Fallout setting

The Fallout setting is an unique, retrofuturistic creation influenced by numerous sources. This articles aims to provide a summary of the inspirations for the setting. For more in-depth presentation of the Fallout world, see the related article.

Overview
The divergence concept allowed the development team creative freedom to develop the game as they saw fit. The core idea was a dark game, based on the horrors that 1950's science had predicted for a future apocalyptic world, balanced with humor. This has influenced all levels of development, first and foremost the art style and the technology of the setting.

Aesthetics
Aesthetically, it is a future inspired by what the people of the 50s thought it would be: Road cruisers with an Art Deco aesthetic and fins, dominant Art Deco, Googie, and Raygun Gothic architecture (Brutalist, Usonian, steel constructions, Lustron, Neoclassical, American colonial, Federal, and Victorian as well), reel-to-reel computers, big, bulky power armor (inspired by Wasteland and Starship Troopers), large and clunky robots, and so on and so forth. The idea was pitched by Leonard Boyarsky and eventually accepted by the team.

However, the game's aesthetics have been inspired by a great variety of sources spanning most of the 20th century. These include movies Forbidden Planet (1956), La Jetée (1962), Star Wars (1977), Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior (1981), Blade Runner (1982), Brazil (1985), Batman (1989), Ghost in the Shell (1995), and The City of Lost Children (1995), which played on an almost continuous loop in the artists' office. Frank Miller's and Geoff Darrow's work on Hard Boiled and Big Guy and Rusty, the Boy Robot Urban and suburban U.S. of the 1940s and 1950s also inspired some of the artists, including vehicle design, signage, architecture, and art.

Technology
"Seriously, the artists just thought that 50's tech looked cool. So they set out to make a future science that looked like what the Golden Era of science fiction thought that future science would look like (if you can follow that sentence). Vacuum tubes, ray guns, mutants, the whole works. And I think they succeeded quite well."

- Tim Cain

As can be seen in the above quote, the technology of the setting were dictated by the technology and fiction of the Golden Age of Science Fiction, namely the 1950s. As such, Fallout included vacuum tube electronics, rather than the integrated circuits popularized in subsequent decades, ray gun energy weapons, giant mutants, the whole nine yards. The aforementioned 1956 movie Forbidden Planet was shown to artists as a summary of what the technology of Fallout should look: An honest 1950s vision of the future, with clunky robots, ray guns, and the general "feel". Some elements came from much later movies, as is the case with the T-51 power armor, inspired by the armor worn by thugs from The City of Lost Children (1995).

However, the setting isn't meant to accommodate every bit of junk science that comes to mind. Scott Campbell specifically introduced the Forced Evolutionary Virus to provide a more plausible explanation for the more stunning mutations found in the setting, without handwaving it as the "power of radiation", which would harm versimilitude.

Politics
While Fallout is based on the future visions of the 1950s, it is not the 1950s transposed to the future. One of the most noticeable changes is the replacement of the Soviet Union with China as the communist foil to the capitalist, democratic United States. As pictured in the above quote, Scott Campbell believed the post-collapse Russia could not be a convincing arch-enemy of the United States. The Dragon, however? Considering the 1980s and 1990s concern about East Asian countries dominating the global economy, it was very plausible. Interestingly, the political situation did not parallel real world developments. The hardline policy towards China mimics the U.S. foreign policy of the 1950s and the 1980s, with Fallout 3 and Fallout 76 emphasizing the MacCarthyist and HUAC aspects of the setting, following the example of Van Buren. The Soviet Union also existed as late as 2077, whereas in reality, it collapsed in 1992.

Domestic politics of the United States were an interesting modification of real-world tendencies. By 1969, the 50 states of the nation had been unified into 13 super-states, the commonwealths. The real reason behind this was because Leonard Boyarsky believed the design was cool and illustrated the changed America much better. This was not elaborated upon until much later, in Van Buren and after its failure, Fallout 3, Fallout: New Vegas, Fallout 4, and Fallout 76.

Society
The society of the Fallout setting is an interesting mix of contemporary and modern elements. The pre-War society was inspired by 1950s Americana, including widespread consumerism, fascination with technology, staple 1950s TV Dinners remaining popular, fervent patriotism and anti-communism, though notably, it lacks the many less appealing elements of the time. There was no institutionalized racism, widespread anti-feminism, or suppression of sexual minorities in pre-War America. Gender stereotypes were still present, though did not constrict one's life to the same degree as in the 1950s.

In general, the post-nuclear society is far more egalitarian than the source material would imply, reflecting modern sentiments and tendencies. Women fight alongside men, occupy positions of influence, and even serve in armies on equal terms. Racism is conspicuously absent in the games, replaced by hatred towards mutated humans.

The culture of the Fallout universe is that as envisioned in the 1950s, in essence modern Americana. Although the subculture movements, like Hippie, Beatnik, and Punk were absolutely around, their movements just never materialized as mainstream.