i know many have the theory that vault-tec started it to make their vaults useful...

but i believe they were monsters by using the vaults as experiments, but i don't think they would destroy the world for this...

in some vaults, there is records about some residents or scientists not arriving in time. considering that vault-tec wouldn't want anything that would just delay their experiments, it's impossible for they to just discart essential personel, not waiting some hours...

well, i know that you can find a submarine close to a harbor, where it's a chinese submarine, and from what i can get from the captain, it was this submarine that launched the bomb that exploded at the beginning of the game...

IMO vault-tec can be a bunch of monsters, but they are innocent in destroying the world...

i believe china dropped it first because they seemed more desperate than the U.S

you find out in f2 that an American ai called skynet started dropping the bombs because it was bored.

China's capital was about to be overrun by American forces.

They pressed the M.A.D. button.

Tinker Tom thinks it was the Institute.

President Richardson in Fallout 2 tells us it was China. "We were winning, too. And those damn Reds launched everything they had. We barely got our birds up."

Fallout 4 I would suggest also tells us China launched first. The opening part of the game before the War Great War has America being attacked first. Then we have the guy in the Sub that tells us he was ordered to attack.

Basically China was going to lose the Sino-American War. American forces were overrunning China. China couldn't win but they could play the spoiler. So they ordered their nuclear forces to attack. America was taken by surprise and America was almost not able to attack back.

China Started World War 3.

Well, of course American lore will say it's China's fault!! What else would you expect hey?!

Well tbf the American invasion of China was actually going really well, when the power armored divisions landed on chinese soil they were near unstoppable. Like, America had no reason to launch the first nuke. Hell, they didn't even really need a reason to deploy Liberty Prime which I guess they didn't since they managed to win Anchorage before Prime was finished.

On all accounts as far as we've seen and heard the Sino-American war was going in America's favor.

since it was a problem between america and china...

did the rest of the world was bombed as well or they still have their civilization, but with ghouls and radiated animals?

europe, soviet union, africa...

it would be stupid to bomb those who have nothing to do with this stupid war

It wasn't just China although I believe there is more than enough to tells us they were the ones who ultimately made the call to end it all with nukes.

Their actions would have dragged in the Soviet Union. Although China had replaced the USSR as America's number one threat, the USSR was still around and would have been an ally of China. Fallout 4 has a mention of the United States running scenarios in which both the USSR and China attacked the United States.

Not much is known about whether or not NATO and the Warsaw Pact were still around by the time of 2077, but if they were that would be the alliance that dragged the world into a World War.

I would make the case that NATO was still around, even after the fall of the European Union and United Nations. At least the bare bones of it. I say that because I can't imagine that the United States would sit back and let the Communists take over all of Europe. So I would figure that the USSR and the United States still had an understanding that Europe would be left alone. They can fight one another all they want but the United States and the USSR would not get involved.

America and the USSR had diplomatic connections and they both understood Mutually Assured Destruction so they would avoid it. China was the wild card. Under Mao the Chinese Government believed they could win a nuclear war. Something along the lines of "thousands might survive in the United States and the USSR but millions will survive in China." That idea scared Stalin/Khrushchev. That attitude to nuclear war would have lasted till 2077 in the Chinese leadership.

The USSR wouldn't think to invade America but China did. So one would have to figure any intelligence agency worth its salt would rank China a more serious threat. But that being said it would be hard to imagine China invading Alaska without the USSR's help. The Sino-American War could have been yet another proxy war between America and the USSR.

Anyways, so when China gives up and fires off it's nukes. The United States has to fire theirs. This triggers the Soviet Union to launch theirs. What's left of NATO uses theirs. And by then anyone who has them uses theirs. It was a World War. This is just an exercise in how it could have played out.

Edit: We also know that even though Japan had actually attacked America in World War 2. America still saw the Nazi's as the greater threat. Europe couldn't be allowed to fall to Hitler. I could easily see that happening in the Fallout Universe even after China invaded Alaska in 2066. America would still protect Europe from the USSR with threats of Nuclear Annihilation.

Did the European Union fall? From what I've read on the wikia the European Union had control over the armies of it's member states and seemed to function more of a country then a diplomatic union. As far as I know the only union to fall was, well, the United Nations.

Also I'm pretty sure that the EU didn't fire any at china or the USSR, their main target was middle eastern countries not giving them enough oil. I imagine Africa would've been kept out of it, same with Australia and maybe certain parts of southern Asia that wasn't controlled by China, like India and certain parts of the Malaysian peninsula. Then you have a majority of South America that would've been spared as they were probably neutral, Mexico was attacked which could hint to the idea that Mexico was annexed into America which I believe the Fallout bible covers.

The European Union was the European Commonwealth. I can't help myself when I call it the EU instead of the EC. But yes it did fall apart in the Fallout Universe. It is mentioned in the https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=26akSYfDdn4 (2:12 or so)

The European Commonwealth invaded the nations of the Middle East but after the oil there ran out the EC turned on itself and dissolved. In a time known as the Resource Wars, 2052 to October 23, 2077 if I am not mistaken.

