Life pre-war

@DarkCorp I think (as stated in my op) that this is why I have a vastly different 'deadcannon' to what is presented in FO4 (or even FO3)

Beth's games are, at least from 'continuity' perspective very different feeling to the other games 'worlds' (not talking of gameplay or style)

Even FO Tactics, which I recognise as loose cannon had better lore consistency to what I perceive the Fallout alt-universe to be. A lot of folk dismiss FO:T as non-cannon but then praise FO3.

If I had to choose one game which best fits into lore from those two I'd pick FO:t every time.

Also, @DarkCorp good spot on the mohawk statues, I'd not even thought about observations of the scenery!
 
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DarkCorp said:
Reference security robots, laser rifles, plasma pistol, .223 pistol, etc, from, vertibirds, from Fallout 1 and 2. Same with the mohawks on the statues. Look at the cyberdog, the combat armor, the space shuttle in San Francisco. They have nothing in common with the 1950s and 60s where the concept of re-usable space vehicles hadn't even been built or thought up yet.

The world of Fallout was a mash of 50-60s flavoring mixed with the cyberpunk feel of the 80s.
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It had a little bit of Steampunk in there to.
 
I'm probably in the minority here, but Bethesda games have not actually changed how I pictured the pre-war world of Fallout at all, even back when I was playing Fallout 1 for the first time.

I always thought of the Fallout world, pre-War, to be that "World of Tomorrow!" that was such a big hit in the 40's, 50's, and half of the 60's--that lofty future where robot butlers tend to your dishes, everything is perpetually powered, and keeping up with the Joneses is an exciting race to go out and buy the latest stuff. In addition to this, it seems that Tesla's inventions were favored. The whole of Fallout to me, even back before Fallout 3 mind you, was this way of stepping back and taking a look--at this world which by all means was "perfect" (not really of course), where the "American Dream" had been "achieved," where life had advanced to that teal and pink tube-powered electronics world that people in the 50's craved, and then in an instant it's gone--and the world becomes this rusted facsimile, almost like a twisted, grinning version of the "perfect world" everyone wanted but was too wrapped up in consumerism to uphold.

So we're not supposed to be asking questions like "wait, why hasn't culture moved past the 50's? Surely it would have" or things like that--no, Fallout is simply a look at what happens when that particular vision of the future is stripped away and human nature takes over--the irony of consumerism being the pursuit of ephemera like swanky magazines, robot butlers, and sugary drinks. And then it's all taken away in a flash--because even if society reaches its peak and evolves--war never changes.
 
I agree with you, to a point. But there are way too many 80s references in the game to justify not including ANYTHING past the 50s. Maybe keep most elements that way, but with more of a blend of the two sci-fi subcultures.
 
That kind of contradicts with the timeline though, as it portrays America as a collapsing country, with too many poor and too little energy to go across.
 
Ninja said:
I agree with you, to a point. But there are way too many 80s references in the game to justify not including ANYTHING past the 50s. Maybe keep most elements that way, but with more of a blend of the two sci-fi subcultures.
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So it's more like 80's cyberpunk by way of the retro-50's future?
I've tried to reconcile the two sci-fi aesthetics in my head. And the best I can figure, it's that they "achieved" the 50's dream but it started eroding into the more of a cyberpunk dystopia by the Great War.

For example, "chems," both the ubiquity and the portrayal of addicts in Fallout, remind me very much of the moral panic surrounding the War on Drugs.
 
Good point on the war on drugs.

As things got worse, we might even have skipped the hippy movement all together and went straight to the 80s drug culture and its version of rebellion
 
I'd think Hippies would exist, but to a lesser point. I don't see the US going easy on protestors. The government could have tried to squash their movements if they got too big.
 
Unlike Beths take on the universe, I saw no evidence of hippies like what's seen in NV

None of the Brotherhood bunkers have any sort of peace sign stuff on them at all and there is no real sign that they were around in either F1 or F2.
 
DarkCorp said:
Unlike Beths take on the universe, I saw no evidence of hippies like what's seen in NV

None of the Brotherhood bunkers have any sort of peace sign stuff on them at all and there is no real sign that they were around in either F1 or F2.
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Umm... the Brotherhood Bunkers did have peace sign stuff, and a whole lot of other crap.
 
Not in F1 or F2. The Lost Hill bunker has no grafitti on it, and neither did the small outposts from F2.
 
Lost Hills was already built and in existance since before the bombs, yet there is no sign of grafitti.

Maxson and his men didn't BUILD, Lost Hills, it was an existing bunker from pre-war.

Even, if you if you factor out military installations, there is zero evidence of hippy culture or symbolism in the originals.

Obsidian was forced to work with Beth ideas, much like the abundance of 50-60s styles and glaring lack of 80s cyberpunk influence. Screw Beths retcons.
 
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