This Date is Still a Problem - Fallout Show Lore 

Two other references also imply 2277 as Shady Sands destruction year: According to Vault 31's records, Hank transferred from Vault 31 in 2271. Hank transferred to marry Rose and have kids, so likely Lucy was born within a year. Lucy says she thought the sun in the vault was real until she was 6, because she remembered the real sun in Shady Sands. If she were born in 2271, then she stopped believing the sun was real in 2277. Birdie says she was 11 when Shady Sands was destroyed, which would make her 30 at the time of the show. The actress is 47, but I think she could plausibly pass for being ~30, but not for being 26 or younger to fit a 2281 or later date.

The script for the "The End" states Maximus's age as 19 at the start of the show, and 6 when the fridge scene happened. That would mean he was born _IN_ 2277, given the date the show is set in is 2296. This means that Shady was in fact blown up six years after the stated date, specifically in 2283, two years after the events of New Vegas which occurred in 2281. Sources: 1. The wiki page for Shady Sands, third paragraph, sixth reference attached to the date 2283. 2. The wiki page for "The End" script in the notes section. 3. "The End" script itself, as provided by the wiki on "The End" scripts page.

I think the obvious answer is that they intended it to be in 2277 to echo the Great War in 2077 with symmetry in the years. But after the show released they realized that that couldn’t happen so they hastily retconned the show.

I see something different in the school locker scene: the book is not checked out in Nov 2276, rather it is due in Nov 2276. This implies that the book was already late in terms of return in 2277. Why wasn't it returned? We don't know. However, unless the bombs dropped in Nov 2276, this remains an unknowable problem. Hence, there is no reason to believe that the book wasn't returned in 2277 because of the bombs; the book was already past its due date in Nov 2276.

They can say in season 2 that new capital of NCR was renamed to Shady Sands in honor of the destroyed city. And in New Vegas they were talking about this (new) Shady Sands.

Why would Lucy's dad feel the need to nuke Shady Sands if it had already "fallen"? I bet they'll tell us that after the Shady Sands in the TV show was destroyed, the NCR just renamed another city to Shady Sands and made THAT the new capital. Continuity preserved.

They never should have destroyed the NCR.

Still sad all my loot was stashed in Shady Sands now it gone😢

Love you Oxhorn, but 9:35 Lucy only says "people starved, my mother included...", she doesn't say her mom died of starvation in 2277. Your logic makes a lot of sense, but her mom could've survived the 2277 great plague, and maybe after that she found evidence of Hank's involvement in the Vault-Tec conspiracy, therefore she left the vault with her kids and found Shady Sands.

@Oxhorn If Lucy is 20, she was born in 2276. [Norm was going to be the older brother.] Lucy felt the warmth of the sun at 6, so 2282 and she had to be there a while because Lucy has a vivid memory of the warmth and sunlight. [HOW DID SHE GET SO GOOD AT SHOOTING????? NOTHING IN THE VAULT BUT STATIONARY TARGETS"????' played golf since i was 5~, you get good quick at a young age'] Fall of shady sands in 2277 seems correct. Rose got Lucy and Norm to Shady Sands in 2277. The fall NOT the impact. If Rose took Norm and Lucy at such a young age to not remember. Hank probably gave Rose a ghoul enhancer thing to keep her quiet, because he couldnt kill her. Hank had to find a bomb and find waste landers to help. So give him a year or two, to get everything going. The bomb dropped on Shady Sands around 2282-2283 I wanna look at the dates for vault 31 again to come up with more or how long the plague lasted. ALSO ALSO that timid nerd guy always with Betty is sus.

The wording on the blackboard is "the fall of shady sands" which then has an arrow pointing toward the nuclear detonation, which would indicate to me that shady sands "fell" in 2277 but was actually destroyed later. Otherwise there wouldn't need to be that second arrow. That could signify an end of Shady Sand's importance within the NCR. It could also be the survivor's own view of how things were within the city, for example if they felt disillusioned in some way with the government. We don't know much about the survivors of Shady Sands, their history, or why so many survived at all beyond the magic of the magical refrigerator saving Maximus.

