To be honest I never thought of making close calculations on how long the Shady Sands people founded their town and if their parents or grandparents still were in the right age to remember they were US citizens, or feel very close to it while reading whatever history they might have had in their vault.
How is this supposed to even be a question? What makes it possible for Aradesh generations' parents and grandparents to, for some reason, not remember they were US citizens, or even there to be a 'right age' for it? They left Vault 15 60+ years after the Great War, 20 years later Aradesh is somewhere between 30-40 years old considering Tandi was 16 at the time, OF COURSE Aradesh's parents, or at least grandparents still remembered they were US citizens when they first entered the vault! Or at least they're mostly teenagers and wee lads and lass at the time, which means they most likely recognized the fact or even remembered that they were born and raised in the US. And whatever history they read during this time period will be pretty damn fresh and straight from the textbooks published not long before the Great War.
All I know is that nobody in their group, or a other group who came from vault 15 too like the khans, demonstrated a close attachment or close mindeness to whatever they may know of pre-war ideas.
Let's now conclude on the fact that Vault 13 residents and vault 15 descendants never demonstrate a bit of pre-war prejudices at any point during Fallout 1, nor vault 8 descendants during Fallout 2,
You say all that, as if anybody in New Vegas has a close attachment/close mindedness and prejudices to Pre-War knowledge. Aside from a learned and educated individual like Caesar, a man who lived the time like Mr. House, and insane people like No-Bark, I just don't see it. Definitely not from an average wastelander, who mostly mention Pre-War names such as 'Kaizar' and 'Roman' once, and definitely not from Veronica and Christine who mentioned 'Chinese' and 'Chinese-Americans' once.
Except for the ending slide Fallout 2 made canon for Shady Sands of course, where they start the NCR, a new 'democracy'. I still say that in my mind, it's a re-invention of democracy concepts, possibly influenced by the past but still new in the sense that NCR wasn't intended to become a 'close emulation of pre-war america', not in such specifics.
So characters of Fallout shouldn't have the brain capacity to put 2 and 2 together and grasp the things they see, experience or hear about, or at least it shouldn't be easy for them, but they're perfectly capable of re-inventing a new concept of democracy, a Pre-War ideology that lived long enough to see nations rise and fall across history? Even though the characters who did the former lived in a period of time 200+ years after the Great War, while the characters who did the latter lived in a period of 80 years later?
I'm only vaguely remembering the origin of democracy from what I learned during middle school and high school, but isn't democracy, as a concept, was a result of philosophical endeavors committed by the Greeks, and they were backed by a sustainable and successful society at the time, which makes it possible for them to begin their contemplation in the first place? And even though I couldn't remember exactly when, it wasn't until just few centuries ago that the democracy as we know it today finally took form and become an idea to be accepted worldwide. And you're trying to tell me that some descendant of the vault dwellers who abandoned their vault are able to come up with a new concept of democracy, while trying to live in a time that's harsh like never before, all the while with zero knowledge of history?
And if you still can't accept that NCR's implementation of the old world value of democracy and rule of law is as close as it gets to emulation of Pre-War America, please remember that the game has been trying to express, again and again, that NCR's concept of democracy brought with it
all the bad things that lead to the Great War in the first place! If that's not the implication that the NCR's concept of democracy is some form of emulation of Pre-War America, then I don't know what is.
We can't be exactly sure on vault 11 longevity, except it still lasted generations from Gus Olson speech, it could be you are right about the 50 years laps but I would dare betting that the last 'election' and subsequent events could also have happened much later, for example while vault 13 is having it's water issue.
Perhaps, but that would mean the knowledge of history and certain behavior towards it still persisted in the minds of the vault dwellers. Again, remember that the vault is an isolated environment, so it's difficult for all the knowledge and mindset of the first generation of the dwellers who first entered the vault as US citizens to be gone just like that.
Oh boy, why did I write so much again on this just to make a point about the 'communists' from vault 11... I really like vault 11 you know, aside from the communist bit, I think it's one of the few 'environmental story telling' that actually work in a great way. This and the sierra madre.
But the communist bit is just that one poster that appears in the vault. Maybe there are multiple copies of the poster, but it's still just one poster, basically one mention of the word 'communist', and that's it. I read up on all the terminal entries in Vault 11 accessible by the Courier
https://fallout.fandom.com/wiki/Vault_11_terminal_entries and not a single word of 'communist'/'communism' can be found in there, except for the part where Donna Haley referred to it as the rumors circulating about her and she still didn't mention it by name. So I'm not sure how you came to interpret that as there being a 'communist hate drill' or that the Vault 11 Dwellers 'demonstrated close attachment or close mindedness to whatever they know of pre-war ideas'.
I will be briefer on the rest. I am not comfortable with the Shi, never stopped much on them even during a complete playthrough. All I remember is they or their ZAX emperor admitting they are descendants from the chinese submarine crew, but I am not even sure they say it like that.
All I know, I think, is that they don't resent non-Shi people in a pre-war way, no more than the rest of the wasteland care about them being of chinese ascend?
Again, I've already said they don't say much nor go deep into the topic during Fallout 2, but what's stopping them from doing so during the time frame between the end of Fallout 2 to the start of New Vegas?
Oh yeah, considering the Brotherhood have an outpost in San Fran, it's the surefire way for the Brotherhood to take a glance at the local and confirmed, "Oh, so this is how a Chinese looks like."
BOS and Followers, yes they have some pre-war archives, however who is saying they have so much of them? It's not about brain capacity, it's about context. You rationalise the Fallout context as if enough pre-war history is still available for educated people to make sense of it. It's fine if you want to see it this way. I see it a other way and think it make better writting opportunities if most archives are in a uncompleted/corrupted states.
