Knight Kien

New Member
Registered Member
I've been replaying Fallout 4 lately, reading the lore, and what has always puzzled me is how the US counter-invasion of China was even possible. I mean, correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't China need complete naval superiority in the Pacific for the invasion of Alaska to be even remotely feasible in the first place? In which case, China would have needed to expunge American forces from East Asia and the Philippines -- assuming they still had bases there -- followed by an occupation of Hawaii.

And no matter how effective power armor was against infantry and tanks, there's no way they could have withstood a barrage of missiles, especially if the Chinese were already deeply entrenched in Alaska. Taking back Anchorage would have been an absolute nightmare, even with power armor. But okay, say the US did expel Chinese forces from Alaska, they would still have needed to destroy the Chinese navy, air force, missile defense systems, and island hop from Hawaii to East Asia. How the hell was that even logistically possible? And we're supposed to believe the US had landed millions of troops on the Chinese mainland within months?

Here's my theory: The counter-invasion never happened. It was all propaganda to keep the population from rebelling. The American military was already stretched thin in its occupation of Canada and Mexico. And it was also mentioned that the Chinese even made it as far as the Canadian Yukon. If that were the case, the Chinese would have logically also bombed all the shipyards on the West Coast along with many other valuable military assets, making the counter-invasion even more implausible.

In Fallout 3, we see Chinese guns littered across the Capital Wasteland, presumably acquired from trading with the NCR. In New Vegas, Veronica, mentioned the Chinese had invented, or were close to inventing, a new type of gun, a gauss rifle, if I recall correctly, that would have rendered power armor useless.

Some redditors stupidly suggested the Chinese walked through Siberia and... swam to Alaska? We know the Soviet Union was on friendly terms with the US, even up till the bombs fell, so we can rule out the possibility of the Soviets aiding the Chinese in any meaningful way. And that brings up another point: If the Soviets were more hostile to the Chinese than to the Americans, why didn't China invade Siberia instead, then? I doubt the Soviets, with a population of around 330 million by the 2060s, would have exhausted all their resources.

Other than that, I suppose there weren't a lot of alternative options to invade for resources: The Middle East, Western Europe, and Israel had already nuked themselves in their conflicts. The same thing probably happened in South Asia between Pakistan and India. Global warming was also likely much worse in the Fallout Universe due to the lack of success in pursuing renewable energy. From that, we can infer that much of Australia, Africa, and Latin America became inhospitable, if not uninhabitable. Even more bizarrely, the PRC was not able to figure out fusion energy while America could? I mean ffs, even in this absurd timeline, the Chinese had stealth suits! They could just steal the technology and reverse engineer it.

Anyways, enough of my rant, here's a screenshot of my settlement at Tenpines Bluff.
 

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tygyg1111

Captain
Registered Member
I've been replaying Fallout 4 lately, reading the lore, and what has always puzzled me is how the US counter-invasion of China was even possible. I mean, correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't China need complete naval superiority in the Pacific for the invasion of Alaska to be even remotely feasible in the first place? In which case, China would have needed to expunge American forces from East Asia and the Philippines -- assuming they still had bases there -- followed by an occupation of Hawaii.

And no matter how effective power armor was against infantry and tanks, there's no way they could have withstood a barrage of missiles, especially if the Chinese were already deeply entrenched in Alaska. Taking back Anchorage would have been an absolute nightmare, even with power armor. But okay, say the US did expel Chinese forces from Alaska, they would still have needed to destroy the Chinese navy, air force, missile defense systems, and island hop from Hawaii to East Asia. How the hell was that even logistically possible? And we're supposed to believe the US had landed millions of troops on the Chinese mainland within months?

Here's my theory: The counter-invasion never happened. It was all propaganda to keep the population from rebelling. The American military was already stretched thin in its occupation of Canada and Mexico. And it was also mentioned that the Chinese even made it as far as the Canadian Yukon. If that were the case, the Chinese would have logically also bombed all the shipyards on the West Coast along with many other valuable military assets, making the counter-invasion even more implausible.

In Fallout 3, we see Chinese guns littered across the Capital Wasteland, presumably acquired from trading with the NCR. In New Vegas, Veronica, mentioned the Chinese had invented, or were close to inventing, a new type of gun, a gauss rifle, if I recall correctly, that would have rendered power armor useless.

Some redditors stupidly suggested the Chinese walked through Siberia and... swam to Alaska? We know the Soviet Union was on friendly terms with the US, even up till the bombs fell, so we can rule out the possibility of the Soviets aiding the Chinese in any meaningful way. And that brings up another point: If the Soviets were more hostile to the Chinese than to the Americans, why didn't China invade Siberia instead, then? I doubt the Soviets, with a population of around 330 million by the 2060s, would have exhausted all their resources.

Other than that, I suppose there weren't a lot of alternative options to invade for resources: The Middle East, Western Europe, and Israel had already nuked themselves in their conflicts. The same thing probably happened in South Asia between Pakistan and India. Global warming was also likely much worse in the Fallout Universe due to the lack of success in pursuing renewable energy. From that, we can infer that much of Australia, Africa, and Latin America became inhospitable, if not uninhabitable. Even more bizarrely, the PRC was not able to figure out fusion energy while America could? I mean ffs, even in this absurd timeline, the Chinese had stealth suits! They could just steal the technology and reverse engineer it.

Anyways, enough of my rant, here's a screenshot of my settlement at Tenpines Bluff.
My take:
I have a conspiracy theory regarding the canonical Fallout story:

After a second playthrough of FO4 whilst completely ignoring the story missions, I began to see a different world to the one painted by official canon. Observations such as Chinese submarines being able to just sail into Boston harbor, and the unexploded air dropped megaton class nuclear bombs in FO3 and NV indicated that US conventional forces were totally annihilated prior to the nuclear phase of the war. That the most common things in the wasteland were weapons, ammunition, drugs / medicine suggested a level of standardized manufacturing far beyond the capabilities visibly apparent in the wasteland; in fact, it is more likely the result of an external supply chain.

Which got me thinking how this would all tie together:

A conventionally defeated USA resorted to nuclear blackmail via attempting limited strikes to give the world a taste of the possibility of nuclear holocaust once it saw the war was unwinnable, however it botched the move and was punitively struck by the remaining members of the UN. Somehow the US nuclear arsenal was not able to be fully utilized; whether from sabotage, refusal of orders or just plain dysfunctional incompetence of an empire on its last legs, however the intention was clear and triggered a MAD response from Russia and China. While this reset the US to the stone age again, the rest of the world was comparatively unscathed, only suffering 'a scratch' here and there, and was able to rebuild in the 200 years following. The US, on the other hand, was weighed down by total devastation across country and society, with even the protective measures of the vaults being cynically devised experiments designed to extract and stretch rather than protect its inhabitants.

The present day Fallout setting (200 years into the future) paints a radioactive dustbowl America used by the rest of the world as a mine for valuable genetic data and medical experimentation, using local outfits such as the BOS as the miners, in exchange for outdated surplus arms, ammunition, medical supplies and drugs for a little bit of side profit. The non existent contact a regular wastelander had with the outside world meant that the internal propaganda of the US just before annihilation stuck as the truth, with no way of being disproven. The battles between factions were in reality just cartel wars over who controls the genetic specimen and drug distribution trade, whilst the actions of the protagonists throughout the Fallout series were just the adventures of misinformed bumpkins.
 
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