I 100% believe that, when making the show, they intended 2277 to be the year Shady Sands was destroyed. But I also think the writers noticed their mistake shortly after the series started airing, and are now coming up with solutions to fix the lore. Todd has already confirmed that solution won't be decanonizing New Vegas, so I suppose we'll see what they come up with. I think the best explanation so far is the "Fall of Shady Sands" being a more societal fall. The occupation of Vegas taking so much manpower and resources that it started a downward spiral in the core territories. If we add the House ending to New Vegas on top of that, it would explain how a single nuke destroyed the NCR. It wasn't the single cause, more the straw that broke the camel's back. The quarantine excuse still works if Shady Sands is destroyed in 2281, as the Vault staying in lockdown for 4 years is believable enough and would just mean Hank and Betty took a long while to find out where Rose went. TL;DR This is a lore mistake, but Fallout is no stranger to lore mistakes. It'll get patched up soon enough.

Todd Howard popping up on the securitron killed me 🤣

There is misinformation, disinformation and stuff that is outright wrong in both our timeline and theirs. I feel like there is being too much made of this and if everything is too perfect it’s unrealistic. I may be the only fallout fan that couldn’t care less about this date.

I wonder if there is a story link to the Lonesome Road DLC from FONV. You can nuke the NCR in LR DLC. Thus, you must use the year 2277.

Honestly they should just change the date on the chalkboard with a digital edit to make it say 2283 or 2281, whatever lines up. Easiest fix rather than they way they are handling it.

There’s actually a much more simple explanation for this: The Teacher wrote it as 2277 so it doesn’t seem like they came from that town. They clearly teach the kids about the NCR, but i think the fact that half of the population comes from there and have been so traumatized that they form into a Cult hailing Moldaver as the “Flame Mother” may be a bit much for the kids to understand. Vault-Tek is no secret to lying for malicious, and benevolent reasons to protect their populations. That’s what this is. Shady Sands was nuked in 2282 (or 2283) the characters ages prove this. The Vault 4 didn’t want to upset the kids by telling them “we came from a really nice country which had now been obliterated but the Flame Mother will save NCR” it’s too much for them to understand. So they wrote 2277 there to make them think it’s just distant history they have no personal connection to. They tell them the truth when they are older.

Think of “the fall” like how we talk about Rome. There’s many dates you could call the “fall of Rome” but Rome didn’t cease to exist on that exact date.

I think the writers meant it to be 2277 and are now retconning after backlash. Which I am okay with. There is enough wiggle room for them to change their minds yet and correct things.

Maybe its just lines on a chalkboard. And like everything else in a Vault...its just a misdirect .

1. Credits don't mean anything in a canonical sense and they're artistic interpretations, at best. 2. The book clearly states "Due Date", which would mean the book would have to be returned in November of 2276, not necessarily that it was checked out in November of 2276. 3. Lucy and Norm *very obviously* were not in Shady Sands when Hank and Betty blew it up, and given that her memory is unreliable, we can't take her word as gospel about Shady Sands. 4. The chalkboard is a flowchart. If the showrunners wanted us to think that "The Fall of Shady Sands" meant that it was nuked, then only that date would have an arrow, but it clearly goes through every single date provided, which indicates that your eyes are supposed to follow the line in that way. 5. The only real issue is the billboard outside the crater and what it states, and that Shady Sands was originally placed in the High Desert region of California, somewhere near Fresno, maybe. Given all that, no, the date is not a problem, but their presentation of the facts is. Using these pieces, and Todd Howard's interview, we can develop an understanding of what happened in 2277. Regarding the book, chalkboard, current speculation, and the lore of FNV, I interpret the "Fall of Shady Sands" to be how the expansion and war in the Mojave to be the single most expensive operation the NCR ever faced, to such a degree that they couldn't even fund their schools. Regarding Lucy's recollection of her life in Shady Sands, as stated, she's clearly unreliable, and we cannot take her word at face value. Until season 2, we are left with two options: either Hank brought his kids back in 2277 and waited 4 years to bomb the city, or he did that in 2281 and retaliated ASAP.

I read the timeline as saying Shady Sands falls in 2277, but the timeline continues on for a short stretch before the Nuke drops.

I still think fall of shady sands means decline. 2277 is when the first war with the legion happens. This war could have rocked the city. I imagine political infighting, riots as loved ones were drafted and died fighting Caesar. The book could have been left there because the student is leaving with their family to move to the Mojave as an emergency draft. The plague of 2277 could have been the excuse Lucy's mom used to leave the vault initially. 2277 Lucy lives in shady sands. 2281 or 2282 hank finds her and nukes shady sands when her mom doesn't leave. Iirc the show takes place in 2296 this means if she was born in 2277 in the city she is 19 during the show. If she was born in the vault still she could be older.

