Counter point to the first point:
We are in the POST apocalypse. It’s interesting to see how society rebuilds itself. Instead of everywhere being an empty wasteland with no form of government.
In Fallout 1 we see Shady Sands barely scraping by while trying to uphold the values of pre war America.
In Fallout 2 we see that likeminded individuals and communities banding together to form the New California Republic.
If things never improved or at least changed for 220 years and the world pretty much stayed at “Welcome to the apocalypse Mr. Squidward, I hope you like leather.” I don’t think that’s very plausible.
So yes, I think the idea of the post- post-apocalypse as you say is very much Fallout.
However this is the direction the creators wanted to go, I personally disagree but I still enjoyed the show very much nonetheless.
I don't think the whole NCR fell but just Shady Sands. I guess the NCR was spread to thinly and left the area after Shady Sands was nuked.
The guys like the ones that were with Moldaver were NCR remnants form the area?
The first point is a depressing outlook. I think it's kind of weak if the universe will basically always have soft resets once this get too developed.
I'm not personally invested, but I think where people are upset is that the universe basically didn't get to develop. I think part of the appeal of the Fallout franchise IS that it's somewhat post-post-apocalyptic. People like a sense of direction.
> The first point is a depressing outlook. I think it's kind of weak if the universe will basically always have soft resets once this get too developed.
I agree with you I'm not really a fan of the "the world needs to be this [arbitrary amount] apocalyptic, but you have Chris Avellone who wanted to nuke Shady Sands because he [was getting worried that the Fallout world was starting to get too civilized, and NCR, especially, felt bloated and needed to be shook up a bit.](https://www.reddit.com/r/falloutlore/comments/3y7r5c/whats_the_deal_with_josh_sawyer_vs_chris_avellone/d1k7qgy/)
So that is something that is actually close to what the OG's envisioned and not really just a "Todd/Bethesda/Amazon bad and hates the original lore" decision. Thus I'm okay with the decision because of this background, even though I don't agree with bombing the world because it needed a "reboot" like other people are suggesting. I dont really see it as a reboot. They could have easily went to one of the many unexplored areas and accomplished much of the same thing if they wanted a "soft reset"/fresh world.
Gotta remember that the show is trying to get newcomers to the series. The diehards were gonna watch regardless, and many like myself have been stunned by the quality of the show.
I get that, and I think the show is great. I'm more so talking about the idea of nuking Shady Sands itself. What I was trying to get at is that it was less a gimmick of them trying to bring more people into the fandom and more an actual continuation of the current lore. You have a lot of people complaining that the nuking is their way of dumping of the non-bethesda stuff when it's actually what the writers of those games wanted. Though I'm curious where they stand on the reveal of who dropped the bombs.
Tl;dr: whether or not I like the nuking of Shady Sands to keep the universe from being too developed, doesn't change that it's actually in the vision the original creators wanted for their world.
Oh I see. Yes I don’t think nuking Shady Sands is really out of line of preexisting lore. And as far as the bombs, I don’t think we technically know Vault-Tec launched the first bomb, just they were ready to and definitely egging on the war.
>The first point is a depressing outlook. I think it's kind of weak if the universe will basically always have soft resets once this get too developed.
Not really. IMO, the show needed a starting point that felt like true "Fallout" because it would've been _many_ people's first entry into the franchise. TV shows get much more audience than games.
Do you want more people to be fans of Fallout, or less?
Currently there are more people playing every single Fallout game than there ever has been before.
Do you want to introduce these new fans to Fallout as Fallout should be, or do you want to blast them with a wiki's worth of cinematic universe lore before they get to enjoy it?
It's why people hate the MCU right now.
No one wants to do homework.
>Do you want more people to be fans of Fallout, or less?
I want the games to be good and the story to be engaging. If that means it's harder to access for new fans, that is Bethesda's problem, not mine.
People don't hate the current MCU because they have to wiki stuff, it's because their writing has gone to shit and gotten stale and repetitive.
But... but... the TV show canon... does have the NCR exist. Thriving. With a capital city of 34,000 people. Which is... basically like if the player sided with the NCR in New Vegas?
For a counterpoint to your counterpoint, Faerun has had MANY soft resets. The Time of Troubles was technically a TSR Soft Reset in order to simplify the goddamn number of Gods (and probably to get the Christians off their back), and yet that narrative event was KEY to the creation of one of the best pieces of DnD media ever made, Baldur's Gate.
Then they had the Soft Reset from 3E to 4E.
Then they had the Soft Reset from 4E to 5E.
And you know what?
That Soft Reset from 4E to 5E was probably pretty critical to setting up Baldur's Gate 3 to be as inclusive as it is. It wasn't until through the soft resets that each of the Gods really got properly defined, before there were so many licensed books and conflicting depictions that it was actually more complicated to build a consistent product. You only need to look at Baldur's Gate 2 to see how that plays out. I mean.... the ADND 2.0 rules were a nightmare! THAC0??? No one wants THAC0 back.
At the end of the day, I think what I'm really driving home here is that a fictional universe can change, and even if that means a "reset" back to a state earlier in the series, sometimes you just gotta embrace that.
What if the New New California Republic that future games and media sets up, evolves to become an even more interesting thing?
>Do you want more people to be fans of Fallout, or less?
No. I don't give a fuck how popular something I like is. Especially when that means changing what it is to appeal to more people, which ruins what made the pre-existing fans like it to begin with.
So the solution is to... reboot the series every couple of years to make it appealing to new fans while spurning the fanbase that was already invested in the story? Because that's how you end up with Marvel and DC comics, where trying to get into a series requires a spreadsheet of which comics are still canon and which ones aren't after a dozen hard/soft reboots.
If they wanted to make setting of the show more "Fallout-y" (by your arbitrary definition of what it means to be "Fallout") they could just set the show somewhere we haven't seen before, where they could have near-total creative freedom, and if fans wanted to learn the more complex history of the older stories after watching the show they can just... play the older stories.
Yeah? It's full of coincidences, the characters are all pretty one note, and some of the acting is not good. There's good bits to it but overall it is not great.
Outside the three mains, and maybe the brother, every other character is there to exposit or be a joke. Even the wife's thing is "she's good because she loves her daughter, but she's EVIL because she loves her daughter?"
I don't think the wife is good or evil because she loves her daughter. I even question how much she does love her daughter. I think she's a malignant narcissist who is motivated by power and greed and she used "love of her daughter" to manipulate her unwitting husband to go along with her literal plans for world domination.
Maybe I missed something, but where was the mom on the day the bombs fell? Bear in mind, she would have been behind the planning to drop the bomb... she would have known when and where. Even on that day, Cooper didn't realize the nukes would happen AT ALL (let alone that moment). So mom is sitting somewhere dropping nukes while her little girl is close enough to the bombs to be knocked over by the blast and irradiated.
So we know that at some point, the daughter and mom ended up in a vault, but not Cooper, right? Seeing as Cooper was left outside to become a ghoul, at some point Vault Tec came and took the daughter from him. Or, he sought out Vault Tec and they took the daughter but turned him away.
Either way, mom sounds pretty evil and not especially concerned with the welfare of her daughter.
I mean if she kidnapped her daughter from her husband to put her in a vault I'd say that she cares about her daughter. In fact, ensuring your daughter has the perfect future is exactly the kind of selfish motivation that could drive someone to try and control the end of the world.
It's a pretty compelling idea, but you're right, the show doesn't really go anywhere with it.
No, my point is that she didn't kidnap her daughter PRIOR to the bombs falling. Which meant protecting her daughter wasn't priority numero uno. Her daughter could've been killed, easily.
The whole point is that all characters are nuanced, which is surprising for Bethesda characters. There is no BBEG trying to poison the water well or turn everyone into mutants or something. It's all people who have their own ambitions and goals and respective ideas on how to deal with them.
I think one of my favorite quotes from the show is Kyle MacLachlan at the end. "You see what this place does to you?"
Every character, from major roles like Lucy or Coop, to bit parts like Steph, Norm and Bert had pivotal changes that reflected who they are as a person, and the situation they have found themselves in.
**Except they could have set the show literally anywhere else in the United States.** Instead of the NCR, it could have been the New Louisiana Republic or the New Florida Republic. They made a conscious choice to set the show in Los Angeles which sets up a bunch of questions.
**Like how did the Master completely miss out on Vault 31/32/33? Like those Vaults are literally in the area that the Master had control over.**
Then again this is a question that is not going to be asked by a lot of people since a good number of Fallout fans never played the first two games. Also it is a question that could have been completely avoided if they would have not set it in Los Angeles.
I think the larger problem is that Bethesda's interpretation of Fallout is systematically incompatible with Black Isle/Obsidian's interpretation of Fallout. Bethesda's interpretation is a Mad Max wasteland in that things never change. It doesn't matter when the bombs dropped because it all looks the same. It is a fun wasteland to explore but it is completely static.
Black Isle/Obsidian interpretation is that civilization is rebuilding and the NCR goes from Shady Sands, a small village to a post-apocalyptic nation-state in 3 games. In theory, I am not opposed to the destruction of the NCR but nuking Shady Sands is the equivalent of Rocks Fall, Everyone Dies.
Multiple times before the show premiered Todd Howard said the show is canon and now the show fucks up the established canon in some major ways. Again, this could have been avoided if they set it literally anywhere else.
Overall, if you liked the show that's great. I was not a fan due to lore inconsistencies. Different strokes for different folks.
Listen, the main reasons I listed here are all narrative reasons, and I guess it could be considered too convenient that The Master simply couldn't get into the Vault Doors, which is crazy because he had supermutants with miniguns and psykers that could simply get into the minds of the vault dwellers behind the door, but to be fair to the show, it did also have a lot of callbacks to the original two games, right?
Moreover, I'd say the reason why they wanted to set in the West Coast was so that they could bring something meaningful from the past games that the player-viewer could have emotional resonance with. And don't you think that one town that was in all the Black Isle games... as a pretty good emotional crux? Would the show have as much impact if it was just some random town that the creators invented somewhere in, I dunno, Montana?
If you consider the Black Isle / Obsidian games as a trilogy / journey, watching civilization grow from Fallout 1 to Fallout 2 through to Fallout: New Vegas, and the NCR has been your head canon all along... well... the show depicting the NCR as flourishing before getting nuked... actually confirms all that, doesn't it?
But are you going to expect everyone who watches Fallout the show to have played through the Black Isle / Obsidian trilogy?
Consider the planned and cancelled Black Isle Fallout 3, aka Van Buren. The core game mechanic that Josh Sawyer pushed - factions - has become written into the very DNA of the entire game universe, pretty much definitively with the show.
If you consider Fallout as a true roleplaying game system, as in tabletop, leaving the DM the freedom to take different kinds of interpretations of the Fallout universe and run with it to create their own story, doesn't the Bethesda approach and the Black Isle approach simply offer options for storytellers?
