Post-War Status of Antarctica

The-Artist-64

The-Artist-64

"Set Phasers to Fun."
Antarctica is a fascinating place. I was thinking about the post-war status of the mysterious continent at the bottom of the world, and then I realized that we actually do have a lot of evidence as to what happened to it.

THE FACTS:


  • Penguins are extinct, according to the Fallout Bible 5.
  • The United States liked to put bases in odd places before the War.
  • The vague intro of Fallout 2 insists that "[whole] continents were swallowed in flames and fell beneath the boiling oceans". We heard some word of active fault lines in the original Vault 13 timeline.

SPECULATION:


  • The reason for the extinction of Penguins, referred to in the Fallout Bible, is actually due to concentrated nuclear attacks on American, Chinese and Soviet bases on the continent.
  • As the world buckled under the pressure of the war, the stress of the fault lines in Antarctica perhaps caused a series of earthquakes that formed a rift in the continent?
  • Due to intense environmental changes across the planet, Antarctica is starting to melt.

What are your thoughts? Was Antarctica home to anything important before the war? What do you think happened to it after the war? The way Chris described things it sounds like it's even more uninhabitable than before.
 
I think it could be a viable location to launch nukes against targets. Could be placed to attack Africa, Australia and South America in the case of them joining the war. I think it being home to several nuclear bases of all colours could ensure a lot of small skirmishes between American and Chinese forces there. If there were bases it would be heavily bombed. I think that Antarctica is a melting wasteland with almost nothing in it. Small outposts could have survived but with a low amount of FEV (the true catalyst of heavy mutations) they would arguably be the only major living danger.
 
Dr Fallout said:
I think it could be a viable location to launch nukes against targets. Could be placed to attack Africa, Australia and South America in the case of them joining the war. I think it being home to several nuclear bases of all colours could ensure a lot of small skirmishes between American and Chinese forces there. If there were bases it would be heavily bombed. I think that Antarctica is a melting wasteland with almost nothing in it. Small outposts could have survived but with a low amount of FEV (the true catalyst of heavy mutations) they would arguably be the only major living danger.
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Very interesting points! I'll bet that one of the elements of the Fallout universe's Cold War was a struggle about who got which parts of Antarctica. It's very likely that the US/Soviet Union/China and/or the European Commonwealth all had some tense feelings about their bases there.

Surprisingly, it actually would be high up on the list of nuclear targets thanks to the many outposts and bases in the area (as you and I have stated before, of course). All in all, thanks to being bombed into oblivion, it probably is very boring.
 
There could be a large amount of technology left there but, as you said, it would be very boring otherwise. Antarctica could have been the home of a small war between the American and Chinese forces there. Antarctica itself is boring, but it's Earthwide effects could have been an influential factor in the decline of Humanity. The water rising would have engulfed many areas that weren't bombed as much.
 
I think penguin extinction refers to the idea that fallout and soot from a nuclear war fought in the northern hemisphere would take a long time to affect the southern hemisphere, and Antarctica would be the last place it would reach.

Interesting area to explore. Maybe extensive uranium or oil reserves, hard to locate with a couple of thousand feet of ice on the ground, were being pursued when the war started. It might be like an antipolar version of today's scramble for Arctic mining rights as the northern ice cap recedes.

Melting of the ice should be moderate, or a local effect of detonations. Extensive (continent-wide) melting causing sea level rise would likely leave the central California valley underwater, once levees and pumping stations failed, which would violate canon (unless it reversed itself before Fallout 1). Much of the valley is just a few feet above sea level. Some is below now, due to extraction of groundwater and oil, or drying of the thick layers of peat underground.

I wouldn't get too wrapped up in continents being submerged as canon. That's from the metaphor-filled Arroyo tribal version of history. Seen any spears of nuclear fire in the wastes? Even large bombs leave craters only in the hundreds of meters across, not quite up to the "tectonic" level of destruction. Now those halfnium-isomer bombs might be a different story, if they were real.

Elder gods, as in "At the Mountains of Madness". Or, the film The Last Winter, starring...Ron Perlman!
 
Vault Maker said:
I wouldn't get too wrapped up in continents being submerged as canon. That's from the metaphor-filled Arroyo tribal version of history. Seen any spears of nuclear fire in the wastes? Even large bombs leave craters only in the hundreds of meters across, not quite up to the "tectonic" level of destruction. Now those halfnium-isomer bombs might be a different story, if they were real.!
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Oh, I know! I like the Fallout 2 intro in that it's from the perspective of a person born after the war...just like the intro to Mad Max II: The Road Warrior. I was just saying that we should perhaps give it some consideration.

I read somewhere that Adytum was actually a suburb right in the middle of Los Angeles, but it now sits on the coastline thanks to heavy flooding. Maybe there is some truth to the Fallout 2 intro.
 
The-Artist-64 said:
I read somewhere that Adytum was actually a suburb right in the middle of Los Angeles, but it now sits on the coastline thanks to heavy flooding. Maybe there is some truth to the Fallout 2 intro.
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The California coastline is altered some. I used what recognizable points I could to align the worldmaps in my Atlas, but...there was gnashing of teeth. Eventually I had to make one of those super mutant head strap things to keep my face on.

I chalk the changes up to a bit of cratering around urban areas or other major targets, the occasional earthquake, landslides, and maybe a slight change in sea level. Many parts of the coast have oil offshore, so possibly there was some pre-war terraforming for some reason. The SF bay is very different, but could just be silted up.

For FO1, the biggest changes seem to be south of Vandenberg Air Force Base (coast moved inland), then a bunch of spots where it moved outward near Santa Barbara, Oxnard, Santa Monica, and Long Beach. There are 2 large bays cut in, at Malibu and a larger one at Huntigton Beach-Irvine (about centered on Interplay's old offices). And at San Diego a 60 mile stretch is cut inland by up to 8 miles.

Boneyard (on the worldmap) is a ways in from the coastline; you may be thinking of some backstory info saying it's right on the coast. Actual position would be centered around Glendale, with a bit of Burbank and Pasadena. The Cathedral is closer to the sea, around Long Beach.
 
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