Talk:United States of America

Well, United States of America means in this article - US flag and Commonwealths.--dotz 05:30, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

I have to say, I really like the idea of 13 "Commonwealth's" (adds to that whole messed up and different United States feeling) but really, Texas and Arkansas? Do we have any information from Sawyer or Chris on their reasoning behind the divisions? DarkUnderlord 05:52, 4 June 2006 (EDT)


 * No idea (we could always e-mail them about it, though). Although I actually *like* the fact that the divisions aren't entirely reasonable, but were done for some vague political reasons. Ausir 05:59, 4 June 2006 (EDT)

Talking about "shadow US goverment":
 * is US president presence on the oil rig hypothesis or some more sure information form designers?
 * otherwise - check desiganted survivor procedures.Dotz

Remember about Federal District. After the War is was the oil rig.--194.146.219.130 09:29, 25 November 2007 (UTC)
 * a kind of...Original DC was a part of some Commonwealth, the oil rig just technically was federal district (and the Enclave mainland bases were federal property), for more detalis see: Federal government.--dotz 05:30, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

I think the double source box in the Commonwealth section is redundant. I don't remember reading about the Commonwealths much in the VB documents so maybe we should cut that box and just leave Sawyer's PNP box. Daesch 01:19, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

While I am on the subject of the Commonwealths, I thought I'd put together a map of how I would distribute the States. I was not satisfied with all the generic names Mr Sawyer used in his map nor was I satisfied in his distribution. Hawaii, which is not on this map, would be governed by Alta California.


 * Of course commonwealth division is fully described at Sawyer's PnP, however some Commonwealths were mentioned in van Buren also - check eg. Denver design document carefully as well as van Buren tech demo. Your names for commonwealths are a kind of fanfic, so please do not change it in articles. I can't see purpose for changing name of Alaska, in Fallouts it was simply Alaska (however due to distance I don't think Sawyer's idea to place it in North Commonwealth was right).--dotz 08:15, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

Fallout Flag
Whilst watching the film 'Fatherland' I noticed this flag (or something very similar) as the Flag of the USA on a street banner in conjunction with a Swastika. Fatherland is an alternate timeline film where the Nazis won and 20 years after their victory they are in a detente with the USA which has just had its new president JFK.

Fatherland_(novel)

87.194.234.156 21:09, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

I have wondered about the flag, and noticed an anomaly on the loading screens, see here. Is this current day US flag an error in the picture?

http://www.gamebanshee.com/showshot.php?/screenshots/fallout3/loadingscreens/screenshot39.jpg

Most likely an oversite, but an in universe explation could the poster was made to be nostalgic
 * Yeah, looks like an oversight on the part of the artist. Ausir(talk) 18:23, September 22, 2009 (UTC)

This Image is also seen on the in game posters. It is also possible that this is simply used in fallout universe as a alternate variant of the flag. There are many countries today that use more than one flag variant, so while adopting the new flag it was not impossible that the old variant was not totally abandoned, just used much less frequently

Stars on the Flag
I was just looking at the number of stars on the flag in Fallout 3 at the Museum of Technology and it is as this article says, but the image that is shown has 13 stars with one in the middle. Should we revert it back? -Firba1 20:33, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

"No side gaining a meaningful advantage"
"with both sides unable to gain any sort of meaningful advantage over the other. Even the mighty T-45d Power Armor units don't tip the scales, as China's Crimson Dragoon units rampage behind American lines, disrupting logistics and transport."

correct me if im wrong,but Hadn't the U.S. turned back the chinese in alaska? Would any body mind if I made a slight alteration until it's proved that it was a stalemate?