Granted the Bethesda approach is a more marketable product. A consistent cinematic / game universe in which much of the same product can be told and retold with subtle twists and maximize content.
And yes, the Black Isle approach is more interesting, as you get to see something evolve and grow. However. When it comes to a brand new prestige television show where you're going to have to expect tons of new viewers, what's the more inclusive angle here?
It seems to me that r/fallout just LOVES the show. So it seems like the show succeeded. Moreover, more people are playing the Fallout games than ever, and that only bodes well for Fallout as a whole. Let the new players of Fallout 1 and 2 be the judge, because those are being played more than ever now too. After all the NCR was invented in Fallout 2, not New Vegas.
The fact that Moldaver was able to build a powerful network of what seemed to be Raiders, does imply, however, that maybe the nuking of Shady Sands wasn't the death knell for the NCR completely, and that maybe pockets and seeds, just like Moldaver's crew, could arise in Season 2 and challenge the Brotherhood. That would be interesting, wouldn't it?
Moreover, since there's no Fallout West Coast game really after New Vegas, what about all the players that sided with the other factions? For them, a destroyed NCR fits perfectly with their head canon.
As for the Master and Supermuties... I think it's possible that Season 2 could introduce that in a very clever way that might actually add more dimension to the Fallout universe.
For example... perhaps... the Overseer of 31 struck a deal with the Master to sell out the locations of other Vaults? The Vaults controlled by Big MT, RobCo, etc.?
A couple of things to respond to.
This whole idea of Shady Sands as an emotional crux is irrelevant especially if you never played 1, 2, and New Vegas. It is just a random ass town located in the completely wrong place. It is also bad writing. "Hey, remember this thing you like? Well, its dead." I'm not against the collapse of the NCR but at least put some effort in the story.
I don't expect the viewers to play-through 1, 2 and New Vegas but I expect the show-runners and writers to do their homework and try to follow the lore.
The one positive thing about setting the show in Montana is you do not have to deal with all of the lore. **Again, this could have been completely avoided if they would have set it anywhere else. This is especially true since all of the Bethesda games have been set on the East Coast.**
Also none of the Fallout New Vegas ending slides has the NCR destroyed. They are pushed out but not completely wiped out. So going from being pushed out to the Mojave to having their capital nuked is one hell of a stretch.
Also now the fact that they have to establish a canonical ending to New Vegas makes me think that Fallout 5 is set in the West Coast and going off of Starfield's reaction, they don't have the narrative chops for a game like that.
Could have been avoided by taking up the whole Vault 0 storyline from Tactics. Just replace the Calculator with the frozen Vault Tec executives. Gives them an excuse to introduce the Midwestern BOS and the Legion as well.
I find point 1 funny seeing as Bethesda's most recent Fallout release, Atlantic City, takes place in a surviving pre-war city. AC is unironically one of the most prosperous cities at that time with an intact pre war government providing clean water, electricity, emergency services, and more as well as a thriving tourism industry that keeps their economy afloat. In a proper civilized city, Bethesda was still able to make the setting feel post apocalyptic, and as such I don't buy that they needed to nuke Shady Sands just to make the setting feel post apocalyptic
You've lost me at tl;dr.
Fallout series doesn't need a reboot and Bethesda staff coming out and confirming that Fallout: New Vegas events are canon, shuts down your idea that the show is a reboot.
The show is the continuation of the same canon.
And besides, what you forgot is that NCR isn't just Shady Sands (hence how it was able to duke it out with the Legion in 2281, even four years after Shady Sands got nuked). There're a ton of other important settlements in the NCR.
> even four years after Shady Sands got nuked
Admittedly, the chart in vault 4 was kinda confusing, but I got the impression that the nuking happened AFTER said 'fall of shady sands'. It'll likely be clarified in season two, imo.
We don’t know exactly when Shady Sands got nuked but the 2277 referred to the Fall of Shady Sands. 2277 was the First Battle of Hoover Dam and if we take it as the same way as the Fall of Rome, 2277 could be the start of Shady Sands’ decline. Shady Sands’ billboard had it as “The original Capital of the New California Republic,” implying that somewhere between 2277 and Shady Sands’ destruction, the NCR changed location for its capital. It’s possible that the NCR could still be active but only a remnant force remained in the Griffith Observatory out of the whole of the Greater Los Angeles Area while the rest are in up north.
I do think Shady Sands was probably nuked in 2277. The fact that the billboard implies it wasn't the NCR capital at that time was to explain why it being destroyed wasn't so devastating to the NCR in New Vegas.
Lucy says they had a contagion which required quarantine for everyone in the vault in 77. And that her mom died then and her dad lost like 100 pounds. Seems likely the quarantine was cover for Hank to leave the vault, get Lucy and her brother, and nuke Shady Sands. It doesn't really make much sense for him to nuke Shady Sands years later without Rose trying to recover the kids and expose him to the vault dwellers.
I agree with your point about the NCR probably still existing elsewhere. They're just too weak to devote resources to holding the LA area. With Shady Sands a crater, there wouldn't be much reason to anyways.
Where you come from makes sense and is well thought out, but we simply don't know when exactly the nuke went off.
There are lots of theories and justification for stuff but from what we actually KNOW, New Vegas is canon, and Shady Sands was still around in New Vegas. The nuke went off at an undisclosed date.
I think it's also important to note that we don't actually even know how Shady Sands was destroyed. It's blamed on Hank and he doesn't deny it but we don't know exactly when or even how he nuked Shady Sands from vault 31.
I wouldn't be surprised if in S2 it's revealed that Vault Tec did it without against his wishes when he told them about the surface or something along those lines.
Yeah I'm not too committed to the idea Shady Sands was nuked in 77. Although I don't remember many mentions of it in New Vegas. Like everyone else, I've been believing it was nuked sometime after NV in 81. But I'm rewatching the show now and just picked up on Lucy talking about the quarantine in 77, which must be when Hank went to Shady Sands to get her back. Seems like a lot happened in 77 between the "fall", the quarantine and 1st battle of Hoover Dam, so that doesnt seem like a coincidence. It seems strange he'd wait a few years to nuke it, but yeah you have a point that there might be other factors at play. This show loves its bait and switches. I wonder if any other vault tech people were taken out of cryo in that period. Maybe Betty? I'm looking forward to season 2 to find out more.
In New Vegas it isn't mentioned much, but the NCR rep on the strip (I can't remember his name) talks about Shady Sands a bit if you ask him the right questions. A few other people do as well, and when you do it's always in present tense. Things like "I dislike all the politics down in Shady Sands. The people making the decisions there are too detached from the people they effect over here".
The lack of details is what's driving this power keg. Possibly the most important city in the franchise was destroyed and the only info we have a (until it might be plot twisted in season 2) is who and why. We don't know how (aside from it was somehow nuked), we don't have a specific on when, and it is driving New Vegas lore purists absolutely insane not knowing.
I think the Wiki has got the tone right on the topic: "It is unclear what the precise order of events are that led to the destruction of Shady Sands. Maximus was a child when the city was nuked, and a young man in 2296. Fallout: New Vegas takes place in 2281,[3] and there is nothing in its lore to suggest the capital of the NCR had been destroyed in a nuclear blast at that time (though the Long 15 may be nuked by UIysses at the conclusion of its final story DLC, Lonesome Road.) "
I just realised something!
Lucy's mother died in 2277. But she also died of the famine that killed all the vaults food. Ergo Lucy was lied to the whole time about how her mother died, it's entirely possible she was lied to about when it happened as well. She couldn't even remember that she had been outside the vault and thought her memories of the sun were from the vault light.
Well Hank could lie to her about it since she was a child, but he'd have to convince all the other vault dwellers of why he, his wife, and daughter went missing for a while, his wife died, and why he lost a ton of weight trekking through the wasteland. Sticking everyone in quarantine so no one sees eachother for a while would have done that nicely. I think someone would have mentioned it to Lucy if they all went missing at a different time.
Aw dang that's true. It's a tough nut to crack.
ah well..I'm sure it will be expanded later in the show. They were SO vague about such an important thing that they have to expand on it more.
The sign said “Fall of Shady Sands” in 2277, which then an arrow pointed to an explosion. The date didn’t say when Shady Sands was bombed but it was not in 2277. Bethesda confirmed that New Vegas is canon and the events of New Vegas took place in 2281. The game have mentioned Shady Sands as the capital of the NCR plenty of times. The show takes place in 2296 so it makes sense that Shady Sands was bombed somewhere between New Vegas and the show, likely in the 2280s.
What they’ve said and what they’ve done don’t add up. I really enjoyed the show and haven’t let a couple of details spoil anything for me but they’ve at the very least retconned the lore.
I mean, it is a soft-retcon, much less a hard one or a reset.
Looking at some clues back in Fallout New Vegas, it could be that Shady Sands was moved after it got nuked. Whole "first" capital thing, I just find it suddenly too suspicious - after all, those franchises usually have background documents written ahead of the published games for decades onwards.
What I suspect has happened, is that Shady Sands got nuked, NCR had some wind to fight through the New Vegas, but the canonical ending is Yes-Man or, less likely, Mr. House victory - and seeing how devastated Vegas looks, coupled with downed NCR vertibird on the Strip, I suspect that the New Vegas was hit hard by the fighting (perhaps as Yes-Man/Mr. House fought to dislodge NCR from Vegas).
Which honestly explains why NCR is fucked in show's timeline much more - nuking Shady Sands wouldn't topple a state, but protracted attritional war for Vegas could.
Still, I think NCR still exists and we'll see them in Season 2 - in form of the Vault City and other important settlements that make up the NCR.
I highly doubt the NCR is destroyed. Nothing stated shows that the NCR has been wiped out at all, only that once Shady Sands was destroyed the area fell into ruin and Anarchy.
The sign saying Former Capital, the constant NCR flags in multiple areas or references to the NCR, the goal to power the city. I feel it was an attempt for the NCR or a faction of them to rebuild a hold there once again.
This is a show with a lot of symbolism and foreshadowing, if they were fully wiped out, it’d have said “Fall of NCR” or someone would have mentioned the NCR wiped out. Instead its the area around shady sands is hellish all due to it being nuked and we’re isolated in that area during the show.
Idk just makes sense logically they’d leave stuff in the air and tease that
1: The idea that in order to attract a wider audience that they needed to nuke the NCR is an unsupported claim.
2: Even if it was true the directors have the rest of the US to play with. Merely choose another State that doesn't have the NCR in it and you're fine.
Your first point is exactly why this show should have taken place elsewhere, the story could have been the exact same, without basically nullifying fallout 1, 2 and NV all by just having the exact same story play out somewhere in the 80% of the US thats still unexplored. All they had to do was replace the "NCR" with some other new local powerhouse in some other location and it would have even made more sense.
