Dear Bethesda, what the heck is going on with the rest of the world?
Crap! I forgot to say the thing. Hi, it's me, Austin.
You thought I was done with you, didn't you? But nope!
I got all sorts of crap rattling inside of my head to overanalyze the powers of science and today
I'm finally going to tackle the biggest question
That's always bugged me the plague on my brain for years that I've wondered about
What is going on with the rest of the world outside of the United States in the Fallout games?
We have a lot to tackle today from extensive nerdy nitty gritty lore
social sciences global trade numbers ecology meteorology and God knows how much
Elsa let's get down to business
to defeat the Todd
Okay, that was terrible, but I have bronchitis right now and I regret nothing!
All right so my show is called THE SCIENCE, so let's do some legit science using the scientific method
Step one is ask a question
And we did that what the hell is going on in the rest of the world step two is do some background research
Which we'll get to in a second. We're gonna skip to step number three the most fun part construct a
hypothesis, I think given all we know about fallout lore from the size of the nukes the strike zones of various countries and all the
data given to us in the games that most of the world specifically countries in Africa South America and
Switzerland specifically are thriving as futuristic
Utopias while the rest of the world looks like well like this before we can go over why this is well
Step aside real quick and flex my shoddycast muscles and let an old friend of mine carry us a bit
Tamriel
In the back twin times before the bombs dropped America was 12 it was different
Starvation was rampant cars sat in front of houses
Undriven people were hiding in their homes
Encouraged by the United States government to avoid ice cream socials because of a virulent
Disease known as the new plague that was ravaging the world and in April
1952 the resource wars began
as
Oil fields across the world ran dry
nation fought against nation over the last drops of fossil fuel that they needed to keep the
exponentially increasing demands for energy met
Europe went to war with the Middle East of a rising oil prices in less than three months after the resource Wars began
the United Nations crumbled the resource wars dragged on for generations erupting in
battlefields and proxy wars across the entire globe for 25 years the biggest
superpowers with the biggest energy demands burned away the last vestiges of the very
Resources they were fighting over until there was nothing left in the end
It was between the United States and the Chinese red-state America had annexed Mexico and Canada to complete supply lines
dominating finally and officially the entirety of the continent in
2066 westtech unveiled the first crude micro fusion cell a technology that would revolutionize
the world and alleviate energy demands
Everywhere by using hydrogen the most abundant element in the entire universe as a source of fuel
Unfortunately, it was too little too late in spite of their best efforts Micro fusion technology
Just couldn't hit the mainstream market fast enough to stop the inevitable
13 years later on October 23rd 2077
at
9:47 in the morning Eastern Time nuclear fire erupted across the United States in two hours as
dictated by the mutually assured destruction
military doctrine every nuclear capable nation on earth
Launched their Arsenal's on their and one ten millionth of a percent of the total time humanity has been on earth
directly
Humanity was changed forever
And this is now the world
we live in
Anyway, this is most of the lore that you'll need
But here's some extra the bombs used primarily in the Great War the event that caused the world of Fallout were relatively small
Relatively agreeing to fallout one manual which like if you're an aspiring lore science
Junkie, I highly recommend because this thing is deeply researched. It's bananas
Anyway, according to the manual most huge Tsar
Bomba style bombs had been retired because smaller bombs could actually potentially be more destructive because they don't launch
radioactive fallout nearly as high into the air but instead pepper it down in the surrounding area where it can cause
Lasting irreparable harm to local residents and environment in a science video that I did
Approximately 100 years ago. I calculated that it would take approximately
Sixty six thousand six hundred and seventy six of these weapons to turn America including Mexico and Canada, China China
Russia Europe and the Middle East into the irradiated useless wastes that we see today
Which is a lot of nukes when fission bombs bombs that are created by forcing fissile
Material like uranium to undergo a nuclear chain reaction where the atomic bits flying off piece by piece
trigger other atoms to fling other bits off which
Yada-yada-yada which releases ammok but ton of energy in the form of heat and gamma rays which are high-energy photons
they blast apart as this energy expands and
Unfortunately, most of the fissile material doesn't actually get to react instead these highly radioactive metals vaporize
And get spread out in a hot dust cloud
This is what radioactive fallout is it literally, you know falls out of the sky
Most of the radioactive material is carried up into the hot clouds of gas that rise from Ground Zero known
A mushroom cloud because well look at it anyway and really high-energy
Detonations that are measured in megatons. These clouds can rise really high into the air
into the troposphere where most of the radioactive material will hang out for well a pretty long time the
Negative is that this will block sunlight across the globe as the debris spreads across the earth which in the case of one
Detonation is not that huge of a deal but in the event of something like fallout. Oh
god, this would create a nuclear winter that could last for god knows how long thankfully though in the day and age of
Fallouts Great War the nukes were much smaller
Since there's diminishing returns on the destructive blast radius with higher yields, which requires exponentially more uranium to create
exponentially diminishing blast zones with an exponentially increasing cost to construct them and at
750 kilotons most nuclear. Debris won't reach the troposphere
Forgoing a nuclear induced death cloud of winter
This also has the added bonus of making the bombs
Infinitely more deadly since all that dangerous radioactive metal will rain down on anybody unfortunate enough to have survived the initial blast
seeping into the dirt plants and working its way up the food chain into animals and
Humans, where it will cause all sorts of cancers just all of them all the cancers. Why am I telling you all of this?
