The glaring flaw that is Megaton

T

TychoTheItinerant

First time out of the vault
Someone explain to me why a Fat Man-design bomb (a US design) is lying unexploded in a crater near Washington DC? I don't recall the Chinese using bombs dropped from aircraft. The bomb must be American. Why is it lying around in the DC Wasteland? In a crater created by an explosion that seemingly could never have happened, as the bomb that would have created it is undetonated - cart-before-horse thinking much? Did they even fucking pause for a minute and say "Wait, WHY is this bomb here? Hmm. NEEDS MORE PLOT/BACKSTORY." before putting it into the game?

The more I think about it the more this fucking abscess on the ass-end of the wastes annoys me. I could go on about the characters within - Lucas Simms is one dumb motherfucker to turn his back to a suspected potential terrorist/mass-murderer (Burke) and expect him to follow him along peacefully to the clink. No law enforcement officer worth his salt would EVER do that.
 
About the massive crater: That was actually caused by a crashed plane that they salvaged to build the town, and Lucas Simms probably thought you would defend him if Burke drew a gun, but I agree it was a dumb move.

And the bomb doesn't make sense, about the only thing that does is the crater, which is explained through one of the really old bastards who roam Megaton. Maybe they wheeled in the bomb and placed it as a tourist attraction.
 
as already said, the crater is rather from the airplane and not the bomb, which would as well explain why its unexploded. A crash with a plane is usualy something that a nuclear warehead can survive without much issues.

If you ask me though the bigger issue is that you have the bomb in the town, with a lot of factions around it, starting with the Brotherhood and Enclave, to Rivet City and that are just to the player "known" factions (you could call Raiders and such a faction too or the mercenaries). And yet the only person that really has a interest in the nuclear weapon is Burke and his employer Tenn Penny. How comes that it doesnt bother anyone else ? Why would not the Enclave want to get their hands on a WORKING! nuclear weapon? Or the Brotherhood? The Outcast? Even if it would be only for the reason to have the weapon somewhere save so that not someone (like the Player or Tennpenny ...) could walk up to it and blow it up.

The blast radius of the Bomb is also more then laughable. Did you ever bothered to blow up Megaton? The effect of the weapon is not biger then 30m ... really much for a nuclear warehead ...
 
But Lucas Simms isn't a law enforcement officer. He's just a guy with a great personality and knows how to shoot a gun, so they made him sheriff. It doesn't surprise me at all that he's bad at his job.
 
Also: setting off an explosive charge attached to the bomb will not likely cause the desired NUKE effect IIRC, it will simply turn it into a radiological device. A very specific and well-timed simultaneous detonation of a number of explosive charges surrounding the plutonium sphere and compacting it to critical mass is what will cause a nuclear explosion. Tenpenny and Burke don't know shit about nukes, obviously.

The way the bomb got there (carried aboard a crashed US warplane) makes sense I suppose, but building a town around the fucker? Who in their right mind wants to live within a football-field's distance of a nuclear device with a yield in the hundreds of kilotons, possibly megatons (the original Fat Man did not have a yield in the megatons, but it's conceivable a refinement of the design might give it more oomph, or at least as much as could possibly be gotten from an aircraft-borne nuke).
 
Lucas Simms has worse problems than turning his back on Burke. Even if he isn't shot he often crumples up and dies as soon as he leaves the bar :(
 
Also, why didn't anyone drag the fucking bomb outside, it cant be hard with that back part being easily tied to a rope and some brahmin pulling it out of town. A vertibird(or two) could easily steal it for the Enclave and the Brotherhood could have their soldiers drag it as power armor makes people really strong.
 
Danilh said:
Also, why didn't anyone drag the fucking bomb outside, it cant be hard with that back part being easily tied to a rope and some brahmin pulling it out of town. A vertibird(or two) could easily steal it for the Enclave and the Brotherhood could have their soldiers drag it as power armor makes people really strong.
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The Brotherhood and the Enclave should have been all over that bomb like stink on shit. Pre-war weapons tech? Right up BoS' alley. Especially since the bomb likely used plutonium, which cannot be obtained naturally and must be manufactured, and the means with which to manufacture plutonium are probably RATHER scarce in post-apoc America.

I don't think they could move that thing far enough away from the Megaton city limits to make me comfortable living in Megaton. We aren't talking about conventional explosives here - a few hundred yards, a few miles even, will not save your ass if that thing goes off.
 
Is a crashing plane really enough to make a crater like that?
 
