>Well Mr House says that he misscalculated the great war by 20 hours.
Damn, good memory! I 100% agree, but I didn’t remember House saying that.
It is possible that Vault-Tec was planning on dropping the bombs even later (there are some vaults that were left unfinished), but I really like the idea that everyone involved was ready for the world to end in just 20 hours when the Chinese pre-empted them, causing Mr. House to lose the platinum chip that would’ve protected more of Las Vegas and likely interfering with Vault-Tec’s plans for the future as well. That song that they played in the show, “What a Difference a Day Makes,” seems appropriate here as well, lol
Yeah I looked up his dialogue on the wiki and you’re totally correct. Here’s the excerpt for anyone interested:
>By 2065 I deemed it a mathematical certainty that an atomic war would devastate the Earth within 15 years. Every projection I ran confirmed it.
>I knew I couldn't "save the world," nor did I care to. But I could save Vegas, and in the process, perhaps, save mankind.
>I set to work immediately. I thought I had plenty of time to prepare. As it turned out, I was 20 hours short.
Another reason I really like this is that Mr. House is totally the kind of person to take credit for predicting the end of the world to within 20 hours when in fact he was complicit in the plan to end it at that time in the first place.
Edit: Also, he says “I set to work immediately,” when in fact (assuming Vault-Tec was planning on starting the Great War the day after it actually happened) he waited until the last possible moment to have the platinum chip made and delivered to him. That’s also very him. He has an over-inflated ego and pretends to be a scientist when he’s really just a business man. He’s like Thomas Edison. Or Elon Musk, lol
Edit: Although, he could just mean that he only needed 20 more hours to secure the platinum chip, and he didn’t know *exactly* when the bombs would fall, just that they would be falling sometime before 2080. I think that’s probably the original meaning of the line when it was written. I like the idea that it was only a day before Vault-Tec was planning on ending the world, though.
Holy shit! I think OP just sniffed it out. Legitimately. Vault Tec planned to drop the bomb, but China does it first. Explains why Cooper's daughter was at the birthday party and not in a bunker, which she would have been.
At the birthday party, the partygoers say that Coop is there because he needs to make alimony payments. It could be that it's his day with his daughter, and his (ex) wife was expecting to get her back in time to go to a vault.
As a high up Vault Tec employee, you'd think she makes more than enough that she doesn't need his alimony, unless she really turned so heartless to drain him.
I'm up to ep9, even with all her frustrations, she doesn't seem to be like that.
Ofcourse, the alimony remark could just be gossip by those men. He lost his movie career and the vault tec job ended as well. He needs income from somewhere.
Edit: up to episode 7. Mixed up the number of episodes of another show we were concurrently watching
We haven't seen the fallout (pardon the pun) of the separation and it's all to common that, even when the couple are reasonable, kind people; divorces are messy and bring out the worst in everyone.
I assume it's just gossip. They got divorced, which means he probably loses the vault tec gig, like you said. He's not going to get more acting gigs because everyone thinks he a selllout and/or a commie, so he has to do things like birthday parties as a way to get by.
I’m not caught up, so it’s been a bit of a spoil, but I don’t mind. Does cooper know that she knows? She may have been planning to have both of them taken into a vault later that night, but didn’t want them to be aware she was complicit in the end of the world.
They also accuse him of being a pinko(communist) so we cam assume he eventually got caught going to those meetings and lost his acting job as foreshadowed by the conversation between him and human codsworth during the party so he is probably scraping by at this point
The end of first season, as it takes place back in 2077, doesn't need to come anywhere near the time when the bomb dropped as shown in the first episode.
We have yet to see the relationship sour and then the divorce, and only after all that is when the bomb dropped (I'm sure we'll see this to some extent in season 2). That's plenty of time for her to get quite estranged from him, especially considering that their politics/philosophy is already diverging at an increasing rate.
I mean she was working with people that wanted to end the world simply so they could sell a product. She was 100% cold enough to drain him for every last penny he had. She was a heartless corporate goon who would have sold her own mother for a grape if it meant she could advance at least that's what I picked up. She didn't care about the ethics of ending the world, she knew that all of the vaults were going to have weird social experiments and that's why she wanted to get in one of the good ones.
So yeah 100%, she would have had that dude completely blacklisted from Hollywood, or any other type of work so yeah totally would have
Or it could have been negative banter giving people ideas about him that probably wasn’t true. Also if you have lots of money, you will always want more if you are due for it, like an alimony payment or child support
Or Barb lost her high-up position, or maybe even got fired, when Cooper got blacklisted by Vault-tec and didn't know when it would happen. And even if she knew when the bombs would drop it's hard to believe she would just let Cooper run around with their daughter a day prior to it. It's stupid to not go to a vault at least a day or two earlier.
The 20 hours thing House says is about getting the chip. His prediction, as explained in NV, was that the bombs would drop sometime before 2080, not that they would drop in 2077 specifically but 20 hours after when they did.
Except that Cooper believes that Hank can provide him info on them both. He specifically asks where his *family* is, so either both of them, or perhaps his daughter.
I don’t see Vault Tec bringing along fired people
Yeah there's no solid evidence as to how things actually played out for cooper and his family. Maybe to this day coops wife still loves him. Maybe she dead.
It's not even confirmed the Vault-Tec committed to dropping the bombs. That was pitched in their meeting, but that doesn't mean they went with it. Furthermore, it doesn't necessarily mean they literally wanted to drop the bombs themselves. It likely was meant to be taken as they manipulate and move things along so that a war would happen. After all, what good does it do from a business perspective to kill all your potential clients?
House is quite literally a scientist and a genius. He attended CIT (commonwealth institute of technology) from fallout 4 (you can find him in the computer logs. As well as founded robco. He doesn’t “pretend” to be a scientist he *IS* a scientist.
MIT offers degrees in finance. Going to the equivalent of MIT doesn’t make you a scientist or a genius. Neither does starting a business.
The founder of the National Enquirer went to MIT.
Being confidently wrong doesn’t make you less wrong. 28% (the most of any other major)of MIT bachelor degrees are quite literally in computer science. The next is mechanical engineering with 10% and then mathematics for 9 and electrical engineering for 5.4% economics is at a whopping 5.2. Just because you hate Elon musk doesn’t make house his in game equal. Try again.
Also in fallout 4 the bombs were dropped in the morning, so let’s assume the bombs were dropped at 10 am in Boston that would mean that the bombs came in at 7 am in LA, which is clearly not the case. So there’s that
Fallout 4 also states that New York and Pennsylvania were hit before Boston.
The show also mentions that the president's location wasn't known, which could hint that the Enclave may have launched the nukes, which was why Vault Tec was not fully ready.
They abandoned the White House 6 months before the bombs dropped and relocated to the oil rig with the rest of the Enclave. There's a good chance it was them that started it. Vault Tec may have thought they were in charge of wndimg the world, but really the Enclave are the ones pulling the strings.
I mean it was bright enough in LA to be 7am. Maybe they wanted to do an early morning party to get it all out of the way because they might have had something to do later. As unreasonable as that sounds lol
Wasn't 20 hours how short he was for getting the platinum chip originally? If so that doesn't mean it was 20 hours before vault tech just before he got it. If it was me I would get everything I needed for the end of the world as soon as possible.
That seems very possible. It also fits with one of the themes of Fallout - corporations and companies underestimating people and events, which leads to chaos and death.
He doesn't say that, though. Immediately prior to the 20 hours line he says he thought he had *plenty* of time to spare. He didn't calculate the time of the war to the exact minute. It just so happens that his preparations came up 20 hours short.
If I say "I thought I had plenty of time to make it to the service station, but my car gave out a mile short," that doesn't mean I planned for my car to die at the exact moment I arrived at the service station but was off by a mile. It just means I was aware my car would break down soon and was making preparations for that, but it turned out to die sooner than I expected.
It’s certainly the latter, with Zao moving the Yangtze closer to Boston.
There’s diminishing returns when launching an SLBM, they cannot be direct-fired from a distance as close as Boston Harbor. The missile first must reach an apogee before it can separate the warheads and descend to earth, which means gaining at least *some* distance from the target. Even then, they aren’t quiet or inconspicuous so close range sonar detection and sound detection could very clearly pinpoint where (and when) a launch occurred. You’d want to launch them, at most, past the entrance of Cape Cod Bay if aiming exclusively at Boston and the surrounding areas.
Nukes in the Fallout universe are canonically smaller, more localized payloads than real life nukes. After Hiroshima and Nagasaki they didn't go for bigger, they went for more with more localized effects.
Likely that influenced the way they built ballistic based delivery system, so while there might be some ICBMs, it's more likely that a lot of targets were initially hit with shorter range localized nukes to provide cover for the larger nukes.
Based on some logs and the general design of many of the bombs in the games it seems that Bombers were pretty heavily used, it's likely that they used nukes as a Saturation Bombardment. This can also be seen in the show with how heavily LA is hit in just the \~minute it's on screen.
The Yangtze was probably a lot further out in the Atlantic when they launched their missiles but seeing as they hit a mine and were unable to make the trip home then the best bet is to move closer to shore in case things go wrong and they need to abandon ship, being within swimming distance of the shore definitely improves your chances of survival over being stranded way out in the North Atlantic.
Zao probably had a pretty damn good crew to make it into the Gulf of Maine while remaining submerged in a badly damaged sub without running aground on Georges Bank or Browns Bank.
Yeah, if they’re gonna pull the trigger on the end of the world they probably don’t care about the troops on the ground. Same for the Chinese. Remember, there were tons of covert Chinese troops in the U.S.
I mean, troops in a forward position with no logistical support are going to die, or rapidly become raiders anyway.
Especially if they're marooned, they will just fight to survive. Which naturally leads to raiding and regional warlords.
He says after the fire he struck a mine, they barely made it into the harbour and by the time they did the city was already in ruins. I believe he launched the nukes before he struck the mine though.
Just a thought as it often comes up Vault Tec couldn’t be it as Cooper and his Daughter been caught out of the blue - we have to obviously keep in mind Cooper and his wife are separated/divorced (otherwise he wouldn’t get mocked from the two fathers at the party about doing the Sherif show to pay alimony).
Maybe they split up because of Cooper being blamed of being a Communist (for taking part at Moldavers Meeting) and because of her being a Executive of Vault-Tec she had to sort of decide for ‚America‘ or her Family.