Forget Shady Sands, The hole faction just doesn't exist in the region.

It might be an error, BUT: “The fall of shady sands” has not yet been defined in the show. It’s likely a separate (but related) event before the explosion. On the board, the blast is clearly shown to happen after ‘the Fall’ - as the arrow continues from the 2077 date to the blast image. It may be days after, or years after. But, if the bomb happened in 2077 then imo they would have put the date in front of that bomb image (since all the other events have the dates in front of them). I agree it’s not helpful to have no date in front of the bomb image - but, perhaps they don’t want to spoil the twist / story so are keeping it vague (TBC!) So, in other words, the “Fall” could have been a separate (but related) precursor event: rebellion, raid, or some other major disruptive event - causing the collapse (“fall”) of normal society at Shady Sands in 2077 (hence the library book stamps stopping then). & This (currently undefined) ‘fall’ could set into motion events that led to a nuke detonation years later. The only potential issue I can see with this is that if there was such a precursor event / rebellion (“fall”) in 2077, it’s odd it’s not referred to in New Vegas. Although, again, it hinges on what the ‘fall’ was & who knows about it.

I think fans put more thought into lore continuity than the makers of these shows ever do.

One major problem, the doesn't say that Shady Sands was destroyed in 2277. "The Fall of Shady Sands" could just as easily refer to it no longer being the capital of the NCR. The Fall of something typically means that it is diminished, it is in decline. The mushroom cloud isn't part of the 2277 fall, it takes place sometime after. The bigger question is, if this is the same Shady Sands as the games, why did it move? It's supposed to be, according to Fallout 1 & 2 a little south and east of San Francisco, but in the series it's close to LA. Now there *is* a possible explanation for this, there was another Shady Sands. The chalkboard timeline is spanning a long time, over 100 years, and education isn't always accurate. So, if there was more than one Shady Sands, kind of like how there are more than 80 cities with the name "Washington" in the US, then it could be one history that actually belongs to two cities. The LA Shady Sands has a sign trying to claim being the FIRST capital of the NCR, and it worked for a time, until the NCR government realized what they were doing, and that caused the decline in that particular Shady Sands. It would also explain why the NCR was having so much trouble at the time, people would send representatives to the WRONG Shady Sands and nothing would get done. And, it fits with the theme of the first season of the show, everyone is pretending to be something they are not, everyone is misrepresenting themselves for power and fame.

This is why I watch you. Every time I say something about the date or the LA boneyard everybody thinks I’m being negative and not just settling for new content. Fallout NV needed a sequel not a show that messed up the lore

I’m thinking Lucy thought she was in the vault when there was a plague but maybe the plague of ‘77 and the quarantine was actually in Shady Sands hence the “Fall of Shady Sands” being set in 2277 on the chalk board. That quarantine could have happened and that’s why the book was left in the locker. Still one issue with that is why Hank would wait 4 years later to bomb SS in 2281 Side note: Lucy says her mother starved not starved to death. I don’t believe it’s ever implied she died in ‘77

Im thinking that some poor overworked prop master wrote the wrong number down mistakenly.

Way overthinking it. It was a huge, careless blunder, and they're better off not making this show canon now.

18:44 You are right. Thet cant be 2 dates for same event. 81 is the Canonical date. 1- show will reveal some info nuclear explosion only hapened after 77 or 2-show 77 is wrong and they will not fix it.

I still cant belive he got all the way to Vegas on one Fusion core. When i wear a powerarmor in game i have to swap it all the time.

Going by your video, I think the dates in the show are just mistakes and they had to immediately correct it. Also they’re probably rewriting some dates for Season 2 after the online discussions about the timeline. I wish they got it right the first time but still at least they’re trying to fix it. I’ll wait for season 2 to explain more. Plus I’m glad they didn’t pull a Star Wars Acolyte. Those people just stuck with massive lore/timeline errors and insult the fanbase for pointing it out.

Unfortunately the date in the library book is in no way conclusive proof that Shady Sands was destroyed in 2277, it may be a case that the book was taken home after being checked out in 2276, left at home and forgotten about then found by a sibling of the person that checked it out in 2281, and returned to the school and placed in the locker with the intention of returning it to the library at the first opportunity, personally I do think the 2277 date was chosen because the producers 'forgot' about Fallout New Vegas because it wasn't a Bethesda game.

