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[Sergius]

The problem is that Bethesda wanted to make Fallout 1 again, with a different story. That's why people complained about the lore being ignored, but more importantly, it pretended that this was all a new world that you're exploring for the first time, so there wasn't any progress, any major settlements other than Junktown Megaton, and people were back to scavenging for scrap metal to build walls and eating junk food. It tried to reset everything to square one.

[ZebioLizard2]

Except it would still be 100+ years after the war.

So even then it still looks pretty wrong.

Unless of course there's a philosophical idea that those in Washington D.C, even their future descendants can't do anything while those in more robust area's are able to build up and create a new nation from the ashes while those in an area such as D.C are unable to let go of the past and thus are unable to let themselves be brought up from the ruins.

But I might be overthinking it a bit. 

[kilakan]

I remember reading awhile ago that previous rebuilding attempts were repeatedly thwarted by super mutant attacks and other raiders.  Keep in mind that in DC there's a half dozen super mutant Behemoths wandering around, one of those alone could probably destroy most new towns.  As well unlike in New Vegas there's no army trying to protect the area and relatively few people, any sort of concerted effort would be hard to manage with how few hands there actually are.

[Sergius]

That's what I meant. It feels wrong because they moved forward in the timeline, but they wanted to start from scratch.

It goes something like this:
2077 - Great War
2161 - Fallout 1: Dweller (first ever?) comes out of a Vault and finds out some (quite a lot, actually) of people just survived the bombs and made crude settlements. He helps one such village (Shady Sands) which later becomes something much bigger. This is 86 years after the bombs.
2241 - Fallout 2: Lots of "civilization", Shady Sands grew to be a freakin' country, New Reno is huge and populated (probably grew slowly thru the years, may have not existed as such during Fallout 1), turns out the whole official US Government was all fine and dandy in their safe oil platform (Enclave). Also we have Kung Fu City, which is kinda big.
2277 - Fallout 3: Look, everything's bombed and we have tiny pockets of humans pushing dust around and worshipping an unexploded bomb. Wat

It's not like the different parts of the US can be THAT isolated from each other that these guys have *just* started coming out of caves 116 years after the first game, and a whole 200 years after the bombs fell...

[Rolan7]

They are isolated, though...  Only the Brotherhood of Steel and Harold made the journey from West to East, that I recall.  The West is isolated from the Midwest, much less the East.  I think it makes sense that the highly urban East coast would develop differently, particularly in DC.  The plants are all dead (except for a mythical grove few people believe in).  Why or how would they try to develop the wasteland?  They have centuries of food from scavenging.  And they emphasize technology, so the vault systems could eventually sustain them indefinitely.

And yet they try to purify the wasteland's water supply *anyway*, though it's a crazy pipe dream.

[Krevsin]

And then there's the old "but DC might've gotten bombed worse because DC" thing.

[Virtz]

They are isolated, though...  Only the Brotherhood of Steel and Harold made the journey from West to East, that I recall.  The West is isolated from the Midwest, much less the East.  I think it makes sense that the highly urban East coast would develop differently, particularly in DC.  The plants are all dead (except for a mythical grove few people believe in).  Why or how would they try to develop the wasteland?  They have centuries of food from scavenging.  And they emphasize technology, so the vault systems could eventually sustain them indefinitely.

And yet they try to purify the wasteland's water supply *anyway*, though it's a crazy pipe dream.

How are they isolated? Why not just move along the coast, away from the super mutants? And if the super mutants really pose that much of a threat, then how are there single houses scattered around with people doing dumb shit like gathering nuka cola bottles?

Or how are there any settlements at all? I don't think Sheriff Simms would be up to the challenge of downing a behemoth (the thing that wasted a bunch of BoS people right in front of you). Neither would pretty much any other settlement you encounter in FO3. Maybe Rivet City, but that's mostly because there's only one way of entering it and they have a drawbridge.

Like I think they should've either gotten their shit together and made a city that's actually defendable and developed (like Rivet City but less crappy), or have gotten totally wiped out, with super mutants occupying nearly everything (like they did in FO1 if you fumbled around too long). The in-between state doesn't really make sense, I find.

Also, there's plants. Else how would any wildlife be alive? You can't have an eco-system of only meat eaters. It just leads me to believe people in FO3 are too stupid to farm crops or something. It's like Idiocracy: The Game.

[Sergius]

I don't think there's been any official "isolated" reason. Isolated and "far away" aren't the same thing, there has to be a physical reason preventing people to cross over during 100+ years. I seriously doubt there is some kind of wall or even some sort of impassable radiation between coasts.

[Rolan7]

We were talking about the East being isolated from the Midwest and West, not individual Eastern towns.

It has been a long time since I played but uh...  I don't remember any plants except in Harold's glade.  I remember it being a big deal for that reason.  What wildlife do you mean?

As for the super mutants, they *are* starting to wipe everyone out maybe.  But most of the settlements are fortified or have natural defenses, and the invasion starts out weak.  It's kinda meta, but in canon terms the super mutants are a growing threat which threatens the survivors, but can't overwhelm the holds just yet.

I don't think there's been any official "isolated" reason. Isolated and "far away" aren't the same thing, there has to be a physical reason preventing people to cross over during 100+ years. I seriously doubt there is some kind of wall or even some sort of impassable radiation between coasts.

I mean, the Brotherhood did.  At least one remarkable person did.  They're not *absolutely* isolated, it's just an incredibly long and dangerous journey for no clear reward.  Explorers did it, but caravans didn't.  It'd be like undergoing the Oregon Trail through a wasteland full of mutants, and with no free (useful) land waiting for you.