 * Well, it was the T-51b that won the Alaska campaign which wasn't introduced until 2076.--Amitakartok 18:13, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

An opinion
Every Fallout game up to date has been in the U.S. Not that I have a problem with this as it is a great part of what makes Fallout, but would anybody find it interesting to see a spin-off (or eventual add-on in the future) in another country like Canada or even China? Just putting this out there and I'm just looking for other users' opinions. --SSDGFCTCT9 01:42, October 27, 2009 (UTC)

I'd like a game set in Europe and China to. I mean Europe would be an interesting experience due to the fact that it is really fucked up ( worse than America, i mean why dud Tenpenny come over in the first place)And China could be the America of the East

After I finished playing FO2, I daydreamed about a sequel set in China. You could easily see the Mao-era propaganda kitsch taking the place of 50s Americana advertising kitsch. There would be several, related problems: the existing games were clearly set in parts of the US with which the game developers were familiar; there's the way in which the US is fascinated with an imaginary 1950s, a touchstone which never really existed as it was imagined, which lends itself readily to satire; and, it's one thing for game designers in the US to mock the US, and quite another for game designers in the US to mock China. FoolishOwl 03:34, April 19, 2010 (UTC)


 * Hm. But you wouldn't be mocking the real China, just as the Fallout universe isn't mocking a real United States. The China of Fallout 3 looks as if it never emerged from Mao-mania, and that would be very mockable. Wunengzi 21:02, October 10, 2010 (UTC)

I agree it would be a nice change of sceanery to have Fallout parcially or full in a different country like Mexico, so you can see and feel the effects first hand of The United Commonwealth of America's (Enclave's) economic and millitaristic imperialism.--Ant2242 06:09, May 4, 2011 (UTC)

Article Name
I personally think that the think that the article should be moved to "United States" for the sake of brevity. -- M.C.Tales 20:16, December 24, 2009 (UTC)


 * Brevity is not really a concern when the title of the article is the full name of the article's subject.--Gothemasticator 22:27, December 24, 2009 (UTC)


 * What I mean is that the article's name should be concise. Also, the United States' article on Wikipedia is merely titled "United States", while the country's full name, "United States of America", is still used at the beginning of the article's introduction. In a similar vein, it would be a hassle to have the United Kingdom's article's title use the country's (much longer) full name, "United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland". --M.C.Tales 04:42, January 16, 2010 (UTC)
 * What's the point? That's just 11 characters, which translates to what, 11 bytes of saved Wikia drive space? http://images3.wikia.nocookie.net/fallout/images/thumb/4/4a/Naglowaa_se.gif/11px-Naglowaa_se.gif Tagaziel (call!) 07:52, January 16, 2010 (UTC)

I personally think that the name should be changed to The United Commonwealths of America because the country was divided among unethical political ideals sometime between 1945 and 1969, by the (pre-Enclave) UCA (USA) polititions. --Ant2242 00:08, May 4, 2011 (UTC)

Capital Congressmen
This page isn't really the place for analysis of President Eden's speeches, but I'd like to suggest that the statement, In his speech about baseball, he makes mention of what is likely a Washington DC-based team, the Capital Congressmen, playing teams from every state, including Pennsylvania and Maryland, may be a naive reading of the Baseball speech. I believe a more sinister interpretation would be more appropriate to the Enclave. From one interpretation, that gives us "what is likely a Washington DC-based team", President Eden sincerely related the history of baseball in Fallout's America for the benefit of his fictional audience and us the players. In that case, the purpose of this monologue is to provide some world-building detail and to expose some of President Eden's motivation, that he wants Americans to be able to watch baseball teams play again. From another interpretation, President Eden is deliberately obfuscating history to enable a more autocratic regime. The "Capital Congressmen" is a lie intended to confuse wastelanders about the representational form of government the United States had before the Great War. Eden's motivation is to lay the ground-work for denying arguments to re-establish Congress.
 * The statement in the article is there merely to acknowledge the mention of governmental bodies in in-game text. It makes no claims to do more than that. In any case, Eden's sincerity has no bearing on the truth or falsehood of the existence of the team. He could just as easily be insincere about a real team as he could about a made-up one.--Gothemasticator 07:07, December 30, 2009 (UTC)

New York City/State
Obviously more than just the Manhattan area is part of the Eastern Commonwealth, given the amount colored yellow on the map. I altered it to say New York State, rather than just New York City.

