Game Skyrim Forum

So I'm new to the fallout series but the story of it really intrigues me and I've doing alot of reading on the wiki page to find out what what I haven't from fo3. One thing I still haven't found and don't totally understand is why have bottle caps become the currency of the land?

I'm guessing because there is a finite amount of them (no more being made) and they are more durable than paper money...

Portable, and in limited supply.

In FO1, the Water Merchants had established the Cap on the "Water Standard" - much like real currency can be (or has been) on the gold or silver standard.

Simple answer - because the designers thought it seemed like a cool idea.

Honestly, I don't think they spent a whole lot of time with this when they made Fallout. I picture a bunch of guys sitting around, thinking of what they should call the currency. Someone walks by and says "Why not bottle caps?" And then everyone says like, "sure, sounds good to me."

On a "realistic" note - any currency works because everyone agrees that it has value. In America at least, only paper money is technically legal currency. Change is actually just barter - 4 quarters equal one dollar because there's a mutual agreement that it does. In Fallout, it's much the same - bottle caps have worth because it's universally agreed that it does.

i suppose it was just a game play idea in that sense. i guess i should have clarified that i do understand how it works as currency, i was more just curious if there was any particular lore behind its development over some other somewhat common but rare elements.

Have you ever walked through a subway in fallout 3? They have so many botles on teh ground. there was jsut alot of caps. Real money would ahve been disinegrated had it been caught in the blast. But aluminum mannaged to survive

Resistent, can't be artificially reproduced anymore, and can be carried around very well. So... they make perfect sense to use as currency. ^_^

I think it was mostly because it felt like it fit the vibe of the setting, and since they still used the old bottle & cap design on ALL pop, it seems logical too.
For those that mention paper money would have degraded, been destroyed, etc, have you not noticed you can find pre-war money in desks, safes, and on shelves?

Yeah it was just for a cool post apocalyptic feel, real money wouldnt work either for a simple reason. A true currency needs to be controled in the amount that is in the system. Or based upon a "rare" commodity and with all of the sodas laying around in the games bottle caps would be a poor currency. I think pre-war money or some other rare commodity would be the better thing.

caps were readily available, and paper money could get wet or ripped, whereas caps are just durable and easily available

They would be terribly inconvenient though: they don't stack easily!
Imagine carrying a couple of thousand bottle caps around
And then imagine that you want to buy something that costs... say 874 caps... that you'd have to COUNT! And they don't stack, so you might have to count them one by one!

Actually I think that's one of the most interesting aspects of the game: they are pretty much accepted as currency, though Fallout's world is hardly capitalistic, it's economy is a more primitive one when trading is done trough exchanging goods rather than exchanging money for goods, you just use caps for convenience - so that you have a global measurement of the item's value - and to 'cover the difference'.

Yeah, one bottle cap doesn't weigh very much, but a couple thousand seems like it have to weigh you down quite a bit. (Though, you know, you can also somehow manage to fit an unlimited amount of ammo and a fatman in your pockets so.... (The Vault Suit is a revolutionary design, incorporating a magic bag of holding, don't you know. )

That at least is probably not so hard. I don't think it'd be too much of a stretch to figure that the merchants you're dealing with use a scale to count all your caps. As far as stacking, one possible rationalizing is that instead of just having a huge bag of caps jingling around - you could probably easily string them together with some thread - maybe making a knot every 50 or 100 caps or so; so you could keep track of how much you have. That's what I'd do, at least, if I wanted to keep track of how much money I had. (I could be wrong, but wasn't that kind of how they did it in Feudal Japan, with their Yen? They had that square hole through the middle...)

Because... they use paper money, when they have to go... :nod: Y'know, what I'm talking about, right?

My question is more: how did the entire nation universally agree to use bottlecaps as currency and to assign them value when the vast majority of civilization is disconnected and can't communicate with one another.

It would make sense for the whole capital wasteland to use caps, but the wasteland, the western areas, the pitt, point lookout, etc... pretty far-fetched.

But it makes for cool gaming.

The Entire nation didn't. Thats how. The use of the Cap in the East and West were Parellel development (Much like how a guy in Scotland built a working, functional Aeroplane before the wright brothers did (But it didnt count because he died before it could be flown))

In Tactics:BOS the unit of currency used in the Midwestern area by civilians is the Ring Pull, with Brotherhood script being used inside the BOS. (Semi-Canon though).

In the "Core region" (California and its expanses), they have moved beyond the Cap, and back into regular printed/Minted currency backed by the New Californian Republic.

The cap in FO1's time was used because the water merchants in the HUB said so. They had the valuable resource everyone wanted, so what they said goes.

Yes, but Bethesda has spread the cap system not only to the East, but to every little community in the DLC... and without water merchants to explain it.

its not a big area. Given that there is a set caravan route, and semi-organised traders its not a huge thing. The traders of Canterbury commons, or another group could have simply decided that it was scrip that they'd each accept.

I will never understand how anyone can carry around hundreds or even thousands of those...

the same way you can carry 5 sets of armour and still engage in agile combat. People are super-humans in Fallout!

I imagine that the brotherhood brought the use of caps from the west with them along with jet, which was invented 70-80 years prior in new reno. in fact I bet that is how caps became so popular, brotherhood got everyone addicted to the new substance they brought from the west. only logical explanation. or it could have been the dude that moved to greyditch from navarro.

That would explain caps in The Pitt as well, since the Brotherhood passed through there on their way to the capital wasteland...

I guess it is as good an explanation as any.

yeah no one questions how a guy with an irish accent and a guy with an english accent got to dc either. just one of those things you have to accept while playing the game.

The same way people with English Accents and Irish accents did originally? (ie- Boat).

The caps aren't wasteland currency until Fallout 3.
They were in Fallout 1 and used as currency because they were backed by the Water Merchants.
In Fallout 2 they can be found in Broken Hills but they are just someone from Fallout 1 stash and virtually worthless.
In Fallout 2 New Reno and NCR have reestablished the gold standard. They use money.
Some local places have local currency like in Redding where the mines pay their workers with paper scrips.
In Tactics the wastelanders use Ring Pulls (the top of a can of soda) while the Quartermasters of the BOS use paper prewar currency.
There are also wooden nickels out there (but you know what they say about those right?).

It's quite simple. Aluminum bottle caps are shiny.

And people like shiny.