I just finished watching the movie "Life After People". The movie is basically showing the progression of Earth after humans are gone. It shows the growth of plant life, corrosion of buildings, etc. But the one thing that really made me question the legitimacy of FO3 was a part about the Chernobyl Nuclear Disaster, in which a town had to evacuate after a nearby nuclear plant exploded (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_disaster). And after 20 years, with no people maintaining the structures, buildings have already started to become covered in plants. Areas of high radiation have already made a comeback and are now forests.

So basically, after watching this movie, it made me think about the landscape of FO3. In Fallout 3, you rarely see a living tree, and after 200 years there are still plenty of standing buildings (i'm assuming they haven't been maintained, since people are fighting for survival). It just seems like Bethesda would have gone more in depth about the plant life's adaption in this type of environment and the corrosion of buildings. Now I know that in the FO universe, the world was destroyed by nuclear war and not just a nuclear blast, but in areas of low radiation more plant life would have come back.

Also another quick point, what is with the dead trees scattered about the landscape? If they died from the nuclear blasts then there is no way they would still be standing after 200 years.

I recommend this movie, it's really interesting and provides lots of information as to how and why the Earth will progress back to it's earlier state before humans.

The difference between Chernobyl and Fallout 3 is the ecosystem.

Fallout 3 didn't have one

Edit: And Chernobyl was surrounded by one

The plant didn't "explode".

The movie was cool.

This is FALLOUT. Beth wanted to go for the wasteland feel, and I think they went as far towards desert as they could. Without "usable" ruins, there wouldn't be much of a game.

Oh, and it's a game, ya know?

I think that a nuclear war with dozens of nuclear bombs would create such a dense particle cloud that the sunlight would be blocked, killing all plants and most living beings - it's the famous "nuclear winter". Plus the radiation would be so severe that it would take decades for plant and animal life to blossom again.

Where would these plants have come from in Fallout? The difference between Chernobyl and Post-Apocolyptia is that while Chernobyl was surrounded by non-irradiated forests from whence plants could come in and adapt, in the Fallout timeline pretty much everything in the world was killed at once.

As for the trees? I got no idea.

The devs were aware that in real life, nature would have reclaimed everything after 200 years. But they had to use artistic license in order to have the iconic wasteland that is Fallout. Wouldn't be much of a wasteland if it was covered in forests. I do think setting the game 200 years after the war was a serious error. If it had been set only 20 years afterwards everything would be much more believable..

Actually, the plant did explode... though it was a steam explosion. It blasted the top off of the reactor though. Nuclear powerplant fuel cannot explode in a giant nuclear fireball, it's simply not enriched enough.

FO3 has not only explosions, but so many going off at once. As it says on the FO Wiki, "More energy was released in the early moments of The Great War than all previous conflicts in the history of the world combined." That energy gets stuck in the atmosphere and will likely have detrimental effects on any ecosystems.

Well, the nuclear winter theory has been pretty solidly disproved, but I have a few thoughts on this...

One is basically the typical "poetic license" argument, what makes post-apocalyptic settings cool is that huge wasteland feel... So it boils down to suspension of disbelief.

On a more logical side of things, there are a couple of things. For one, this is an alternate timeline where culture stayed put in the 50's - a time period when rampant destruction of the environment was commonplace - and it is possible that the D.C. area had already been mostly cleared of any sort of natural environment prior to the bombs dropping. So in 200 years, structures could deteriorate, but a regrowth of life would be less likely. Another possibility lies in the aftermath of apocalyptic war. People would likely first grab whatever resources they could, and natural materials such as wood for building, and plants as a food source would probably be fought over and inevitably destroyed in the process, removing what little remained in the first place.

Now, we would see expect to see more flora and fauna than sand and mutated scorpions, especially given the differences from California desert to D.C., but I think it's a little more believable if viewed in that light

Also, if you go by the Fallout lore, shortly after the bombs dropped there was a "black rain" that fell for several days, and wiped out most species of animal and plant life. So according to that, perhaps the soil is still so toxic from the black rain that only a few hardy weeds and bushes can live in it..

I saw thata "movie", it never said anything about if it was a nuclear holocaust.

Steam, yes...mushroom cloud, no. End result was a persistent source of radiation, not fallout per se.

Should also add that most surrounding areas are ok now.

I saw it too(loved it!) and while the majority of what they were talking about had nothing to do with humans dying by nuclear devastation, they did show Chernobyl and the after effects which had plant life taking everything over. It took over buildings, walkways, nearby roads, and other structures. That's what the OP is talking about.

And the reason for FO3 not being like Chernobyl is that the nuclear fallout happened in the game in a much higher concentration. And also for effect and (here comes that stupid ass word...) immersion.

Actually, the greatest damage (and current greatest threat) from Chernobyl is radioactive dust. The dust cloud thrown up by the Chernobyl incident covered much of Europe. That's how the western world knew something was amiss behind the Iron Curtain; other nuclear plants' rad detectors were being set off simply by people walking by them, the cloud was so pervasive.

Chernobyl's "Sarcophagus" containment vessel was hastily constructed and rests on several structural members of the original building that were damaged and are of dubious structural integrity. The sarcophagus could collapse, which would send a second radioactive dust cloud into the air.

Fallout world is based on how people of the 1950s saw the possible aftereffects of a major nuclear war.

This.

The world of Fallout is largely divergent of our own, even to the extent of how science works. It is the continuation of what people in the 1950s knew about the world and about science and how they thought the future would be.

http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Fallout_world

Read that to understand the whens and the whys of the Fallout world.

yea great movie

THIS GAME ISNT VERY REALISTIC HLOY CARP LOIS!

i have mentioned this in a few post now because people do not seem to be avle to read fallout websites. The fallout earth is different to out earth, like a different dimention. Physics there works in a different way that what is does here. that can be proved in one simple way.
and i'll use chernobyl as you have too. Try walking in there getting irradiated and see if you turn into a ghoul, no you wont, you will just die. point proved. NOT OUR WORLD!!

Word.

Thanks for the physics lesson XShadowHuntaX

Trees and plants would adapt and regrow. End of debate.

It can be explained as a parallell dimention, alternative physics or simple because it's a game. Personally, I like the latter You see, the entire concept of a game ever being anywhere near "realistic" is absolutely ludicrois. This simply because it's a game; there's nothing on the line. You can charge in to combat, and if you die, there's always the reload button. It is unrealistic in so many different ways, I'm not even going to attempt to list them.

An interesting side note..
Did you read the story about the black fungus on the reactor walls? It somehow uses melanin to feed [Yep, feed] on the radiation.

I read that it was being looked at as a long term [possible] food supply option for space future voyages.

I realize that Bethesda made the creative decision to go with a "wasteland" landscape to stay true to the series and make game seem more lonely/desolate. But I just wanted to bring up this point of what really would have happened, in this case and how different it would be.

Apart from the radiation though, a lot of the buildings (especially wooden) would have been destroyed, because of rotting and infestation of termites.

Off topic a bit, but another interesting thing about Chernobyl is that the other reactors that weren't damaged were actually put back in use and manned until about a year or two ago. Yes, people actually traveled to and worked in the site (granted, for very short periods of time).

There are actually still people livin' in the neighbourhood of the reactor for that matter, and they didn't turn into ghouls at any rate. On any rate I don't believe that in the Fall Out universe a thing like Nuculear winter ever did happen.