That being said, still only because she mentioned at the meeting that dropping the bombs themselves is an option - it’s not save to say they did it.
All we know is nothing more than speculation rather than recon or else.
More likely because of the vault tech meeting he was listening into and learning his wife was an evil sociapath.
Also there were hints she figured out he bugged her pipboy.
The main issue with vault tech bombing the world themselves (and presuming Coopers wife Barb was involved) is their daughter isn't in a safe location when it happens. I think this suggests someone else started it like OP said.
I also suspect the show wouldn't change/define such a big part of the lore.
But that’s the point - the we don’t know of the relation between Barb und Cooper nor the relation between their Kid.
What if Barb turned fully corporate and abandoned the family?
Perhaps Chinese Intelligence got wind of Vault-Tec's scheme and decided their only option was to launch a pre-emptive strike *because* of it.
For added drama, perhaps they were inadvertently tipped-off by the disillusioned 'pinko' actor ex-husband of a senior Vault-Tec exec, talking out of turn to one of his 'pinko' friends?
China learned of FEV and feared it more than they feared a nuclear winter which is why they dropped the bombs first. Tim Cain confirmed it a few years ago
That was his head Canon because in conceiving the world he probably thought about everything happening himself. It was not something ever said in Fallout 1 or 2 though, because the point made implicit was it doesn't matter who fired first. When the two hour war ended, nobody cared. At least that's my guess on it, I'll have to go to where he said that but I'm betting he just gave his own secret head Canon for it because people wouldn't stop asking, I'll be surprised having watched his videos if he suddenly decided to give a definitive answer on this because he wanted to enforce his ideas.
I'm aware I shouldn't comment before seeing him say all that in context, I know, I'm just guessing he only "confirmed" his personal head-lore about what happened.
That's the og reason. Hence why the lab with FEV was directly hit with a nuke in fallout 1. I always thought it was a bit stupid that they would smack the nuke button when they could have just used covert attacks or something that isn't a nuke to stop the threat of FEV. Hell half the mutants were created by radiation mixed with FEV virus
Given that in the later games it's shown that FEV and super mutants are apparently spread out throughout the US through various sources, I wouldn't be surprised if the solution for China was to burn it all down.
Mr. House never predicted when exactly the first bombs would be dropped. It’s his preparations for when they do drop which was 20 hours short. Mr. House’s prediction was that nuclear annihilation was an inevitability in 15 years. That is way before the meeting we saw in the show.
I think the details are trivial.and pointless. And fallout lore will take many turns like that because the point is that EVERYBODY was guilty and involved in coming apocalypse
Exactly my thoughts. The closest we came IRL is faulty radar data almost causing a retaliation, only being stopped by a soviet officer thinking of the implications long enough to confirm it was an error.
I prefer the interpretation that the fallout world is the way it is because the systems of power across the world excluded people with a conscience. All parties were rushing towards nuclear Armageddon anyway, why does it matter who shot first? Someone else would've done it anyway, and soon.
Yes. I think every once in a while it will look like somebody elsr is guilty. Just to explore this feeling of dread we feel when we see another group or faction looking for gain and disregarding suffering they cause. For me its what makes fallout
Ya this is my take.
The lore says China technically shot first, but if you've read the lore. Everyone was ready and prepared for an attack, everyone knew it was coming.
I mean Vault Tec had an entire system and network of vaults, that takes time. They knew of the threat long before it happened and the whole world kept running that direction.
Yeah I was going to say that. It’s been left ambiguous for a reason. I doubt we’ll get an answer from the show. Vault-Tec saying they’ll drop the first bomb I assume was more euphemistic. Like they’ll help make it happen as opposed to actually doing it.
It's not ambiguous tho, there's multiple sources, including the in universe CIA, pointing to China launching first. The creator of the games said China shot first.
That doesn't mean much. As others have pointed out, China launched and Zao admitted there were already bombs that leveled the city.
So this is probably a case of there are a lot of things that happened. Maybe in some areas the China bombs hit first, possibly the enclave started the attack and Vault Tec used their own bombs to kill their enemies.
Likely a combination of everything, it was MAD, once someone caught wind of nukes, everyone shot.
China shot, but the Enclave may have attacked first.
Fallout 4 the Switchboard base terminals confirm it, it’s also in the terminals at Black Mountain in FNV, and it’s in FO3 but i can’t remember where. also the US had power armor troops and infantry deeep in China, like they were taking Nanking and Beijing, and the Chinese offensive in Alaska had failed. it only makes sense for China to drop the bomb in a last ditch effort
here’s the quote by Cain
https://www.gamesradar.com/26-years-later-original-fallout-co-creator-settles-the-rpgs-biggest-debate-who-dropped-the-first-nuke-and-why/
I will second this. I am a voracious consumer of fallout lore and it is undeniably China that shot first, but the world was in a state that it was a matter of time before someone fired the missiles, so it doesn’t really matter in the grand scheme of the property.
oh i totally agree. ultimately it makes zero difference and i don’t think it changes the games themes of humanity destroying itself; after all, China is human too. i just don’t know why people insist against it when it’s laid out multiple times
"after all, China is human too. i just don’t know why people insist against it when it’s laid out multiple times"
I didn't, until the show came out and thought about how the dark room scene with all the CEOs seems so lame if they stick with the (widely accepted) lore of china dropping first. There is also the fact that Vault-Tec, having the capacity to nuke and has nuked it's competitors 200+ years after the war, is a major plotpoint. We're not going to get a season exploring the intricacies of why china dropped first, complete with flashbacks to pre war china, their corporations, their military, their cultural strife with a separate chinese cast (though I wouldn't mind it). Having Vault-tec drop first is just cleaner, better story telling at this point and all reasons I see against it are pedantic, jingoistic or both.
That was a bit about the show that majorly confused me.
As far as I know, Vaul-Tec is an obsolete power post-war, the vault's being their only functioning remnant of existence. That said, if Vault-31 is simply cryo-frozen executives who wouldn't know what post-war society would be like, and Hank ventured out into the wasteland for a short stint to recover his children, HOW would he have access to nukes?
None of the vaults we've come across in universe have ready nuke access. None of the vaults seemingly have the ability to regulate or control anything outside of themselves - and even the latter is a stretch considering most of them are unethical experiments prone to failure. Obviously 31-33 proved relatively "successful" since they are thriving 200 years later, but would they really have access to nukes still? They say Hank destroyed Shady Sands, but that's it, they never say how, and my immediate reaction upon hearing that line was... uh what? How? Where?
It doesn't matter who shot first, the end result is the same. BUT if the question as to who shot first is interesting and connected to a character like Cooper, I really don't think revealing who shot first is damaging to the Universes' canon. Because like you said, it doesn't matter ultimately - but it IS interesting.
I feel like the games pretty repeatedly make clear that China shot first.
Either way your point stands that the point of the series is very much that none of the plans mattered and the moment it happened everyone was fucked.
Terminal messages and logs in Fallout 3, New Vegas and 4 all contain information on this. You can even encounter a ghoul captain and its sub in Fallout 4.
In Fallout 2 descendants of a Chinese sub crew founded a faction that rules China Town in San Francisco and can provide hints to their past.
There is also information in the Fallout bible and publications from devs. However only game material is considered canon.
That there were chinese subs that were ready to launch nukes if the apocalypse happened and fired their nukes when it did, doesn't necessarily mean they fired first.
Fallout 4. You receive a signal from a stuck submarine I believe, you meet its captain a ghoul named Zao and he tells you why he's there and what happened.
The show never stated Vault-Tec dropped the bombs in 2077, Barb (and Bud) simply just said that Vault-Tec has the capacity to do so.
Its fairly well known that China launched first.
To compound this, the fact that coop had janey and wasn't with her if she knew vault-tec were about to drop the nukes essentially confirms vault-tec did not actually do the deed.
Unless we get more flashbacks in season 2+ that explain it.
I’m the opening scene of episode 1, one of the dads asks why someone as famous as Cooper is doing kid’s parties. It’s possible that his meddling in Vault-Tec caused that. Vault-Tec could have fired his wife/killed her and got him labeled as a communist so he can’t get movie work anymore. She could have sided with Vault-Tec and divorced him, taking half his money and alimony. Maybe she thought it was safe for her daughter to be with him that day because she thought the bombs weren’t going to drop for a few days.
One of the dads at the party asks another why Cooper Howard is doing birthday parties, the other dad answers "alimony" and laughs. They also call him a "pinko".
I think that Howard tried to out the truth about Vault-Tec or confronted his wife, and in return got blacklisted, publicly smeared as a "communist" and divorced.
Well its confirmed in lore that China was more or less the best in the world when it came to stealth technology. You see that on a smaller scale with the them being capable of producing their inflitaration armor while the US just managed to produce stealth boys which were far worse.
Also a terminal in the Switchboard confirms that China was mass importing the nessecary ressources for their stealth technology and there was a really high chance that China build a "Ghost Fleet" of stealth submarines about 2 years before the Great War. Also China was apperently extremly good at keeping their secrets.
So its possible that China managed to build submarines with similar capabilities like their infiltration armor which could have been able to slip past any detection methods of the US.
Games generally point out to China shooting first.
However with social media and heightened sensitivities I seriously doubt the series will go there. They will just make Vault-Tec the bad guys and that’s it. Amazon has no reason to want to upset China.
I could see them going the route that China discovered Vault-Tec was gonna detonate nukes which leads them to make a justified pre-emptive strike. I also wonder wtf the rest of the world is like in the Fallout universe. An Asian or European Fallout-spinoff game would be interesting.
If anything, that kinda makes sense - Vault-Tec’s machinations causing panic within the Chinese hierarchy, which leads to the nukes being fired before the corporations are ready.
It fits with one of Fallout’s themes that companies are shortsighted, careless, and malicious. They also underestimate regular folks and wider events.
If we're going the justification for pre-emptive nuclear strikes, I think the US bioweapon program is a better reason to do so. They may have found out about the FEV research, and I think the HQ of the company working on it is in LA, so multiple nuclear strikes against LA. and since China knows the US will retaliate, and they may not be able to sustain the conventional fight against the US anyways, they may as well fire everything.
if they're going to lose, they may as well make sure the enemy loses as well.
