I didn't even know that Atomic Gardening was a thing, but it doesn't surprise me in the slightest. In my latest playthrough of Fallout 4, I built a special farming plot at Sunshine Tidings for Ashblossom. Since it only grows naturally in the Glowing Sea (and I had to use mods to be able to grow it), I put a number of barrels of radioactive waste around the plot (enhanced by hidden green lights), and dressed the farmer up in a hazmat suit.
@@kingofhearts3185 The main one I use is Unlocked Settlement Objects, but I think the Ashblossom comes from another mod. I can't remember the name of it right now, but it simply unlocks a number of "wild" plants to be planted.
Number Stations would be awesome. Imagine listening to the music and the numbers come up and you need to figure them out. No tips or quest marker or anything. Just the seemingly random numbers.
A quest around cracking a number stations code could also have some moral questions for the player, for example a transmission stated that there will be a large attack in a settlement, should I intervene and risk the enemy changing their code meaning I'd have to crack the code again, or should I wait, possibly sacrificing the settlement, but later find out the location of the faction leader or a large supply dropoff.
The issue with that is that it would be very difficult to signal to the player this was a mechanic without more or less just having a npc just tell them, because most players would just act on the fist transmission thinking that it was just the continuation of the mission.
@@walfman100 depends in how you want to start the quest, either tie it to a faction or have NPCs talk about weird transmissions and the frequency theiy heard it on, wich could then let the number Station appear on your Pip Boy.
Seeing as it's been thoroughly established that aliens exist in the Fallout universe, I think it would be cool if Roswell and Area 51 were explorable locations in a future game.
Given that legally we can't base a location off of 51 (we don't need to know tbh) it would be neat for a bunker that has secret alien technology in it.
In 2000 I was working at a Boy Scout camp. My group had a couple fancy walkie talkies to keep in touch with the camp admin. One night, one of my kiddos was playing with a radio by the fire and this really alarming sound started blaring out of it. It actually legit scared some of the younger kids. And it sounded remarkably like your example at 20:20. I never found out what it was. Considering the camp was not far from a major military base, it seems plausible it was a number station.
Holy crap, I wasn't sure if civilian equipment could pick up the frequencies of numbers stations. Most of them are low or high enough to not get picked up by standard radios, IIRC. At least, ones that aren't ham radios. Good to know. :o
@@raziyatheseeker the camp had a lot of donated mil surplus equipment (mostly mundane stuff like Vietnam war-era cots and mess equipment, but also some vehicles) as well as some tech industry benefactors so, it's actually not too surprising that we had nice kit and didn't realize it :)
Radking is giving Bethesda or any other Fallout developer fool proof ideas to enhance the game so much. Thank you Radking for blessing us with Atoms glow!
@@Tyler-f00k1n yeah radking, shoddycast, oxhorn, and a few others would make an amazing Fallout game with so much content we would die before completing.
The bit about the numbers station reminds me of the classical music the Institute used in FO4 to communicate. That said, I think it would be neat to find what appears to be a pre-war broadcast station, only to have it abruptly make a reference to something contemporary to the setting. Like, have a coded message that refers to an address in game, where the player can find agents of an existing faction, or a new one. Seems like something the Enclave would do after so many setbacks. Edit: Another idea would be to have the numbers station be run by a pre-war AI, using it to string people along for its own goals. Or simply hav ea cargo cult of people tuning in to try and find meanings in the random words and phrases. Also, I think the weather control thing would gel well with something set in New Orleans or the south in general. For a region known for its storms, the ability to dampen or redirect them would be a massive deal
New Orleans would be such a cool setting for a Fallout, it’s also an area with (to my knowledge) very little known about it but a very distinct culture and identity
@@evilemuempire9550 I agree. Another thing that would be fun is the fact it's connected to the Mississippi, historically a major connection for people along it. It could easily become a major hub. Or really any city along its length.
