When the post-nuclear survivors of World War III look at an automobile what do you think
they’ll see?
Building material?
A place to sleep perhaps?
Transportation?
Maybe.
In Fallout’s world, America has lots of cars.
Lots and lots of them, but well, they aren’t for driving, are they?
Did people just forget how?
Maybe their parents never taught them… or maybe- maybe as we’ll discover that the
reasons are a bit more complicated than that.
Cars are useful tools, especially useful though if you ever find yourself in a radioactive
wasteland, where food is both scarce and spread out.
If scavenging for your next can of preservatives means living to see your next sunrise, then
YES, you better get your hands on a working vehicle as soon as the bombs fall, because
life- life just became a race.
This makes Fallout a curious case in the genre doesn’t it, because while most post-apocalyptic
franchises acknowledge the clear utility of cars in an end-of-world scenario, going so
far as to glorify them, Fallout takes the exact opposite approach.
In most parts of the wasteland, cars aren’t symbols of value and utility.
They’re the rusted relics of an old world.
Monuments of metal that speak to the mistakes of a long dead generation.
If these old machines could talk, they’d probably tell us about those poor souls who
created them, and how incredibly close humanity came to solving the crisis which would led
to their untimely demise.
They would tell us about the Resources Wars and how while the rest of the world was fighting
over the last drops of oil to fuel their cars, factories, and agriculture, the United States
was doing relatively well without gasoline.
In this alternate timeline, 11 years before nuclear fire would engulf the world, America
unveiled the first fusion cell.
We’re talking nuclear reactors so small they could fit in your backpack.
America used this nearly limitless supply of power to build everything from robots,
to television sets, to… more robots.
It was supposed to be a golden age for humanity, only we know things didn’t end that way.
So why is America littered with cars that seemingly aren’t going anywhere while 200-year-old
military robots are still puttering around?
Well the answers come to us from before the Great War.
Instead of harnessing atomic energy to save a world that was teetering on the brink,
America’s elite started talking behind closed doors.
By carefully selecting which companies were awarded government contracts, American leadership
ensured that atomic energy wouldn’t be used to alleviate the world’s problems but exacerbate them.
The atom wouldn’t be harnessed as a tool for peace and global unity, but as weapon
of war and further division.
State-sponsored paranoia became the order
of the day as government propaganda glorified war as an Anti-Communist Crusade, rallying
Americans and urging them to enlist.
The ones who did were given atomic powered guns and armor- weapons of war fueled by the
same technology that might’ve saved them and the rest of the world.
Instead, war would be waged. Mexico, Alaska, Canada... Then the Pacific.
Over resources the world didn’t know it didn’t need to fight over anymore.
While the government and oligarchs curved innovation and national attention towards
fueling the war machine- Corvega’s first atomic-powered cars rolled off the assembly lines.
It’s nuclear-powered engine promising a brighter future- one free from oil dependency.
The same country which gave the world the Model T centuries earlier was about to revitalize
not just an industry, but an entire planet that was literally starving for resources.
It wasn’t just atomic-powered cars either.
Advances in nuclear physics were leading to a scientific renaissance where household replicators
once thought the stuff of science fiction, might soon become commonplace.
These incredible machines provided everyday necessities like food, water, medicine, even
alcohol with the press of a button.
So why did the earth’s population go to war over scraps, when a buffet of new technology
was on the verge of saving them all?
Turning this dystopian tale into a utopian one.
Looking at the wasteland, we know that all this amazing consumer technology never quite
made it to foreign soil.
On the contrary, the exact opposite happened.
In the years leading up to the Fallout in this timeline, the US president issued a statement: the world’s
remaining oil supply was to be used exclusively by the United States, leaving everyone else’s
oil-reliant economies to die; furthermore, while the U.S. does possess the secrets to
nuclear fusion, they would not be shared with anyone- Chinese or otherwise.
By exploring Fallout’s wasteland we learn most stories through what was left behind.
200 years after the bombs fell- and those same atomic cars, the ones which could’ve
helped save the world had they been massively adopted, serve instead as a reminder of a
future that could’ve been.
Most survivors don’t use them, at least the sane ones don’t anyway.
Remember, these machines were supposed to be the salvation for an old world low on fuel,
but to the average wastelander?
Unlike gas or diesel, atomic-engines are just too unstable to tinker with.
The consequences for screwing up are… rather explosive, so ironically these machines didn’t
save the old world, and they aren’t doing so much to help the new one either.
Funny enough, most pre-war military technology seems to be working just fine 2 centuries
after the bombs fell, and that makes some sense if you think about it.
When the US government is dumping truckloads of cash into military contracts instead of
sustainable consumer technology, do we really find it that surprising that the sturdiest
machines left behind just-so-happened to be killer robots and suits of power armor?
Only a handful of big players in the wasteland have managed to maintain a few cars.
The New California Republic just to name one.
And what do you think they use them for?
You don’t have to play Fallout for very long to realize that the new world isn’t
so different from the old one.
All over the wasteland, pre-war technology gets used for what it has always been used for.
So when America’s post-nuclear descendants look at a car, they seem to be thinking no
differently than their ancestors did.
Maybe for the people of the Fallout universe, war- war is simply in their DNA.
And that is what doesn’t seem to be changing any time soon.
And you know what else isn’t changing anytime soon?
Our mod support for the Wasteland Codex.
(damn that was a good transition).
The Wasteland Codex is our fully-free fully-voiced lore database for the Pip-boy.
The mod has now been downloaded over 100,000 times and we're not stopping until it's on every Pip-Boy
in the wasteland.
To celebrate, this weekend we’ll be releasing our biggest update yet that’s going to add
over 30 new unlockable entries, including new categories on vehicles, chems and power armor.
If you’re looking to digest your Fallout lore on the go, this mod is for you.
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Ladies and gentlemen, that concludes this here lore video.
If you have any more suggestions for topics- burning questions about lore that you need
answering- shout out in the comments below or message at us on twitter.
Your question might get turned into the next lore essay.
I’ve been Josh.
We'll catch you later.