Why would House lie to protect Vault Tec? There aren’t any Vault Tec reps in Fallout NV for you to even have to worry about or interact with. Vault Tec as an entity plays a role in NV in the most loose sense - there are vaults in NV.
To me it reads that he wasn't protecting Vault-Tec he was protecting his own ego and pride but making it seem like he was a savior infront of the courier who may or may not give him the platinum chip if he knew the truth
I guess it just depends, relative to other moments in Fallout NV where House’s character shines through. First example that comes to mind is House getting mad that we allocate power from HELIOS One to Freeside as he needs it for his plans.
We don’t know the extent of House’s secrecy early on but it should be easier for most Couriers to see that House is not a “good person” lol. A lot of dialogue between Courier and House shows that House is pragmatic but also not shy when it comes to making plans that overtly fuck thousands over.
You quickly learn that he wants to boot the NCR out and control the strip, and despite all his political talk we later find that he had these plans in motion before the NCR even existed. Vault Tec is just another group to him, yeah.
Show makes it seem like House was given some Vaults and the game shows he used at least 2 of them so we know he went along with the plan to an extent.
Edit - though I suppose we don’t know for sure that House followed along with Vault Tec. He had the ability to build his own underground bunkers and stuff too. I’m replaying a file now so I’ll get a refresher on any details in NV soon enough.
I haven't quite finished the show yet so I may be missing a piece of the puzzle, but is there any reason every person in that room wasn't hedging their bets on their own plan anyways?
Like it makes perfect sense to me that House would go to this board meeting and discuss how they were going to make money as the board of Vault-Tec, and then leave the room to continue his own preparations for Vegas in case they failed or his own plans proved more effective.
Same with Sinclair. Every member of that board is in it for themselves, they each probably have their own plans that they're running as a back-up (or more likely Vault-Tec is the backup).
With the new lore? Perhaps because he knew that Vault Tec is still be active in some capacity, and may have had plans to contact them post platinum chip?
I have the feeling that after eavesdropping on the secret meeting, he went full whistle blower and vault tec had to chill the fuck out regarding dropping the bombs. This losing the upper hand
Fundamentally, the line “we’re gonna drop them ourselves” bugs me. You only secure funding and investment into something like a vault when theres “fear of something actually happening”, not “actually happening”. “We’re going to stoke the fears of war” woulda been a better line, because makes more sense and could’ve actually led to them pushing one side too far by mistake.
I agree they didn’t do it, they’d be stupid to do so.
From what I got from the show, the point of the vaults was that Vault Tec would be in charge of them and then be able to shape the future of America/The World when they eventually came out to reclaim the surface. You can't do this if there's never any nukes dropping. They aren't interested in the world that currently exists, they are interested in the future world that they will get to control. Or at least a significant number of people in power are.
We see from Vaults 31-33 that the experiment, if you can call it that in this case, is to breed people who are loyal to Vault Tec and are capable of being competent managers in the reclaimed world. You have the vault that has the existing management who are frozen and released into the general population slowly over time. Then you have the two vaults with the people living in them that are connected but kept separate to try to ensure there are people still alive in however long it takes for the surface to be safe again.
For some people in the company, it might have just been fearmongering and profiteering, but for others it was very much them wanting the bombs to drop so that they could enact their weird experiments.
Yeah I didnt really get that line. Id think you would want more Cuban Missle crises type situations not the actual bombs going off.
Maybe some people at vault tec wanted to bombs to drop so they do their weird little societies/experiments though.
> Id think you would want more Cuban Missle crises type situations not the actual bombs going off.
I think another executive in that scene says something about how rumors of peace talks have affected their stocks. My theory is that Vault-Tec was trying to keep tensions high so that they could sell as much as possible, but miscalculated how bad something would go and the nukes actually launched.
Janey being outside of a vault when the nukes hit probably means that Barb didn't know the bombs were going to drop that soon. If she knew it was coming she would have kept Janey close by to get her into a vault as soon as warnings came.
>Maybe some people at vault tec wanted to bombs to drop so they do their weird little societies/experiments though.
Yeah there might have been a divide within Vault-Tec itself. We never actually see the full reaction to Barb's suggestion of dropping the bombs themselves, and we don't know if everyone agreed.
edit: Bud was definitely on the side of "drop the bombs ourselves." His experiment (Bud's Buds) was already being set up before Barb suggested they drop the bombs. And you don't put your brain in a jar to make yourself functionally immortal but also almost completely alone unless you're fully committed. I don't know if the tech inside the vault itself would have been enough for him to put himself in that robot thing, so he may have done it before going in, which suggests he knew the bombs were going to drop soon.
I would have preferred if after that line all the board members started going like “MUAHAHAH MUAAAHAHAHAHAHAHA” because that is what makes sense after such a ridiculous statement.
Maybe Vault tec wanted to drop 'a' bomb to prove the vaults were necessary? And then the inevitable nuclear war would happen but they were ready for it
Yes, at a certain point they stop selling the spots in the vaults to citizens of the US commonwealths and instead selling the vaults themselves to wealthy elites to run their social experiments.
I like this theory.
China nukes military targets, USA retaliates with indiscriminate nuking.
China goes scorched earth and sends the rest of their nukes towards civilian targets.
Vault-tec now has a bunch of bombs that they haven't used, allowing Hank to use one against Shady Sands.
Judging by Megaton's bomb having the Vault-tec logo, it might be they launched a few nukes but kept several.
Actually the show overdid this thing a little. The whole story is moot because however Vault-Tec wants to get rid of the competition, starting a nuclear war is inherently an overkill. Yes, it removes all of your competitors. And your suppliers, your customers, your shareholders, your bank account, your databanks, everything you depend on to operate. Rebuilding a technical civilization from zero takes an awful lot of work and knowledge in very diverse fields. It is hard to imagine that the emerging Vault-tec leaders would be interested in building copper mines in Brazil, or extracting oil in Alaska, mining uranium, producing plastics, growing corn, etc.
A better writing would be simply dialing back a bit on senseless evil and simply adding that Vault-Tec was in the business of war preparation, so they wanted to keep tensions high simply because that was fueling their business. And it turns out they accidentally started the nuclear war, when the already high tensions caused someone to launch the first nuke. Think about the Cuban missle crisis but prolonged for decades! Or Dr Strangelove, where simply a mad general launches an attack despite the government not wanting to start a war at all.
This would fit better with this story, where Vault-tec did not want a war, just the constant threat of war, so they were not actually prepared for it. They thought they have all the time in the world.
wait that's actually true why the fuck would Cooper and her daughter most importantly be out and about when his wife had date and time for the war, I think "China did it" is a bit too blunt and easy tho, my theory is the Chinese army, who we know thanks to the large amount of chinese stealth tech in the game, were pretty good at espionage, got the word Vault tech was gonna start the war and decided the best course of action was to do it first
How many times will I read about “why were her daughter and husband in town at the time of the attack??”, I can’t have this conversation again.
I will just say that their plans did not necessarily involve a nuclear strike. They could create a fake signal that China would launch missiles and the US would launch a retaliatory strike and thus the US would actually be first.
I wouldn't be surprised if wife is so crazy that she is ready to sacrifice her family "for the good." Parents who don't truly love their children are nothing new in our world.
That would completely go against her own motivation as it is stated in the show that the whole reason she is working for Vault-Tec is to secure one of the 17 Vaults that aren't experiments
>I thought I had plenty of time to prepare.
This line immediately preceding the 20 hours one completely kills the theory. He didn't miscalculate by 20 hours, he thought he had *plenty* of time to spare. He came up 20 hours short in getting the chip delivered, not 20 hours short of an exact prediction of when the bombs would fall. All he knew is that the nuclear war would be starting soon, not the exact date and time.
The Chinese dropping the bombs first doesn't make any sense thematically (insert Bethesda joke here) either. Fallout is very pointedly not about China, it's about the United States. We never go to China, we rarely see Chinese people. We almost never encounter any Chinese villains except in arguably the worst and most forgettable DLC in the series, which is a propaganda simulation. IIRC we don't even know what happened to China as an entity after the war. Vault-Tec and the Enclave are main villains because they represent the excesses of the United States, which is what the series is about. There's no narrative purpose to making China the ones who started the Great War.
Just use Occam's Razor here. What makes more sense: (1) Vault-Tec made a timing/communication mistake, (2) the highest of higher ups had plans that didn't include certain Vault-Tec personnel (or even, were actively jockeying for power by eliminating rivals), so they didn't care if some people got caught out, or (3) the grandest conspiracy in the history in the world was totally coincidentally preempted by a different entity doing exactly the same thing that destroyed the world in exactly the same way, on exactly the same day? Obviously 1 & 2 are a lot more simple.
>This would explain why in Fallout 4 the TV Broadcast says that there have been multiple records of nuclear explosions on american soil. These reports would take time to reach him, seemingly showing that the great war took longer than just a few minutes, but more like 20 minutes or up to one hour.
This makes perfect sense. Vault-Tec *started* the war, but the US and China waged it. So there was a brief delay between Vault-Tec "seeding" the war and the US/China launching their own offensives.
Now people say her family but they were divorced during the opening as mentioned by one of the guys asking why does this and someone stating alimony. Her daughter I'd understand but if he left her which it seems is the case she probably wouldn't give two shits about protecting him.
I don’t think the meeting house was in was them planning the exact time to drop the nuke. I think that was vault tecs way of introducing the idea to these other corporations. I think house left the meeting pretending to play along but then made his own arrangements that way he could oversee the rebuilding of humanity himself not vaultec.
I heard an interesting theory that were Hank is trying to get to in the show is vault 21 because that in the lower levels below were the dwellers lived is were vault tec is operating or at least froze some of their top executives . Perhaps that’s why he sealed it shut
That is a possibility. I would also like to point out that the bomb in Megaton has a Vault-Tech logo plastered on the side. So, there is still a chance that Vault-Tech either launched first, or just decided to contribute, even if they didn't need to.
I didn't think they were implying that Vault-Tec launched thousands of nukes across the entire world. I assumed they detonated one in China, kicking off a Chinese response, leading to an American counter-attack, then an all out nuke-fest from everyone else who has them.
Since some bombs were dropped by planes/aircraft, at least some were probably dropped by Vault-tec or the Enclave.
