r/fo3 • u/julyvale • 1d ago
Would the buildings really look like DC ruins after 200 years?
I need some construction expert. The atmosphere of FO3 is perfect, but how realistic is actually the 200 years gap between the war and the actual gameplay? Would buildings look how they look in the game in downtown DC? Would they crumble more? Why did they not target the Capitol and the Lincoln memorial when the nukes were falling? Is the stuff the buildings are made from the same as in real world? Or does the quality diverge like with the IRL lore?
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u/derelictHusk 1d ago
Yes and no. There is a lot of old decaying 200+ years old buildings, they looks and feels like in Fallout 3. What is missing, is people action. Humans always scrape and use everything salvageable, fast. For example, Chernobyl, people were stealing metals and don't care about radiation nonsense.
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u/OttawaDog 1d ago
I think they would be a lot worse.
Abandoned buildings in Chernobyl exclusion zone already looks worse.
Also it would be much more reclaimed by nature.
But another thing is. I think any human occupied buildings, would have a lot nicer interiors. You aren't going to leave 200 year old garbage in your home.
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u/W01771M 1d ago
Right! I don’t understand Bethesda’s world building when it comes to garbage in buildings. The occupants would at least sweep out the debris. Also for the “reclaimed by nature” part most fallout environments are thought to have too much lingering radiation to have plants flourish that much I think. FO3 makes sense for this idea, at least.
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u/OttawaDog 1d ago
Plants are more rad resistant than humans. If humans can live there plants can thrive.
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u/Mr_Jalapeno Subroutines? This is an Army gig... 33m ago
You don't keep 200 year old crisp packets and environmental storytelling skeletons strewn haphazardly around your living room?
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u/dwarfzulu 1d ago
You need a destruction expert.
One specialized in nuclear destruction in a war that ended the word in less than 2 hours.
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u/Thornescape 1d ago
The reason that the world of Fallout is still in decay is NOT the bombs. The bombs were 200 years ago.
The issue is stablity.
If you look at areas in our current world that are vastly unstable, things often look like Fallout. There are ramshackle buildings thrown up where they can. There are roaming gangs and warlords taking what they want. Broken buildings are not rebuilt. If someone rebuilt a beautiful home, someone else would just take it, so anyone who doesn't have lots of security won't rebuilt.
Fallout lacks stability for a number of reasons. The bombs destabilized the world, but other elements kept it unstable. Horrifically mutated beasts. Irradiated areas. Rogue robots. Raider gangs. However, another major factor is that in most places, the people who could bring stability end up mired in selfishness and petty squabbles, fighting amongst themselves.
In the west, the NCR brought stability to some regions. Some areas started to rebuild. There are also some pockets of sanity spread across the country. However, even those areas are only somewhat stable.
In order to rebuild, you need stability. You would need universities to raise up engineers and scientists. You would need police to keep the peace. You would need military enough to secure borders. You would need to wipe out rampaging monsters.
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u/toad-supremacist 1d ago
for the lack of nukes hitting DC, i'd assume a bunch were intercepted
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u/Advanced-Budget779 1d ago
Lack in lore or based on visual interpretation? Detonation type against cities (area targets) will be airburst for maximum blast effects.
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u/MaxDefiance420 1d ago
Honestly, I feel like it's pretty close to how it would be in reality. There's a show that used to be on the History Channel called "Life After People". It's probably on streaming somewhere. You would enjoy watching that and you'll see what I mean if you do
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u/tacoduck300 1d ago
Fallout isn’t super realistic. The total lack of greenery doesn’t make a lot of sense, even places like Chernobyl have a load of vegetation left. Place would be totally overgrown
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u/Efriimi 1d ago edited 1d ago
I think one of the biggest misconceptions in post-apoc is the desertification. And probably the resilience of mankind second. Things would be overgrown with greenery unless there is an active cause for desertification. And to comment on the resilience of mankind I just think there would be more examples of building and reconstruction and industry that is actually quality.
But making it realistic or taking this theory, isn't very fun from a gameplay standpoint and I'm totally okay with it not being realistic. It also takes answering a lot of questions that may not have an existing answer.
To answer a comment on stability breaking down the world. I think this is a valid theory, but to argue the points of resources and abundance. I think anarchy does never last forever, and there is an abundance in resources and land for people to rebuild it would not be so dire, or stability would come naturally. But thats just a guess.
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u/Any_Artichoke6712 1d ago
I literally looked this up and researched this the other day and apparently at least for the Washington Monument arguably the most prominent example of architecture in the city it would still be standing and appear similar to it's depiction in Fallout 3 only difference being the elevator obviously would not work without regular maintenance
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u/Jealous-Football-424 1d ago
I love these types of questions because we have current ancient ruins of civilaztions still today and there wasn’t nuclear fallout (at least to our knowledge(Pompeii doesn’t count lol))
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u/W01771M 1d ago
Looking at the ruins around Chernobyl gives us a pretty good idea what an irradiated environment looks like at 40 years, the radiation lvls are much lower than some other areas around the fallout universe and also the cities in that universe have damage from detonations. But for examples of how building decay when left abandoned, these are great.
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u/KaatELion 1d ago
I’m no expert but I personally would not trust the elevator to the top of the washington monument after 200 years.
But there are a lot of concrete brutalist style buildings in DC that look pretty solid, and I’d be willing to bet if they survived the initial blasts those buildings would take a long time to completely crumble.