Interestingly enough if you look at the "US to annex Canada" newspaper article picture from FO3, you'll see they already have a slim territory line of west coast of Canada through B.C up to Alaska.

Okay hopefully this won't get too political and annoy any mods.

Simply put while Canada is not as french as a lot of people tend to think, it has some VERY strong socialist leanings and maintains strong relations with a lot of socialist countries. In simple terms socialism being the evolution of communism. Communism being the idea that everything belongs to everyone, and socialism being the idea that everything belongs to the goverment which distributes it fairly to the people based on need. Nobody follows these ideas in perfect "unmodified" form, nor am I criticising. This is not intended to be a political rant as much as it is to point this out.

Much like my post about Europe (which I hope is still up) I'd point out that a conflict between the US and China/Russia is ultimatly one about democracy/capitolism type thought vs. communist/socialst type thought on a practical level. Nationalism of course also enters into it on all sides, but when looking at the conflict going down nations are going to pick a side based on belief. Members of a European Commonwealth who are trading on all sides are probably not going to agree with which side to take, and thus everyone is going to split up. Canada which while very similar to the US in a practical sense does have an idealogy that has oftentimes had them siding with nations like France against the US.

Depending on how things played out, and IF Canada believed that China was going to win the war, they might very well have sided with the eastern powers. Given the resource wars it is also unknown how much bad blood might exist between the US and Canada over trade, or what ties might exist with Europe and other powers if for example they were buying their gas from them, while the US somehow became self sufficient in that regard, or developed technology where it didn't back Canada based on it's needs.

All of this is of course supposition based on possibilities of how the game information could have transpired, rather than a direct commentary on real politics (for those who might object I will point out that the Democracy/Communist conflict already exists in Fallout 3 via things like a propaganda station, so I don't consider talking about this to be excessively political in the context of the game).

Canada has a decent military, granted not as big and bad a one as the US right now, but if they started building up, or hosting troops from overseas as such a conflict started building... well... yeah we might attack/annex it.

Due to the need to avoid RL politics I won't get into Quebec.

>>>----Therumancer--->

The biggest problem with these threads is people tend have difficulty distinguishing the REAL world from the FALLOUT world.

One = In the Fallout World Nuclear Winter doesnt exist (EDIT: I also point out that even in the Real World the Theory of Nuclear Winter is a largely debunked one). Radiation Mutates and doesnt Kill - at least not at lower levels. Instead a Nuclear war RAISED world temps and cause the caps to melt resulting in a disasterous global warming effect. Thats why DC finds itself on the coast around Rivet City instead of several miles away.

Two = The Fallout Bible states that in the Fallout world everything diverged in the 50s thus the presumption is that everything up until then went more or less as it did in the REAL world. Thus the last vestiges of the British, French, German, Spanish, Dutch, Belgian, Portuguese, and Italian Empires dissolved.

Three = Given the fact that in the Fallout universe according to SCIENCE! that nuclear exchange parched the land and boiled the seas and caused world wide global warming we can safely assume vast tracts of land dissapeared under water - including huge parts of the British Isles.

Four = The USSA was a pseudo Dictatorial neo facist state by 2077. Everything in it was geared towards war, conquest, and defeating the "communist" menace. Canada was obstinately standing in their way during the Anchorage Campaign. Of course the USSA was going to squash them; they had gotten to uppity and annoying by their constant objections to the USSAs continual [censored] of Canadian territories.

Five = Read the fallout bible people!

Since when did Canada break from the Commonwealth? Somone better tell the Queen that she's missing one Dominion.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_members_of_the_Commonwealth_of_Nations

It became fully independent of the UK parlement with the statute of Westminster (which established Canada, Australia, New Zeland, Et Al as equal to the UK) That was in 1931. Some 40 years before your date.

QFT. Some posts have been deleted because members did not resist the temptation to introduce present real-world politics and wars, or to respond to same. Don't go there again.

There's been some good thoughts, like it is possible Canada would have allied with China instead, this would have been completely disastrous for the US, probably. Also in the Fallout world governments in general are portrayed as increasingly greedy, power hungry and just plain ruthless. Ancient alliances in this world wouldn't have meant much if the pay out was worth it.

Also not to bring real world politics but maybe real world paranoia and propaganda in the 40'-50's, my grand father who is 90 some or very close to it, was a young soldier at the end of WW2 and for some reason has been convinced for years that the US would eventually take over Canada in one shape or another. We are francophone from Quebec also if that has any significance, the irony too is I now live in British Columbia on Mile 0 of the Alaskan highway... ^_^ In the Fallout world we'd be one of the first places to be heavily hit and occupied by the American troops.

The oil industry is freaking huge up here too. It is basically what is developing the north, so if the world had taken the dive that the Falllout world did a US annexation makes a lot of sense.

I doubt Canada had an alliance with China, that would be pure fantasy anyways, however, with the Resource Wars, it becomes very possible that the US would invade and annex Canada for any small reason just to assume control over the oil reserves. The lore supports that Canada was much like the Canada of today, willing to help an ally in a crisis. Once the United States started to tax to harshly on Canadian infrastructure there was a backlash that the United States government responded to with force, using it as their excuse to get those oil reserves. That, however, doesn't make them "greedy" or "plain" ruthless, the US government was obviously acting under the pressure every other government was working under that was the consistent far from diminishing power of the riots that were widespread, consuming whole governments in Europe in chaos and the one right at home in the United States with panic and fear, across the globe as resources dried up. Every government wanted resources for the people they governed.



