Seattleite
Well-known member
If there's one thing I'm consistently amazed by, it's the extent to which the makers of Fallout titles actually *do* do their research. So here's a thread for fun facts about the Fallout games and their less-tenuous-than-expected relationship with reality. These are not in any particular order.
1. Rad-X is real-ish.
Rad-X is based off the real world chemical potassium iodide. It is much more effective than potassium iodide is, but this is also a game where morphine (see #2) protects you from physical injury. Potassium iodide is taken to prevent the bonding of radioactive isotopes of potassium into your body, mostly protecting your thyroid gland. These tablets are taken as a supplementary measure to hazmat suits by those entering areas where fallout resulting from the fission of uranium (the sites of atomic bombings and reactor melt-downs), as well as areas where nuclear waste is handled or produced, and lastly in reactor rooms themselves. That said, in real life alcoholic beverages are more effective than potassium iodide, so S.T.A.L.K.E.R. is closer to reality there.
2. Med-X is real.
It should come as a surprise to nobody that med-x is actually morphine. It's labelled as such in the game files, and the name was only changed because Australia is a nanny state that ruins things for everybody. (Calm down, I'm insulting your government, not you.) Morphine is pretty potent, certainly, though it wouldn't actually prevent physical damage, it'd just let you go on after receiving more of it. So really, it should be boosting your health or endurance stats, not reducing damage, but whatever.
3. Jet is real. Buffout is real. Even friggin' PSYCHO is real, kinda.
It's pretty well spelled out in Fallout 2 that jet is methamphetamine, but many fans never played the first two, so they wouldn't know that. Its effects in the first game also match the effects of strong stimulants decently enough. Buffout is based off of real-world anabolic steroids, and its clandestine use by pre-war athletes as a performance enhancing drug is based off the real world scandals involving baseball players and steroids in the mid 20th century. Psycho is based off a real-world military program conducted throughout the cold war with the intent of using psychoactive compounds to enhance the combat effectiveness of US soldiers. The program was unsuccessful, but the program in-game that created psycho is directly based off of it. (In fact, quite a few of the successful experimental programs in-universe are based off of real-life failures.)
4. CIT is MIT.
Name says it all.
5. The Cambridge Polymer Labs are real, and so is everything about it. Almost.
The Cambridge Polymer Labs are a real place in Cambridge, Massachusetts. DERPI is based off DARPA, a real US agency, and the piezoelectric project run there is actually based off an actual piezoelectric project run in these labs, if only fairly loosely. The real piezoelectric project was meant to find a way to make piezoelectric boots for US soldiers so that they could generate power by walking and recharge electronic equipment such as torches and radios. However, the power output only ever got to 1-2 watts and the added discomfort the soldiers experienced with the new soles was too much to be worth that little bit of output. Like the psycho example above, the program in-game is successful even though it's based off of something in real life that very much wasn't. Though how radiation is going to make piezoelectric generators more effective, I have no idea.
6. The Fallout 3 subway tunnels are absolutely spot on, down to the line. And so is everything else.
Fallout 3 matches the geography of DC so well that even people looking as hard as they can for mistakes can't find any. Even all the subway tunnels are correctly placed and follow their real-life routes. It is uncanny. Obsidian followed suit with matching the geography of the Mojave almost, if not quite, as well. Fallout 4 once again does the same. This is a massive departure from the first two games, which kinda sucked at geography.
7. Hail to Caesar!
The Legion was, in-game, modelled after ancient Rome. And Caesar did his research. Not only do they all speak proper latin and pronounce words (like "ave" and "Caesar") properly, but even the way he originally formed the legion matches the formation of Rome, and his attack on the NCR after conquering Arizona does mirror Julius Caesar's attack on Rome after conquering Celtica, the mainland section of Gaul. Their command structure also follows the roman design, from the centurion to the decanus, their currency is the same as ancient Rome's (the aureus and denarii are real, and the aureus was indeed worth 25 denarii).
8. All those songs about nuclear war and fallout? Those were NOT made for the game.
Most of you know this already, but all of the songs to appear in Fallout are either real songs or parodies of real songs, and all the ones on the radio are in the former camp. That includes Uranium Fever, Uranium Rock, Crawl Out Through the Fallout and Atom Bomb Baby.
