Summary
The first season of the live-action TV adaptation forFalloutwas a massive success for Amazon’s Prime Video service, already amassing over 65 million unique viewers. The popularity of the show has had a direct impact on the player-base of the franchise’s many video game installments, with waves of brand-new players recently experiencing the games for the first time.
While theFalloutshow delves into its own unique story away from the narratives of the games, it still pays a lot of respect to its source material, with the IP’s major factions, creatures, and locations all being center stage. As the show is still canon to the widerFalloutuniverse, it is no surprise that there were some narrative threads of the show that stirred up a lot of passionate debates among long-time fans. Perhaps the most pressing of these debates concerns which country dropped the bombs first inFallout’s apocalyptic universe, and the show blows this conversation wide open.
This article contains spoilers for theFalloutTV show.
The Fallout Show Makes a Key Question More Divisive Than Ever
The lore behind theFalloutfranchisehas always been one of its most intriguing elements, taking place in a future in which humans have begun tentative new societies in a world scorched and irradiated by devastating nuclear war. Without the accountability of a functioning society, the brutal ways of the wasteland make the question of morality more ambiguous than ever, and this is usually at the forefront of most of the stories told within theFalloutuniverse.
With manyFalloutstories taking place centuries after the world was ruined by nuclear war, the idea of asserting who was at fault for the conflict almost seems redundant, yet this is a burning question among many fans regardless.In theFalloutlore, the bombs were dropped in the year 2077, amid a brutal and long-spanning war between the United States and China.
After over a decade of grueling conflict, the United States began to assault and infiltrate the mainland of China, thrusting the stakes of the war higher than they had ever been. Massive nuclear attacks were launched onFallout’s United States and Chinabecause of this, although the important distinction of which country instigated this has always been quite subjective.
Fallout’s Nukes May Have Been Launched By Companies, Not Countries
Given the disadvantageous position of China towards the end of the war, it seems logical to think that they launched the first bombs in a last-ditch attempt at mutually assured destruction. Tim Cain, the co-creator ofFallout,even clarified this in a 2023 interview, although key plot points of the show seemingly dispute this point. In pre-apocalyptic flashback scenes towards the end of theFalloutshow’s first season, a meeting is shown between the largest American companies,including Vault-Tec and RobCo.
These scenes make it clear that these powerful corporations needed nuclear war to see massive returns on their investments, while consolidating themselves as the leaders of post-war society. It is suggested that these companies either dropped the first bombs on China, or even the United States itself, to ensure complete nuclear conflict would break out, further fueling the debate between fans over whom the blame should be directed towards. While a definitive answer is still not present, it is clear thattheFalloutshow has reignited one of the oldest franchise debatesby introducing an entirely new potential instigator.
