There's a reason to use it as a term: To differentiate between two different periods of time. To just lump hundreds of years together can and will lead to confusion. You wouldn't lump the Bronze Age and Iron Age together. That would be absurd. Using "post post" does looks silly, but we don't have a name for this far off futuristic period of time. And no, calling it post apocalyptic doesn't make any sense. Again, this is a whole new period of time. 3's world design is a muddled mess at best. There are junk towns, but nothing like what is hinted at in New Vegas. We're talking huge nations, not rinky dinky settlements that seem to have food aplenty in a barren world. 3 should have shown a world that was more like New Vegas: farms, plant life, fleshed-out settlements, and the end of the frontier and the return to civilization.
The difference is that the bronze and the iron age have clearly definable characteristics: the bronze age is characterized by the prevalence of bronze, and the iron age is characterized by the prevalence of iron; for different areas the two are clearly delineated by distinct periods of time (1200 to 1bc, for example). No one has yet said: PA has this clearly separable characteristic, while PPA has this clearly separable characteristic. You haven't in the above statement -- PPA have plant life? Farms? what exactly. I can't tell if you're just on a tirade of why FO3 was bad or why it's PPA or what you think.
And yes, calling it post apocalyptic makes perfect sense because that's what it is. You have society trying to pull itself together again after the apocalypse, which is a theme in all the games. The only time post apocalyptic isn't meaningful is when society has basically completely recovered. All the pieces are back into place -- the collapse is something which is completely irrelevant to the state of things-- ala futurama.
As for this being Gnarles attempt to defend FO3, is just beyond your usual dumb.
Wtf is it with people saying I'm trying to defend fallout 3? FO3 is a bad game. It's bad bad bad bad bad, and people say that I'm defending the game are dumb dumb dumb dumb.
Edit:
What I want is someone to say: Fallout 1 is (PA/PPA) due to this clearly distinguishable trait. Fallout 2 is (PA/PPA) due to this clearly distinguishable trait. Fallout 3 is (PA/PPA) due to this clearly distinguishable trait. Fallout NV is (PA/PPA) due to this clearly identifiable trait. (I'm not familar with the last of us because I'm not a peasant, or jericho, but otherwise try other fiction maybe)
Here's my example: This time period 2000-700 in china is clearly the bronze age due to the prevalence of bronze. There might be some overlap, like in the bronze age example, but if you can't provide concise reasons for distinguishing the two then I just can't see that they're worth distinguishing.
Anyway, I feel like a really dumb person having spent this much energy on a subject that doesn't really matter one way or another. Had a weird stressful week and think I'm just taking my frustrations out on the internet, why am I saying this I should go to bed. But hey, maybe I'm wrong, I'm interested in the answer if there is one. "the existence of nations" seems like a pretty good separator between the two that wasn't explicitly stated, but I'm not going to post anymore on the subject because I feel foolish.