Commonwealth system canon?
Beyond the 13 stars flag, which could have come about for whatever other reasons, is there any canon references about the state system being replaced by commonwealths? Because there might be several mentions of it in other source materials and all but in the games everything seems to consistently use the old States system both pre and post-war. New California Republic, Welcome to Nevada signs, the power stations in Fallout 3 using MD and VA, ED-E with an Illinois plate, The Pitt's sign with PA(as well as the official description) and countless other uses of the old states which really doesn't make it seem like the commonwealth system being in use since 1945-1960 or even at all.

It's made worse by the fact that Zimmer and others in Fallout 3 uses the term "The Commonwealth" to refer to a very specific location in the US and everyone doesn't seem confused by it even though there would be 2 different commonwealths to the north of the Capital Wasteland covering a significant area.Dr. Lobotomy 19:53, February 1, 2011 (UTC)

Yes they were, the states still existed but they were heavely subjicated by the autocratic Commonwealth system.--Ant2242 00:13, May 4, 2011 (UTC)


 * I was asking for canon, in-game sources. Anyway, I'll just answer my own question with the big stone sign at Red Rock Canyon in New Vegas with "Southwest Commonwealth Conservation Area" written on it. Dr. Lobotomy 00:39, July 22, 2011 (UTC)

The Commonwealth Flag
Where does it state that the flag change from Honest Hearts and Lonesome Road indicate that they added a star for all of Canada? It could just as easily be a retcon.--Ant2242 (talk) 23:59, 7 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Nowhere, this is pretty much just a hypothesis to explain the two canon versions of the flag. VaultAusir (talk) 00:03, 8 February 2015 (UTC)
 * However, it's a hypothesis grounded in available data. The 13 star flag has never appeared in games before Honest Hearts and Lonesome Road. The twelve star design, however, did appear in no less than two released games. If Obsidian wanted to retcon it, they would've changed the flag in the base game, not in obscure places in DLCs. As such, there is no reasonable reason to suspect that it's a retcon. Tagaziel (talk) 14:20, 8 February 2015 (UTC)
 * It could have been kept for time constraints. Or only noticed after they released the game. One could argue that the Capital of all places would get that "Canadian star" first, if it were otherwise. In any case we need a developer to settle this.--Ant2242 (talk) 19:57, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

Surveillance and nationalization
I'm not exactly sure how to merge the growing list of surveillance and nationalization projects the government was truly operating, so I'm going to leave them here.
 * SCYTHE Program
 * Listening post Bravo
 * Federal surveillance center K-21B
 * Federal supply cache 84NE
 * RobCo sales and service center
 * South Boston military checkpoint

--Ant2242 (talk) 11:43, 14 January 2017 (UTC)

Also leaving the note here; The header section for the "Economy" section needs review, nothing there is sourced. What is there references Vault-Tec's policies alone.--Ant2242 (talk) 00:17, 26 January 2017 (UTC)

Also the Political Office and all those supposedly random pillboxes throughout the Commonwealth.--Ant2242 (talk) 05:18, 2 February 2017 (UTC)


 * I think the statement about the handful of mega-corporation blurring the line between private industry and government is mostly implied by the presence of the conglomerates we see throughout the series. Companies like Nuka-Cola, Vault-Tec, RobCo, Poseidon, Big MT, and West-Tek all held contracts with the United States government or military, so that paragraph serves more as an intro to the subsequent paragraphs which discuss those corporations, so it doesn't need to be referenced: the references follow in the paragraphs below. Still, you'd probably have to ask Tag since he's the one who wrote that section.
 * Besides that, all those surveillance and nationalization programs could probably be inserted into the Government and politics section. I would just need to look at it some more to figure out how to best do that. --Kastera (talk) 03:56, 4 February 2017 (UTC)
 * My point is that the economy was being secretly subverted by the government it wasn't just the big corporations.--Ant2242 (talk) 04:38, 4 February 2017 (UTC)