Why go over the well, okay, not really the nitty-gritty because I really wanted to get into the detailed physics of mushroom clouds
But there's no time
anyway
Why focus on the bomb sizes so much because well it turns out that this smaller yield of bomb
Completely changes the global impact of a massive scale nuclear war for one thing
It narrows the impact of radioactive materials to the local areas mainly in this case the United States Europe
Russia and China
China and in order to understand why this is important in figuring out how the other countries in the world are faring we got to
Talk about the military doctrine that makes this all possible
Mutually assured destruction
shortened to mad as in you'd have to be out of your freakin mind to put this theory to the test is a
Military doctrine that became gospel during the Cold War with the invention of nuclear weaponry and the proof that they were utterly
devastating during her Oshima and Nagasaki owners of these
Demonstrably destructive weapons capable of up ending entire regions silently agreed to a basic idea
I won't nuke you if you do not nuke me if anybody broke this agreement all hell would break loose and well
Everyone would die. But the most important thing to keep in mind is that while the gun is pointed at everyone's head
It's only pointed at the heads of those who are armed
It's a Mexican standoff where everyone with a gun is at risk, but if you don't have a gun
You're not even playing the same game. So in the case of the Great War only nuclear powers are at risk meaning people
Who either have no nuclear capability or at least not a significant enough one to be a large threat are off the table? Which means?
Specifically only major countries that were fighting in the resource wars, China Southeast Asia
Russia Europe, the Middle East and North America are target's this means that countries in Africa safer
perhaps Egypt in Angola large oil exporters and South America except for probably
Venezuela are not only safe from nuclear oblivion, but are probably
Thriving but why would these nations thrive in a world where?
80% of the world economies have been obliterated and all energy reserves are gone one word nuclear
Not one word. Oh my god. I can't even count two words
nuclear fusion
Nuclear fusion and more specifically
microfusion was on track to stop the resource wars and by extension the Great War by providing the world with
Basically infinite energy for everything but it couldn't spread fast enough hydrogen the fuel that's easiest to fuse
Also happens to be the most abundant element in the universe
with the biggest antagonists and exploiters on the planet out of the way African and South American countries have a
massive power vacuum to fill with little to no resistance and now
Effectively infinite energy now things would be rough to start with the United States Netherlands Germany. France, China, Spain, Canada
Belgium and Italy all ranked in the top 10 food exporters in the world. Where asbury kina Faso Cameroon
Central African Republic Chad Democratic Republic of Congo Djibouti
Eritrea and Ethiopia are all in the top ten food importers in the world
Meaning that they don't have the capacity at the moment to grow their own food sustainably for their population Africa and South America
Are among the richest regions on earth when it comes to natural resources
And while the global trade bounds would totally be screwed for years
Maybe even decades having survived the nuclear holocaust with governments and social programs
intact and their biggest competitors and most importantly exploiters out of the picture and the biggest energy
Advancement in history at their disposal. These countries would be blowing the hell up
Metaphorically even food isn't a problem because Brazil is one of the largest food
Exporters in the entire world working together these nations could dominate the planet, but if that's the case
Why don't we see them in Falls one through four? Why aren't they colonizing?
Well for a few reasons one, why would they America China Russia?
They suck now, they're radioactive drained of natural resources
Why bother screw them let them rot too?
Maybe they do a little bit the Rangers in Fallout New Vegas are mentioned as having fought in Baja against a strong
Military as the new California Republic attempts to spread south
They could easily be coming into conflict with South American colonies and militaries and three
Maybe they're all dead
Wait, I just realized they could all actually be dead
Oh god, maybe everyone is actually doomed did I missed at all dangit?
Alright, let's take a look at this magnitude messed it again. Okay, can't really
Experiment other than dropping real nukes. I'll just cross this bit out and put overthink stuff. I
Think there was something yeah, here it is
It models from the latest studies in the effects of nuclear war involving an exchange of only
100 World War two sized nukes many times smaller than the ones used in Fallout and much less than my conservative
estimate of
66,000 there'd be global famine and death
Regardless of location due to a global temperature drop of over six six degrees Celsius
on average
shortening growing seasons to just a couple of months in the hottest places on earth and even then they might not get enough Sun to
Actually grow anything but why why is this happening?
If the nukes aren't launching radioactive fallout high enough to cause nuclear winter because it isn't
Caused by the initial explosions. It's caused by the aftermath
raging
inferno
Nuclear weapons are hot enough to light concrete on fire and the fires that would rage for months maybe years
Afterwards would dump tons
Literal tons of soot and ash into the air more specifically hot ash would rise into the stratosphere a peer
Would absorb and reflect sunlight away from the earth be in a sense of why this is a bad thing
Check out this wind model from Earth dot null Schoolnet
This is wind patterns on the surface nuclear fallout would stay largely regional here moving a bit
But not a lot but this is wind at the stratosphere
So it would rise up from the nations that were bombed for literal months and sweep across the entire northern hemisphere
before slowly
Seeping into the south blocking the Sun across the entire globe in less than a year
This would last for decades making growing food utterly impossible and food stores would be entirely
exhausted in a couple years tops new
hypothesis these countries the entire world is doomed the only countries to survive are the
Americans hidden in vaults that aren't experimental vaults meant to drive them insane
Anybody who hid in China and Russia and the entirety of Switzerland?
Which has enough fallout shelters right now to protect their entire population. This is
really it this is
It you know, what sucks the most about this. This is the best-case scenario the Fallout games are the best
case scenario
Should mutually assured destruction be realized what's far more likely is the complete and total extinction of every human on earth
great just
Wonderful, oh and just for fun
There's still over fourteen thousand nuclear warheads on earth right now nowhere near the amount needed to fallout to fly the entire
Western and Eastern
Civilization but way more than enough to create global famine many times over
Great, we're all doomed
Yay
Sincerely, Austin, oh
Hey Sela, subscribe to the channel
I barely have my breath anymore cuz course I got sick after moving to a new city
Over several hundred miles and my chest is barely working. So let's get down to business
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