You just completely brushed aside the background of the BoS and the Followers. The BoS dated all the way back to moments before the Great War. Aside from having obvious and stronger connection to Pre-War history as they were once part of the US military, they decided to occupy Lost Hills, a Pre-War government bunker, of which I'm pretty sure is filled to the brim with archives of knowledge, including that of history. And if you think that's not possible, remember that the Enclave, which is factually the descendant of some members of the US government, still knows and remembers the good 'ol America, 160 years after the Great War, and so I'm sure they got access to complete archives of knowledge and history. And considering Lost Hills is a bunker, and they got scribes, I'm sure most of the archives are maintained properly as to not losing it to data corruption or technical failures.
Meanwhile, the Followers obviously would mostly came upon incomplete pieces of knowledge, but considering they've been doing it for more than 100 years, not to mention they produced learned and educated individuals such as Caesar, I'd assume it's more likely they actually managed to gather all the pieces and put them back in one place by sheer persistence. Not to mention they've gone to cooperate with the NCR that one time, and because the NCR greatly expanded its territory, it makes sense for the Followers to follow the trails all the way all over the place, finds many more pieces of information and bring them back to their library in the Boneyard. I mean, they'll do everything to get them. Remember Emily Ortal?
Like we can find a lot of pre-war messages on computers and holotapes, but would we, players, could really make sense of them, in the historical sense, if Fallout pre-bombs world wasn't similar to the real one?
Again, you can decide whether or not your Courier could do that. But the characters we're discussing have certain backgrounds, like Vault 11 dwellers being vault dwellers, Veronica and (formerly) Christine being part of the Brotherhood of Steel, the Shi who, while not really explicitly say it when we have a chance to interact with them in Fallout 2, still obviously maintained their heritage through their choice of aesthetics and naming convention, and finally we have the Followers of the Apocalypse who studied literally everything that there is that can be studied extensively, for more than 100 years no less.
I would even argue that for the sake of writting opportunities, even the first vault dwellers should have had only access to uncompleted archives, and therefore why their descendants like those we see in Vault 13 didn't retain too much specific ideas of the old world. It can be for a myriad of valid reasons in-universe.
Except the vault project began construction 20 years prior to the Great War, so it makes sense they prepared everything beforehand to accommodate living in the vault, including but not limited to education. Either through data corruption and/or technical failures, then it makes sense for their archives to be rendered incomplete, but we don't know if that actually happens and there's still a chance as high that they maintained them properly to accommodate education for younger generation.
And once again, the Vault 13 dwellers got enough problem on their hands to worry about discussing capitalism and democracy, which explains why we saw little to none of those in Fallout 1. So, yeah, I think I agree with you that F1 and NV had different approaches to the topic, BUT! I still stand by my point that the period of New Vegas saw less struggle for survival thanks to civilization being more or less established further and farther, which gave way to more educational opportunities, including for the masses of average wastelander.
Since you mentionned Caesar and the legion, I happen to not have a problem with their 'roman' trip.
Surprise? It's because Edward Sallow has a very single minded knowledge of the subject, I would hardly call him educated about it.
He may have read bits of Caesar's history, and the transition from the republic to the empire but come on, aside from latin's bits and dress up, I don't reconise anything 'roman' in the legion. It could be that Edward just took whatever he found most suitable to his propaganda, it would suit his character, but I don't think so.
My take is that he had access to uncompleted archives, or he would know that his 'empire' won't last a quarter of what the real roman empire lasted. And that the said roman empire were just as plagued by corruption and such as the republic, among other things.
You just played the game, and you call Edward Sallow 'hardly educated' about the Roman Empire? Even after he mentioned that they were "
a highly militarized autocracy that effectively integrated the foreign cultures it conquered" aka multicultural, which it is, and also a slave-society of which both the Roman Empire and the Legion is? Maybe you don't recognize the Roman in Caesar's Legion because the Roman you know is the Republic of Rome, while the Rome emulated by Caesar is the Roman Empire? I mean, yeah his access seemed rather limited but only because that's all that we got from him, or rather that's all he wants to say about it, and anymore than that it trivial or irrelevant to how he's going to apply it to a post-apocalyptic era.
Also, I wouldn't say Caesar's 'empire' won't last a quarter of what the real Roman Empire lasted because he had access to incomplete archives. His 'empire' won't last long anyway because the Legion followed his persona, not his visions and ideas. Caesar's mistake was putting up a farce, and gone too long with it. That is, until the Courier came into the picture and so there is a possibility for the Courier to find a successor worthy to continue Caesar's legacy or perhaps become one by him/herself. Or even heal Caesar's brain tumor and gave Caesar time to groom a heir of his own.
Anyway, I just read up on Caesar's dialogue text
https://fallout.gamepedia.com/Caesar's_dialogue and he more or less confirmed what I said about the Followers. He referred to their headquarter as the Library, with a big 'L', and that he learned from them that there's
a lot of good information in the old books. You know what Caesar learned during his time with the Followers, aside from history of the Roman Empire and Hegelian Dialectics? Warfare. Divide et Impera. But wait, there's more! You know what he called himself when he was still Edward Sallow of the Followers? An anthropologist and a linguist. And he was supposed to 'learn the dialects of the Grand Canyon tribes'. Gee, I wonder how he came upon the terms 'anthropologist' and 'linguist', and correctly identify it as a profession dealing with humans and human behavior (Grand Canyon tribes) and a profession dealing with language (dialects), even though those were supposed to be Pre-War concepts, ideas, and definition, and a human living in Post-War era should definitely not understand all that, no matter how educated they are.
Last but not least, have you tried Age of Decadence and Underrail?
