- Wow. We have a robot.
Hey, little guy.
We're enjoying our pleasant life
until something bad happens, I'm assuming.
(bright upbeat music)
Hi, my name is Christopher Nyerges.
I started many years ago, the school of self-reliance
and I teach classes in practical survival skills,
to city people, to children, to adults
people from all walks of lives.
We teach Ethnobotany, survival skills and so forth.
And so here I am in the fog of war, ready to play a game.
(melodious music)
The old Soviet unions charts of the United States.
They're very specifically targeted.
If you live in Southern California, like I do
there's the brains and the communications.
There's Mount Wilson would be taken out.
There's the long beach shipping yard to be taken out.
There's the brains JPL and Caltech.
But the missiles don't always hit their targets.
So if you live anywhere in that area,
you're probably lucky to die
in the initial exchange of nuclear weapons.
If you survive, you have to go underground
for a couple of weeks for the half life
of the radiation to subside.
And you wanna wear war clothing.
You wouldn't have stores to go to
because the problems when people are fighting wars
they're not growing food.
They're not selling food.
They're not processing food.
They're all hiding up until it's safe to be around.
And then you might get answer.
So it would not be a good life.
Would not be a good world to live in,
if the idiotic leaders ever exchanged nuclear weapons.
Like a dictator is thinking about threatening to do now.
I'm sure I've had nightmares about it.
I like to say that I've lived
through five or six major catastrophes that never happened,
cause I worried about them.
You know, this could happen Oh .
And sometimes the worrying and the planning
and the anticipating prevents it from happening.
Cause people realize this is not something that you want.
This is not the life you wanna live.
So I have no idea what I'm gonna enter into
with this fallout game.
But the only good thing is that it's a computer game,
and I could go outside into the sunshine
when it's over with, even if I die three or four times
and get resurrected during the game.
- [Narrator] War, War never changes.
- Yeah, war never changes, People die.
Ruins the landscape.
So you have a lot of senseless killing.
- [Narrator] In 1945, my great, great grandfather,
serving in the army.
Wondered when he'd get to go home to his wife.
And the son he'd never seen.
He got his wish, when the USA ended world war II,
by dropping atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki .
- very yikes.
- [Narrator] The world, awaited Armageddon.
- The world, awaited Armageddon.
- [Narrator] Instead Something miraculous happened.
- Something miraculous happened
- [Narrator] We began to use atomic energy, not as a weapon.
But as a nearly limitless source of power.
- Okay, interesting scenario.
- [Narrator] People enjoyed luxuries
once thought the realm of science fiction
- And we have pet robots, which I don't have.
- [Narrator] Fusion powered cars.
- Those cars.
- [Narrator] Portable computers
- Portable computers come on.
- [Narrator] In the 21st century,
People awoke from the American dream.
Years of consumption
led to shortages of every major resource.
- Oh this is like Zadas.
Remember Zadas?
- [Narrator] The entire World unraveled,
Peace became a distant memory.
- I see peace became a distant memory.
- [Narrator] It is now the year 2077.
- 2077?
- [Narrator] We stand on the brink of total war,
and I'm afraid.
- So you have technological advances
but not a concurrent advance in human evolution,
which is what you want.
So just technological bigger and better.
Isn't bigger and better.
Just imagine, just being born into that,
- [Narrator] State of war.
- So you are born into the world that your ancestors created
like it or not just like we are today, and now what?
Oh, Is that me?
War never changes.
Think that's me looking in a mirror.
I didn't realize I was that ugly.
Well, look at this world, wow, we have a robot.
Hey little guy.
We're enjoying our pleasant life
until something bad happens.
I'm assuming I would close the door on Valtech.
I don't know who he is.
He looks very suspicious.
- Why we are about you ma'am!
and helping secure your future.
- That means there's not what he's about
- Is the foremost builder
of state of the art underground fallout shelters.
- Ah, I would tell him to leave.
If he came to my place.
He would minimum 10 to $20,000
for an underground bunker made out of a shipping crate.
And I probably would not like living there.
They claim those underground shelters are good for plumbing
for air and all of that stuff.
And they tend how would they know?
No one's ever tested them.
You stay in there for a short
and you're gonna, it's gonna stink.
You're gonna have no air circulation.
It's gonna be miserable.
- A precious commodity.
I'm here today to tell you
- Go away.
we're not interested.
(crosstalk)
- That because your family's service to our county...
- Oh my God, close the door on his face.
Yeah. boom!
Thanks again loser, we're not interested.
There are a lot of people
that wanna live in underground bunkers.
I don't get it.
Okay. So now we're just waiting for a bomb to drop.
Oh, oh, oh, oh.
God's worth where the heck are you?
You were in the kitchen.
- [Kid] come and see this.
- Wondering what's going on?
No.
What is that tank there?
The tank isn't gonna be in your neighborhood that quick.
Oh, they're telling everybody to go into a bomb shelter.
In most cases you do not wanna go
into the government shelters.
If it's a real nuclear explosion
or there's fallout everywhere, maybe you have no choice
but they tend to be hell holes like in Katrina.
If you have some semblance of preparedness in your own home
you can stay at your own home.
So now you're in line.
You probably have to leave the baby.
You have no tools.
You don't have your food.
Now they're looking at you like you're the enemy.
They should be your servants, not your enemy.
Look at these guys.
I have to go into the platform.
What the heck is this?
See if you don't take cert training
or any kind of survival training,
you're always at a disadvantage suddenly.
Oh, oh oh, don't look at it.
