culture

[RedneckDevil]

I guess best way to explain it is watch a 50s sci fi drive in movie the ones that take place in the future. Where everything technology wise progressed but the "values" of the general public stayed the same along with dress attire etc.
to my knowledge the fallout USA never had a problem with "colors" and the only color they did was chinese so that would explain why u dont see or hear anything about blacks being treated differently because i think as long as they were moving along with the rest, companies nor the government cared because they were mainly focusing on the color "green".
Growing up watching mystery theature 3000 and also the actual movies themselves and the shows, it makes sense in my head so i may not be doing a very good job explaining it.

 

[Gizmojunk]

So, in the Fallout universe, the world never culturally developed past the 50's or 60's. That's why Fallout has it's retro-futuristic aesthetic.

That was never the impression that I got. As I understand it, their future became their idealized prediction of the future. That means that (for example) an energy rifle/or pistol would look as they might have imagined in 50's pop culture
~not like it was made in a 50's hardware store; [see Bethesda's laser rifle for the bad example].

When I play the games, I see a culture shock of the PC; a person whos'e entire life has been lived in an institutional (almost time capsule) environment.... And when they come out... the world is not like that. Fallout did not have greasers and bee-hive hair styles... it was a post apocalypse in recovery. Interplay had a bona fide rockstar composing the music for Fallout; at any time they could have asked for 50's style tunes for the game [it's math]... couldn't they have? They did not. I would say that it's absurd that they would play 1950's music ~as opposed to 2070's music; even if it retained the 50's beat and formula. I would assume that their 1970's children would still have rebelled against their parent's music ~even if it was just to switch bands... bands that could still be quite at home on the Laurence Welk show.

I mean... It's an alternate Earth, but some things would still the same... They could well have had their own Iggy Pop or even Cameo, but perhaps a bit different from our own.

Then there is the common notion (even among Bethesda!) that if it wasn't in the 50's, then it didn't happen... which is beyond stupid [IMO], and I think Bethesda fosters it because it's easy to grasp; allowing new fans to get familiar with it... and never having to complicate things by explaining that the very laws of reality in Fallout are warped by their pop 50's expectations and fears... Atom bombs really do turn good citizens into ghoulish monsters... and such.

But the simplified version does not explain plasma rifles, or their crazy implementation of aiming, that they call VATS. (I was rather disappointed in them for not making it a feature of the pipboy that integrates with power armor to provide servo-assisted aiming ~when wearing the suit.) It should never be that they don't have a thing.. it should be that whatever they make should have the 50's aesthetic ~whether robot, vehicle, gun; an Ipod, or even a cell phone.