The glaring flaw that is Megaton

[Nonagon]

It's an unoriginal and somewhat out-of-place Planet of the Apes reference, is all:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beneath_the_Planet_of_the_Apes#Plot

I guess they thought that they were being clever:

"...and finds a person inside, kneeling before the high altar. However, the object of worship fills him with horror - an intact nuclear intercontinental ballistic missile"

Honestly though, I think the guys at Bethesda probably got it from watching the Futurama episode which made the exact same reference first.

 

[Danilh]

So, the bomb is Chinese or American.

For it to be chinese, a chinese plane would have flied to DC to drop it, in the middle of the nuclear storm.

If it is american, an american plane would have taken off in DC to fly to china, but it fell misteriously(of course a nuke would not disintegrate it mid-air....???) and made a crater in a rocky ground.

Both hypothesis dont make sense >_>

 

[TychoTheItinerant]

I'm giving Beth far more credit than they deserve when I look this deeply into the Megaton quandary, I think - I'm putting more effort into trying to figure it out than they had ever put into its design and creation in the first place.

The thought of simply dismissing this or anything else in FO3 as being nothing more than Bethesda jerking off onto the Fallout franchise makes me grind my teeth. But it seems I'm looking for something that simply isn't there - a good story.

 

[maximaz]

The idea of a town built around a nuclear bomb is pretty ridiculous but you're really nitpicking with the whole nuclear bomb technology thing.

 

[Asmo]

I'm giving Beth far more credit than they deserve when I look this deeply into the Megaton quandary, I think - I'm putting more effort into trying to figure it out than they had ever put into its design and creation in the first place.

The thought of simply dismissing this or anything else in FO3 as being nothing more than Bethesda jerking off onto the Fallout franchise makes me grind my teeth. But it seems I'm looking for something that simply isn't there - a good story.

Lol, the Fallout franchise is inherently built on these jerk offs... You might as well kick up a stink about the shuttle in San Fran in FO2, or the existence of advanced tech such as robobrains or Mr. Handy's in FO1 years after you'd think rust or other environmental factors would have destroyed or severely damaged them.

Not that a discussion of theorycrafting isn't fun, but you're choosing to reinstate disbelief specifically when the whole canon is inherently unbelievable...

Such as "The US reverts to 50's styles for everything" in the years leading up to 2077... I suspect this has a lot more to do with the fact that it's Bethesda that crafted Megaton than Megaton itself...

 

[Trithne]

The US didn't revert. In the Fallout universe, that style remained the standard. We didn't invent the microchip, miniaturisation didn't get far. It's meant to be the future as the 50's saw it.

 

[Sander]

Lol, the Fallout franchise is inherently built on these jerk offs... You might as well kick up a stink about the shuttle in San Fran in FO2, or the existence of advanced tech such as robobrains or Mr. Handy's in FO1 years after you'd think rust or other environmental factors would have destroyed or severely damaged them.

The shuttle *is* widely lambasted, and the robots never exist outside of highly sheltered, isolated military installations.

Such as "The US reverts to 50's styles for everything" in the years leading up to 2077... I suspect this has a lot more to do with the fact that it's Bethesda that crafted Megaton than Megaton itself...

No, it has something to do with verisimilitude. The game doesn't need to be realistic per se, but it needs to be internally consistent allowing for a suspension of disbelief.

 

[Brother None]

Such as "The US reverts to 50's styles for everything" in the years leading up to 2077...

Good Lord, why do so many people insist on misunderstanding Fallout's setting? It's not that complex. Nothing reverted, Fallout's future in 2077 is modelled after the way people in Golden Era science fiction (40's to 60's, but mostly 50's) thought the future would be, hence high-tech but low-culture.

 

[wexer9]

Well, there WERE picket signs right outside the Vault door saying "LET US IN ASSHOLES".

The first time I saw those right after leaving the Vault, I got a chill. It was an excellent way of setting the atmosphere for the rest of the game, in my opinion.

 

[NFSreloaded]

Well, there WERE picket signs right outside the Vault door saying "LET US IN ASSHOLES".