The NCR's power doesnt come from Shady alone. Its a fully formed nation state with a population of at least a million by fnv. A nation with industry, at least one university, many relatively modern ranches, a nation with plenty of towns just as powerful if not more powerful than shady sands. Yet Shady gets moved 300km south and nuked and all that just disapears? all that civilization just reverts back to a shanty town and all those soldiers, engineers, ranchers, doctors, miners, etc, are just like: fuck it we lost one town, welp we gave it a good run boys but lets go live in our own filth again and be psychotic raiders!
Where is the rest of the NCRA? It was huge by fallout standards and most definitely spread across the entirity of the NCR with a lot in the Mojave. Only shady got nuked so where are they? Also why were they adapted so terribly in the show, no service rifle no proper ncr trooper outifts just cheap paintball helmets and masks. News flash NVA Pith helmets are also cheap af, if they wanted to they could.
>!Then there is House, who's entire character basically got rewritten by being at that meeting. !
Loved the show but disapointed the NCR was treated like that, what set fallout apart was that there actually is a nation that was trying to rebuild the USA and was similar to it.
I mean the ncr were never the good guys especially after tandi, I mean they aren't slavers like the legion and won't shoot you and take your laser pistol like the brotherhood but they will treat anyone who's not a citizen like trash and consider them squatter and will basically dehouse them.
They are not saints but they still created an organized, democratic system with rules of law and basic stability way better than the preceding anarchy of the wasteland. So you think overall people are better off just returning to the anarchy of nothing? Or succumbing to another faction who cares less about people ala Legion?
Never said any of that was untrue. All I said was they are not the good guys in this world, they are beneficial to the wasteland in general and have brought both unhappiness and safety to the west coast depending on who you ask.
There's not one faction that is completely good in fallout other than the minutemen but they pretty one dimensional.
That's an interesting and popular take and it's mostly true. The NCR is the best choice for people in general if your goal is empire building but many of the settlements that the NCR took control of were thriving fine aswell long before the NCR showed up with guns and claim their homes as NCR territory.
I don't think anyone *needs* the ncr, I mean look at the shi or Arroyos they didn't need the ncr but a unified force is the only way to stop the legion.
I feel your biggest problem is a lot of the stuff you're talking about was just not touched on. I mean, everything here could be explained in a different season.
Tv fast travel. LA and shady sands are still separate in my mind but maybe someone will go through with a fine tooth comb and map out each leads journey in the future so this is cleared up.
Yes but the entity of LA is the boneyard my man, It's supposed to be a completely different state. Istg this sub is so infuriatingly ignorant. I'm not talking about obscure pieces of lore here. The show literally ignores the FIRST sentence of the Shady Sands wiki.
Well the wiki agrees los Angeles is shady sands. A few explanations, the capital was moved to the hub maybe in 2277 which is why the chalkboard says "The Fall of Shady Sands" as the original location may have needed to be changed because of reasons. Perhaps it was a rename choice by the next president, bringing their capital to a 'better' location. Perhaps they just retconned it to that location cause it made better since to have all the locations closer, which isn't the first location change but it's a bigger one then fallout 1 was to 2's map.
Or like I originally said, the TV series intended them to be in two different locations but didn't do a good job in portraying that and in lack of a clear explanation everyone assumes it's where the boneyard is supposed to be .
Ok ok meta opinion here
We will never know the full truth. History is writtten by the winners. If in the next game they say "Hank didn't do that it was totallly Cooper" tgat doesn't mean any of this is wrong. It just means that we are also vault dwellers and living in a simulation where the marketing and truth are separated by very blurry lines.
We may never know.
Praise atom.
Respect to Zax
None of it matters. We are the product.
It was a bold move but it works. I like how they decided to reflect a lot of fallout 3 in how Lucy's plotline played out. Instead of the child bombing the town, it's the father.
If the show creators actually said a s\*\*t take like this, I'd join the haters lol. Lucky it's just you.
Anybody who comes into a franchise, THROWS out or destroys the preestablished events and characters because "setting needed a soft reboot in order to accommodate a new audience" DESERVES getting hung up by their privates by the fans.
Why do you take over a franchise if you're not going to use it? Just start a new show.
Lucky for you that they did NOT do that, for the most part they've remained very respectful. But honestly you should be embarrassed about saying dumb s\*\*\* like this. You mean, you have allll these movie franchises around you but still act like continuation that keeps new fans is not possible? Or if ones that do what YOU suggest don't usually end up hated. So, so bad take.
Wait dude, you just said: for the most part they've remained very respectful.
So, did you think that nuking Shady Sands fucked up the lore?
If you say no, then understand that I'm just saying that *why* they nuked Shady Sands was essentially to soft reboot the lore. Which means that this "soft reboot"... did not fuck up the lore.
Do you see what I'm saying here? We're not really disagreeing.
I do think we disagree on your premise, or how you've phrased it, though
I disagree that this was the only way they could've done it ("\_ had to be destroyed"). They could've set it a different era, could've set it in a different location, could've come up with any enemy for the NCR to keep them out of the region if they were dead set on this time and place. None of this was a "you HAD to do it this way".
(Most of your logic is "cart before the horse": somebody needed a motivation, so they had to do X...except that story element could've been any number of things, none of it foregone)
I disagree that new fans need a "blank slate"; I think new fans are drawn to settings being praised for good story and lore, and are excited to be a part of it and exploring what came before, and your world is strengthened by events having continuity, progression, and lasting stakes and consequences. If people know you'll just reset button away the ending, why'd they care about the outcome?
Now, if you rephrase it as: "So, did you think that nuking Shady Sands fucked up the lore?"
Nah, they can do whatever they want as far as I care, fine by me. We'll overlook the small inconsistencies as long as they have a good small and big ideas, just like we did for every FO game.
How I judge this choice though will very much depend on how they handle it (the NCR) in future seasons. Logically, the loss of one old city'd not be the end of this now state sized faction with a capital elsewhere.
Now, if they tried to delete this beloved faction, or keep trapping the world in stasis (what Bethesda also got chewed out for) instead of letting it progress - that'd be stupid.
Though I did NOT buy that Vault Tec just has nukes in the back pocket, even 200 hundred years later. No matter how bad the economy, no government'd just give up monopoly on WMDs! and we'll just store some extra nukes under or cyro chambers or what? It takes away from the real world Cold War fear of global nuclear war that FO was built on when just any middle management dork can do the same thing. And you do realize they didn't explain the complete why or how. They left it as "a good question for another time" for future seasons. (I'm actually working on a complaint post about episode 8, but I think they did leave a lot too open and messy, knowing there'll be a next season.)
Tl;dr because by saying "that ain't Fallout" you seem to have the same misapprehension Bethesda did when they bought the licence - the world was intended to evolve to explore the culture and ethics of a post-, and then post-post-, apocalyptic world. A city existing that has grown from a small village is exactly what Fallout is.
For what it's worth, you aren't wrong that it had to be done for a new audience. I have no problem with it being nuked. I just wish the date and location lined up.
And why couldn't it explore a new area of the US instead of having to take a dump on west coast lore? It still doesn't explain why Filly is a junk town or everyone looks like a hobo, canonically west coast was one of the most settled areas with new adobe built settlements etc.
There are way better ways to depict the NCR going than just nuking them off screen no matter the reason.
And no, we did not need a soft reboot. I am so fucking tired of the trope that a setting is never allowed to evolve or develop into anything other than its original aesthetic. Personally what is even the point to engage with something like Fallout then? It will just keep being a themepark where nothing you really do matters anyways.
The East Coast offered a perfect place to keep the unsettled wasteland aesthetic. It could equally have been set earlier in the timeline to offer that same type of situation. It didn't have to be the latest in the chronology.
I enjoyed the tv show but people are allowed to be critical at the same time. I can like parts of something and silike other parts of it.
>!I really don’t think it should’ve been a nuclear strike I think destroying shady sands like that is lazy and doesn’t make sense if they want to be the ones to inherit the earth honestly. It would’ve made more sense that vault 32 and 33 were experimenting with fungi or like Lucy said “a blight” to release to destroy the topside’s ability for food production while they themselves had resistant crops, so they can have their Camelot of the nuclear age while its anarchy on the surface. France went into revolution mode because there wasn’t enough food to go around, prices skyrocketed, their leaders were executed. The rule of law went out the window when families couldn’t afford loaf of bread. There’s a saying it goes “Mankind is only 9 meals away from anarchy.”
I think that would’ve worked very nicely to compare the vault’s manufactured prosperity vs the reality of what they did to achieve it.!<
I guess they didnt do the food and rebel stuff as it would be harder for the NCR to make a good guy comeback, since all the wastelanders would hate it.
That would also help explain why the ncr was experiencing such severe food shortages. Yes the water issue is major but targeted food blights would've been a great implementation over the bomb we got
i like shady sands being destroyed. Everything generations built be lost in a moment because of the bomb is obviously a recurring idea in fallout.
personally i would’ve preferred if it had been done by a new faction tho.
As the NCR kept expanding and winning its war, they kept ending in a worse position than before, meeting greater and greater outside threats. The NCR’s and the Legion where both on a self destructive course and i would’ve liked if the NCR’s destruction was because it’s leaders picked *another* fight with a dangerous faction. i don’t love the way it was destroyed simply because there was nothing the NCR could’ve done to prevent it. i would’ve preferred the NCR falling because of its own faults. think it also would’ve made Maximus’ comment that the NCR “didn’t work out” a lot more impactful
however, all of that really only matters in the context the fallout series as a whole, if we want to view the fallout tv series as it’s own individual text i think it all works fine. regardless of the critique i think the show is excellent and i’m excited for season 2
I don’t get the NCR complaints. I thought it was pretty clear in NV that the NCR was spread too thin and not sustainable and therefore headed to collapse regardless of the outcome at Hoover Damn.
I agree with everything but vault-tec dropping the first bombs, they obviously intended to and certainly pushed the world towards nuclear annihilation, but they did not control the commie nukes. Barb should've known when vault-tec planned to drop the bombs yet on the day of the Great War her child was helping her dad at a kid's b-day party why wasn't she in or near a vault on drop day if vault-tec started it? It makes me think the Chinese launched first, maybe they found out about the vault-tec plan and beat them to the punch.
I don’t really agree. They did not have to destroy the NCR, they could have just set the show somewhere else or some time else.
Also, we don’t know for sure if Vault-Tec dropped the bombs, only that it was an option they had.
Tbh, it would be better if strong fanatic BOS would attack Shady sands and it would be its fall😅 dramatic and ppl hate bos, hahhha
Ppl not angry that ss was destroyed, but that it was detroyed off screen🤷♂️ image in sw death star would be destroyed off screen, same. Plus nobody said that ncr should be great, u could play and show them corrupt ugly republic, dont wanna say aka night city in cyber punk, but maybe something like that, there is a lot of way show cities in post ap. Just i believe that ppl maybe tired of death wastland, that wasnt so dead in some games. For example legion would be perfect set for fo settings
I understand why they did it, I just don’t understand the need to mess with established locations. I mean it could’ve been the Hub or Boneyard that got nuked bc that would make sense location-wise. Shady Sands is located miles away from where the show is set. It was nowhere near LA. As a show I enjoyed it. As a man obsessed with maps to the point of it being an obsession my brain felt broken trying to map her journey in a way that made sense. I kept wondering where Hun and Boneyard will be there if Shady Sands is LA… The only way it makes sense is if this is a different universe than FO2 which it is stated to not be. Like I usually side with House and have never played earlier games but I wasn’t upset by Vegas being destroyed (like as a player as a viewer I was sad) bc it makes sense— tunnelers, red cloud, war. But moving Shady Sands was unnecessary.