If anything of NATO still existed then they would have fired their nukes for that alone. That or they did it because they didn't want the USSR to steam roll over them. Remember the Cold War was still a thing in Fallout. The Russian Bear was behind that Iron Curtain. Even if it was weak it was still a serious threat given the individual nations of Europe would be weaker still.

The United States would also fire nukes at Eastern Block Counties and the USSR itself. So even if the European countries for whatever reason stayed out of it, they would have been caught in the middle.

But we also have to remember that neither the USSR or the United States would want Europe to fall into either hands. So it would have to be destroyed for that alone. Which would mean the nations of Europe would have to respond or be destroyed themselves.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NHWjlCaIrQo - Joshua.

Ah alright, must've remembered wrong then xD thanks for the clarification!

but the europe, each country there, i don't think they were nuked, or were they?

because i think the worst case scenario if they weren't nuked, is that of mutated animals and ghouls, since eurpe probably didn't test the FEV...

i want to believe that they still have "intact" cities and some government.

i ask this, because everytime i read any story i can find, ot only mention united states and china

never the rest of the world

Well even if some countries didn't get directly hit the cities would fall into chaos and confusion, radiation would spread through the clouds and the rain. It's like Boston and Vegas, they didn't get directly hit but both still ended up with dealing with aftermaths. They both ended up with people resorting to breaking into tribes, law fell, disorder and crime reigned. It was chaos.

Though I do believe it is possible some countries or cities could survive it's really unlikely.

Fallout lore makes it clear no nations survive the Great War. It was World War 3. It almost wiped out humanity itself. Fallout, Fallout 2 and Fallout 3's intro mention it being a world war and now destructive it was.

Some DLC to explore China and its wasteland would be phenomenal.

I think that would need way more than just a DLC to be done properly.

http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Fallout_Extremewas a possible planned game that would have taken us to China. Although it never really made it past the first few months of development.

they could make a fallout that isn't in united states

everytime they just makes a more advanced faction that can be destroyed in the end as always...

Wasn't it confirmed in Mothership Zeta it was aliens?

nope. it wasn't Vault tech. They were too good being exploitative capitalists and preying on people's fear. Why try to end the world when you're running one of the most successful life insurance policy scams in the world? Especially since it was being sponsored and paid for by the US government. I suspect the Chinese got trigger happy first---with the patriotic Enclave egging them on from the sidelines. The Enclave's forefathers were the first to get themselves into the safety of the vaults. They also had backup plans as to where to safely ride out the immediate fallout (like their former oil rig base out in the ocean). And also made sure they had a highly trained force which could handle all the technology like veritbirds etc.

So I definitely think the Enclave were either direct criminals or somehow instigated China into doing it. Either way, there are too many skeletons in the Enclave closet.

That was cut, thankfully.

To add onto this, the logs in Black Mountain in New Vegas also suggest China shot first.

A. No, it didn't

B. It was cut

The thing you are thinking of is a alien captive tape where a guy is getting zapped by the aliens and he is talking about how he wont give up the launch codes.

However, nothing actually suggests the aliens were trying to get the codes, and other alien captive tapes have people getting zapped for not talking into the recorded because the aliens wanted a voice log for each of their captives.

Much like most of the other people who were captured, he was misunderstanding the situation, and rambling about what he thought the aliens wanted.

I wonder if there was ever a https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sino-Soviet_split? Seems weird that the U.S. http://fallout.gamepedia.com/Natalia_Dubrovhsky into their vaults. Maybe losing their commie ally diplomatically added to their desperation.

China and the Russia always had an uneasy relationship, even before the two turned to communism they would have sided with one another to fight America. They did so many times in our timeline.

In Fallout 4 in the Switchboard there is a file labeled "USSR China Attack" scenario.

As for why America would let a Russian into their Vaults. That's because Russia wasn't crazy. They understood that attacking the United States meant that both sides would annihilate one another. The United States knew this as well. So they both worked to avoid such a thing. Both sides would have diplomats working in one another's country. Even when the world went to hell and relations fell apart all over the world. The link between the White House and the Kremlin was to important to let break. Diplomats are protected.

China on the other hand had the belief that they could actually win a nuclear war. That was one of the reasons why the Soviets backed off in helping China develop it's nuclear weapons program.

In the Fallout Universe China became more hostile to America. They needed Oil, America had it. While the Soviets understood that being hostile to America could result to death for everyone, China was willing to risk it. That is why I believe China became a bigger threat to America in the Fallout Universe than the Soviet Union. The Soviets wouldn't not be willing to do something as bold as to invade Alaska. While China clearly was.

We don't know how the invasion of Alaska went down. Aside from the use of paratroopers as seen in Fallout 4 intro. We would have to assume that prepping for such an invasion wouldn't have gone unnoticed by the United States. This would have raised China to a higher threat then the Soviets. Of course it is possible China invaded going through the Soviet Union into Alaska. But I think that alone I think is worth it's own debate.