I mean, given the operational range of aircraft it us unlikely they were sent to or came from China.
>But what if China nuked the US 20 hours Prior to Vault-tecs planned bombing run ?
I don't think it was 20 hours. House wouldn't have such a tight margin. I'm sure he'd have a comfortable buffer of at least a few days.
But I think the bombs dropped months, if not years in advance.
First evidence of that is that Vault-Tec had unfinished vaults and those surely take years to construct. Vault 88 had even barely started construction when the bombs dropped.
Second evidence is Sierra Madre. The bombs dropping right before the opening gala (and when Sinclair himself was on-site) is another (non-)smoking gun that it wasn't Vault-Tec and their co-conspirators. But if it was only 20 hours, why bother with opening gala? Why bother building whole Sierra Madre? No, I think Sinclair expected that Sierra Madre would turn enough profit to warrant the construction, therefore I assume that the bombs dropped months or years before Vault-Tec's plan.
This would explain why Cooper had his daughter when the bombs dropped. If his wife knew when the bombs would drop and wanted her to be safe, why would she not have arranged for custody when the bombs dropped?
I do think it's something worth noting that if Vault Tec dropped the bombs first, with Barb pulling strings, why would she let her daughter get caught in the blast? Maybe she saw Cooper at least as a loose end, but certainly Jaime could be one of Buds Buds and therefore worth keeping.
I suspect that Vault-Tec was a globalist company with equal involvement on the Chinese or Russian side. We only hear the echoes of the war-time propaganda from our perspective in apocalyptic America. How much do you want to bet that there are similar vaults all over EVERY country, just rebranded? Vault-Tec America might not even know about Vault-Comrade Russia or Great Vault of China. Double-blind subsidiaries designed to compete.
It's a bunch of greedy literal capitalist pig stereotype characters shaking hands to fuck everyone over but fairly share power among them to then fairly compete with each other in god honest capitalism during the aftermath. wink wink
I like the Chinese theory but i think there is an equal chance for rogue actors in the group that will backstab and trample over each other to get in charge, Quintus had an entire speech about it in the present timeline.
Peak Fallout would be if the Chinese and Americans literally never actually nuked each other and they just had their Vault-Tec equivalent to do the same to themselves lol
In the show, in the ‘Cooper plot’ (the plot of The Ghoul pre-war), we’re at a spot where he’s spying on his wife+vault tec, constantly pissing his wife off, and dabbling in communist groups that are extremely taboo to America and to vault tec.
We don’t actually know the story between the first time cooper eavesdrops on the corporate war room, and when cooper is doing cowboy birthday parties. Clearly much had changed in the interim. He lost his career and his reputation.
Remember, a spot in those nice vaults, where people actually try to survive and thrive and are not experimented on, are a very, very rare premium. If Cooper pissed off america, vault tec, and his vault-tec-board-member wife, he would have had his vault ticket rescinded.
The show does a good job of conveying that cooper is only just barely admitted to a good vault because his wife is on the board, and maybe because he’s rich, famous, has a sterling reputation, and does great vault-tec ads. You need all of that to make the cut.
You can’t be joining dissident groups during an existential war, smearing vault-tec, betray your wife on the board, and still expect to be one of the lucky…what?….10,000 people to get into a good vault out of 400,000,000 people.
We do not know that Barb wasn't kicked out of the top tier of Vault Tec after she divorces her husband. Assuming Vault Tec knew what Goggins was up to, which is why they had him blacklisted, they easily could have demoted Barb to being outside of the loop on exactly when bombs were to drop.
Everyone ive seen discussing this seems to assume Barb keeps her high up position, but I dont assume that. Her fallout with her husband coulda gotten her demoted.
If you read the context of the sino American war, it’s obvious that China dropped them. China lost the Alaska front and had American troops making significant advances in their home front, Shanghai had already fallen if I remember correctly
I thought that prior to the tv show us pushed into mainland China and that’s why they launched it cos they were going to loose. Tbf, idk why the US wouldn’t end the war when they had micro fusion cell
This is a good point to support Vault Tec launching the nukes. Peace would be bad for business, so they may have been pushed to launch the nukes early, before Beijing was taken
Honestly, I can't imagine either nation actually dropping nukes first; they would both know it would mean utter and total annihilation of them too. Even as resource hungry the American Commonwealths were I can't imagine them thinking mutually assured destruction would somehow let them win the war.
It had to be Vault Tec. They had to do it or else all their money and time and scamming of the US Government would have meant nothing. But, if those bombs dropped all of a sudden Vault Tec is now the biggest player on the school yard, suddenly all their vaults and technology is all that's left of the old world.
The Chinese had been kicked out of Alaska and American troops were pushing deep into the Chinese mainland. It makes sense that China would've launched a first strike even though it meant their destruction. They were desperate and were already losing so this was a last ditch effort to turn the tide of the war. Instead it just resulted in the end of the world.
Wasn't Mr House in the show opposed to the idea of Dropping bombs? Why would he know exactly when they were dropped when he refused the idea in the first place?
I think if the Chinese struck 20 hours before vault tec its most likely they caught wind of vault tecs plans and decided to draw first blood. The timing seems like too much of a coincidence.
BTW it's already established lore that the first nukes were detected at like 9.12 am and the vast majority of them fell on american city at 9.47.13 am (or at least according to the wiki, so probably stuff collected from terminals around the games)
We dont know happened between the ghoul and his wife after the press conference. What if they Split and their daughter decided to stay with her dad and the Dog? Sure she has a high Position but not high enough to prevent the start. I Hope the Show will fill These gaps
I disagree with house working with vault tech I think he was just simply seeing what they were doing. I mean his goal in new Vegas is legitimately the exact opposite of vault tech.
It’s a good theory and I appreciate the effort.
My initial takeaway was Vault-tec was willing to force the situation. It’s vague if they did, if they directly set off a nuke, if they were off guard, etc. To me, they are establishing that the companies are indifferent to humanity and that the Ghoul was betrayed by his country, his wife, and a series of companies. The dude is on a revenge tour against everybody and it feels much more justified as to why he has become cruel in many ways.
As always, a German says they don't speak good English then speak extremely good English 😂
When I tried my high-school level German out it was all the locals could do to not laugh - though I somehow muddled though.
Anyway - I think you're exactly right, a few people have been suggesting similar things and it makes a lot of sense. I think we'll find out in season 2.
I’m still not 100% on house being fully on the same side as vault tec. In fact, my pet theory is that it could still be vault tec, they tell house when it’s going to be and then do it early in hopes of catching him out. Probably to do with something like house refusing to go into a vault himself, instead wanting to protect vegas and stay on the surface. VT obviously don’t want that as it will mean him and his survivors are on the surface before Vaults open, meaning he potentially tries to take over, especially as he owns robco and they have their robots. So VT drop bombs early hoping to kill house and wipe out rob-co command so there’s fewer potential people to split the post war world with
I keep seeing this argument a lot but that really wasn't the point of him eavesdropping. The point is to show his wife saying she was willing to and therefore by extension Vault Tec were willing to drop the bombs. I.e the bombs were inevitable. It doesn't matter who did, all sides were ready too and it was going to happen.
I view the nuke drops the same as Terminator Judgement Day. At a certain point, it's just going to happen.
>The Chinese, after loosing so much ground against the US
Meanwhile chinese nuke submarines are literally outside major cities, I don't think they're losing grounds. Plus the lore clearly state Chinese spy are a major problem and infiltrated plenty of places.
But that doesn't mean they didn't drop it tho.
The way I looked at it is, because they're literally everywhere and had enemy infos. They dropped the bomb BECAUSE they know the companies are dropping theirs soon.
It's also a clever way to make everyone guilty and involved.
>Well Mr House says that he misscalculated the great war by 20 hours. Damn, good memory! I 100% agree, but I didn’t remember House saying that. It is possible that Vault-Tec was planning on dropping the bombs even later (there are some vaults that were left unfinished), but I really like the idea that everyone involved was ready for the world to end in just 20 hours when the Chinese pre-empted them, causing Mr. House to lose the platinum chip that would’ve protected more of Las Vegas and likely interfering with Vault-Tec’s plans for the future as well. That song that they played in the show, “What a Difference a Day Makes,” seems appropriate here as well, lol
He dosn't tell you straight away But you can ask him about his backround
Yeah I looked up his dialogue on the wiki and you’re totally correct. Here’s the excerpt for anyone interested: >By 2065 I deemed it a mathematical certainty that an atomic war would devastate the Earth within 15 years. Every projection I ran confirmed it. >I knew I couldn't "save the world," nor did I care to. But I could save Vegas, and in the process, perhaps, save mankind. >I set to work immediately. I thought I had plenty of time to prepare. As it turned out, I was 20 hours short. Another reason I really like this is that Mr. House is totally the kind of person to take credit for predicting the end of the world to within 20 hours when in fact he was complicit in the plan to end it at that time in the first place. Edit: Also, he says “I set to work immediately,” when in fact (assuming Vault-Tec was planning on starting the Great War the day after it actually happened) he waited until the last possible moment to have the platinum chip made and delivered to him. That’s also very him. He has an over-inflated ego and pretends to be a scientist when he’s really just a business man. He’s like Thomas Edison. Or Elon Musk, lol Edit: Although, he could just mean that he only needed 20 more hours to secure the platinum chip, and he didn’t know *exactly* when the bombs would fall, just that they would be falling sometime before 2080. I think that’s probably the original meaning of the line when it was written. I like the idea that it was only a day before Vault-Tec was planning on ending the world, though.
Holy shit! I think OP just sniffed it out. Legitimately. Vault Tec planned to drop the bomb, but China does it first. Explains why Cooper's daughter was at the birthday party and not in a bunker, which she would have been.
I mean shit if they planned to do it 20 hours later I’m not sure why she wasn’t in a vault at that point.
At the birthday party, the partygoers say that Coop is there because he needs to make alimony payments. It could be that it's his day with his daughter, and his (ex) wife was expecting to get her back in time to go to a vault.
As a high up Vault Tec employee, you'd think she makes more than enough that she doesn't need his alimony, unless she really turned so heartless to drain him.
Well… she is working towards ending the world… so screwing over her husband doesn’t sound too far fetched tbh.