More to come later. In the mean time, anybody have some of their own?
1. Rad-X is real-ish.
Rad-X is based off the real world chemical potassium iodide. It is much more effective than potassium iodide is, but this is also a game where morphine (see #2) protects you from physical injury. Potassium iodide is taken to prevent the bonding of radioactive isotopes of potassium into your body, mostly protecting your thyroid gland. These tablets are taken as a supplementary measure to hazmat suits by those entering areas where fallout resulting from the fission of uranium (the sites of atomic bombings and reactor melt-downs), as well as areas where nuclear waste is handled or produced, and lastly in reactor rooms themselves. That said, in real life alcoholic beverages are more effective than potassium iodide, so S.T.A.L.K.E.R. is closer to reality there.
2. Med-X is real.
It should come as a surprise to nobody that med-x is actually morphine. It's labelled as such in the game files, and the name was only changed because Australia is a nanny state that ruins things for everybody. (Calm down, I'm insulting your government, not you.) Morphine is pretty potent, certainly, though it wouldn't actually prevent physical damage, it'd just let you go on after receiving more of it. So really, it should be boosting your health or endurance stats, not reducing damage, but whatever.
3. Jet is real. Buffout is real. Even friggin' PSYCHO is real, kinda.
It's pretty well spelled out in Fallout 2 that jet is methamphetamine, but many fans never played the first two, so they wouldn't know that. Its effects in the first game also match the effects of strong stimulants decently enough. Buffout is based off of real-world anabolic steroids, and its clandestine use by pre-war athletes as a performance enhancing drug is based off the real world scandals involving baseball players and steroids in the mid 20th century. Psycho is based off a real-world military program conducted throughout the cold war with the intent of using psychoactive compounds to enhance the combat effectiveness of US soldiers. The program was unsuccessful, but the program in-game that created psycho is directly based off of it. (In fact, quite a few of the successful experimental programs in-universe are based off of real-life failures.)
4. CIT is MIT.
Name says it all.
5. The Cambridge Polymer Labs are real, and so is everything about it. Almost.
The Cambridge Polymer Labs are a real place in Cambridge, Massachusetts. DERPI is based off DARPA, a real US agency, and the piezoelectric project run there is actually based off an actual piezoelectric project run in these labs, if only fairly loosely. The real piezoelectric project was meant to find a way to make piezoelectric boots for US soldiers so that they could generate power by walking and recharge electronic equipment such as torches and radios. However, the power output only ever got to 1-2 watts and the added discomfort the soldiers experienced with the new soles was too much to be worth that little bit of output. Like the psycho example above, the program in-game is successful even though it's based off of something in real life that very much wasn't. Though how radiation is going to make piezoelectric generators more effective, I have no idea.
6. The Fallout 3 subway tunnels are absolutely spot on, down to the line. And so is everything else.
Fallout 3 matches the geography of DC so well that even people looking as hard as they can for mistakes can't find any. Even all the subway tunnels are correctly placed and follow their real-life routes. It is uncanny. Obsidian followed suit with matching the geography of the Mojave almost, if not quite, as well. Fallout 4 once again does the same. This is a massive departure from the first two games, which kinda sucked at geography.
7. Hail to Caesar!
The Legion was, in-game, modelled after ancient Rome. And Caesar did his research. Not only do they all speak proper latin and pronounce words (like "ave" and "Caesar") properly, but even the way he originally formed the legion matches the formation of Rome, and his attack on the NCR after conquering Arizona does mirror Julius Caesar's attack on Rome after conquering Celtica, the mainland section of Gaul. Their command structure also follows the roman design, from the centurion to the decanus, their currency is the same as ancient Rome's (the aureus and denarii are real, and the aureus was indeed worth 25 denarii).
8. All those songs about nuclear war and fallout? Those were NOT made for the game.
Most of you know this already, but all of the songs to appear in Fallout are either real songs or parodies of real songs, and all the ones on the radio are in the former camp. That includes Uranium Fever, Uranium Rock, Crawl Out Through the Fallout and Atom Bomb Baby.
More to come later. In the mean time, anybody have some of their own?
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