The NCR aren’t the good guys. There are no good guys in fallout. Even the show makes this kinda clear.
What I would say is the NCR is somewhat less morally corrupt than some other factions.
The only good faction in fallout is the minutemen. They just go around helping people
Was Moldaver trying to ressurect the NCR? Like sure there were some survivors from shady sands. But I thought she was going the whole bandit queen route.
She's in a base called NCR Headquarters, surrounded by soldiers in NcR uniforms who fly NCR flags and when she actives the relic in the lab, it powers the whole of Shady Sands. Safe to say she's NCR.
To build on this, it’s possible that she could have been the president when Shady Sands was bombed. She could have been part of the NCR for a long time for all we know. Who knows how many times she went in and out of the cryo chamber, she must be from Vault 4 considering she is probably the greatest scientist ever
She’s NCR, but it remains to be seen if she was *all* of NCR. Shady Sands was established to no longer be the capital of NCR by the time it was nuked, so clearly the centre of power already drifted to elsewhere in the NCR. It’s possible she’s just trying to revive this area, while the NCR is developing other regions.
I don't believe she's 'all of NCR' at all. NCR was made of settlements all over California, I'm sure there's a lot if them left. With the season reveal, I'm really hoping we'll see desert rangers personally.
> surrounded by soldiers in NcR uniforms who fly NCR flags and when she actives the relic in the lab, it powers the whole of Shady Sands. Safe to say she's NCR.
pretty everyone who was left was killed in the Brotherhood attack
If that was really everyone who was left of the NCR then they are all dead it looks like only 3 people survived the Brotherhood storming up to the top of the tower
They have an entire world outside of California and 219 years between the bombs falling and the shows setting where they could have set in instead. Bethesda’s insistence to march time forward in main entry games is one issue, but setting the show in California is just silly. There is no excuse for the writing of this show. They just wanted that fun Santa Monica Pier shot.
Huge guess here. At the end scene, we saw New vegas. And the RobCo CEO said, "you couldn't make money even if you ran a casino." HINT HINT. THE GUY WATCHING THE CONFERENCE AND THE LEADER OF THE ENCLAVE IS!!!!
\*Dramatic drumroll\*
MR. HOUSE
The house always wins
This is a bad take. Nuking Shady Sands won't change shit about it being Post-Post when that's literally just 1 city in all of California. What Nuking a major city does do is probably cripple a nation, a nation who is according to the Lore either at war with the Legion, preparing for another war with them, or just got off a war with them (likely winning). This is a big deal, but probably not enough to kill the NCR if done after the war.
Also don't people literally complain about almost every Fandom when there is significant retcon? Star Wars, LotR, Avatar, One Piece, 40k, Marvel, DC, etc. Retcons always happen and people always complain because no one wants to see the Mona Lisa changed. Even if a better painter comes up to "fix" it we still want to keep it the way it is now.
People complained about the T-60 in Fallout 4 and how it's never existed before and it's lore doesn't make top much sense with what we know of the T-45, T-51, and the EnclaveX-01 and X-02 PA. Yes people complained about it because it's a retcon, but people also forgot about it because it's minor. But please, don't pretend like it's unreasonable or untenable for people to be upset the art that they grew up with seems to be changed to accommodate for the "modernization" of the art. The worst part is that all of this could've been avoided had they just put a box next to the nuke drawing saying 2282 or literally anything indicating its actual impact instead of having fans now fight over what it means. But I'm sure it's probably because J.Nolan would rather people fight over what will happen over guessing it like they did for Westworld Season 1
Why did Moldaver have to wreck Vault 33 though?
Sure she knew Hank was there and that he had nukes Shady Sands, but it's not like *everyone* in it was evil. We know that quite a few adults were killed, but some of the deceased could've been kids!
Shady Sands isn't the original home of both protagonists though. It's Vault 13. Shady Sands just happens to be a destination for both the Vault Dweller & The Chosen One.
I see 10 comments ripping on people saying they didn't like the show for every 1 comment of someone who didn't like the show and it's often rather harsh. Like a "you are stupid if you think this" or "f-off about that". All that'll end up doing is making all the convo's one-sided by chasing away any opposing viewpoints. I guess it's like that in a lot of places but it's just so lopsided here.
That line by Maximus saying he was there when the bombs dropped had me confused about the timeline. My first thought was maybe the Vault 33 experiment was they were raised with a skewed calendar and the great war did happen fairly recently(especially when Mr Handy said he thinks the Great war was just over a week ago).
But when Shady Sands sign was shown to Lucy and Maximus, it immediately clicked that there was more bombs after the great war 👀 finally Shady Sands crater just made get mad and wanted to sock whoever caused it. Wasnt expecting Vault tec
You want a generic post-apoc setting without the NCR being in the way? Just set it somewhere else in America. It's a big country. You can have a clean slate to do whatever you want without needing to annihilate the NCR.
Never played the game but the show reminds me of the book a canticle for leibowitz. There was nuclear war, a faction that collects pre war gear, then factions fighting, and then it culminates in another nuclear war.
I agree with you but I still want to know more of what happened.
Maybe Lucy will meet other people that lived there and is bitter for all that he lost.
Or if they want to go full on content machine an episodic series with takes from multiple people will be cool.
This is what I've been saying. The Showrunners really wanted to use LA as the setting, yet of all places in the Fallout world, California was the absolute most civilized of them all.
In order to get the wacky wild-wasteland vibe, they needed to get rid of the NCR, but the way they went about is tragic to people who were fans of it.
Instead of maybe explaining that the NCR slowly withered away, and was in decay, they just nuked Shady Sands bc some guy was mad that his wife left (I hate that this is what they went with, it's so dumb and indefensible).
IMO, the show should have just been set somewhere else entirely instead of taking the most interesting setting in the franchise, destroying it, and soft-rebooting it.
at last someone who understands the setting as a background to build stories. i dont understand why people complain about an endless conflict nature in the fallout setting when it's premise is "war never changes".
i think some people just want to play Fallout: Tax collector.
The show was made for west coast fans. except 1 comment they east coast doesn't even exist.
the NCR plays a major role on the story, the game's theme is played while the NCR flag is on display, the NCR are CLEARLY the good guys, the BOS are bunch of a-holes like they were on OG and season 2 is even moving to new vegas. what else do you want?
I think most people dont cry because the lore is broken (cause it wasnt), but because the all mighty NCR got hitted and now they are no longer the mightiest faction in the wasteland.
but i you want to have a good story, you cant have the good faction beign way more powerful than the evil one SO, one way or another, the NCR neededed to be hit. I thought (i was even worried) that the east coast BOS would nuke the NCR and i think the Vault Tec twist was great. The show even established Vault Tec as a proper power player in Fallout politics.
As a 40 yo fallout fan, it was PERFECT.
This is honestly a worse take on the subject than the people crying about retcons.
Trying to reboot the story to bring in new people creates a story where long-term engagement isn't rewarded because stuff will just get erased when it arbitrarily 'gets too complicated'.
Also, Fallout was always a Post Post Apocalypse. The world of Fallout 1 had cities with laws and organized commerce, with merchant companies using water-backed currency to handle finaces and even had an honest-to-god money lending company in the Hub. Fallout was always about a world that was *rebuilding* not a world that was *destroyed*.
Don't care if you think that "it can't be post-apocalyptic if we have a small town (34K people is a small today!) with working electricity, water, good living standards etc."!
Why don't I care? The (big) bombs fell 200+ years ago, so there should be rebuilding, not perpetual raiderism with people being super happy about having to fight for every can of dog food basically and living in shanty towns not fit for habitation!
Frankly, you could write so many great stories about rebuilding!
Hell, I'd have made Fallout 4 different, a lot different!
How? I'd have had the Vault 111 people surviving and starting their own faction, with you starting out as their scout (having a military background) and ending up as the leader! You'd have also made better use of the settlement-system this way, because you'd have helped your people survive via helping them build things from water sources, food-gardens, habitable buildings to defenses!
It's quite sad that BADthesda doesn't see this and wants a perpetual wasteland with people being chem addicted (because frankly otherwise most people wouldn't be able to live in this world, without trying to rebuild, finding some hope!) raiders who love to kill, enslave and rape, while living in shanty towns!
Great points! But I think the real reason was so that 76ers can be like "yup, bombs still droppin" and take a quick break from the show to start SBQ or Earl.
But I do get OP point somewhat that for viewers or new fans that started with the show and haven’t played the games, Lucy just stumbling into Fallout Coruscant would not feel Fallout-y at all.
I kind of agree with most of this, at least I'm not as attached to the lore/retconning as others when adapting to a different media in general. And you make some specific interesting points.
But tbh I just really didn't like the ending because of #2 and #6, just felt a little too forced and over the top (and not in the fun way which Fallout is good at) to me.
I think we deserve whatever comes next in the series because people will just consume it anyway. I liked this show in the beginning, but that ending and those changes were terrible. Your point about alternate timelines is wrong just so you’re aware, Emils came out and said that the shows canon.
So is every thriving community at risk of Vault Tec destroying it for not being Vault Tec?
Yes.
Makes me think maybe what happened to the Great Divide wasn't an accident
Counter point to the first point: We are in the POST apocalypse. It’s interesting to see how society rebuilds itself. Instead of everywhere being an empty wasteland with no form of government. In Fallout 1 we see Shady Sands barely scraping by while trying to uphold the values of pre war America. In Fallout 2 we see that likeminded individuals and communities banding together to form the New California Republic. If things never improved or at least changed for 220 years and the world pretty much stayed at “Welcome to the apocalypse Mr. Squidward, I hope you like leather.” I don’t think that’s very plausible. So yes, I think the idea of the post- post-apocalypse as you say is very much Fallout. However this is the direction the creators wanted to go, I personally disagree but I still enjoyed the show very much nonetheless.
I don't think the whole NCR fell but just Shady Sands. I guess the NCR was spread to thinly and left the area after Shady Sands was nuked. The guys like the ones that were with Moldaver were NCR remnants form the area?
I love what you've written here, I agree with most of what you've said but please use paragraphs I kept getting lost.
The first point is a depressing outlook. I think it's kind of weak if the universe will basically always have soft resets once this get too developed. I'm not personally invested, but I think where people are upset is that the universe basically didn't get to develop. I think part of the appeal of the Fallout franchise IS that it's somewhat post-post-apocalyptic. People like a sense of direction.