Yes, indeed, there is a lot of oil in Canada, there also is coal and forests, after the worldwide shortage of resources it makes a US annexation extremely plausible, not to mention Canada is the stop gap between the war front in Alaska and the rest of the United States, making it a very strategic target.

My comment about their greed and ruthlessness comes from the eventual outcome that a few years after the Canadian annexation and the killing of any Canadian rebels, the American people also rebelled against such tyranny and American soldiers were then sent home to contain their own citizens. If that is not going too far and ignoring what the people you govern and are supposed to be helping, I don't know what is. This turn of events leads me to believe that the American government had long ago forgotten ideals of democracy and were using it as a front to pacify the masses, but in reality they seem to be acting like any other fascist.

I'm not saying it was only the government of the US that were guilty of this, but the US is the focus of the game, other countries at that point in time might very well have been like this as well, but we just don't have as much info to say that. Also, I do believe that the governments in question were probably thinking they were doing the right thing at the time and using all sorts of excuses to follow up on their actions. Which is why the world died.

Ok, in that sense, since Canada forgot the ideals of capitalism and turned pinko there is only one option, to label them for extermination of course, because the alternative would be for them to slide into dictatorial Communism, quite on par with "other fascists". You can't have it both ways, you know, fighting domestic terrorists, even though that is what the U.S. constitution would stipulate for the government to do at the time, means there can be no democracy, because in fighting the people at all, they "forgot the ideals of democracy". Have you ever stopped an imagined possibly that those who tended to riot at the time were a slim majority or that they were rioting about things that they didn't blame the government for at all?

Because many of the riots had to do with the New Plague or that resources were drying up and making it increasingly expensive for anyone to live, not that the government crackdowns were making things all that much better, but that doesn't make government the culprit. In fact, it is so much more likely, if you look at democratic history, the people elected those who would form the basis for the device that was their destruction to meet these concerns.

How is the government not the culprit, it's pretty clear in the Fallout lore that government decisions is the root of all resources drying up in the first place? Or did I miss something?

People rioted for a number of things true; "Pictures of atrocities make their way to the United States, causing further unrest and protests." From the the Canadian annexation time line. Yes people were already upset and rioted for reasons other then rebels being shot on sight, but it sure as heck didn't help.

Ron Pearlman explains it here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WkBNKa2KXZE

We are the only country to have beaten you in a war, don't doubt us

Um... in a Capitalist society resources are not owned by the state, rather by individuals, by individuals I mean corporations. Those corporations and their CEOs are those who exploited resources, orchestrated the war and fled to the oil derrick as nuclear weapons destroyed the world.



What I said, actually, was very clearly agreeing with you...



What I was saying is the top leaders seem to have been bought and paid for through corporate giants who wanted to further their economic interests, i.e. taking over Canadian and Mexican resources. China, the source of major competition to these corporations, launches its attack on Alaska giving these economic powers a reason to invade China in order to gain their resources they were very obviously being incredibly protective of and spread corporate holdings. Then in a crescendo of this corrosive subversion, with the last little bits almost completely consumed by the United States, China nukes a belligerent America and America strikes back.

It wasn't just the CEOs. The Enclave consisted of high-ranking government officials, military officers and corporation CEOs, all working together for their own gain and to further their devious goals.

For resources, i saw it on a fallout timeline.

remember the Bismarck only ever sunk two ships (at most) before the only harbor big enough for it was destroyed by British Commandos.

We should be doing it right now...
And besides annexing doesn't have to be a hostile take over, Texas was it's own country before asking to be annexed into the US

This was probably triggered by the About vs Aboot argument

It's About...

Except, of course, the Canadian annexation was canonically hostile.

To quote Ron Perlman, from the FO1 into:



This rather handily gives the overarching reason for China's invasion and the US annexation.

Additionally, it's stated that Canada was reluctant to allow US troops to guard the Alaskan Pipeline, or even to fly over or march on Canadian soil, which lead to a breakdown in relations between the two countries. Obviously, the US needs a clear path to Alaska if they want any chance of holding back the Reds.

That, combined with the need for resources (although for the life of me I can't figure out what they needed timber so badly for), led to the annexation.

Timber isn't the only thing in Canada, actually, there is a vast amount of oil and even some uranium. I question how much uranium they used up though, even if it was a huge commodity it still has a long life even huge nuclear power plants don't use that MUCH uranium to my knowledge.

When the Chinese invaded Alaska, the U.S. government wanted to secure the pipeline that was supplying troops with resources. Annexing Canada would also make it easier to send more troops to Anchorage.

Maybe because us Americans wanted to learn how to play hockey


EH?

Id like to say, if the US were to invade Canada most Canadian males ages 17-30 would enlist. Now saying that i don't think Canada could ever win against the US in a war. Also considering the state of the world during the fallout time line i doubt any countries except China would be in a position to help Canada. So even though Canada might by then have a very large army most of it would be unsupported working to create weapons of war. By the time the US has reached Canadian soil we the Large very poorly equipped Canadian army would be thrown into war an most likely to be slaughtered. Say China were to assist they would probably be able to deliver enough weaponry to well Supply the Canadian army to at least for a short time to hold their ground against the American army. Maybe then should China enter Canada with the support of China be able to maybe defeat the American army weary from having to stop riots in America and dealing with the plague. However by then the US government might be desperate enough to launch nukes, ending the world.
That is just a possibility of how a war could unfold.