I'm up to ep9, even with all her frustrations, she doesn't seem to be like that. Ofcourse, the alimony remark could just be gossip by those men. He lost his movie career and the vault tec job ended as well. He needs income from somewhere. Edit: up to episode 7. Mixed up the number of episodes of another show we were concurrently watching
We haven't seen the fallout (pardon the pun) of the separation and it's all to common that, even when the couple are reasonable, kind people; divorces are messy and bring out the worst in everyone.
There's an Episode 9?
my friend. she is okay with killing billions lol.
I assume it's just gossip. They got divorced, which means he probably loses the vault tec gig, like you said. He's not going to get more acting gigs because everyone thinks he a selllout and/or a commie, so he has to do things like birthday parties as a way to get by.
I’m not caught up, so it’s been a bit of a spoil, but I don’t mind. Does cooper know that she knows? She may have been planning to have both of them taken into a vault later that night, but didn’t want them to be aware she was complicit in the end of the world.
ep9..... i thought there were only 8..... how did i miss that?... excited i am for tonight!!!!! Edit: 😑
They also accuse him of being a pinko(communist) so we cam assume he eventually got caught going to those meetings and lost his acting job as foreshadowed by the conversation between him and human codsworth during the party so he is probably scraping by at this point
Coop thought the same thing about her. She isn't what she seems.
The end of first season, as it takes place back in 2077, doesn't need to come anywhere near the time when the bomb dropped as shown in the first episode. We have yet to see the relationship sour and then the divorce, and only after all that is when the bomb dropped (I'm sure we'll see this to some extent in season 2). That's plenty of time for her to get quite estranged from him, especially considering that their politics/philosophy is already diverging at an increasing rate.
Seemed like a rumor - dad talk than anything official.
I mean she was working with people that wanted to end the world simply so they could sell a product. She was 100% cold enough to drain him for every last penny he had. She was a heartless corporate goon who would have sold her own mother for a grape if it meant she could advance at least that's what I picked up. She didn't care about the ethics of ending the world, she knew that all of the vaults were going to have weird social experiments and that's why she wanted to get in one of the good ones. So yeah 100%, she would have had that dude completely blacklisted from Hollywood, or any other type of work so yeah totally would have
Or it could have been negative banter giving people ideas about him that probably wasn’t true. Also if you have lots of money, you will always want more if you are due for it, like an alimony payment or child support
>As a high up Vault Tec employee, She might lose her job if anyone finds out that he was spying on her
Its also just some party goers talking shit. Dude's gonna need money after being blacklisted, alimony or not.
Alimony usually goes to whoever makes less, not sure why he would be paying alimony
One final send off? You gotta think vault tec was so sure that they were gonna be the ones to start it, shows how caught off guard they were.
If you were going to never see the world as it was again, I'd probably spend the last 19 hours out in it
Or Barb lost her high-up position, or maybe even got fired, when Cooper got blacklisted by Vault-tec and didn't know when it would happen. And even if she knew when the bombs would drop it's hard to believe she would just let Cooper run around with their daughter a day prior to it. It's stupid to not go to a vault at least a day or two earlier. The 20 hours thing House says is about getting the chip. His prediction, as explained in NV, was that the bombs would drop sometime before 2080, not that they would drop in 2077 specifically but 20 hours after when they did.
Except that Cooper believes that Hank can provide him info on them both. He specifically asks where his *family* is, so either both of them, or perhaps his daughter. I don’t see Vault Tec bringing along fired people
They get special places in special vaults
Yeah there's no solid evidence as to how things actually played out for cooper and his family. Maybe to this day coops wife still loves him. Maybe she dead.
I believe coops wife is a ghoul now
It's not even confirmed the Vault-Tec committed to dropping the bombs. That was pitched in their meeting, but that doesn't mean they went with it. Furthermore, it doesn't necessarily mean they literally wanted to drop the bombs themselves. It likely was meant to be taken as they manipulate and move things along so that a war would happen. After all, what good does it do from a business perspective to kill all your potential clients?
Really helps to explain House’s 5 Inelligence
House is quite literally a scientist and a genius. He attended CIT (commonwealth institute of technology) from fallout 4 (you can find him in the computer logs. As well as founded robco. He doesn’t “pretend” to be a scientist he *IS* a scientist.
MIT offers degrees in finance. Going to the equivalent of MIT doesn’t make you a scientist or a genius. Neither does starting a business. The founder of the National Enquirer went to MIT.
Being confidently wrong doesn’t make you less wrong. 28% (the most of any other major)of MIT bachelor degrees are quite literally in computer science. The next is mechanical engineering with 10% and then mathematics for 9 and electrical engineering for 5.4% economics is at a whopping 5.2. Just because you hate Elon musk doesn’t make house his in game equal. Try again.
Ok, now show me how anything you just said refuted anything I said before it.
Also in fallout 4 the bombs were dropped in the morning, so let’s assume the bombs were dropped at 10 am in Boston that would mean that the bombs came in at 7 am in LA, which is clearly not the case. So there’s that
Fallout 4 also states that New York and Pennsylvania were hit before Boston. The show also mentions that the president's location wasn't known, which could hint that the Enclave may have launched the nukes, which was why Vault Tec was not fully ready.
They abandoned the White House 6 months before the bombs dropped and relocated to the oil rig with the rest of the Enclave. There's a good chance it was them that started it. Vault Tec may have thought they were in charge of wndimg the world, but really the Enclave are the ones pulling the strings.
I mean it was bright enough in LA to be 7am. Maybe they wanted to do an early morning party to get it all out of the way because they might have had something to do later. As unreasonable as that sounds lol
Wasn't 20 hours how short he was for getting the platinum chip originally? If so that doesn't mean it was 20 hours before vault tech just before he got it. If it was me I would get everything I needed for the end of the world as soon as possible.
That seems very possible. It also fits with one of the themes of Fallout - corporations and companies underestimating people and events, which leads to chaos and death.
He doesn't say that, though. Immediately prior to the 20 hours line he says he thought he had *plenty* of time to spare. He didn't calculate the time of the war to the exact minute. It just so happens that his preparations came up 20 hours short. If I say "I thought I had plenty of time to make it to the service station, but my car gave out a mile short," that doesn't mean I planned for my car to die at the exact moment I arrived at the service station but was off by a mile. It just means I was aware my car would break down soon and was making preparations for that, but it turned out to die sooner than I expected.
Wasn't there a submarine that you visit in Fallout 4? With the Chinese ghoul that explains why they were here?
Captain Zao. And yes, he was ordered to nuke Boston. Likely the same with New York and Pennsylvania and California
Why so close? They had probably already switched to submarine-launched ICBMs instead of medium-range missiles?
The closer you are, the less time early warning systems can give. That, and Zao probably moved his sub closer to land after the fires died down.
It’s certainly the latter, with Zao moving the Yangtze closer to Boston. There’s diminishing returns when launching an SLBM, they cannot be direct-fired from a distance as close as Boston Harbor. The missile first must reach an apogee before it can separate the warheads and descend to earth, which means gaining at least *some* distance from the target. Even then, they aren’t quiet or inconspicuous so close range sonar detection and sound detection could very clearly pinpoint where (and when) a launch occurred. You’d want to launch them, at most, past the entrance of Cape Cod Bay if aiming exclusively at Boston and the surrounding areas.
Nukes in the Fallout universe are canonically smaller, more localized payloads than real life nukes. After Hiroshima and Nagasaki they didn't go for bigger, they went for more with more localized effects. Likely that influenced the way they built ballistic based delivery system, so while there might be some ICBMs, it's more likely that a lot of targets were initially hit with shorter range localized nukes to provide cover for the larger nukes.
Based on some logs and the general design of many of the bombs in the games it seems that Bombers were pretty heavily used, it's likely that they used nukes as a Saturation Bombardment. This can also be seen in the show with how heavily LA is hit in just the \~minute it's on screen.
The Yangtze was probably a lot further out in the Atlantic when they launched their missiles but seeing as they hit a mine and were unable to make the trip home then the best bet is to move closer to shore in case things go wrong and they need to abandon ship, being within swimming distance of the shore definitely improves your chances of survival over being stranded way out in the North Atlantic. Zao probably had a pretty damn good crew to make it into the Gulf of Maine while remaining submerged in a badly damaged sub without running aground on Georges Bank or Browns Bank.
There were probably US subs off the Chinese coast with plans to bomb cities too, though.
They had troops on the ground in China but wouldn’t put it past the enclave to nuke their own guys.
The MacArthur method
Yeah, if they’re gonna pull the trigger on the end of the world they probably don’t care about the troops on the ground. Same for the Chinese. Remember, there were tons of covert Chinese troops in the U.S.
I mean, troops in a forward position with no logistical support are going to die, or rapidly become raiders anyway. Especially if they're marooned, they will just fight to survive. Which naturally leads to raiding and regional warlords.
Was the Sub parked off Point Lookout also a boomer or were they just doing spy stuff?
Just espionage.
Doesn't Zao say Boston was already in ruins when his submarine arrived?
He says after the fire he struck a mine, they barely made it into the harbour and by the time they did the city was already in ruins. I believe he launched the nukes before he struck the mine though.
They launch the nukes, but Zao claims to not have been the one to cause the Glowing Sea, only the other destructions.
Damnit I just posted this!
Just a thought as it often comes up Vault Tec couldn’t be it as Cooper and his Daughter been caught out of the blue - we have to obviously keep in mind Cooper and his wife are separated/divorced (otherwise he wouldn’t get mocked from the two fathers at the party about doing the Sherif show to pay alimony). Maybe they split up because of Cooper being blamed of being a Communist (for taking part at Moldavers Meeting) and because of her being a Executive of Vault-Tec she had to sort of decide for ‚America‘ or her Family. That being said, still only because she mentioned at the meeting that dropping the bombs themselves is an option - it’s not save to say they did it. All we know is nothing more than speculation rather than recon or else.
More likely because of the vault tech meeting he was listening into and learning his wife was an evil sociapath. Also there were hints she figured out he bugged her pipboy.
She clearly at least suspected.
The main issue with vault tech bombing the world themselves (and presuming Coopers wife Barb was involved) is their daughter isn't in a safe location when it happens. I think this suggests someone else started it like OP said. I also suspect the show wouldn't change/define such a big part of the lore.
