[Harry-James Payne]

Bad writing mostly.

Nobody noticed the Oil Tanker dock at the Oil Rig even though the Enclave specifically disabled the tanker themselves because they knew it was a threat? President Richardson doesn't raise the alarm when you openly declare yourself to be an enemy infiltrator to his face? All the prisoners held in the holding cells on the Oil Rig manage to sneak back through the Rig to the Tanker without getting caught?

Enclave doesn't use the artillery in Fallout 3 that they use to shell the bridge in-front of the Pentagon on the Pentagon itself? Enclave never uses Bradley-Hercules on the Pentagon even though it's entirely capable of firing?

The Enclave were basically made too powerful if anything and have been in every iteration so it just requires hand waving to beat them.

[Soku Nyorah]

Thats never said. Always thought it would be cool though if the NCR had their own version of "Operation Paperclip"

[katsomaya Sanchez]

Sadly bad writing cannot rewrite the events that transpire. So what we have...are really incompetent black armored nazis. Comically incompetent. Doomed to fail incompetent.

[Lovingly]

The Enclave aren't necessarily bad people. Only a few bad leaders.

In fact, I have a few theories involving the Enclave actually having good leaders fighting from the inside to try and change them

Just look at Bradley Hercules. They could have openly destroyed the Brotherhood with ease. And yet... something changed their mind.

People could put it off as bad writing, but I disagree.

[LijLuva]

Maybe not but it literally comes into conflict with what's in the game so I'll call it what it is, lazy, weak writing that strains credulity.

[Emmi Coolahan]

That's based on nothing. Since their destruction in Fallout 2, the games since then have made it very clear of what's left of the Enclave. What few remain are hunted down by the NCR, and are either dead or remnants who have moved on. The rest moved on to the Capital Wasteland to answer Eden's call and got wiped out there as well with even fewer numbers than they had at the Oil Rig.

They're dead, unless you want to go on those hints of an Enclave outpost in Chicago, and who knows what's left of them considering how much the faction has significantly crumbled twice under two major powers.

[katsomaya Sanchez]

Per the previous question, was it graqe or fruit punch?

I'm now unsure if I'm being trolled or viewing the results of modern media on our youth....

[Sammygirl500]

Sure we can say that and I agree. But no matter how many times we replay the game, the turn of events never change to fix that. And what happens, is what happens.
The Enclave were basically written to fail, because they were the villains. Collateral damage of storytelling.

[David John Hunter]

Indeed, it does seem a rather frightening stance to take doesn't it; I mean I'm called "The Enclave" and I'm not going to try and morally justify them.

Indeed they were and I think that they should have done a better job in setting them up reasons to fail rather than just making it happen.

For the record I will use this defence for any faction that I feel has been subjected to this, not just the Enclave. Bad writing is bad writing, irrespective of who's involved.

[Kirsty Wood]

Just because you were wrong and i hurt your ego, it doesnt give you the right to act out like a small child.

The point is info about the great war is lacking at best. Maybe USSR and china was launching an offesive together that would have crushed the US and so enclave struck first.

But the fact still remains the great war was NOT decided. We can speculate about who was winning or who would have won (if nukes had not been used). But until Bethesda answers the question, and they probably never will, we cant know.

But the US did lose the great war after nukes was used. None of it is left. It is also possible (likely imo) that USSR and china also lost. But maybe china alone was the winner. We do know the US lost, we dont know china did (but again its likely they all did, kinda the whole point in a post nuclear world)

And i think your likely scenario is as unlikely as it gets. If you cant handle people disagreeming then dont join a forum.

[krystal sowten]

Yeah, speculation is the name of the game pal.

Difference is that your saying "maybe this" and "maybe that" where-as I am pointing to what we have in the game - that's what I base my opinion on, not maybe's.