I think something such as the DUGA Array, were it implemented in Fallout, could maybe be converted into a messaging array/booster; allowing comms from all across the wasteland; and even the wider world.
I would love to see those number stations in a future game , imagine if there was one that lead down a rabbit hole to another lovecraftion entity which has been using the leaves in the radio waves to brainwash and attract followers .
When he talked about the radio resuming transmission after a long time... my thought was: the Chinese returning. And not remnants from the past invasion, but a new invasion force/spies from a new government over in China which has mysterious intentions. And through your interactions with them, you'd be able to learn more about what happened there during the war, but also in the aftermath.
@@octavianpopescu4776 I would actually kind of like a Chinese army remnant, sort of like a brotherhood of steel, but Chinese, so like a bunch of tech worshippers who use stealth suits and espionage.
One gameplay mechanic i would like to see from atomic gardens is some sort of strategic plant breeding, a mini game. If the player does everything right, the plants can be used for superior ingredients for stronger buffs and if something is done wrong, the plants will cause illness and debuffs.
i think adding mobile missile trucks like the ones in the intro would be an interesting thing to see modded into the game if only just because they look neat
The darkening of the grapefruit is interesting Seeing as tree frogs around the Chernobyl Exlusion Zone have been documented as having evolved near pitch-black skin as opposed to the normal bright green color tree frogs normally have As it turns out melanin is pretty good at deflecting radiation
Fun fact: my dad, a Danish electrician, has serviced the B-MEWS on Thule Air Base in Greenland, because the US Army had a clause in their lease of the area that means they must hire Danish and Greenlandic specialists to service the facilities. Anyway, he's told many stories of the radiation coming off of those things (within his permit ofc, there's a lot of things he can't say), and honestly they're fascinating! Fun fact: the old Air Base bunkers were flooded when they were abandoned, meaning there's a bunch of perfectly preserved 1960s bunkers just laying around in the Greenland permafrost, full of ice.
I found this to be a very interesting look into the cold War, especially the part on atomic gardens. Personally I would like to see more talk of the effects that the fallout US, USSR and China had on the rest of the world, especially in comparison to things in our world ie. The Cuban missile crisis, US interference in South America in the 50s. I doubt we'll get a game set outside of the US, but I'd love to see some references at least.
I feel like Atomic Gardens would've been encouraged by the government in Fallout, to quell the talks of all the radioactive waste dumping. I also think the missile trains would've been a great excuse for the metro to carry radioactive waste too.
The podcast Vault 97 (West Vault Radio) had a commercial for gamma gardening as an in-universe integration, so it was cool to hear about its origin as an actual Cold War era thing.
Since they weren't mentioned here by name, and I haven't seen anyone list them, another huge influence on Fallout was Blood's a Rover/A Boy and His Dog (A Boy and His Dog was later made into a film) by Harlan Ellison. I recommend reading the original versions, not the "updated" new edits.
These are some great ideas, especially love the atomic gardens they sound so cool! I see the potential of an incredible side quest being made around one.
An excellent list. I think Project Nike air defense missile sites should be included. They were ubiquitous in suburban areas around major metropolitan areas during the Cold War, from the 50s until the mid 70s. There are still old buildings and radar equipment left from some Nike Missile sites in some areas to this day. There were 200 or so missile sites spread over 40 some sectors. They could be a good minor location for use in the game.
Actually a weather manipulator does appear in 76, though they dont do much with it and the only real evidence is in logs. There is a facility designed like a telescope that is secretly a weather manipulation device. I believe the brotherhood dlc has them move into it
Fun from a train nerd, they were implemented for 3 years, main issue was the cars stick out like a sore thumb being excess height and using 4 trucks or bogies to hold the weight compared to the standard 2 truck setup, also the train would need to stop in the clear to properly deploy so it was kibashed.
The storms in the divide and the storm that covers hidden valley are both weather manipulation devices created in the big mt so technically we do see it we just don’t see the things creating it
All of the above, absolutely. Atomic Garden is the coolest idea, though kind of redundant with the already mutated gardens, but it'd make for a fun set of scenes.