The first time I saw those right after leaving the Vault, I got a chill. It was an excellent way of setting the atmosphere for the rest of the game, in my opinion.

Meh. Those old wooden signs quickly lost their significance for me when I realized that they were 200 years old (Springvale, anyone?) and the owners had lived about 100 meters away for the last two centuries.

 

[wexer9]

Well, there WERE picket signs right outside the Vault door saying "LET US IN ASSHOLES".

The first time I saw those right after leaving the Vault, I got a chill. It was an excellent way of setting the atmosphere for the rest of the game, in my opinion.

Meh. Those old wooden signs quickly lost their significance for me when I realized that they were 200 years old (Springvale, anyone?) and the owners had lived about 100 meters away for the last two centuries.

Meh, well, I found them to be a very nice tone-setter the first time around.

 

[Asmo]

Good Lord, why do so many people insist on misunderstanding Fallout's setting? It's not that complex. Nothing reverted, Fallout's future in 2077 is modelled after the way people in Golden Era science fiction (40's to 60's, but mostly 50's) thought the future would be, hence high-tech but low-culture.

Probably because it get's a rise out of the FO dedicated?

j/k, I never honestly thought about it (or read that that was the case) although now that you say it, it is pretty obvious. Shows how little I re-enable disbelief when playing games.

And it's kinda besides the point anyway, the OP is choosing to selectively apply disbelief to something that is inherently unbelievable. Not only as generally impossible but also in terms of internal consistency. FO1->2->Tactics->Bos->FO3 are not completely internally consistent anyway (regardless of the quality or lack thereof of certain products along that line ; ). And it's hard to argue for some sort of internal consistency when your sample size is one.

 

[PezDiSpenser]

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.

geez ... haven't you got some pills to pop?

Fallout 1 & 2 didn't explain EVERYTHING, cause that would be f-ing redundant - so why would 3?

 

[Tagaziel]

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.

geez ... haven't you got some pills to pop?

Fallout 1 & 2 didn't explain EVERYTHING, cause that would be f-ing redundant - so why would 3?

The games explained every major location clearly and with enough detail to make the versimiliar and fitting. Megaton's backstory is non existent.

See the difference?

 

[NFSreloaded]

Megaton's backstory is non existent.

I agree.

Megaton's story as told in FO3:
''We can't get into the vault, so we'll just protest at the door (as if they could hear us through meters thick steel) while the nuclear missiles strike around us. When we get bored of that, we'll travel ten miles to some airfield to scavenge metal from the aircraft. Then we return to the exact same location and build a rusty, rickety "town" around an unstable nuclear aircraft bomb in a muddy crater, just 5 minutes away from the vault. We also ignore the possibilities around us, like the fully stocked Super-Duper Mart and the somewhat intact wooden houses (and concrete school) of Springvale. Instead we board the intact houses up and let some potentially dangerous psycho-raiders live there. Also, welcome stranger! Diffuse the bomb (at risk of killing us all) and have a free house with high-tec robot!''

Even the smallest settlements in the first Fallouts had better background stories, if you ask me. Megaton is literally a joke.

 

[Crni Vuk]

literaly? Seen the range the nuclear weapon has when you blow Megaton up ? Its more then a joke. Its ridiculous.

 

[Eternal]

Megaton's backstory is non existent.

I agree.

Megaton's story as told in FO3:
''We can't get into the vault, so we'll just protest at the door (as if they could hear us through meters thick steel) while the nuclear missiles strike around us. When we get bored of that, we'll travel ten miles to some airfield to scavenge metal from the aircraft. Then we return to the exact same location and build a rusty, rickety "town" around an unstable nuclear aircraft bomb in a muddy crater, just 5 minutes away from the vault. We also ignore the possibilities around us, like the fully stocked Super-Duper Mart and the somewhat intact wooden houses (and concrete school) of Springvale. Instead we board the intact houses up and let some potentially dangerous psycho-raiders live there. Also, welcome stranger! Diffuse the bomb (at risk of killing us all) and have a free house with high-tec robot!''

Even the smallest settlements in the first Fallouts had better background stories, if you ask me. Megaton is literally a joke.

