wackiness, because games that just GO with the flow, and don't try to be uber deep when they can't, because no "philosophical" situation they can come up could be original or meaningful anymore due to it being said 500 times already, end up being better because of it.

Like Saints Row 3 is a FAR better game then GTA, because unlike GTA, which tried to make a story where you are supposed to "feel" for people after you just ran over 500 civilians with a tank, and murdered just as many cops with the same tank, Saints Row 3 just said "[censored] it" and went with the gameplay's inherent stupidity, and took it to the extreme, and the game was SO much more fun because of it, because it wasn't limited by some pretensions premise of trying to be "smart" when it isn't.

Put me in with Sawyer as well. Personally I find the story about how the world rises from the ashes, and the events that lead to it taking the form it eventually does, to be a lot more fascinating than the story about scrabbling through the rubble hoping to find a bit of canned food or semi-clean water so I can live to see the sun rise the next day.

I suppose you could frame it as me preferring the macro view to the micro view of history, but I see it as either giving or not giving us an actual alternative history, in a universe that shares some of the laws and rules that govern ours, but also differs from ours in many ways. It allows the series and the game to actually evolve and change over time. Whereas the "bomb it all and start over from scratch" approach means we're getting the same game over and over again. In this chapter, we're combing through the rubble in DC, and in the next chapter we'll comb through the rubble in Boston. And maybe after that, we'll comb through the rubble in Houston.

And I think the poll's fine the way it is.