Don't look at it.
Hold on!
Don't be checking it out.
Okay, good, they're going underground.
Oh God! Oh God!
They're getting out of the blast,
they are getting out of the radiation.
We made it.
All of our neighbors are dead.
- [Overseer] Everyone please step out ...
- Now you have some overseers are telling you what to do.
Don't need to worry.
How would you like to hear that?
Nothing to worry about.
We take care of everything.
A better future underground, really?
Vault 111, welcome home.
Wow, what are they thinking?
I'm gonna live here for a while.
Excuse me.
I don't like it already,
but you know ,if you were in the middle
of erosional or other places where bombs were dropped,
you are blown to smithereens.
You're vaporized.
So I suppose life is better than no life.
But we'll see about that.
Who are these guys trying to tell me what to do?
Who do they think they are?
- Just a (inaudible)
- Okay, so what are we doing here?
Are we just, do we have a room?
Do we eat here?
Yeah, what about the little guy?
Who is my little guy?
This is very suspicious.
I'm not going far.
I'll just be over there.
What is that?
I have to sit in there.
It looks like they're sending me outer space.
Okay, I guess I'm gonna obey what the doctors tell me.
I don't know Oh, something's oh,
- [Narrator 2] Determinate, decontaminate and depressurize.
- Too late now.
They're pressurizing me, why?
What am I doing?
What's happening?
I don't like this.
Occupant Vital stint.
I see the baby across the way.
There's my husband, he's still okay?
But I'm in some kind of metallic box now.
Why was I so oh, oh oh, oh, something is wrong.
This is not what I wanted.
This is not the good life I wanted in suburbia.
Where have the gods of the game taken me?
Oh, I'm thawing out.
Wow, wow, let me out now.
Let, let me out.
Come on, I wanna see little guy.
Wait, wait where are they taking me?
Wait, look at this.
I knew I didn't want to go in here.
Look at that.
(baby crying)
Whoa, they actually fire.
Something is very wrong here.
Now he goes back.
Did they shoot?
Did they wait a minute?
Did they shoot him?
What is this?
This is like one of my worst nightmares.
This is the world of the future.
No thanks.
I have no free will to this, just being done to me.
(coughing)
Okay, now I'm trying to breathe.
I'm Thawing out, wait, wait, wait.
Let me out.
Where's my husband?
(scrapping)
It's opening up.
Where's everybody.
So look at this, It's this bizarre.
Where is everybody?
Everything is like icy or cold.
Let me see, he's not there?
He's not there?
All is, oh oh oh
come on.
Crypto pod, cryo pod.
So they're frozen.
Come on, come on.
I was frozen.
Oh God.
How do I get him out?
That doesn't look good.
You did this.
I don't want my husband to be a Popsicle.
That's not good.
What day is this?
Where are we?
This is pretty bizarre.
What do I do about it though?
Wait, what the heck is that? good Lord.
That's a huge water beetle or whatever.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, ah, well, you know
that might be lunch because it's big.
I've heard insects are pretty good.
I've never eaten one though.
Stuff is happening, but I don't know what it means.
Hey, I'm out.
I don't, think this is real.
I think after, well, I don't know how long
how many years have lapsed?
So what is this?
This is my town.
Let's check things out.
Cause worth is kind of useless.
Oh, oh could be enemy, could be friend.
Hey, Hey, Hey, Hey, stay with me.
You guard me, I'll guard you, okay.
So there's some kind of a war of survivors.
Come on, pooch.
So you know, these kind of mutants tend to not survive.
You could eat the meat.
Look at all the bushes and trees.
They're all dead. unless other stuff is other factors.
You, wouldn't really see everything that dead.
If this is 200 years after some nuclear exchange.
I'm happy that I have a dog,
but I don't know where my husband is.
You know, I can recall being invited by people
who are into survival to go live at their encampments.
It always reminds me of some place like this.
And I would say, no, thank you.
I'd rather die with everybody else.
What is that?
I hope this thing doesn't live there.
I would run fast, if I saw one of these.
There's a lot of strange people around in strange machines.
Okay, Let's check out the greenhouse.
Okay, Look at that, that greenhouse is kind of cool.
So you need to have a greenhouse
to have a moderate temperature,
to grow stuff in any environment.
So they do have some glass there.
You could use plastic, you could even use wood slats.
But they're growing trees or something in there.
Everything looks diseased, though, doesn't it?
So after the fallout, bad stuff happens,
but nature has a tendency to purify itself.
If given enough time and space to do it.
look at that old truck.
You could probably take the tires off and make good sandals.
The problem is usually not the stuff.
When you get right down to it
it's the other people that you're around.
How are you working and interfacing with those people?
Are you working together?
Are you solving problems?
Are you fighting?
The town is run by thugs
and they're not even they're like humanoid thugs.
Shelves are empty, no sheets.
Everybody's tired.
Everybody's hungry.
You have to do what you have to do.
This is just an empty place.
It's better than being out in the open, getting cold.
I'm not seeing a whole lot
of good choices in this really bad world.
I don't know that it's realistic.
200 years after a nuclear bomb,
I would score this game out of 10.
One being the worst, 10 being the most accurate.
I'll give it a seven.
It has a feeling of overwhelming reality
but I don't like it.
You should try to think long term,
you know you can't eat money.
Everybody seems to think that all of these choices
are all about having more and more money
and not about more and more quality of life.
(soft music)
It did have some elements
that I felt like I was out of control,
Just like it sometimes in life.