Not to nitpick too much but I always thought that they just sort of sat there, not chanting or anything but IIRC there IS a camera outside of the door so the overseer could logically read the signs.

I thought the signs were pretty neat the FIRST time I saw them, but if you wander around for a while you'll see most of the exact same picket signs around the wasteland in various at times nonsensical places. (I'm pretty sure I found one or two INSIDE of a bathroom stall, and it would have made me laugh... if they were OUTSIDE of the stall instead.)

 

[NFSreloaded]

Not to nitpick too much but I always thought that they just sort of sat there, not chanting or anything but IIRC there IS a camera outside of the door so the overseer could logically read the signs.

True, I forgot about the camera. But even then it doesn't make a whole lot of sense. If I reached the vault too late I definitely wouldn't stand around at the door protesting, while the nuclear storm was raging outside. Megaton would probably not even have existed (or be a ghoul settlement) if it's inhabitants had done exactly that, because I don't think that the wooden door in the mountainside would've been able to stop the heat and radiation from reaching the people protesting in front of the vault door.

 

[chaosapiant]

This is from the wiki: Megaton was built by a large group of people who originally planned to seek shelter in Vault 101 but were denied access. So without shelter, they sought refuge in a large crater made by a large megaton bomb (though not due to an explosion of the bomb) and a large commercial aircraft. They then constructed a place to call home out of pieces of metal/aircraft found nearby at a decimated air station. They were aided by the Children of the Atom, who worshiped the undetonated bomb in the crater they were building around.

That being said, I don't think it's too preposterous considering how preposterous Fallout is in general. It says above that they found the plane parts from a nearby plane station. Since the timeline diverged in the 50s or so, it is likely that the landscape isn't exactly a future version of what we have now. Hence, I don't think they dragged the plane parts all the way from Dulles.

Also, it is quite possible that the bomb is sitting in a crater caused by another bomb. Or perhaps the bomb was dropped from satellite orbit? Farfetched, but from orbit or at least very high up, a non explosive device can still cause a huge crater from impact alone.

Also, the people in Megaton are NOT the same people who tried to get into Vault 101. They can't be, since that was 200 years ago. They are likely just the descendants of those people, and they no longer care about the vault. Especially considering, according to the Overseer's computer, that there are two spies FROM the vault in Megaton.

Again, it's all a stretch at the least, but it's fun fiction, and I don't think too much about it when playing. If I had to speculate why the Brotherhood or Enclave don't want the bomb, probably because they saw what happens when you use one.

 

[DexterMorgan]

That being said, I don't think it's too preposterous considering how preposterous Fallout is in general.

Always a good reason to stick stupid shit into a sequel. Also;

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internal_consistency
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verisimilitude

So without shelter, they sought refuge in a large crater made by a large megaton bomb (though not due to an explosion of the bomb) and a large commercial aircraft. They then constructed a place to call home out of pieces of metal/aircraft found nearby at a decimated air station. They were aided by the Children of the Atom, who worshiped the undetonated bomb in the crater they were building around.

So you try to enter the vault because you want to escape the nukes, and when they won't let you in you seek shelter in... a bomb crater? Next to a nuke? Um...

Also, I recall watching an interesting documentary on building airplanes. They showed this huge factory with half finished planes and plane parts lying around and so on, but the interesting bit is, they moved these parts by GIGANTIC FUCKING CRANES. I wonder why?

Also, you go to an airplane base to lug parts of an airplane to construct an elaborate town with doors powered by a miraculously working jet engine IN SIGHT OF A CONCRETE BUILDING STILL STANDING. Yes, sounds perfectly logical.

Also, it is quite possible that the bomb is sitting in a crater caused by another bomb. Or perhaps the bomb was dropped from satellite orbit? Farfetched, but from orbit or at least very high up, a non explosive device can still cause a huge crater from impact alone.

Yes, because bomb craters are prime targets for atomic bombers. Just to make sure.

Object dropping from satellite orbit generally tend to disintegrate on impact. Weird, isn't it?

Again, it's all a stretch at the least

No shit?

and I don't think too much about it when playing

You don't say?

probably because they saw what happens when you use one

People build a town around it?