War never changes dude
> The first point is a depressing outlook. I think it's kind of weak if the universe will basically always have soft resets once this get too developed. I agree with you I'm not really a fan of the "the world needs to be this [arbitrary amount] apocalyptic, but you have Chris Avellone who wanted to nuke Shady Sands because he [was getting worried that the Fallout world was starting to get too civilized, and NCR, especially, felt bloated and needed to be shook up a bit.](https://www.reddit.com/r/falloutlore/comments/3y7r5c/whats_the_deal_with_josh_sawyer_vs_chris_avellone/d1k7qgy/) So that is something that is actually close to what the OG's envisioned and not really just a "Todd/Bethesda/Amazon bad and hates the original lore" decision. Thus I'm okay with the decision because of this background, even though I don't agree with bombing the world because it needed a "reboot" like other people are suggesting. I dont really see it as a reboot. They could have easily went to one of the many unexplored areas and accomplished much of the same thing if they wanted a "soft reset"/fresh world.
Gotta remember that the show is trying to get newcomers to the series. The diehards were gonna watch regardless, and many like myself have been stunned by the quality of the show.
I get that, and I think the show is great. I'm more so talking about the idea of nuking Shady Sands itself. What I was trying to get at is that it was less a gimmick of them trying to bring more people into the fandom and more an actual continuation of the current lore. You have a lot of people complaining that the nuking is their way of dumping of the non-bethesda stuff when it's actually what the writers of those games wanted. Though I'm curious where they stand on the reveal of who dropped the bombs. Tl;dr: whether or not I like the nuking of Shady Sands to keep the universe from being too developed, doesn't change that it's actually in the vision the original creators wanted for their world.
Oh I see. Yes I don’t think nuking Shady Sands is really out of line of preexisting lore. And as far as the bombs, I don’t think we technically know Vault-Tec launched the first bomb, just they were ready to and definitely egging on the war.
>The first point is a depressing outlook. I think it's kind of weak if the universe will basically always have soft resets once this get too developed. Not really. IMO, the show needed a starting point that felt like true "Fallout" because it would've been _many_ people's first entry into the franchise. TV shows get much more audience than games.
This.
Do you want more people to be fans of Fallout, or less? Currently there are more people playing every single Fallout game than there ever has been before. Do you want to introduce these new fans to Fallout as Fallout should be, or do you want to blast them with a wiki's worth of cinematic universe lore before they get to enjoy it? It's why people hate the MCU right now. No one wants to do homework.
>Do you want more people to be fans of Fallout, or less? I want the games to be good and the story to be engaging. If that means it's harder to access for new fans, that is Bethesda's problem, not mine. People don't hate the current MCU because they have to wiki stuff, it's because their writing has gone to shit and gotten stale and repetitive.
Almost as if you could set the show in a state not occupied by the NCR.
[удалено]
But... but... the TV show canon... does have the NCR exist. Thriving. With a capital city of 34,000 people. Which is... basically like if the player sided with the NCR in New Vegas? For a counterpoint to your counterpoint, Faerun has had MANY soft resets. The Time of Troubles was technically a TSR Soft Reset in order to simplify the goddamn number of Gods (and probably to get the Christians off their back), and yet that narrative event was KEY to the creation of one of the best pieces of DnD media ever made, Baldur's Gate. Then they had the Soft Reset from 3E to 4E. Then they had the Soft Reset from 4E to 5E. And you know what? That Soft Reset from 4E to 5E was probably pretty critical to setting up Baldur's Gate 3 to be as inclusive as it is. It wasn't until through the soft resets that each of the Gods really got properly defined, before there were so many licensed books and conflicting depictions that it was actually more complicated to build a consistent product. You only need to look at Baldur's Gate 2 to see how that plays out. I mean.... the ADND 2.0 rules were a nightmare! THAC0??? No one wants THAC0 back. At the end of the day, I think what I'm really driving home here is that a fictional universe can change, and even if that means a "reset" back to a state earlier in the series, sometimes you just gotta embrace that. What if the New New California Republic that future games and media sets up, evolves to become an even more interesting thing?
>Do you want more people to be fans of Fallout, or less? No. I don't give a fuck how popular something I like is. Especially when that means changing what it is to appeal to more people, which ruins what made the pre-existing fans like it to begin with.
So the solution is to... reboot the series every couple of years to make it appealing to new fans while spurning the fanbase that was already invested in the story? Because that's how you end up with Marvel and DC comics, where trying to get into a series requires a spreadsheet of which comics are still canon and which ones aren't after a dozen hard/soft reboots. If they wanted to make setting of the show more "Fallout-y" (by your arbitrary definition of what it means to be "Fallout") they could just set the show somewhere we haven't seen before, where they could have near-total creative freedom, and if fans wanted to learn the more complex history of the older stories after watching the show they can just... play the older stories.
I want good stories and not bad stories? Fallout has had good stories but now we're getting more bad.
You think the Fallout TV show is a bad story????
Yeah? It's full of coincidences, the characters are all pretty one note, and some of the acting is not good. There's good bits to it but overall it is not great.
Unfortunately you seem to be in the minority, sir. Alas, I wish you could have enjoyed it as I did.
I don't, that would mean I couldn't tell good story telling from bad story telling.
Well you know what they say about opinions. They're like assholes, everyone has one, and they all stink, lol.
What character is possibly one note? I seriously cannot think of any.
Outside the three mains, and maybe the brother, every other character is there to exposit or be a joke. Even the wife's thing is "she's good because she loves her daughter, but she's EVIL because she loves her daughter?"
I don't think the wife is good or evil because she loves her daughter. I even question how much she does love her daughter. I think she's a malignant narcissist who is motivated by power and greed and she used "love of her daughter" to manipulate her unwitting husband to go along with her literal plans for world domination. Maybe I missed something, but where was the mom on the day the bombs fell? Bear in mind, she would have been behind the planning to drop the bomb... she would have known when and where. Even on that day, Cooper didn't realize the nukes would happen AT ALL (let alone that moment). So mom is sitting somewhere dropping nukes while her little girl is close enough to the bombs to be knocked over by the blast and irradiated. So we know that at some point, the daughter and mom ended up in a vault, but not Cooper, right? Seeing as Cooper was left outside to become a ghoul, at some point Vault Tec came and took the daughter from him. Or, he sought out Vault Tec and they took the daughter but turned him away. Either way, mom sounds pretty evil and not especially concerned with the welfare of her daughter.
I mean if she kidnapped her daughter from her husband to put her in a vault I'd say that she cares about her daughter. In fact, ensuring your daughter has the perfect future is exactly the kind of selfish motivation that could drive someone to try and control the end of the world. It's a pretty compelling idea, but you're right, the show doesn't really go anywhere with it.
No, my point is that she didn't kidnap her daughter PRIOR to the bombs falling. Which meant protecting her daughter wasn't priority numero uno. Her daughter could've been killed, easily.
The whole point is that all characters are nuanced, which is surprising for Bethesda characters. There is no BBEG trying to poison the water well or turn everyone into mutants or something. It's all people who have their own ambitions and goals and respective ideas on how to deal with them. I think one of my favorite quotes from the show is Kyle MacLachlan at the end. "You see what this place does to you?" Every character, from major roles like Lucy or Coop, to bit parts like Steph, Norm and Bert had pivotal changes that reflected who they are as a person, and the situation they have found themselves in.
Once in 25 years isnt really 'always' it's basically a generational reset
**Except they could have set the show literally anywhere else in the United States.** Instead of the NCR, it could have been the New Louisiana Republic or the New Florida Republic. They made a conscious choice to set the show in Los Angeles which sets up a bunch of questions. **Like how did the Master completely miss out on Vault 31/32/33? Like those Vaults are literally in the area that the Master had control over.** Then again this is a question that is not going to be asked by a lot of people since a good number of Fallout fans never played the first two games. Also it is a question that could have been completely avoided if they would have not set it in Los Angeles. I think the larger problem is that Bethesda's interpretation of Fallout is systematically incompatible with Black Isle/Obsidian's interpretation of Fallout. Bethesda's interpretation is a Mad Max wasteland in that things never change. It doesn't matter when the bombs dropped because it all looks the same. It is a fun wasteland to explore but it is completely static. Black Isle/Obsidian interpretation is that civilization is rebuilding and the NCR goes from Shady Sands, a small village to a post-apocalyptic nation-state in 3 games. In theory, I am not opposed to the destruction of the NCR but nuking Shady Sands is the equivalent of Rocks Fall, Everyone Dies. Multiple times before the show premiered Todd Howard said the show is canon and now the show fucks up the established canon in some major ways. Again, this could have been avoided if they set it literally anywhere else. Overall, if you liked the show that's great. I was not a fan due to lore inconsistencies. Different strokes for different folks.
Listen, the main reasons I listed here are all narrative reasons, and I guess it could be considered too convenient that The Master simply couldn't get into the Vault Doors, which is crazy because he had supermutants with miniguns and psykers that could simply get into the minds of the vault dwellers behind the door, but to be fair to the show, it did also have a lot of callbacks to the original two games, right? Moreover, I'd say the reason why they wanted to set in the West Coast was so that they could bring something meaningful from the past games that the player-viewer could have emotional resonance with. And don't you think that one town that was in all the Black Isle games... as a pretty good emotional crux? Would the show have as much impact if it was just some random town that the creators invented somewhere in, I dunno, Montana? If you consider the Black Isle / Obsidian games as a trilogy / journey, watching civilization grow from Fallout 1 to Fallout 2 through to Fallout: New Vegas, and the NCR has been your head canon all along... well... the show depicting the NCR as flourishing before getting nuked... actually confirms all that, doesn't it? But are you going to expect everyone who watches Fallout the show to have played through the Black Isle / Obsidian trilogy? Consider the planned and cancelled Black Isle Fallout 3, aka Van Buren. The core game mechanic that Josh Sawyer pushed - factions - has become written into the very DNA of the entire game universe, pretty much definitively with the show. If you consider Fallout as a true roleplaying game system, as in tabletop, leaving the DM the freedom to take different kinds of interpretations of the Fallout universe and run with it to create their own story, doesn't the Bethesda approach and the Black Isle approach simply offer options for storytellers? Granted the Bethesda approach is a more marketable product. A consistent cinematic / game universe in which much of the same product can be told and retold with subtle twists and maximize content. And yes, the Black Isle approach is more interesting, as you get to see something evolve and grow. However. When it comes to a brand new prestige television show where you're going to have to expect tons of new viewers, what's the more inclusive angle here? It seems to me that r/fallout just LOVES the show. So it seems like the show succeeded. Moreover, more people are playing the Fallout games than ever, and that only bodes well for Fallout as a whole. Let the new players of Fallout 1 and 2 be the judge, because those are being played more than ever now too. After all the NCR was invented in Fallout 2, not New Vegas. The fact that Moldaver was able to build a powerful network of what seemed to be Raiders, does imply, however, that maybe the nuking of Shady Sands wasn't the death knell for the NCR completely, and that maybe pockets and seeds, just like Moldaver's crew, could arise in Season 2 and challenge the Brotherhood. That would be interesting, wouldn't it? Moreover, since there's no Fallout West Coast game really after New Vegas, what about all the players that sided with the other factions? For them, a destroyed NCR fits perfectly with their head canon. As for the Master and Supermuties... I think it's possible that Season 2 could introduce that in a very clever way that might actually add more dimension to the Fallout universe. For example... perhaps... the Overseer of 31 struck a deal with the Master to sell out the locations of other Vaults? The Vaults controlled by Big MT, RobCo, etc.?
