Fallout: A Nuclear Romance (Part 3)

By Cailin Reedy

The result of a player in Bethesda's "Fallout 4" using the Fat Man mini nuke launcher as a weapon.

Bethesda’s “Fallout” universe has been developed for more than 20 years. It is a pseudo-1960s society set more than a hundred years in the future. This universe never invented the transistor to enter into the digital age, but they advanced nuclear power to a point that most of their technology relied on it. The gasoline was almost used up, to the point that one gallon of gas cost in excess of $6,000.

But one of the most striking propositions of the “Fallout” universe’s alternate timeline is the effects of radiation on the larger world. Dr. Michael J. Mills, a National Center for Atmospheric Research scientist, and his colleagues published a study in 2014 looking at the potential consequences of a nuclear war between Pakistan and India. This hypothetical war would use less than 1 percent of the world’s nuclear weapons.

The study found that although much of the “Fallout” universe’s mythology is nothing more than souped-up and “cool” fictional hypotheticals, there is some basis in fact. Mills’ study used 100 hypothetical 15-kiloton bombs, the same size as “Little Boy” that was dropped on Hiroshima near the end of World War II.

The study found that such a nuclear assault would be devastating, creating supermassive firestorms that could consume entire cities. These firestorms would release up to 5 million tons of carbon into the atmosphere, destroying the ozone layer up to 50 percent in some places. The resulting nuclear winter would drop temperatures by up to 46 degrees, shortening crop growing seasons and leading to the starvation of billions of people. At the end of the nuclear winter, which could last 30 years, Mills doubted if any humans would have survived.

And that’s using less than 1 percent of the world’s nuclear weapons—100 15-kiloton missiles. In “Fallout” canon, Las Vegas alone was the target of 77 nuclear warheads, the average size of which is stated to be between 200 and 750 kilotons.

While “Fallout” may seem to present a bleak future should nuclear warheads be loosed, the reality is much, much more deadly.