Fallout, stylized as Fallout: A Post Nuclear Role-Playing Game, is a role-playing science fiction video game series created and distributed by BioWare. Its story is set in a post-apocalyptic world, after a nuclear conflict between Novanglia and Germany destroys most of the world but opens a new era for the survivors. The aesthetic of the franchise is based around the Cold War culture of the 1960s and 1970s.
Origins[]

Interplay Entertainment, the creators of the Fallout franchise
The original concept of the Fallout series was conceived by the Columbian game developer Tim Cain. Cain was an employee at Interplay who had interests in both Cold War history and Novanglian culture. One day in 1994, while on a business trip to Novanglia, Cain became inspired to create Fallout as a Novanglian equivalent to the Wasteland series, which was set in the United States. Basing the game's culture on 1970s Cold War paranoia and ultranationalism which swept Novanglia during the Great Muqaddian War, the Fallout series is full of 1970s cultural references including lingo and music choices.
Despite the critical acclaim of both Fallout 1 and Fallout 2, poor businesses choices ultimately forced Interplay into bankruptcy, resulting in the IP being sold to the Novanglian company BioWare in 2005. Since then, BioWare has continued to develop Fallout games and had furthered the series' popularity.
Games[]
List[]
Year | Title | Location |
---|---|---|
1997 | Fallout | Ysiria |
1998 | Fallout 2 | Wellstower |
2008 | Fallout 3 | Hawkinsville |
2010 | Fallout: New Camesau | New Oxford-Antartique |
2015 | Fallout 4 | Mocovia |
2018 | Fallout 76 | New Lancashire |
TBD | Fallout 5 | Puelmapu |
Setting[]
War. War never changes. The Romans waged war to gather slaves and wealth. Mali built an empire from its lust for converts and territory. Maurras shaped a battered France into a military superpower.
But war never changes.
In the 21st century, war was still waged over the resources that could be acquired. Only this time, the spoils of war were also its weapons: Petroleum and Uranium. For these resources, Germany would invade Europe, Novanglia would annex Al-Bayd, and the United States of Columbia would dissolve into quarreling, bickering nation-states, bent on controlling the last remaining resources on Earth.
In 2077, the storm of world war had come again. In two brief hours, most of the planet was reduced to cinders. And from the ashes of nuclear devastation, a new civilization would struggle to arise.
A few were able to reach the relative safety of the large underground Vaults. Your family was part of that group that entered Vault Thirteen. Imprisoned safely behind the large Vault door, under a mountain of stone, a generation has lived without knowledge of the outside world. Life in the Vault is about to change.
- Opening monologue from Fallout (1997)
Background[]

A geopolitical map of the world a day before the Great War which resulted in the nuclear annihilation of civilization (c. 2077)
Fallout is set in a futuristic Novanglia as a part of an alternate history scenario which changes the course of the Cold War. In this fictional world, Joseph Perón is able to push for his ideas of abolishing the Henrylandic monarchy, resulting in the establishment of a U.S.-style federal presidential republic in 1948, rather than a commonwealth. The rise of the newly founded nation as a prominent power scared the United States and motivated them to engage in a more extreme isolationist policy, leading to technology being less advanced during the 1950s. As the USC lost relevance, Novanglia started a very different process of industrialization, having the construction of never seen technology like nuclear-powered cars. Artificial intelligence is also an important tool in this world, when mathematician Alan Turing is given full state foundation for his research.

Flag of the extinct United Provinces of Novanglia
The Great Muqaddian War ends differently, when President George McGovern develops the first super-advanced robotic armors, which gave the Novanglian army superiority during the conflict. It is also commented that around this time, Columbian president William Knowland was killed in a nuclear car accident occasioned by a Bornean, meaning an escalation of fonds to the Borneo War that leaves the United States in debt and incapable of ever expanding its influence.