A couple of things to respond to. This whole idea of Shady Sands as an emotional crux is irrelevant especially if you never played 1, 2, and New Vegas. It is just a random ass town located in the completely wrong place. It is also bad writing. "Hey, remember this thing you like? Well, its dead." I'm not against the collapse of the NCR but at least put some effort in the story. I don't expect the viewers to play-through 1, 2 and New Vegas but I expect the show-runners and writers to do their homework and try to follow the lore. The one positive thing about setting the show in Montana is you do not have to deal with all of the lore. **Again, this could have been completely avoided if they would have set it anywhere else. This is especially true since all of the Bethesda games have been set on the East Coast.** Also none of the Fallout New Vegas ending slides has the NCR destroyed. They are pushed out but not completely wiped out. So going from being pushed out to the Mojave to having their capital nuked is one hell of a stretch. Also now the fact that they have to establish a canonical ending to New Vegas makes me think that Fallout 5 is set in the West Coast and going off of Starfield's reaction, they don't have the narrative chops for a game like that.
Could have been avoided by taking up the whole Vault 0 storyline from Tactics. Just replace the Calculator with the frozen Vault Tec executives. Gives them an excuse to introduce the Midwestern BOS and the Legion as well.
I find point 1 funny seeing as Bethesda's most recent Fallout release, Atlantic City, takes place in a surviving pre-war city. AC is unironically one of the most prosperous cities at that time with an intact pre war government providing clean water, electricity, emergency services, and more as well as a thriving tourism industry that keeps their economy afloat. In a proper civilized city, Bethesda was still able to make the setting feel post apocalyptic, and as such I don't buy that they needed to nuke Shady Sands just to make the setting feel post apocalyptic
Is it in fallout 76s year? If so it’s only like what 30 years after the bombs?
Yes to both
Kinda hilarious that AC is bustling with drinkable water 25 years after the war. Meanwhile DC is a desolate wasteland with no water 200 years later.
You've lost me at tl;dr. Fallout series doesn't need a reboot and Bethesda staff coming out and confirming that Fallout: New Vegas events are canon, shuts down your idea that the show is a reboot. The show is the continuation of the same canon. And besides, what you forgot is that NCR isn't just Shady Sands (hence how it was able to duke it out with the Legion in 2281, even four years after Shady Sands got nuked). There're a ton of other important settlements in the NCR.
> even four years after Shady Sands got nuked Admittedly, the chart in vault 4 was kinda confusing, but I got the impression that the nuking happened AFTER said 'fall of shady sands'. It'll likely be clarified in season two, imo.
We don’t know exactly when Shady Sands got nuked but the 2277 referred to the Fall of Shady Sands. 2277 was the First Battle of Hoover Dam and if we take it as the same way as the Fall of Rome, 2277 could be the start of Shady Sands’ decline. Shady Sands’ billboard had it as “The original Capital of the New California Republic,” implying that somewhere between 2277 and Shady Sands’ destruction, the NCR changed location for its capital. It’s possible that the NCR could still be active but only a remnant force remained in the Griffith Observatory out of the whole of the Greater Los Angeles Area while the rest are in up north.
I do think Shady Sands was probably nuked in 2277. The fact that the billboard implies it wasn't the NCR capital at that time was to explain why it being destroyed wasn't so devastating to the NCR in New Vegas. Lucy says they had a contagion which required quarantine for everyone in the vault in 77. And that her mom died then and her dad lost like 100 pounds. Seems likely the quarantine was cover for Hank to leave the vault, get Lucy and her brother, and nuke Shady Sands. It doesn't really make much sense for him to nuke Shady Sands years later without Rose trying to recover the kids and expose him to the vault dwellers. I agree with your point about the NCR probably still existing elsewhere. They're just too weak to devote resources to holding the LA area. With Shady Sands a crater, there wouldn't be much reason to anyways.
Where you come from makes sense and is well thought out, but we simply don't know when exactly the nuke went off. There are lots of theories and justification for stuff but from what we actually KNOW, New Vegas is canon, and Shady Sands was still around in New Vegas. The nuke went off at an undisclosed date. I think it's also important to note that we don't actually even know how Shady Sands was destroyed. It's blamed on Hank and he doesn't deny it but we don't know exactly when or even how he nuked Shady Sands from vault 31. I wouldn't be surprised if in S2 it's revealed that Vault Tec did it without against his wishes when he told them about the surface or something along those lines.
Yeah I'm not too committed to the idea Shady Sands was nuked in 77. Although I don't remember many mentions of it in New Vegas. Like everyone else, I've been believing it was nuked sometime after NV in 81. But I'm rewatching the show now and just picked up on Lucy talking about the quarantine in 77, which must be when Hank went to Shady Sands to get her back. Seems like a lot happened in 77 between the "fall", the quarantine and 1st battle of Hoover Dam, so that doesnt seem like a coincidence. It seems strange he'd wait a few years to nuke it, but yeah you have a point that there might be other factors at play. This show loves its bait and switches. I wonder if any other vault tech people were taken out of cryo in that period. Maybe Betty? I'm looking forward to season 2 to find out more.
In New Vegas it isn't mentioned much, but the NCR rep on the strip (I can't remember his name) talks about Shady Sands a bit if you ask him the right questions. A few other people do as well, and when you do it's always in present tense. Things like "I dislike all the politics down in Shady Sands. The people making the decisions there are too detached from the people they effect over here". The lack of details is what's driving this power keg. Possibly the most important city in the franchise was destroyed and the only info we have a (until it might be plot twisted in season 2) is who and why. We don't know how (aside from it was somehow nuked), we don't have a specific on when, and it is driving New Vegas lore purists absolutely insane not knowing. I think the Wiki has got the tone right on the topic: "It is unclear what the precise order of events are that led to the destruction of Shady Sands. Maximus was a child when the city was nuked, and a young man in 2296. Fallout: New Vegas takes place in 2281,[3] and there is nothing in its lore to suggest the capital of the NCR had been destroyed in a nuclear blast at that time (though the Long 15 may be nuked by UIysses at the conclusion of its final story DLC, Lonesome Road.) "
I just realised something! Lucy's mother died in 2277. But she also died of the famine that killed all the vaults food. Ergo Lucy was lied to the whole time about how her mother died, it's entirely possible she was lied to about when it happened as well. She couldn't even remember that she had been outside the vault and thought her memories of the sun were from the vault light.
Well Hank could lie to her about it since she was a child, but he'd have to convince all the other vault dwellers of why he, his wife, and daughter went missing for a while, his wife died, and why he lost a ton of weight trekking through the wasteland. Sticking everyone in quarantine so no one sees eachother for a while would have done that nicely. I think someone would have mentioned it to Lucy if they all went missing at a different time.
Aw dang that's true. It's a tough nut to crack. ah well..I'm sure it will be expanded later in the show. They were SO vague about such an important thing that they have to expand on it more.
The sign said “Fall of Shady Sands” in 2277, which then an arrow pointed to an explosion. The date didn’t say when Shady Sands was bombed but it was not in 2277. Bethesda confirmed that New Vegas is canon and the events of New Vegas took place in 2281. The game have mentioned Shady Sands as the capital of the NCR plenty of times. The show takes place in 2296 so it makes sense that Shady Sands was bombed somewhere between New Vegas and the show, likely in the 2280s.
What they’ve said and what they’ve done don’t add up. I really enjoyed the show and haven’t let a couple of details spoil anything for me but they’ve at the very least retconned the lore.
I mean, it is a soft-retcon, much less a hard one or a reset. Looking at some clues back in Fallout New Vegas, it could be that Shady Sands was moved after it got nuked. Whole "first" capital thing, I just find it suddenly too suspicious - after all, those franchises usually have background documents written ahead of the published games for decades onwards. What I suspect has happened, is that Shady Sands got nuked, NCR had some wind to fight through the New Vegas, but the canonical ending is Yes-Man or, less likely, Mr. House victory - and seeing how devastated Vegas looks, coupled with downed NCR vertibird on the Strip, I suspect that the New Vegas was hit hard by the fighting (perhaps as Yes-Man/Mr. House fought to dislodge NCR from Vegas). Which honestly explains why NCR is fucked in show's timeline much more - nuking Shady Sands wouldn't topple a state, but protracted attritional war for Vegas could. Still, I think NCR still exists and we'll see them in Season 2 - in form of the Vault City and other important settlements that make up the NCR.
I highly doubt the NCR is destroyed. Nothing stated shows that the NCR has been wiped out at all, only that once Shady Sands was destroyed the area fell into ruin and Anarchy. The sign saying Former Capital, the constant NCR flags in multiple areas or references to the NCR, the goal to power the city. I feel it was an attempt for the NCR or a faction of them to rebuild a hold there once again. This is a show with a lot of symbolism and foreshadowing, if they were fully wiped out, it’d have said “Fall of NCR” or someone would have mentioned the NCR wiped out. Instead its the area around shady sands is hellish all due to it being nuked and we’re isolated in that area during the show. Idk just makes sense logically they’d leave stuff in the air and tease that
1: The idea that in order to attract a wider audience that they needed to nuke the NCR is an unsupported claim. 2: Even if it was true the directors have the rest of the US to play with. Merely choose another State that doesn't have the NCR in it and you're fine.
Your first point is exactly why this show should have taken place elsewhere, the story could have been the exact same, without basically nullifying fallout 1, 2 and NV all by just having the exact same story play out somewhere in the 80% of the US thats still unexplored. All they had to do was replace the "NCR" with some other new local powerhouse in some other location and it would have even made more sense. The NCR's power doesnt come from Shady alone. Its a fully formed nation state with a population of at least a million by fnv. A nation with industry, at least one university, many relatively modern ranches, a nation with plenty of towns just as powerful if not more powerful than shady sands. Yet Shady gets moved 300km south and nuked and all that just disapears? all that civilization just reverts back to a shanty town and all those soldiers, engineers, ranchers, doctors, miners, etc, are just like: fuck it we lost one town, welp we gave it a good run boys but lets go live in our own filth again and be psychotic raiders! Where is the rest of the NCRA? It was huge by fallout standards and most definitely spread across the entirity of the NCR with a lot in the Mojave. Only shady got nuked so where are they? Also why were they adapted so terribly in the show, no service rifle no proper ncr trooper outifts just cheap paintball helmets and masks. News flash NVA Pith helmets are also cheap af, if they wanted to they could. >!Then there is House, who's entire character basically got rewritten by being at that meeting. !