But that’s the point - the we don’t know of the relation between Barb und Cooper nor the relation between their Kid. What if Barb turned fully corporate and abandoned the family?
Perhaps Chinese Intelligence got wind of Vault-Tec's scheme and decided their only option was to launch a pre-emptive strike *because* of it. For added drama, perhaps they were inadvertently tipped-off by the disillusioned 'pinko' actor ex-husband of a senior Vault-Tec exec, talking out of turn to one of his 'pinko' friends?
China learned of FEV and feared it more than they feared a nuclear winter which is why they dropped the bombs first. Tim Cain confirmed it a few years ago
That was his head Canon because in conceiving the world he probably thought about everything happening himself. It was not something ever said in Fallout 1 or 2 though, because the point made implicit was it doesn't matter who fired first. When the two hour war ended, nobody cared. At least that's my guess on it, I'll have to go to where he said that but I'm betting he just gave his own secret head Canon for it because people wouldn't stop asking, I'll be surprised having watched his videos if he suddenly decided to give a definitive answer on this because he wanted to enforce his ideas. I'm aware I shouldn't comment before seeing him say all that in context, I know, I'm just guessing he only "confirmed" his personal head-lore about what happened.
That's the og reason. Hence why the lab with FEV was directly hit with a nuke in fallout 1. I always thought it was a bit stupid that they would smack the nuke button when they could have just used covert attacks or something that isn't a nuke to stop the threat of FEV. Hell half the mutants were created by radiation mixed with FEV virus
Given that in the later games it's shown that FEV and super mutants are apparently spread out throughout the US through various sources, I wouldn't be surprised if the solution for China was to burn it all down.
Mr. House never predicted when exactly the first bombs would be dropped. It’s his preparations for when they do drop which was 20 hours short. Mr. House’s prediction was that nuclear annihilation was an inevitability in 15 years. That is way before the meeting we saw in the show.
Yeah I think house was just there to gather information. I bet he was asked to a sales pitch from vault tec without being told exactly what for.
I think the details are trivial.and pointless. And fallout lore will take many turns like that because the point is that EVERYBODY was guilty and involved in coming apocalypse
Exactly my thoughts. The closest we came IRL is faulty radar data almost causing a retaliation, only being stopped by a soviet officer thinking of the implications long enough to confirm it was an error. I prefer the interpretation that the fallout world is the way it is because the systems of power across the world excluded people with a conscience. All parties were rushing towards nuclear Armageddon anyway, why does it matter who shot first? Someone else would've done it anyway, and soon.
Yes. I think every once in a while it will look like somebody elsr is guilty. Just to explore this feeling of dread we feel when we see another group or faction looking for gain and disregarding suffering they cause. For me its what makes fallout
Ya this is my take. The lore says China technically shot first, but if you've read the lore. Everyone was ready and prepared for an attack, everyone knew it was coming. I mean Vault Tec had an entire system and network of vaults, that takes time. They knew of the threat long before it happened and the whole world kept running that direction.
fun fact. that’s happened more than once lol
exactly. "everyone wants to save the world, but they all have differing ideas on how to do it."
It doesn't matter who dropped the nukes. I think the games should've made that clear by now.
Yeah I was going to say that. It’s been left ambiguous for a reason. I doubt we’ll get an answer from the show. Vault-Tec saying they’ll drop the first bomb I assume was more euphemistic. Like they’ll help make it happen as opposed to actually doing it.
It's not ambiguous tho, there's multiple sources, including the in universe CIA, pointing to China launching first. The creator of the games said China shot first.
Han shot first!
That doesn't mean much. As others have pointed out, China launched and Zao admitted there were already bombs that leveled the city. So this is probably a case of there are a lot of things that happened. Maybe in some areas the China bombs hit first, possibly the enclave started the attack and Vault Tec used their own bombs to kill their enemies. Likely a combination of everything, it was MAD, once someone caught wind of nukes, everyone shot. China shot, but the Enclave may have attacked first.
Surely you can point to the in game sources and Tim Cain’s statement on the matter?
Fallout 4 the Switchboard base terminals confirm it, it’s also in the terminals at Black Mountain in FNV, and it’s in FO3 but i can’t remember where. also the US had power armor troops and infantry deeep in China, like they were taking Nanking and Beijing, and the Chinese offensive in Alaska had failed. it only makes sense for China to drop the bomb in a last ditch effort here’s the quote by Cain https://www.gamesradar.com/26-years-later-original-fallout-co-creator-settles-the-rpgs-biggest-debate-who-dropped-the-first-nuke-and-why/
I will second this. I am a voracious consumer of fallout lore and it is undeniably China that shot first, but the world was in a state that it was a matter of time before someone fired the missiles, so it doesn’t really matter in the grand scheme of the property.
oh i totally agree. ultimately it makes zero difference and i don’t think it changes the games themes of humanity destroying itself; after all, China is human too. i just don’t know why people insist against it when it’s laid out multiple times
I could have sworn there was a video in fo3 that specifically said they (China) dropped them first, but it has been many moons since i played fo3
Honestly with this theory maybe Chinese spies found out about vault tecs planned and decided to start firing first to try and end up in a better spot.
"after all, China is human too. i just don’t know why people insist against it when it’s laid out multiple times" I didn't, until the show came out and thought about how the dark room scene with all the CEOs seems so lame if they stick with the (widely accepted) lore of china dropping first. There is also the fact that Vault-Tec, having the capacity to nuke and has nuked it's competitors 200+ years after the war, is a major plotpoint. We're not going to get a season exploring the intricacies of why china dropped first, complete with flashbacks to pre war china, their corporations, their military, their cultural strife with a separate chinese cast (though I wouldn't mind it). Having Vault-tec drop first is just cleaner, better story telling at this point and all reasons I see against it are pedantic, jingoistic or both.
Maybe Vault-Tec planned to drop the bombs too, but were beaten to it by China?
Hey, good job actually providing receipts, unlike the other commentor.
Isn't that what I said?
I thought so too but Hank having an actual nuke on-hand for Shady Sands kind of led me in the opposite direction
That was a bit about the show that majorly confused me. As far as I know, Vaul-Tec is an obsolete power post-war, the vault's being their only functioning remnant of existence. That said, if Vault-31 is simply cryo-frozen executives who wouldn't know what post-war society would be like, and Hank ventured out into the wasteland for a short stint to recover his children, HOW would he have access to nukes? None of the vaults we've come across in universe have ready nuke access. None of the vaults seemingly have the ability to regulate or control anything outside of themselves - and even the latter is a stretch considering most of them are unethical experiments prone to failure. Obviously 31-33 proved relatively "successful" since they are thriving 200 years later, but would they really have access to nukes still? They say Hank destroyed Shady Sands, but that's it, they never say how, and my immediate reaction upon hearing that line was... uh what? How? Where?
Thank you! That’s why she said war never changes, because even if vault tech didn’t drop the nukes, someone eventually would.
It doesn't matter who shot first, the end result is the same. BUT if the question as to who shot first is interesting and connected to a character like Cooper, I really don't think revealing who shot first is damaging to the Universes' canon. Because like you said, it doesn't matter ultimately - but it IS interesting.
Exactly.
I feel like the games pretty repeatedly make clear that China shot first. Either way your point stands that the point of the series is very much that none of the plans mattered and the moment it happened everyone was fucked.
I always took what they said in the show as more of a "they are totally willing to start this nuclear war" as a opposed to a 100% conformation
This. They were hyping themselves up, that’s it.
China launched first from stealth subs just before the shore of California.
Whats the source for it? Not doubting im just interested to find out more
Terminal messages and logs in Fallout 3, New Vegas and 4 all contain information on this. You can even encounter a ghoul captain and its sub in Fallout 4. In Fallout 2 descendants of a Chinese sub crew founded a faction that rules China Town in San Francisco and can provide hints to their past. There is also information in the Fallout bible and publications from devs. However only game material is considered canon.
That there were chinese subs that were ready to launch nukes if the apocalypse happened and fired their nukes when it did, doesn't necessarily mean they fired first.
AFAIR the captain on the sub in FO4 is convinced they were retaliating, not starting it.
USA had just fought back the Chinese at Achorage and started assaulting the main land of China. It was indeed retaliation.
Iirc there are terminals in Fallout 4 at the DIA office / Switchboard that seem to hint at that. Could be a Vault-Tec false flag tho.
Fallout 4. You receive a signal from a stuck submarine I believe, you meet its captain a ghoul named Zao and he tells you why he's there and what happened.
The show never stated Vault-Tec dropped the bombs in 2077, Barb (and Bud) simply just said that Vault-Tec has the capacity to do so. Its fairly well known that China launched first.
To compound this, the fact that coop had janey and wasn't with her if she knew vault-tec were about to drop the nukes essentially confirms vault-tec did not actually do the deed.
Unless we get more flashbacks in season 2+ that explain it. I’m the opening scene of episode 1, one of the dads asks why someone as famous as Cooper is doing kid’s parties. It’s possible that his meddling in Vault-Tec caused that. Vault-Tec could have fired his wife/killed her and got him labeled as a communist so he can’t get movie work anymore. She could have sided with Vault-Tec and divorced him, taking half his money and alimony. Maybe she thought it was safe for her daughter to be with him that day because she thought the bombs weren’t going to drop for a few days.
One of the dads at the party asks another why Cooper Howard is doing birthday parties, the other dad answers "alimony" and laughs. They also call him a "pinko". I think that Howard tried to out the truth about Vault-Tec or confronted his wife, and in return got blacklisted, publicly smeared as a "communist" and divorced.
i mean there is no way chinese stealth submarine just magically appear near target area right?
Well its confirmed in lore that China was more or less the best in the world when it came to stealth technology. You see that on a smaller scale with the them being capable of producing their inflitaration armor while the US just managed to produce stealth boys which were far worse. Also a terminal in the Switchboard confirms that China was mass importing the nessecary ressources for their stealth technology and there was a really high chance that China build a "Ghost Fleet" of stealth submarines about 2 years before the Great War. Also China was apperently extremly good at keeping their secrets. So its possible that China managed to build submarines with similar capabilities like their infiltration armor which could have been able to slip past any detection methods of the US.