Edit: In fact who needs caravans, the Capital Wasteland has benevolent BoS scribes eager to share the best technology of the west.  That doesn't magically change the fact that the area is a *wasteland*, devoid of life, with massively radiated water and an ongoing invasion.  Isolation isn't the issue, it's just a bombed-out crapsack setting.  Fortunately we can magically fix the water and beat back the mutants, because heroism.

[Sergius]

I'm not talking about how one person can make a long journey from one end of the world to the other.

I'm talking about there being multiple "maps" in between, everything probably about as densely populated as either the Mojave or the Fallout 1/2 area, or Washington DC which seems to have been more heavily bombed than any other "empty" space in between. Meaning that adjacent settlements would trade and be indirectly connected to every other settlement across the whole map, making a grid of villages, tribes, whatever, even if disorganized. So the idea that a spot of the entire continent just stayed frozen for 200 years while we have entire countries/federations/etc. being established during those 200 years, and big cities like New Reno getting even crudely repopulated (Reno didn't have any magic anti missile laser turrets either) is not very believable.

Caesar's Legion is east of the Mojave, no idea what area they occupy, but even that is some sort of "civilization" sprouting up. In DC we have a wasteland where a dozen people have just figured out that they can place a few sheets of scrap metal around an unexploded bomb and call it a town. Or have been living in there for 200 years with no change whatsoever.

[Rolan7]

If Caesar's Legion is any indication, the Midwest is low-tech tribal.  Less high-tech scrounging from cities, less radiation, probably less mutants to fight.  Makes sense that they would go agrarian and primitive like they did.  I don't see how the East is supposed to develop some sort of advanced culture from those tribals coming over the mountains.  Particularly since those tribals would die fast in the highly radiated, mutant-strewn Capital Hellhole.

[forsaken1111]

Keep mind that this "100 years" some people think is sufficient to rebuild civilization, that is only like, max, 3 generations. How much can you get done in 3 generations of Banished? Because that is generally the level of technology most people have to work with.

Some people, like Vault City or New Vegas, had surviving technology to give them a kickstart

[kilakan]

Also since the nuke that landed in the center of the DC area you play in is unexploded (megaton) one could assume that the areas around DC did have their bombs go off.  This would mean that anyone trying to leave DC would be travelling through an even more irradiated wasteland and few have the sort of gear to do that aside from the Brotherhood of steel and those immune (harold)

[Virtz]

We were talking about the East being isolated from the Midwest and West, not individual Eastern towns.

It has been a long time since I played but uh...  I don't remember any plants except in Harold's glade.  I remember it being a big deal for that reason.  What wildlife do you mean?

As for the super mutants, they *are* starting to wipe everyone out maybe.  But most of the settlements are fortified or have natural defenses, and the invasion starts out weak.  It's kinda meta, but in canon terms the super mutants are a growing threat which threatens the survivors, but can't overwhelm the holds just yet.

I don't think there's been any official "isolated" reason. Isolated and "far away" aren't the same thing, there has to be a physical reason preventing people to cross over during 100+ years. I seriously doubt there is some kind of wall or even some sort of impassable radiation between coasts.

I mean, the Brotherhood did.  At least one remarkable person did.  They're not *absolutely* isolated, it's just an incredibly long and dangerous journey for no clear reward.  Explorers did it, but caravans didn't.  It'd be like undergoing the Oregon Trail through a wasteland full of mutants, and with no free (useful) land waiting for you.

Does it actually say anywhere there's nothing between the East and West coast worthy of note? Cause New Vegas kinda contradicts that. There's loads of tribes and stuff in the nevada desert, to the east of like a dozen cities from Fallout 1 and 2. And you'd think the East Coast would be the less barren coast.

As for animals, well, anything that isn't human. Molerats, deathclaws, radants, radscorpions, brahmin, those anthropomorphic mudcrabs. They have to eat something that isn't just meat. Else they'd have died out by then. And considering how big they are, they must find a lot of it.

The super mutants are such a growing threat the plot of the game just shoves them aside for the Enclave and never remembers again. That leads me to believe they're more of an afterthought and not really the cause of anything in particular. Plus, as I said, just about none of the settlements look ready for a behemoth. Like it'd walk all over Megaton, Tenpenny, The Republic of Dave, that one dumb town with the super heroes, the shacks on the highway, Little Lamplight, etc..

Megaton wasn't ready for my stupid ass at level 2 when I just started shooting everyone.

Keep mind that this "100 years" some people think is sufficient to rebuild civilization, that is only like, max, 3 generations. How much can you get done in 3 generations of Banished? Because that is generally the level of technology most people have to work with.

Some people, like Vault City or New Vegas, had surviving technology to give them a kickstart

200. It's 200 years. And places like Shady Sands were built 100 years after the war.

EDIT: And there's like a dozen vaults all around. Don't tell me they were too stupid to grab a GECK out of one of them.

[Tellemurius]

Keep mind that this "100 years" some people think is sufficient to rebuild civilization, that is only like, max, 3 generations. How much can you get done in 3 generations of Banished? Because that is generally the level of technology most people have to work with.

Some people, like Vault City or New Vegas, had surviving technology to give them a kickstart

200. It's 200 years. And places like Shady Sands were built 100 years after the war.

EDIT: And there's like a dozen vaults all around. Don't tell me they were too stupid to grab a GECK out of one of them.

Few got GECKs in the area, maybe 3-4 had functioning GECKs but even then the Vault either might not opened up or got fucked up.