It's too far to the east for the Hub. Lancaster or Edwards AFB would be closer. Barstow looks more fitting for Necropolis (which we know can't be Bakersfield because Bakersfield is off to the west).
If the Hub were in Barstow, maybe Necropolis could be in Baker instead of Bakersfield?
Necropolis is Bakersfield, it's stated as such in-game. The devs have admitted at least once to moving things around in Fallout 1/2 for game flow reasons.
You can't really treat the in-game maps as 100% evidence for anything due to things scaling issues, and devs assigning a in-game place to a real world location, but then moving it around on the map for reasons, while still treating it as if its the same locations.
1. YOU FOOL! Of course they haven't had anyone attack them in years! They bomb whoever gets even remotely close to their home! That certainly would keep my xenophobia going if I thought that the only thing keeping me alive was shooting on sight. Ever since they've gotten to that place they've shot on sight. And only someone getting through their defenses to show them that they're peaceful would be the only thing to get them to stop!
2. That's the thing though! They do explain it with words! There's a kid and everything to tell you! The mural is just visual help! A bonus! And a job for the kid too do.
3. OK, first of all. Let's use a big of logic here. Is there a sewing machine in most vaults? Or a vault suit maker? I don't remember there being one? Do you?
4. Plus.... honestly, where are they going to get the wasteland rags?... The livestock they don't have?
5. And the flight jackets. I'm not exactly one for flight jacket lore, but I've always been under the impression that they got them from the base, and not the vault.
6. Now hang on one cherry pickin' minute. First of all, WHY does The Institute actively keep the wasteland a chaotic place? I thought they wanted to help it? Father even had you take down a raider leader who was a synth because he was causing chaos. W-why are they INTENTIONALLY causing chaos? And, I was always under the impression that the super mutants getting out was an accident. Are you telling me they actively let them out? I thought that they sealed up the place so no one would ever go in there again?
1. But that's exactly the problem, they attack everyone for no reason, even if they aren't attacking them, and then turn around and claim they are defending themselves from people attacking them, when no one is actually attacking them. Do you not see how that train of thought doesn't add up?
We blow up everyone who attacks us! -> But no one ever attacks you? -> Right, because we blow up everyone! -> But why do you blow them up if they aren't actually attacking you? -> To protect yourselves from being attacked! -> But how do you know they want to attack you if you blow them up? -> Uhhh, I guess I never thought about that!
It's an entirely dumb contrivance, that anyone who rubs two brain cells together could see doesn't make sense, made up just so throw another quest in your face. Its just as dumb as needing to tell the Great Khans about how the freaking KHANS, the very group they are named and model their existence after, lived to inspire Papa Khan to get them to move on from NCR lands.
2. It's not even supposed to be the kids job. It was someone else's job to tell the story until he got killed doing something stupid while drunk. And its even WORSE that they tell their story verbally because everyone knows that verbal story telling is the least accurate method of keeping history as the story changes every time you tell it. They lose thier history every time that kid tells the story, something that could have been solved had the just wrote it down on a computer terminal.
3. Its mentioned in lore that Vaults have Vault-Suit extruders that can produce new Vault-Suits, and, if unlocked with codes from the GECK, other outfits as well.
4. Which is itself another problem. Bighorners are fairly commonplace in the mojave, they should have used their robots to capture a few a long time ago. Which would give them access to material to make clothes.
5. They did get them from the base, I didn't mean to imply that they didn't. But after spending generations wearing them they would have developed tons of holes, and without anything to patch them with, they would have quickly becomes useless. That they have anything to wear at all is something of a surprise.
6.
A. After the fall of the Commonwealth Provisional Government 100ish years ago, the people of the wasteland blamed The Institute for the CPG's fall(when evidence actually points to the settlement's infighting being the reason), and started creating paranoid delusions that The Institute was behind everything that went wrong in The Commonwealth.
The Institute originally tried to simply hide in their base, staying completely out of the affairs of the surface world. However, after the Broken Mask Incident 58 years ago, in which an early Gen 3 synth was accidentally released to the surface on work duty, only for it to wonder off to Diamond City, glitch out, and murder and bunch of people, getting destroyed by D.C. Security in the process, and revealing the existence of human-like synths to the people of the Wasteland, the paranoia wastelanders had of The Institute only shot up to 11.
The Institute, still wanting to stay out of the affairs of the surface in general, but also wanting to defend themselves against a possible paranoia based attack by the surfacers, set up a system of things like synth crow watchers, and replaced a small number of people, like McDonough of Diamond City, and got him to run on an anti-ghoul platform, getting the ghouls thrown out of Diamond City(to split the populace up and keep them divided) and used him to watch for possible surface threats, and give out speeches that downplayed The Institute's threat, in order to try to prevent the surfacers from being able to rally against The Institute.
B. The Coursers, and you being sent to retrieve the synth raider Gabriel, are an effort to reclaim what they see as lost property, and to keep synths out of the general public so there isn't another Broken Mask type incident that could incite the people to attack the Institute.
C. The FEV lab was closed down because the scientist running it, Brian Virgil, got tired of doing tests on people for what he saw as having no real purpose, since the synths were doing fine, and there was seemingly no need to improve the FEV strains used in synth creation. He wanted to get the lab shut down, possibly forever, and escape The Institute, so he infected himself with a strain of FEV he developed, turning himself into a super mutant, and wrecked the lab. Super Mutants "getting out" was never a problem. All evidence suggests The Institute simply dumped them on the surface because it was easier.
D. The Institute cares nothing of the surface, and doesn't want to help them at all. Father, and several people in The Institute point blank tell you so. They see the surface as a completely lost cause, and only wish to finish their nuclear generator so they can attain self sufficiency, and live in their underground paradise. They only "care" about the surface in so far as making sure the surface can do nothing to harm them.
E. Raiders DON'T survive in The Commonwealth. They even go over this in Nuka World. Raider gangs in The Commonwealth are started by people who think it would simply be easier to take things like food, instead of working to make it. However, none of these raider gangs have any real plans, and usually only last a few years before getting killed by other raider gangs, super mutants, or destroying themselves by infighting or drugs. There is no long term/old raider gang in The Commonwealth, its just a constant churning of gangs getting destroyed, survivors wandering off to join other gangs or form new gangs, etc. etc.
Also, why would a raider base turn into a settlement? Raiders don't trade, they all fight each other, and they started raiding in the first place because they didn't WANT to work on a settlement to make their living. Them becoming a settlement is entirely defeatist to the point of being a raider. That's why raider gangs threaten and attack settlements for food and stuff, so they don't have to do it themselves.
Furthermore, the player character being super good at murdering a horde of raiders does not make it easy, it just makes it plot armor. Like the Vault Dweller solving all of southern California's problems in Fallout 1' doesn't man anyone could do it, it just makes the PC a Gary Stu.