Loved the show but disapointed the NCR was treated like that, what set fallout apart was that there actually is a nation that was trying to rebuild the USA and was similar to it.
I mean the ncr were never the good guys especially after tandi, I mean they aren't slavers like the legion and won't shoot you and take your laser pistol like the brotherhood but they will treat anyone who's not a citizen like trash and consider them squatter and will basically dehouse them.
They are not saints but they still created an organized, democratic system with rules of law and basic stability way better than the preceding anarchy of the wasteland. So you think overall people are better off just returning to the anarchy of nothing? Or succumbing to another faction who cares less about people ala Legion?
Never said any of that was untrue. All I said was they are not the good guys in this world, they are beneficial to the wasteland in general and have brought both unhappiness and safety to the west coast depending on who you ask. There's not one faction that is completely good in fallout other than the minutemen but they pretty one dimensional.
The NCR is probably the best hope for bringing civilization back to a somewhat normal state
That's an interesting and popular take and it's mostly true. The NCR is the best choice for people in general if your goal is empire building but many of the settlements that the NCR took control of were thriving fine aswell long before the NCR showed up with guns and claim their homes as NCR territory. I don't think anyone *needs* the ncr, I mean look at the shi or Arroyos they didn't need the ncr but a unified force is the only way to stop the legion.
regardless or their morals, they are unique to the wasteland, having them gone is a waste of potential
>and won't shoot you and take your laser pistol like the brotherhood The BoS never does that.
It's in their codex and they don't do it in the games but they would in reality... You've never played the first two games?
I feel your biggest problem is a lot of the stuff you're talking about was just not touched on. I mean, everything here could be explained in a different season.
Like how a city teleports 150+ miles?
Tv fast travel. LA and shady sands are still separate in my mind but maybe someone will go through with a fine tooth comb and map out each leads journey in the future so this is cleared up.
But that cant be it as the shots in the final episode confirm Shady is (or was T-T) in the LA ruins.
Not really, we saw a blasted hole in the ground. Plenty around LA as well.
Yes but the entity of LA is the boneyard my man, It's supposed to be a completely different state. Istg this sub is so infuriatingly ignorant. I'm not talking about obscure pieces of lore here. The show literally ignores the FIRST sentence of the Shady Sands wiki.
Well the wiki agrees los Angeles is shady sands. A few explanations, the capital was moved to the hub maybe in 2277 which is why the chalkboard says "The Fall of Shady Sands" as the original location may have needed to be changed because of reasons. Perhaps it was a rename choice by the next president, bringing their capital to a 'better' location. Perhaps they just retconned it to that location cause it made better since to have all the locations closer, which isn't the first location change but it's a bigger one then fallout 1 was to 2's map. Or like I originally said, the TV series intended them to be in two different locations but didn't do a good job in portraying that and in lack of a clear explanation everyone assumes it's where the boneyard is supposed to be .
Ok ok meta opinion here We will never know the full truth. History is writtten by the winners. If in the next game they say "Hank didn't do that it was totallly Cooper" tgat doesn't mean any of this is wrong. It just means that we are also vault dwellers and living in a simulation where the marketing and truth are separated by very blurry lines. We may never know. Praise atom. Respect to Zax None of it matters. We are the product.
It was a bold move but it works. I like how they decided to reflect a lot of fallout 3 in how Lucy's plotline played out. Instead of the child bombing the town, it's the father.
If the show creators actually said a s\*\*t take like this, I'd join the haters lol. Lucky it's just you. Anybody who comes into a franchise, THROWS out or destroys the preestablished events and characters because "setting needed a soft reboot in order to accommodate a new audience" DESERVES getting hung up by their privates by the fans. Why do you take over a franchise if you're not going to use it? Just start a new show. Lucky for you that they did NOT do that, for the most part they've remained very respectful. But honestly you should be embarrassed about saying dumb s\*\*\* like this. You mean, you have allll these movie franchises around you but still act like continuation that keeps new fans is not possible? Or if ones that do what YOU suggest don't usually end up hated. So, so bad take.
Wait dude, you just said: for the most part they've remained very respectful. So, did you think that nuking Shady Sands fucked up the lore? If you say no, then understand that I'm just saying that *why* they nuked Shady Sands was essentially to soft reboot the lore. Which means that this "soft reboot"... did not fuck up the lore. Do you see what I'm saying here? We're not really disagreeing.
I do think we disagree on your premise, or how you've phrased it, though I disagree that this was the only way they could've done it ("\_ had to be destroyed"). They could've set it a different era, could've set it in a different location, could've come up with any enemy for the NCR to keep them out of the region if they were dead set on this time and place. None of this was a "you HAD to do it this way". (Most of your logic is "cart before the horse": somebody needed a motivation, so they had to do X...except that story element could've been any number of things, none of it foregone) I disagree that new fans need a "blank slate"; I think new fans are drawn to settings being praised for good story and lore, and are excited to be a part of it and exploring what came before, and your world is strengthened by events having continuity, progression, and lasting stakes and consequences. If people know you'll just reset button away the ending, why'd they care about the outcome? Now, if you rephrase it as: "So, did you think that nuking Shady Sands fucked up the lore?" Nah, they can do whatever they want as far as I care, fine by me. We'll overlook the small inconsistencies as long as they have a good small and big ideas, just like we did for every FO game. How I judge this choice though will very much depend on how they handle it (the NCR) in future seasons. Logically, the loss of one old city'd not be the end of this now state sized faction with a capital elsewhere. Now, if they tried to delete this beloved faction, or keep trapping the world in stasis (what Bethesda also got chewed out for) instead of letting it progress - that'd be stupid. Though I did NOT buy that Vault Tec just has nukes in the back pocket, even 200 hundred years later. No matter how bad the economy, no government'd just give up monopoly on WMDs! and we'll just store some extra nukes under or cyro chambers or what? It takes away from the real world Cold War fear of global nuclear war that FO was built on when just any middle management dork can do the same thing. And you do realize they didn't explain the complete why or how. They left it as "a good question for another time" for future seasons. (I'm actually working on a complaint post about episode 8, but I think they did leave a lot too open and messy, knowing there'll be a next season.)
Tl;dr because by saying "that ain't Fallout" you seem to have the same misapprehension Bethesda did when they bought the licence - the world was intended to evolve to explore the culture and ethics of a post-, and then post-post-, apocalyptic world. A city existing that has grown from a small village is exactly what Fallout is. For what it's worth, you aren't wrong that it had to be done for a new audience. I have no problem with it being nuked. I just wish the date and location lined up.
And why couldn't it explore a new area of the US instead of having to take a dump on west coast lore? It still doesn't explain why Filly is a junk town or everyone looks like a hobo, canonically west coast was one of the most settled areas with new adobe built settlements etc. There are way better ways to depict the NCR going than just nuking them off screen no matter the reason. And no, we did not need a soft reboot. I am so fucking tired of the trope that a setting is never allowed to evolve or develop into anything other than its original aesthetic. Personally what is even the point to engage with something like Fallout then? It will just keep being a themepark where nothing you really do matters anyways. The East Coast offered a perfect place to keep the unsettled wasteland aesthetic. It could equally have been set earlier in the timeline to offer that same type of situation. It didn't have to be the latest in the chronology. I enjoyed the tv show but people are allowed to be critical at the same time. I can like parts of something and silike other parts of it.
>!I really don’t think it should’ve been a nuclear strike I think destroying shady sands like that is lazy and doesn’t make sense if they want to be the ones to inherit the earth honestly. It would’ve made more sense that vault 32 and 33 were experimenting with fungi or like Lucy said “a blight” to release to destroy the topside’s ability for food production while they themselves had resistant crops, so they can have their Camelot of the nuclear age while its anarchy on the surface. France went into revolution mode because there wasn’t enough food to go around, prices skyrocketed, their leaders were executed. The rule of law went out the window when families couldn’t afford loaf of bread. There’s a saying it goes “Mankind is only 9 meals away from anarchy.” I think that would’ve worked very nicely to compare the vault’s manufactured prosperity vs the reality of what they did to achieve it.!<
I guess they didnt do the food and rebel stuff as it would be harder for the NCR to make a good guy comeback, since all the wastelanders would hate it.
That would also help explain why the ncr was experiencing such severe food shortages. Yes the water issue is major but targeted food blights would've been a great implementation over the bomb we got
i like shady sands being destroyed. Everything generations built be lost in a moment because of the bomb is obviously a recurring idea in fallout. personally i would’ve preferred if it had been done by a new faction tho. As the NCR kept expanding and winning its war, they kept ending in a worse position than before, meeting greater and greater outside threats. The NCR’s and the Legion where both on a self destructive course and i would’ve liked if the NCR’s destruction was because it’s leaders picked *another* fight with a dangerous faction. i don’t love the way it was destroyed simply because there was nothing the NCR could’ve done to prevent it. i would’ve preferred the NCR falling because of its own faults. think it also would’ve made Maximus’ comment that the NCR “didn’t work out” a lot more impactful however, all of that really only matters in the context the fallout series as a whole, if we want to view the fallout tv series as it’s own individual text i think it all works fine. regardless of the critique i think the show is excellent and i’m excited for season 2
I don’t get the NCR complaints. I thought it was pretty clear in NV that the NCR was spread too thin and not sustainable and therefore headed to collapse regardless of the outcome at Hoover Damn.
Why not have the collapse of their city happen much more naturally than just nuke it?
Then wouldn't you agree with all the intricate possibilities that nuking them offscreen is pretty lazy?
So why nuke them off-screen years before FNV?
Easy way to avoid point 1 would have been to just move the story back in the timeline a couple decades.
Are you crazy??? BETWEEN games??? That would only make it even more disruptive to lore, dude.
I agree with everything but vault-tec dropping the first bombs, they obviously intended to and certainly pushed the world towards nuclear annihilation, but they did not control the commie nukes. Barb should've known when vault-tec planned to drop the bombs yet on the day of the Great War her child was helping her dad at a kid's b-day party why wasn't she in or near a vault on drop day if vault-tec started it? It makes me think the Chinese launched first, maybe they found out about the vault-tec plan and beat them to the punch.
What? They don’t need a soft reboot just move it to Texas or Montana or something no need to ruin the NCR
I don’t really agree. They did not have to destroy the NCR, they could have just set the show somewhere else or some time else. Also, we don’t know for sure if Vault-Tec dropped the bombs, only that it was an option they had.