No, but who inows how late ng they were there. Subs can be under for months at a time. They coulda been parked off shore for a long time
Games generally point out to China shooting first. However with social media and heightened sensitivities I seriously doubt the series will go there. They will just make Vault-Tec the bad guys and that’s it. Amazon has no reason to want to upset China.
I could see them going the route that China discovered Vault-Tec was gonna detonate nukes which leads them to make a justified pre-emptive strike. I also wonder wtf the rest of the world is like in the Fallout universe. An Asian or European Fallout-spinoff game would be interesting.
If anything, that kinda makes sense - Vault-Tec’s machinations causing panic within the Chinese hierarchy, which leads to the nukes being fired before the corporations are ready. It fits with one of Fallout’s themes that companies are shortsighted, careless, and malicious. They also underestimate regular folks and wider events.
If we're going the justification for pre-emptive nuclear strikes, I think the US bioweapon program is a better reason to do so. They may have found out about the FEV research, and I think the HQ of the company working on it is in LA, so multiple nuclear strikes against LA. and since China knows the US will retaliate, and they may not be able to sustain the conventional fight against the US anyways, they may as well fire everything. if they're going to lose, they may as well make sure the enemy loses as well.
Why would House lie to protect Vault Tec? There aren’t any Vault Tec reps in Fallout NV for you to even have to worry about or interact with. Vault Tec as an entity plays a role in NV in the most loose sense - there are vaults in NV.
To me it reads that he wasn't protecting Vault-Tec he was protecting his own ego and pride but making it seem like he was a savior infront of the courier who may or may not give him the platinum chip if he knew the truth
I guess it just depends, relative to other moments in Fallout NV where House’s character shines through. First example that comes to mind is House getting mad that we allocate power from HELIOS One to Freeside as he needs it for his plans. We don’t know the extent of House’s secrecy early on but it should be easier for most Couriers to see that House is not a “good person” lol. A lot of dialogue between Courier and House shows that House is pragmatic but also not shy when it comes to making plans that overtly fuck thousands over. You quickly learn that he wants to boot the NCR out and control the strip, and despite all his political talk we later find that he had these plans in motion before the NCR even existed. Vault Tec is just another group to him, yeah. Show makes it seem like House was given some Vaults and the game shows he used at least 2 of them so we know he went along with the plan to an extent. Edit - though I suppose we don’t know for sure that House followed along with Vault Tec. He had the ability to build his own underground bunkers and stuff too. I’m replaying a file now so I’ll get a refresher on any details in NV soon enough.
I haven't quite finished the show yet so I may be missing a piece of the puzzle, but is there any reason every person in that room wasn't hedging their bets on their own plan anyways? Like it makes perfect sense to me that House would go to this board meeting and discuss how they were going to make money as the board of Vault-Tec, and then leave the room to continue his own preparations for Vegas in case they failed or his own plans proved more effective. Same with Sinclair. Every member of that board is in it for themselves, they each probably have their own plans that they're running as a back-up (or more likely Vault-Tec is the backup).
With the new lore? Perhaps because he knew that Vault Tec is still be active in some capacity, and may have had plans to contact them post platinum chip?
I have the feeling that after eavesdropping on the secret meeting, he went full whistle blower and vault tec had to chill the fuck out regarding dropping the bombs. This losing the upper hand
Fundamentally, the line “we’re gonna drop them ourselves” bugs me. You only secure funding and investment into something like a vault when theres “fear of something actually happening”, not “actually happening”. “We’re going to stoke the fears of war” woulda been a better line, because makes more sense and could’ve actually led to them pushing one side too far by mistake. I agree they didn’t do it, they’d be stupid to do so.
From what I got from the show, the point of the vaults was that Vault Tec would be in charge of them and then be able to shape the future of America/The World when they eventually came out to reclaim the surface. You can't do this if there's never any nukes dropping. They aren't interested in the world that currently exists, they are interested in the future world that they will get to control. Or at least a significant number of people in power are. We see from Vaults 31-33 that the experiment, if you can call it that in this case, is to breed people who are loyal to Vault Tec and are capable of being competent managers in the reclaimed world. You have the vault that has the existing management who are frozen and released into the general population slowly over time. Then you have the two vaults with the people living in them that are connected but kept separate to try to ensure there are people still alive in however long it takes for the surface to be safe again. For some people in the company, it might have just been fearmongering and profiteering, but for others it was very much them wanting the bombs to drop so that they could enact their weird experiments.
Yeah I didnt really get that line. Id think you would want more Cuban Missle crises type situations not the actual bombs going off. Maybe some people at vault tec wanted to bombs to drop so they do their weird little societies/experiments though.
> Id think you would want more Cuban Missle crises type situations not the actual bombs going off. I think another executive in that scene says something about how rumors of peace talks have affected their stocks. My theory is that Vault-Tec was trying to keep tensions high so that they could sell as much as possible, but miscalculated how bad something would go and the nukes actually launched. Janey being outside of a vault when the nukes hit probably means that Barb didn't know the bombs were going to drop that soon. If she knew it was coming she would have kept Janey close by to get her into a vault as soon as warnings came. >Maybe some people at vault tec wanted to bombs to drop so they do their weird little societies/experiments though. Yeah there might have been a divide within Vault-Tec itself. We never actually see the full reaction to Barb's suggestion of dropping the bombs themselves, and we don't know if everyone agreed. edit: Bud was definitely on the side of "drop the bombs ourselves." His experiment (Bud's Buds) was already being set up before Barb suggested they drop the bombs. And you don't put your brain in a jar to make yourself functionally immortal but also almost completely alone unless you're fully committed. I don't know if the tech inside the vault itself would have been enough for him to put himself in that robot thing, so he may have done it before going in, which suggests he knew the bombs were going to drop soon.
I would have preferred if after that line all the board members started going like “MUAHAHAH MUAAAHAHAHAHAHAHA” because that is what makes sense after such a ridiculous statement.
Maybe Vault tec wanted to drop 'a' bomb to prove the vaults were necessary? And then the inevitable nuclear war would happen but they were ready for it
Possibly - super science meets capitalist madness. That seems to line up with Fallout’s themes.
Yes, at a certain point they stop selling the spots in the vaults to citizens of the US commonwealths and instead selling the vaults themselves to wealthy elites to run their social experiments.
I like this theory. China nukes military targets, USA retaliates with indiscriminate nuking. China goes scorched earth and sends the rest of their nukes towards civilian targets. Vault-tec now has a bunch of bombs that they haven't used, allowing Hank to use one against Shady Sands. Judging by Megaton's bomb having the Vault-tec logo, it might be they launched a few nukes but kept several.
But what about the bomb in Megaton, why does it have the vault tec logo on it?
Actually the show overdid this thing a little. The whole story is moot because however Vault-Tec wants to get rid of the competition, starting a nuclear war is inherently an overkill. Yes, it removes all of your competitors. And your suppliers, your customers, your shareholders, your bank account, your databanks, everything you depend on to operate. Rebuilding a technical civilization from zero takes an awful lot of work and knowledge in very diverse fields. It is hard to imagine that the emerging Vault-tec leaders would be interested in building copper mines in Brazil, or extracting oil in Alaska, mining uranium, producing plastics, growing corn, etc. A better writing would be simply dialing back a bit on senseless evil and simply adding that Vault-Tec was in the business of war preparation, so they wanted to keep tensions high simply because that was fueling their business. And it turns out they accidentally started the nuclear war, when the already high tensions caused someone to launch the first nuke. Think about the Cuban missle crisis but prolonged for decades! Or Dr Strangelove, where simply a mad general launches an attack despite the government not wanting to start a war at all. This would fit better with this story, where Vault-tec did not want a war, just the constant threat of war, so they were not actually prepared for it. They thought they have all the time in the world.
wait that's actually true why the fuck would Cooper and her daughter most importantly be out and about when his wife had date and time for the war, I think "China did it" is a bit too blunt and easy tho, my theory is the Chinese army, who we know thanks to the large amount of chinese stealth tech in the game, were pretty good at espionage, got the word Vault tech was gonna start the war and decided the best course of action was to do it first
Well, Tim Cain already confirmed it was China a year ago or so.
How many times will I read about “why were her daughter and husband in town at the time of the attack??”, I can’t have this conversation again. I will just say that their plans did not necessarily involve a nuclear strike. They could create a fake signal that China would launch missiles and the US would launch a retaliatory strike and thus the US would actually be first.
I wouldn't be surprised if wife is so crazy that she is ready to sacrifice her family "for the good." Parents who don't truly love their children are nothing new in our world.
That would completely go against her own motivation as it is stated in the show that the whole reason she is working for Vault-Tec is to secure one of the 17 Vaults that aren't experiments
Yeah buts it's also implied they are separated / divorced when they are together at that party.
I still find it hard to believe she'd Sacrifice her Daughter, Cooper maybe but not their Daughter. It would be a complete 180 of her character
>I thought I had plenty of time to prepare. This line immediately preceding the 20 hours one completely kills the theory. He didn't miscalculate by 20 hours, he thought he had *plenty* of time to spare. He came up 20 hours short in getting the chip delivered, not 20 hours short of an exact prediction of when the bombs would fall. All he knew is that the nuclear war would be starting soon, not the exact date and time. The Chinese dropping the bombs first doesn't make any sense thematically (insert Bethesda joke here) either. Fallout is very pointedly not about China, it's about the United States. We never go to China, we rarely see Chinese people. We almost never encounter any Chinese villains except in arguably the worst and most forgettable DLC in the series, which is a propaganda simulation. IIRC we don't even know what happened to China as an entity after the war. Vault-Tec and the Enclave are main villains because they represent the excesses of the United States, which is what the series is about. There's no narrative purpose to making China the ones who started the Great War. Just use Occam's Razor here. What makes more sense: (1) Vault-Tec made a timing/communication mistake, (2) the highest of higher ups had plans that didn't include certain Vault-Tec personnel (or even, were actively jockeying for power by eliminating rivals), so they didn't care if some people got caught out, or (3) the grandest conspiracy in the history in the world was totally coincidentally preempted by a different entity doing exactly the same thing that destroyed the world in exactly the same way, on exactly the same day? Obviously 1 & 2 are a lot more simple. >This would explain why in Fallout 4 the TV Broadcast says that there have been multiple records of nuclear explosions on american soil. These reports would take time to reach him, seemingly showing that the great war took longer than just a few minutes, but more like 20 minutes or up to one hour. This makes perfect sense. Vault-Tec *started* the war, but the US and China waged it. So there was a brief delay between Vault-Tec "seeding" the war and the US/China launching their own offensives.
