When It All Changed: The Early History of the Fallout Universe
Fallout Season Two's teaser just dropped, and I'm busy playing Fallout 76 at the same time that I'm in a Fallout TTRPG campaign - so I suppose it's time to take a look at the mysteries surrounding the origins the Fallout universe - in-universe. The games are all set on or after the nukes dropping - October 23, 2077. In fact, the only glimpse that we've really had (apart from audio recordings or text) of the world prior to that date has been in the TV show, and even that has been only a few years prior. Prior to about 2020, it really starts to get rather hazy. So, like others before me, I want to speculate about how Fallout became... well, Fallout! And that's looking at two questions: 1) When Did It Change (more precisely, when did it deviate greatly from regular history)? 2) Why is technology the way it is by the Great War? Let's start with the first question. Kenneth Hite noted that alternate histories can have small changes and large cha...