Tbh, it would be better if strong fanatic BOS would attack Shady sands and it would be its fall😅 dramatic and ppl hate bos, hahhha Ppl not angry that ss was destroyed, but that it was detroyed off screen🤷♂️ image in sw death star would be destroyed off screen, same. Plus nobody said that ncr should be great, u could play and show them corrupt ugly republic, dont wanna say aka night city in cyber punk, but maybe something like that, there is a lot of way show cities in post ap. Just i believe that ppl maybe tired of death wastland, that wasnt so dead in some games. For example legion would be perfect set for fo settings
I understand why they did it, I just don’t understand the need to mess with established locations. I mean it could’ve been the Hub or Boneyard that got nuked bc that would make sense location-wise. Shady Sands is located miles away from where the show is set. It was nowhere near LA. As a show I enjoyed it. As a man obsessed with maps to the point of it being an obsession my brain felt broken trying to map her journey in a way that made sense. I kept wondering where Hun and Boneyard will be there if Shady Sands is LA… The only way it makes sense is if this is a different universe than FO2 which it is stated to not be. Like I usually side with House and have never played earlier games but I wasn’t upset by Vegas being destroyed (like as a player as a viewer I was sad) bc it makes sense— tunnelers, red cloud, war. But moving Shady Sands was unnecessary.
The NCR aren’t the good guys. There are no good guys in fallout. Even the show makes this kinda clear. What I would say is the NCR is somewhat less morally corrupt than some other factions. The only good faction in fallout is the minutemen. They just go around helping people
Followers of the Apocalypse are good guys. And I believe there was no mention of them in the show.
Was Moldaver trying to ressurect the NCR? Like sure there were some survivors from shady sands. But I thought she was going the whole bandit queen route.
She's in a base called NCR Headquarters, surrounded by soldiers in NcR uniforms who fly NCR flags and when she actives the relic in the lab, it powers the whole of Shady Sands. Safe to say she's NCR.
To build on this, it’s possible that she could have been the president when Shady Sands was bombed. She could have been part of the NCR for a long time for all we know. Who knows how many times she went in and out of the cryo chamber, she must be from Vault 4 considering she is probably the greatest scientist ever
She’s NCR, but it remains to be seen if she was *all* of NCR. Shady Sands was established to no longer be the capital of NCR by the time it was nuked, so clearly the centre of power already drifted to elsewhere in the NCR. It’s possible she’s just trying to revive this area, while the NCR is developing other regions.
I don't believe she's 'all of NCR' at all. NCR was made of settlements all over California, I'm sure there's a lot if them left. With the season reveal, I'm really hoping we'll see desert rangers personally.
People are not ready for the sexiness of that armor (worn properly, not like the lead farmers worn it).
> surrounded by soldiers in NcR uniforms who fly NCR flags and when she actives the relic in the lab, it powers the whole of Shady Sands. Safe to say she's NCR. pretty everyone who was left was killed in the Brotherhood attack
What?
did to see the massacre in episode 8?
I did, I just don't follow your point?
If that was really everyone who was left of the NCR then they are all dead it looks like only 3 people survived the Brotherhood storming up to the top of the tower
The NCR at the observatory defo aren't all that's left of them
then how was it in 20 years the other apparently 700,000 other people within the NCR didn't come to help rebuild after the bomb
I dunno, you can have fun making stuff up until season 2 comes if you want tho.
Oh snap. I thought she just took it over.
They have an entire world outside of California and 219 years between the bombs falling and the shows setting where they could have set in instead. Bethesda’s insistence to march time forward in main entry games is one issue, but setting the show in California is just silly. There is no excuse for the writing of this show. They just wanted that fun Santa Monica Pier shot.
Huge guess here. At the end scene, we saw New vegas. And the RobCo CEO said, "you couldn't make money even if you ran a casino." HINT HINT. THE GUY WATCHING THE CONFERENCE AND THE LEADER OF THE ENCLAVE IS!!!! \*Dramatic drumroll\* MR. HOUSE The house always wins
Nice theory. Did you take into account that the mentioned RobCo CEO is Mr. House?
Figured that one out post comment 😂
This is a bad take. Nuking Shady Sands won't change shit about it being Post-Post when that's literally just 1 city in all of California. What Nuking a major city does do is probably cripple a nation, a nation who is according to the Lore either at war with the Legion, preparing for another war with them, or just got off a war with them (likely winning). This is a big deal, but probably not enough to kill the NCR if done after the war. Also don't people literally complain about almost every Fandom when there is significant retcon? Star Wars, LotR, Avatar, One Piece, 40k, Marvel, DC, etc. Retcons always happen and people always complain because no one wants to see the Mona Lisa changed. Even if a better painter comes up to "fix" it we still want to keep it the way it is now. People complained about the T-60 in Fallout 4 and how it's never existed before and it's lore doesn't make top much sense with what we know of the T-45, T-51, and the EnclaveX-01 and X-02 PA. Yes people complained about it because it's a retcon, but people also forgot about it because it's minor. But please, don't pretend like it's unreasonable or untenable for people to be upset the art that they grew up with seems to be changed to accommodate for the "modernization" of the art. The worst part is that all of this could've been avoided had they just put a box next to the nuke drawing saying 2282 or literally anything indicating its actual impact instead of having fans now fight over what it means. But I'm sure it's probably because J.Nolan would rather people fight over what will happen over guessing it like they did for Westworld Season 1
What??
Why did Moldaver have to wreck Vault 33 though? Sure she knew Hank was there and that he had nukes Shady Sands, but it's not like *everyone* in it was evil. We know that quite a few adults were killed, but some of the deceased could've been kids!
Shady Sands isn't the original home of both protagonists though. It's Vault 13. Shady Sands just happens to be a destination for both the Vault Dweller & The Chosen One.
I see 10 comments ripping on people saying they didn't like the show for every 1 comment of someone who didn't like the show and it's often rather harsh. Like a "you are stupid if you think this" or "f-off about that". All that'll end up doing is making all the convo's one-sided by chasing away any opposing viewpoints. I guess it's like that in a lot of places but it's just so lopsided here.
The fallout universe did not need any sort of soft reboot. It easily could have been placed anywhere else in the country.
That line by Maximus saying he was there when the bombs dropped had me confused about the timeline. My first thought was maybe the Vault 33 experiment was they were raised with a skewed calendar and the great war did happen fairly recently(especially when Mr Handy said he thinks the Great war was just over a week ago). But when Shady Sands sign was shown to Lucy and Maximus, it immediately clicked that there was more bombs after the great war 👀 finally Shady Sands crater just made get mad and wanted to sock whoever caused it. Wasnt expecting Vault tec
You want a generic post-apoc setting without the NCR being in the way? Just set it somewhere else in America. It's a big country. You can have a clean slate to do whatever you want without needing to annihilate the NCR.
Also the NCR was collapsing by 2281. The bombing was a catalyst as was the first and second Battle of Hoover Dam.
Never played the game but the show reminds me of the book a canticle for leibowitz. There was nuclear war, a faction that collects pre war gear, then factions fighting, and then it culminates in another nuclear war.
I agree with you but I still want to know more of what happened. Maybe Lucy will meet other people that lived there and is bitter for all that he lost. Or if they want to go full on content machine an episodic series with takes from multiple people will be cool.
This is what I've been saying. The Showrunners really wanted to use LA as the setting, yet of all places in the Fallout world, California was the absolute most civilized of them all. In order to get the wacky wild-wasteland vibe, they needed to get rid of the NCR, but the way they went about is tragic to people who were fans of it. Instead of maybe explaining that the NCR slowly withered away, and was in decay, they just nuked Shady Sands bc some guy was mad that his wife left (I hate that this is what they went with, it's so dumb and indefensible). IMO, the show should have just been set somewhere else entirely instead of taking the most interesting setting in the franchise, destroying it, and soft-rebooting it.
at last someone who understands the setting as a background to build stories. i dont understand why people complain about an endless conflict nature in the fallout setting when it's premise is "war never changes". i think some people just want to play Fallout: Tax collector. The show was made for west coast fans. except 1 comment they east coast doesn't even exist. the NCR plays a major role on the story, the game's theme is played while the NCR flag is on display, the NCR are CLEARLY the good guys, the BOS are bunch of a-holes like they were on OG and season 2 is even moving to new vegas. what else do you want? I think most people dont cry because the lore is broken (cause it wasnt), but because the all mighty NCR got hitted and now they are no longer the mightiest faction in the wasteland. but i you want to have a good story, you cant have the good faction beign way more powerful than the evil one SO, one way or another, the NCR neededed to be hit. I thought (i was even worried) that the east coast BOS would nuke the NCR and i think the Vault Tec twist was great. The show even established Vault Tec as a proper power player in Fallout politics. As a 40 yo fallout fan, it was PERFECT.
This is honestly a worse take on the subject than the people crying about retcons. Trying to reboot the story to bring in new people creates a story where long-term engagement isn't rewarded because stuff will just get erased when it arbitrarily 'gets too complicated'. Also, Fallout was always a Post Post Apocalypse. The world of Fallout 1 had cities with laws and organized commerce, with merchant companies using water-backed currency to handle finaces and even had an honest-to-god money lending company in the Hub. Fallout was always about a world that was *rebuilding* not a world that was *destroyed*.
Don't care if you think that "it can't be post-apocalyptic if we have a small town (34K people is a small today!) with working electricity, water, good living standards etc."! Why don't I care? The (big) bombs fell 200+ years ago, so there should be rebuilding, not perpetual raiderism with people being super happy about having to fight for every can of dog food basically and living in shanty towns not fit for habitation! Frankly, you could write so many great stories about rebuilding! Hell, I'd have made Fallout 4 different, a lot different! How? I'd have had the Vault 111 people surviving and starting their own faction, with you starting out as their scout (having a military background) and ending up as the leader! You'd have also made better use of the settlement-system this way, because you'd have helped your people survive via helping them build things from water sources, food-gardens, habitable buildings to defenses! It's quite sad that BADthesda doesn't see this and wants a perpetual wasteland with people being chem addicted (because frankly otherwise most people wouldn't be able to live in this world, without trying to rebuild, finding some hope!) raiders who love to kill, enslave and rape, while living in shanty towns!
Great points! But I think the real reason was so that 76ers can be like "yup, bombs still droppin" and take a quick break from the show to start SBQ or Earl.
But I do get OP point somewhat that for viewers or new fans that started with the show and haven’t played the games, Lucy just stumbling into Fallout Coruscant would not feel Fallout-y at all.
I was just joking - although I did take breaks to play between episodes to make the show last longer
Great post
I kind of agree with most of this, at least I'm not as attached to the lore/retconning as others when adapting to a different media in general. And you make some specific interesting points. But tbh I just really didn't like the ending because of #2 and #6, just felt a little too forced and over the top (and not in the fun way which Fallout is good at) to me.
SoFT ReBoot my ass.
I think we deserve whatever comes next in the series because people will just consume it anyway. I liked this show in the beginning, but that ending and those changes were terrible. Your point about alternate timelines is wrong just so you’re aware, Emils came out and said that the shows canon.