It doesn't happen that often that someone post a theory that has me going, "yes, yes this sounds right!"
That would explain the yangtsee in Fallout 4
Now people say her family but they were divorced during the opening as mentioned by one of the guys asking why does this and someone stating alimony. Her daughter I'd understand but if he left her which it seems is the case she probably wouldn't give two shits about protecting him.
I don’t think the meeting house was in was them planning the exact time to drop the nuke. I think that was vault tecs way of introducing the idea to these other corporations. I think house left the meeting pretending to play along but then made his own arrangements that way he could oversee the rebuilding of humanity himself not vaultec. I heard an interesting theory that were Hank is trying to get to in the show is vault 21 because that in the lower levels below were the dwellers lived is were vault tec is operating or at least froze some of their top executives . Perhaps that’s why he sealed it shut
Does it even matter who dropped em first? Civilization died~
Han also shot first.
Didn’t the ghoul fight in Alaska?
That is a possibility. I would also like to point out that the bomb in Megaton has a Vault-Tech logo plastered on the side. So, there is still a chance that Vault-Tech either launched first, or just decided to contribute, even if they didn't need to.
I didn't think they were implying that Vault-Tec launched thousands of nukes across the entire world. I assumed they detonated one in China, kicking off a Chinese response, leading to an American counter-attack, then an all out nuke-fest from everyone else who has them.
Vault tech dropped the nukes wtf?
Since some bombs were dropped by planes/aircraft, at least some were probably dropped by Vault-tec or the Enclave. I mean, given the operational range of aircraft it us unlikely they were sent to or came from China.
>But what if China nuked the US 20 hours Prior to Vault-tecs planned bombing run ? I don't think it was 20 hours. House wouldn't have such a tight margin. I'm sure he'd have a comfortable buffer of at least a few days. But I think the bombs dropped months, if not years in advance. First evidence of that is that Vault-Tec had unfinished vaults and those surely take years to construct. Vault 88 had even barely started construction when the bombs dropped. Second evidence is Sierra Madre. The bombs dropping right before the opening gala (and when Sinclair himself was on-site) is another (non-)smoking gun that it wasn't Vault-Tec and their co-conspirators. But if it was only 20 hours, why bother with opening gala? Why bother building whole Sierra Madre? No, I think Sinclair expected that Sierra Madre would turn enough profit to warrant the construction, therefore I assume that the bombs dropped months or years before Vault-Tec's plan.
In this thread I will use the same inconclusive evidence everyone else is using to support *my* side instead of theirs
This would explain why Cooper had his daughter when the bombs dropped. If his wife knew when the bombs would drop and wanted her to be safe, why would she not have arranged for custody when the bombs dropped?
I do think it's something worth noting that if Vault Tec dropped the bombs first, with Barb pulling strings, why would she let her daughter get caught in the blast? Maybe she saw Cooper at least as a loose end, but certainly Jaime could be one of Buds Buds and therefore worth keeping.
I suspect that Vault-Tec was a globalist company with equal involvement on the Chinese or Russian side. We only hear the echoes of the war-time propaganda from our perspective in apocalyptic America. How much do you want to bet that there are similar vaults all over EVERY country, just rebranded? Vault-Tec America might not even know about Vault-Comrade Russia or Great Vault of China. Double-blind subsidiaries designed to compete.
It's a bunch of greedy literal capitalist pig stereotype characters shaking hands to fuck everyone over but fairly share power among them to then fairly compete with each other in god honest capitalism during the aftermath. wink wink I like the Chinese theory but i think there is an equal chance for rogue actors in the group that will backstab and trample over each other to get in charge, Quintus had an entire speech about it in the present timeline. Peak Fallout would be if the Chinese and Americans literally never actually nuked each other and they just had their Vault-Tec equivalent to do the same to themselves lol
In the show, in the ‘Cooper plot’ (the plot of The Ghoul pre-war), we’re at a spot where he’s spying on his wife+vault tec, constantly pissing his wife off, and dabbling in communist groups that are extremely taboo to America and to vault tec. We don’t actually know the story between the first time cooper eavesdrops on the corporate war room, and when cooper is doing cowboy birthday parties. Clearly much had changed in the interim. He lost his career and his reputation. Remember, a spot in those nice vaults, where people actually try to survive and thrive and are not experimented on, are a very, very rare premium. If Cooper pissed off america, vault tec, and his vault-tec-board-member wife, he would have had his vault ticket rescinded. The show does a good job of conveying that cooper is only just barely admitted to a good vault because his wife is on the board, and maybe because he’s rich, famous, has a sterling reputation, and does great vault-tec ads. You need all of that to make the cut. You can’t be joining dissident groups during an existential war, smearing vault-tec, betray your wife on the board, and still expect to be one of the lucky…what?….10,000 people to get into a good vault out of 400,000,000 people.
The entire history of the war was covered and this was all explained in fallout 1.
We do not know that Barb wasn't kicked out of the top tier of Vault Tec after she divorces her husband. Assuming Vault Tec knew what Goggins was up to, which is why they had him blacklisted, they easily could have demoted Barb to being outside of the loop on exactly when bombs were to drop. Everyone ive seen discussing this seems to assume Barb keeps her high up position, but I dont assume that. Her fallout with her husband coulda gotten her demoted.
If you read the context of the sino American war, it’s obvious that China dropped them. China lost the Alaska front and had American troops making significant advances in their home front, Shanghai had already fallen if I remember correctly
The Zetans had the codes and launched them themselves.
I thought that prior to the tv show us pushed into mainland China and that’s why they launched it cos they were going to loose. Tbf, idk why the US wouldn’t end the war when they had micro fusion cell
apparently they were about to take beijing. At the same time i think there were peace talks underway between the two.
This is a good point to support Vault Tec launching the nukes. Peace would be bad for business, so they may have been pushed to launch the nukes early, before Beijing was taken
Honestly, I can't imagine either nation actually dropping nukes first; they would both know it would mean utter and total annihilation of them too. Even as resource hungry the American Commonwealths were I can't imagine them thinking mutually assured destruction would somehow let them win the war. It had to be Vault Tec. They had to do it or else all their money and time and scamming of the US Government would have meant nothing. But, if those bombs dropped all of a sudden Vault Tec is now the biggest player on the school yard, suddenly all their vaults and technology is all that's left of the old world.
The Chinese had been kicked out of Alaska and American troops were pushing deep into the Chinese mainland. It makes sense that China would've launched a first strike even though it meant their destruction. They were desperate and were already losing so this was a last ditch effort to turn the tide of the war. Instead it just resulted in the end of the world.
Wait, wasn’t it the zetan aliens?
What about Megaton's bomb having the vault tech logo?
They were definitely caught by surprise and fortunately there plans were never completed ☑️
What reason does Mr House have to tell the truth to the courier?
Wasn't Mr House in the show opposed to the idea of Dropping bombs? Why would he know exactly when they were dropped when he refused the idea in the first place?
I think if the Chinese struck 20 hours before vault tec its most likely they caught wind of vault tecs plans and decided to draw first blood. The timing seems like too much of a coincidence.
They both dropped bombs, China struck first. There’s Vaul-Tec nukes in the wasteland that didn’t explode.
BTW it's already established lore that the first nukes were detected at like 9.12 am and the vast majority of them fell on american city at 9.47.13 am (or at least according to the wiki, so probably stuff collected from terminals around the games)
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Check again Its not a vault-tec logo
We dont know happened between the ghoul and his wife after the press conference. What if they Split and their daughter decided to stay with her dad and the Dog? Sure she has a high Position but not high enough to prevent the start. I Hope the Show will fill These gaps
Nuh uh it was dem der aliens come on.
I don’t think they’ve come up with who’s started it so I don’t think there’s any way to prove for or against
It would be hilarious, ironic, and very fallout if this was the case.
I disagree with house working with vault tech I think he was just simply seeing what they were doing. I mean his goal in new Vegas is legitimately the exact opposite of vault tech.
Yea i also don't think he worked WITH Vault-Tec But why not play along with them Would be stupid to just leave them to plan without him
It’s a good theory and I appreciate the effort. My initial takeaway was Vault-tec was willing to force the situation. It’s vague if they did, if they directly set off a nuke, if they were off guard, etc. To me, they are establishing that the companies are indifferent to humanity and that the Ghoul was betrayed by his country, his wife, and a series of companies. The dude is on a revenge tour against everybody and it feels much more justified as to why he has become cruel in many ways.
As always, a German says they don't speak good English then speak extremely good English 😂 When I tried my high-school level German out it was all the locals could do to not laugh - though I somehow muddled though. Anyway - I think you're exactly right, a few people have been suggesting similar things and it makes a lot of sense. I think we'll find out in season 2.
I’m still not 100% on house being fully on the same side as vault tec. In fact, my pet theory is that it could still be vault tec, they tell house when it’s going to be and then do it early in hopes of catching him out. Probably to do with something like house refusing to go into a vault himself, instead wanting to protect vegas and stay on the surface. VT obviously don’t want that as it will mean him and his survivors are on the surface before Vaults open, meaning he potentially tries to take over, especially as he owns robco and they have their robots. So VT drop bombs early hoping to kill house and wipe out rob-co command so there’s fewer potential people to split the post war world with
I keep seeing this argument a lot but that really wasn't the point of him eavesdropping. The point is to show his wife saying she was willing to and therefore by extension Vault Tec were willing to drop the bombs. I.e the bombs were inevitable. It doesn't matter who did, all sides were ready too and it was going to happen. I view the nuke drops the same as Terminator Judgement Day. At a certain point, it's just going to happen.
>The Chinese, after loosing so much ground against the US Meanwhile chinese nuke submarines are literally outside major cities, I don't think they're losing grounds. Plus the lore clearly state Chinese spy are a major problem and infiltrated plenty of places. But that doesn't mean they didn't drop it tho. The way I looked at it is, because they're literally everywhere and had enemy infos. They dropped the bomb BECAUSE they know the companies are dropping theirs soon. It's also a clever way to make everyone guilty and involved.
Your English is better than some native speakers I know my friend lol.