Dead Guy said:
Is a crashing plane really enough to make a crater like that?
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depending on the size of the plane and considering that the people making the town probably as well dug some parts away, yeah. It "could" be possible. Though the crater would be from the crash alone not that big probably. But as said thats really not the worst problem of Megaton. What is really more unsatisfying is the fact that so few conections exist between the "towns" (if you want to call those 4 men communities towns though ...) like Rivet City and the Citadel. I mean you can destroy Megaton, and its like it never happend. No one mentions it, no one wants to know what happend. I mean if one would blow up the house of your neighbour, would you not at least want to know "what" caused it?

The idea of the nuclear bomb cult does remind me to tactics and the ghoul church of atom. Which was great by the way (just badly executed in some way). Instead of making Megaton a usual town I would have made a ghoul town out of it with some underground parts maybe on the ruins of some mssile silo. With the town around it and the Silo serving as "church". If you would want to blow up the bomb it would be now harder cause well ... seriously who is so stupid to give EVERY stranger access to a nuclear weapon!

silo-graphic1.jpg


http://weburbanist.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/11/missile-silo-architectural-drawing.jpg

The idea of Megaton is "okeish". But its so badly thought out that many times I almost was runing out screaming. Seriously. Its like the many other times in Fallout 3 that you see a place, thinking "oh ok nice, not a bad idea, Pentagon, carrier, town around bomb etc." just to realiese that the place is very shallow and has to many inconsistencies not just in the apperance (design) but most important in the characters and conections to other places. Rivet City for example, and the CItadel that seem to exist without any kind of food for example. Centerburry commons as the central "hub" for trading? 4 People ? Without defence? That already has trouble with "ants" ? How do those people manage to survive ... in such cases you really get the idea the Bethesdian Wasteland is as dangerous like the Sesamstreet. At night.

On the other hand there are as well so many ruins there and people still decide to build up some schacks outside in the no man's land? What the hell ... It seems like people seem to run out of everything just not stupid ideas. Even Megaton is al made out of corrugated metal and schacks, without ever one thinking to just repair the one or other ruin or at least use the concrete to make walls and buildings ...
 
Oh, and IIRC those bombs aren't armed until mid-flight, when the aircraft is near its target (which I assume would have been Alaska/Canada and NOT Washington DC), so that bomb would have been UNARMED, despite what the game tells you. Maybe the crash might have broken/jarred some electronics, but an amateur explosives tech would have about as much chance of successfully disarming it as a paper dog would have of successfully chasing an asbestos cat through hell.

You would have to carefully disconnect the explosive charges from the detonator without setting off a dirty bomb (or possibly worse in the event of a critical failure and you managing to accidentally trigger enough of those charges to send that plutonium sphere into critical mass), remove the electronics for the detonator device to prevent it from being reconnected, and possibly get rid of the explosive charges before bringing in a suitable containment vessel to put the plutonium sphere in for transporting it out of the town.

Another thought - plutonium is unstable IIRC and degrades quickly. I would think that an attempted nuclear detonation might well fizzle rather than go all Nagasaki due to degradation of the fissile material after 200+ years. Of course, even a fizzle might make enough of a boom to obliterate Megaton and much of the surrounding countryside.
 
Well it could have fallen off the plane ... there are precedents for that.

Besides its a question of resources, that bomb is only used in two locations ... Megaton and Fort Constantine, its unmarked (unlike the crashed Delta IX rocket in Vernon Square) so it does not make much reason for then to make different models.

Heck, they dont even made diferent models or textures for their unique weapons ...
 
I wonder why the Americans are using Fat Man class atom bombs when the first ICBMs were made during the 50s which would be more appropriate to the setting. Using a bomb they made in 1945 200 years later is pretty damn stupid.
Also somehow knowing how to throw grenades means you can deactivate something that would require dedicated work by a skilled engineer. Saying that after 200 years the electronics and connections would have been so rusted so it would be impossible to arm or disarm it.
 
A POSSIBLE explanation that I thought up is this.

Maybe in the stress leading up to the Great War of 2077, bombs were being built quickly. Too quickly, and some were faulty and shoddy.
What I believe is that the bomb was dropped, but didn't deliver the payload. As for the plane crashing, plane crashed first, then the bomb came.

But even then, why just leave the bomb standing there? If they are so worried, how about you...oh I don't know...PUT SOME SUPPORTS ON IT?
But what I love, is how old Megaton appears to be. It was set up by some people trying to get into Vault 101, so I'd place that...2077-2078. Word would get around quickly that it wasn't opening.