I could see the number stations being a thing that basically was implemented to help the DIA agents in fallout 4 find the cache's locations hidden around the map. I never thought it was very realistic how P.A.M just magically found the caches and gives you the cards to open the rooms. If it's added in now it could do the same or to various hidden dungeons that would be otherwise unseen at all normally with high end gear or functional vehicles that can ONLY be found by solving the number stations.
I think it’s interesting to mention that the us actually tested launching an icbm from the back of a c5 galaxy cargo plane, maybe something like that could also be included in a future game.
a Numbers station would also be an interesting thing for an Enclave faction that isnt Xenophobic and genocidal to communicate with, decode it and you find a pipboy module that will allow you to communicate directly with them, a few missions on you get direct contact.....that would be a real fun way to introduce a faction - you dont even realize they are enclave until you get to the meet and a Vertibird sets down to unload X-01 armored troopers but rather then the Circle E and black they have the American flag and a blue shoulder or something.
Radking showcases and talks about the exact reasons why i love fallout. The speculation on the technologies, possible lore implications, history of, real world counterparts of things, all things that drive my love for the series. Thank you @Radking for this channel and its content, cheers to sharing atoms embrace and basking in his wonderful glow!☢️
Maybe number stations aren’t featured so far because they were an integral part of Enclave comms, which seems to have failed during the war. Their silence in Fallout could be the echoes of the failure of Enclave conspiracies.
When I was a high schooler, my best friends and I would write our own game guides and game theories. Our theory for the Fallout 3 DLC was that you’d have to go to the commonwealth to take on or join the institute because of certain dialogue during the replicated man quest in rivet city. Obviously F4 happened which really boosted my ego but we made a theory for NV dlc that you would go to Roswell and Area 51 so I’m hoping for Fallout 5 to do me another solid.
Hey. I've been enjoying your exhaustive lists videos for the past month or so for your great voice and dry humor, and of course your attention to detail and thoroughness. Excellent stuff, if workmanlike (not a pejorative). Didn't expect this one, tho. Easily my new favorite video of yours and will make me take a closer look at the channel. This is such a great essay and your hypothetical scenarios sound like a blast and really get the imagination going.
I'd love to see the Atomic Garden as a creation club/mob for Fallout4 settlements ... maybe a new dungeon that's basically an above ground ruin of a PreWar research program and an underground ant nest that you have to delve into to recover some item/macguffin to complete the quest. Upon completion, you unlock a new misc resource settlement item that drops down a central radiator with some radioactive material, a large zone where nothing can be placed and it emits radiation damage, but then a series of circles on the ground a few meters away from the center that increases the amount of food yielded by planted crops. 15:00 - there is already weather modification tech in Fallout 4, though. You can craft mortar shells to create/dispel rainfall from your settlements, cant you?
You ever thought about modding things like these? The nuclear trains seem like a pretty good addition to Fo4, I’m sure many people would be interested in downloading them!
Imagine the numbers stations revealing the randomly generated passwords to certain computers if you listen long enough, like a slow but useful back door for hacking without the skills
Maybe have the code on both the radio and the computers linked so if you reset the computer with a failed attempt it’ll reset the radio one and if you reset the radio one by saving and loading it’ll reset the computer one, so it’ll just reward you for being patient
A Soviet "Dead Hand" like automatic launch system like thing would be neat you find a family or settlement in a bunker that constantly resets a silent hand like automatic nuclear launching system you need to keep them safe, or kill them, maybe the system has long since broken or never worked, or maybe thats one fun little early game ending easter egg
19:10 Already been done. * Big Mountain was known to be carrying out weather manipulation experiments. You can directly interact with a small scale version in a lab and terminals within that lab show they were doing it on large scales. * Clearly that research went somewhere, because in Fallout 4, you can load a friggin fireworks mortar with a shell that can change the weather.