No, we don't know that the US was going to win the war, neither to do know that an underground race of dwarfs aren't going to be the main enemy in Fallout 4. Instead we base what we think on what we know and what we do know is that the US were invading mainland China and had driven them out of the United States, we have no knowledge of any great Chinese victories late in the pre-war period, only defeats, ipso facto I assume that the US was winning the war because we can discus "maybes" till the cows come home and it won't get anyone anywhere because you can just keep inventing "maybes" - like you just did with the USSR. We have what we know and then we speculate on that, not on "maybes".

And you still haven't said why the US invading mainland China and beating them on the Alaska front makes it unlikely that the Yanks were winning.

[Bellismydesi]

What we do know is that the US lost. The enclave is dead and so is the USA.

Maybe China also lost. But its possible they won.

It is more likely that the chinese were winning based on this.

[Danny Blight]

Well Richardson was open to the idea that the wastelanders are actually superior in the new world but regardless he considers them mutants as opposed to the true humans of the Enclave so there is a bit of racial ideology in there.

[jennie xhx]

I believe that American was in a better war footing than the Chinese, and that may dictate China launching first. However, no one wins in an atomic war - Mutual assured destruction, or mutually assured destruction (MAD), is a doctrine of military strategy and national security policy in which a full-scale use of high-yield weapons of mass destruction by two or more opposing sides would cause the complete annihilation of both the attacker and the defender

Long story short, there were no final winners

[Taylrea Teodor]

Lets be honest by the time of f2 and f3 the enclaves children, through isolation and super gear, was probably alot weaker than the old enclave.

They got butchered by the wasteland. Chosen one and the lone wanderer crushed them.

[Anthony Santillan]

I re-call Curling saying that but not Richardson. But yeah, they're is a "race" angle, they do consider mutants to be inferior but they're not just doing what they are doing because mutants are inferior. That implies that they would be totally okay with "true humans" which we've seen that they aren't (Vault 13 etc). Richardson admits that they could live on the mainland alongside mutants but that they're numbers would eventually trump them.

[K J S]

"You don't get it 'cause you've never been down there! It's all gone, Tercorien. Doesn't matter who won or who started it." ~ Somah

[Elizabeth Falvey]

Your memory isnt so great. Play fallout 2 again and maybe it will get better.

So we know that the US and the enclave lost in the end. Now what do you think, did China fare better? Or are they totally destroyed as well. Maybe their government (their enclave) fared much better. Cant have been worse atleast!

So china victory right?

[Philip Rua]

"We were winning, too. And then those damn Reds launched everything they had. We barely got our birds up."

Why would we doubt this piece of information particularly given that 3 and NV have chosen to canonize that Anchorage was liberated and US troops were indeed fighting inside of China at the time the bombs fell?

[Kevan Olson]

Your postulate is that since we don't know anything about China after the war but we know that the US got [censored] then China won? I disagree.

I'm not talking about after the bombs, everyone loses a nuclear war. But before the war, what we know is that the US Army had invaded China and driven them from US soil, which suggests to me that the US were winning. At worst they were maybe getting bogged down in dirty urban fighting in China's cities but that doesn't mean that they were losing and doesn't make them, to me, the most likely to start launching nuclear weapons which was the original point on contention.

China was the original aggressor don't forget, they invaded America first.

[elliot mudd]

A simulation built by the us army?

I wonder.if we.will learn in f4 that china won? (That anything of the chinese government is still working)

I hope everyone lost, and not just the US who absolutely lost the great war

[Anthony Diaz]

No, the fact that Alaska was liberated from Chinese occupation.

http://vignette3.wikia.nocookie.net/fallout/images/7/7f/FO3_loading_capitalpost01.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20130903140124

[Alexis Acevedo]

We know Anchorage was liberated from pre-war info beyond the simulation.

Everyone lost the Great War and no one is disputing that. The Sino-American War however appears to be trending in the USA's favor before the nuclear exchange.

[Kellymarie Heppell]

I dont see why you would nuke China if you had a large amount of ground forces actively deployed within China, that's just effed in the A.

[Chrissie Pillinger]

Well the pre-war USA weren't very nice people: Vault Experiments, Big Mountain human trails on war protesters, annexation of Canada, FEV tests on POWs etc.