Even then, if they hated it, why not move elsewhere? Like to Spingvale? No? Then explain this.
A certain NPC (could be Manya, doesn't matter they are all the same) says that the dragged plane parts from a nearby airport to build Megaton. The closest airport to my recollection is Washington-Dulles Airport...A VERY LONG WAY AWAY. Like really far for foot travel.

And yet, they built a town with these pieces, which took ages to drag with alot of manpower to bring it?
I don't know about you...I don't buy it.
 
You can cross Washington DC in 15 minutes, by that standard the airport won't take more than 10 minutes to get to.
Of course this is game logic :P
 
what I find interesting is that the people around vault 101 did not tried to enter it with brute force in the first place. I mean with the right knowledge and a bit technology it should be not impossible.
 
Crni Vuk said:
what I find interesting is that the people around vault 101 did not tried to enter it with brute force in the first place. I mean with the right knowledge and a bit technology it should be not impossible.
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That vault door is nigh-on impregnable.

Those raiders who were trying to dig into Vault 101 from the school in Springvale had the best shot of getting in, and they would have had to deal with the steel walls of the Vault. Not an easy task. Maybe impossible.
 
nothing is "impenetrable". Not even in the Fallout world. If you remember Fallout 2 (or was it even in F1 already, its been some time) Vault 15 had a broken door. Now what ever if it happend from raiders or anythnig else it shows that it can be broken.

Hence why the entrance to most vaults has been somehow hidden. But about vault 101 everyone seemed to know its location and place which is the reason why I ask my self why no one in the last 200 years tried succesfully to get inside. It would be absolutely possible in the Fallout setting considering technology and equipment.
 
Crni Vuk said:
nothing is "impenetrable". Not even in the Fallout world. If you remember Fallout 2 (or was it even in F1 already, its been some time) Vault 15 had a broken door. Now what ever if it happend from raiders or anythnig else it shows that it can be broken.

Hence why the entrance to most vaults has been somehow hidden. But about vault 101 everyone seemed to know its location and place which is the reason why I ask my self why no one in the last 200 years tried succesfully to get inside. It would be absolutely possible in the Fallout setting considering technology and equipment.
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Well, there WERE picket signs right outside the Vault door saying "LET US IN ASSHOLES".

I can suspend disbelief only so far. It would have taken POWERFUL shaped-charge explosives and HEAT-type rockets to get through one of those doors, I think. If the steel doors (were they steel?) had a high enough carbon content (but why would you use high-carbon steel for this?) they might be brittle enough to be shattered.

In the case of V15 I would assume that the vault door was broken from the inside, presumably through an effort by the dwellers to push it out. I don't know why they would not have been able to open the door normally, unless the Overseer somehow prevented that from being possible. The door might have been broken from the shock of the impact when it fell out of its track after they presumably jarred it loose with explosives, or it might have been broken due to mishandling of the opening mechanism by the dwellers. While the doors may have been reinforced against and designed to withstand most assaults from the outside, it's entirely possible that they did not possess the same level of resilience against an assault from INSIDE.

A thought just occurred to me - what if those doors were not steel all the way through? Is it possible they were steel shells filled with lead or some other heavy metal, to shield against radiation? It seems a little strange to me, but...

Also, in retrospect I don't see why the US would have discarded the Fat Man design. The imploding-sphere was sound (far more so than the gun-type) and is still used in modern designs IIRC, and could probably be adapted to have a higher yield than the Nagasaki bomb. If it ain't broke don't fix it, perhaps...? A freefall aircraft-borne bomb would be inferior to an ICBM or any other variant of unmanned missile, though, simply because the plane would be a liability, in just about every way... and by 2077 you'd think they would have figured that out... so I guess that sways the argument back towards the "bomb is stupid and out-of-place" argument.
 
TychoTheItinerant said:
I can suspend disbelief only so far. It would have taken POWERFUL shaped-charge explosives and HEAT-type rockets to get through one of those doors, I think. If the steel doors (were they steel?) had a high enough carbon content (but why would you use high-carbon steel for this?) they might be brittle enough to be shattered.
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as said, with the right knowledge and some acces to technology that should be no problem afterall. ITs not like you dont have a few factions in F3 around that have not access to a technology that might have such effect.

You just have to try it enough times. And depending the way most vaults are equiped, again its a question why not more tried to get inside, considering that the location of vault 101 is known to almost everyone ...

but the whole concept in Fallout 3 makes not so much sense. The Brotherhood knows the location of a lot of vault tec places, and yet no one ever got the idea to loot those places. YOu have somewhere an ICBM, pretty much untouched, armory ruints etc. ... all just waiting for the player, there, untouched ... after 200 years.
 
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