This is an extension of my comment on Zetan factions: The Zetans were once followers of Ug Qualtoth and imprisoned him on earth. One faction (the mother ship zeta Zetans) want to observe human culture in order to make sure he hasn't influenced them, the Zetans in fallout 4 and 76 are a faction that want to take over the planet so they can guard it. Also the tunnelers from lonesome road were Zetans that still worshipped him,but adapted to living underground when their civilization was buried.
Recently found your channel and it made me want to play Skyrim and Fallout again. Starting with FO4 and making my way down the previous games, then going to Oblivion and Skyrim. So far I've only put 3 days into FO4 but your videos give great tips and info for the lore nut and scavenger alike, even sometimes listen while gaming. Otherwise your material is great for the audio, as your long videos make great work study. Thank you for the work you do.
Nice ideas, I like it. I do love the thought of expanding on things that should be implemented to tacky 60s sci-fi ideas or even actual 60s "what will we have in the future?" concepts.
On the topic of weather control; you could also use it as a set-piece like the Hoover-Dam in New Vegas, where factions are fighting for control of it, ra facility that could control the weather would breathe new life into the wasteland, a faction you set up to control the station could then use it for either malevolent or benevolent purposes. For example a faction of ghoul supremacists could use the station to make it nothing but rad-storms, so the non-ghouls, and mutants would perish.
I dig the atomic gardens and the weather manipulation the most. The atomic garden reminds me of a malfunctioning GECK or better yet a test site for the predecessor or cousin to the GECK. I like the weather manipulation too, it's much larger in scope but similar to a idea I had about the climate control system in a hockey stadium is malfunctioning and turning itself and the surrounding area into a winter zone.
Fallout 4 has the Sentinel site, which is modelled after the real word Stanley R. Mickelsen Safeguard Complex and it's ominous radar installation (check Wikipedia for awesome photo). Unfortunately the game location is hidden away in the Glowing Sea.
at least 3 of the things you list ARE alrdy in fallout. Mobile launchers are in cutscenes of pre-war times. Weather modification via cloud seeding is something you can do in FO4 with the fireworks tubes you can build, and Numbers stations are implied by the listening posts.....and you do get radio garble from some of the radio relay towers (i know most of them lead you to a place or give lore, but not all of them. some are just noise or encoded nonesense)
The reason behind operation Popeye is like rad king said the NVA and Vietcong used the Ho chi Minh trail to transport troops and supplies and since it was unpaved so when the monsoon season came the trial became difficult or impossible to use due to the heavy rain. Wether it was a resounding success is a matter of debate but the thought behind the project is commendable since cutting off supply lines and lines of troop, transport has been the goal of enemy armies throughout the millennia. If you have no troops and no supplies, you cannot fight a war.
The half life of the cobalt used is only a few years, so it wouldn't be a source of radiation unless, being Fallout, they used something else. Still, mutant plant growth started by it would very much be a cool addition
The only thing that comes to my mind from Cold War era that we could see are various vehicles (concept/design/prototype/limited production) like floating boat, ekranoplan or submarine aircraft carrier so player could venture outside of mainland N.America as part of DLC.
There's a weather research facility in the big empty already tho. And in the bad ending for the Sierra Madre Elijah uses it to send the cloud to the Mojave
Cyberntics should be in the series more prominently. We have the implants in New Vegas and the cybernetics in the old isometric 1 and 2. It's a classic staple of the sci-fi genre as a whole
So for me personally, considering the cold war, I would love to see more realistic tech being introduced, such as the SR-71, AAV-7 (LVTP-7), and maybe even some WWII Surplus or captured / relics, such as a German U-Boat, or US Battleship serving as a post war factions base or objective to a quest line. Maybe even a DT-30 Vityaz US equivalent serving as a mobile outpost / settlement.