George McGovern, president of Novanglia from 1965 to 1973
Novanglia not only takes the place of the U.S. but is also more fierce with its military policies, establishing bases all around the world, going as far as making forts on other continents like Europe and Asia. These tensions motivate the German government to refuse the Great Reforms, meaning that the Cold War continues to the 21st century. This century starts roughly for the superpowers by bringing an oil-energy crisis that affects all of the world, and starting wars for the remaining resources of the world. Germany unites Europe under a sole communist government, only to then start a conflict with Persia and Arabia over the natural resources of the Middle East. Russia and China, although barely mentioned in the course of the series, have been implied to have a separate conflict that left both of them mutually destroyed.
McGovern, who is president from 1965 until 1973, orders the reorganization of the United Provinces of Novanglia in only 5 main provinces or "Commonwealths", but also the construction of a bunker network across nation.
On May 4, 2024, Novanglia started an expansionist campaign, that ended with the annexation of Antartique and the integration of Puelmapu as a puppet state. Only a year later, Al-Bayd fell to a revolution backed by Novanglia, that also led to a new puppet government. Fearing this expansion, the United States, Alaska, Mexica, Cabotia and other Columbian nations formed a new union. Similarly, Mali fell into an authoritarian regime, thanks to their struggle to mantain the nation together after global warming affected the Sahara Desert.

The bombing of Hawkinsville
Feeling directly threatened by Novanglia, the European Union (Germany) decided to annex Comancheria, a nation with shared cultural elements. This would mean that the Europeans now had set foot on New World soil, starting new tensions. For unknown reasons, the final conflict, simply known as the "Great War" started on September 2077, resulting in an European invasion launched at the coast of Al-Bayd. Only 2 hours and a half later, nuclear armageddon stroke the world as one of the two superpowers directed their missiles to each other's capital.
Post-War world[]

Political Map of the Fallout world
The bunker or Vault System started by McGovern would help a privileged few to survive, being part of an experiment with set conditions that would help help continue the human race. Those who weren't able to enter the Vaults would either die because of the Nuclear Winter, suffer mutations from the nuclear wastes or be forced to organize themselves in various tribes across the wasteland, resulting in the creation of various factions in what was once Novanglia. By the 22nd century, this wasteland is divided between four main factions.

Flag of the Brotherhood of Steel
Important remnants of the Novanglian government would successfully escape the conflict, hiding in discrete of the territory known as outposts, being known as "The Enclave" and led by Dick McGovern, a descendant of President McGovern. Having grown apart from the government after the war, the Novanglian Defence Forces decided to start their own faction known as the "Brotherhood of Steel" expanding across the province of Ysiria. Despite their differences with the Enclave, they technically still serve the Henrylandic monarchy, shown by their honouring of the colonial flag. At some point, the brotherhood was split when a group of revolutionaries from New Lanchasire and Antartique decided to form their own organization called the "Free Muqaddian Soilders" in order to keep their pre-war cultures in self-determination.

Flag of the New Oxford Republic
Formed by a group of departed from a Vault, the New Oxford Republic operates almost exactly like a pre-war government, but constantly fighting for survival and still, very corrupt. They were able to expand across the former province of New Oxford, but also annexing parts of other provinces and even southern Antartique, something that brings them problems with the FMS. The N.O.R. is characterized by their excessive patriotic propaganda, meant to keep the nation together as imminent threats approach. After Hawkinsville was destroyed in the Great War, attempts to retake it ever since have been unsuccessful, and the N.O.R. has a functional capital at New Chester, but also a cultural capital in the city of Camesau (renamed to New Camesau), which has the biggest population and economy in the nation.

Flag of Basil's Legion
Working as a total opposite of the New Oxford Republic, Basil's Legion is an expansionist, imperialistic, slaver dictatorship, heavily inspired by the Roman Empire. The Legion and the N.O.R. have constant conflicts over their border over the control of the Novanglia River, with a de-militarized zone established between them to momentarily stop the conflict.
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