I disagree with adding mobile nuke launchers. In real life, the U.S. was never seriously invested in mobile launch tactics and has always instead opted for the "Nuclear Triad" doctrine which focuses on submarine-launched, aircraft launched, and silo-launched missiles. The only country that did focus on mobile launchers was the USSR to specifically counter the U.S.'s triad so the U.S. would have no reason to develop a fleet of mobile launchers. The best warfare strategy is to specialize in what your enemy *can't* do, not try and replicate them.
Some reference of dune might be good. There's some small references of certain media that is in fallout. Plus dune was thought of in 1930s from the things I heard. Then got published in 1960. So dune should be referred to. Especially the Harkonnen as they use atomics in their arsenal.
Here me out, a Chinese numberstation being broadcast from China and being picked up in the new wasteland, investigating it would lead you to find some Chinese Enclave equivalent active in the US, looking for something. Maybe a Geck? Maybe a vault? Maybe something if interest to their leadership ?
Something that would be great into fallout would be... ziggurats. Architecture of the retrofuturistic world of FALLOUT would fit, imagine a gigantic building, so large it can only be called a maze, both vertically and horizontally
Isnt there a large early detection radar on a pyramid shaped building in the glowing sea? It just has a flat phased array more similar to 80’s design. Also the soviets built 2 dugas and a smaller prototype
The weather manipulation is a thing, at Fort Atlas you can find the pre-war history of the experiment that took place here. It was somewhat successful, but like many projects it was slow going and was never fulling complete.
i can imagine there being one Gamma Garden that has a raider base in it, and if you wanted you could sneak past them to the control shed and hack a terminal to lift the shield, frying all the raiders in atoms glow
i want them to have a teleporter to the moon. The space race was a huge deal during the cold war era. Fallout 4 confirms teleportation technology. They can even make it a secret fallout shelter. They would be trapped there because returning to earths gravity would kill them.
Edit: Oh, you have this in the video. Dear past me: Watch video before commenting. XD I'd like number stations, something that would feel very fitting in the spookiness but also the mystery of fallout. Maybe use them to give people who enjoy cracking codes, early hints on future dlc, or puzzles. Maybe even have factions based around them. Obsessively trying to work out what they're saying and potentially making up their own results.
With the weather manipulation, there was some evidence of it in Big MT with the X-17 Meteorological Station, but they never really expanded on it which I always found a little disappointing, would be interesting to see this explored further in future games - maybe could tie it in with the Sierra Madre's cloud (which was also an experiment from Big MT)
The thing I've always thought was lacking is that the people in the games never seem to try to improve their living conditions. In 4 Sturges beats on the side of that house endlessly and it stays the same shit hole. Like wouldn't people patch holes in roofs and walls? Shouldn't settlements and towns show some progress? It's always been one of the more unrealistic aspects of human behavior in the game.
Agreed. it's particularly bad in F4; 90% of the population lives in hovels that wouldn't survive a single typical Boston winter, let alone one with atomic effects and global warming added in.
Also with the radar detection device, maybe it could be involved in that games reference to the Zetans. You could come across a person or faction that believes aliens may invade the region, so they ask you to turn it on so you can try to detect their approach. But once you do.. a ship comes down and beams down a group of Zetans to come and attack you. And on the weather modification idea, they could do a Zzzzzax like character. Say a prewar scientific group working for the US government similar to the Thinktank was working on a weather modification technology. But things go horribly wrong, and their consciousnesses got absorbed by the machine and they turn into an elemental like creature. Able to change form between an electrical colossus, a roaring blizzard beast or a fiery tornado, they'd be immortal and with their joined knowledge, highly strategic in how they fight. It could be the main villain of the game. At the end you could fight them as they speak in a sequence of their joined voices(much like the Master from Fallout 1), and each personality remnant uses a different weather type to form a battlefield and summoning creatures that have mutated to live in zones of weather they've created.
So random tangent; given that according to the Fallout Bible the US and USSR were far friendlier with each other by the time of the Great War, I wouldn't be surprised if the Fire Trucks in 76 were imported Soviet vehicles.