My biggest issue with the lore is the date 2277 and Even worst is the setting. The geography is all messed up. Shady sands is about 5 to 10 miles east of Yosemite national park. That’s 419 miles from Santa Monica. Another MAJOR Issue is the Master in 2161! HELLO vault 33, 32, 31 is right there in the L.A boneyard! The master had no problem finding prime Normals stock. The BOS is Poorly written

The nuclear cloud in the chalkboard is set aside for dromatic effect.

The TV series is set in 2296, which makes it impossible for Shady Sands to be destroyed by a nuke in 2277. Lucy, while not yet given a canonical age, has been noted in scripts as being in her very early 20s, with the script for "The End" marking her down as 20. For argument's sake, let's put Lucy at 23, making her birth date being in 2273. Considering Lucy was 6 at the time of her residency of Shady Sands, that would not put her there until 2279. However, if she is 20 at the time of the TV show as per the script for "The End", Lucy wouldn't even have been born until 2276, putting Lucy in Shady Sands during 2282. Then how did Lucy remember the plague of 77? She doesn't, Hank and Betty lied to everyone, which we already know. The Vaults dates could be wrong (by design), or there could have been an actual plague in 77, and Hank manipulated everyone around Lucy and Norm into believing that what happened in 82 happened during the plague. While there IS a plot hole right now, it's not Shady Sands being destroyed before the events of New Vegas, it's that Lucy probably thinks it's 2291.

Being that the games have multiple endings,i believe our canon is different from the shows canon and think about it that way.

I’m waiting for season 2 since it involves New Vegas. If it isn’t explained or even brought up, then I will conclude that it’s a continuity error.

I agree with the others who say that a second location was renamed to Shady Sands after the original was nuked. That was my head cannon the entire time.

A fall, can mean many things. It doesn't necessarily mean total destruction. It may mean that it was considered a fall, cause Hank took the kids back, and bombed it. Because of the rads& horrid memories the Capital was then moved (maybe they were already in the midst of moving the Capital so Hank would have a harder time finding his kids. Which explains why not everyone from the NCR was at Shady Sands when it was bombed in 77. It would explain why her Mom got to be a ghoul & why others are not, despite obviously being around the NCR for quite some time). Meaning quite a few ppl were away setting up the new Capital or seat of power, at the local it was in the game. They deffo locked the vault down to ensure no one knew her Mom and Lucy& her brother escaped. I think Betty stayed at first behind, while Hank left. To ensure everyone behaved. Maybe once Hank returned, Betty left& set off the events in 77. I also interpreted Hank having lost the weight was how much his wife weighted. As in he lost her, and became of it became 128 lbs lighter (its difficult to make out if she says he lost 128 lbs or if he was only 128 lbs at the end of the quarantine). Once 77 happened, the rest is as the game says. This is how I figured the events happened& in how it all makes sense& still remain Cannon.

Maybe it's a timeline that turns into a flowchart for digestion purposes. Our history teacher was doing this with historically recent events that hadn't fully settled yet. Frankly, so long as they don't pull the "occasional ding in the old chronometer" line from Codsworth in Fo4, I'd be satisfied.

Maybe some unexplained tension between them and the Brotherhood started another war in 2277 and some damage caused the NCR to move the seat of government marking the “fall”. Moldaver remains in charge of the city and keeps it running as good as she can and then some time in 2280-81 Rose runs off with the kids and causes Hank and Betty to pursue them and in the process a deal is struck with the Enclave (shown to still exist in Ep 1) to make the Shady Sands nuclear event possible. And while the NCR may not be shown at their full might they’re still shown to exist so obviously they packed and moved to preserve continuity of government. Probably a stretch. Todd just doesn’t want to admit that he and the show producers had no rapport whatsoever.

The way I interpreted it is... the year on the chalkboard does not represent... the destruction (bombing) of Shady Sands. Personally, I am in the camp that is saying... the fall of Shady Sands began in the year of 2277. Sometime after that, is when it was destroyed. Again, that is my interpretation, and I am sticking to it. That is, until the powers that be behind the show, say otherwise.

I really think they are going to explain it later in the show. I hope so

All I can think of is that there was a mutiny over NCR and residents which caused a destruction of the town. Perhaps Rose knew this would be the consequences of Hank knowing she left the vault causing the town to collapse while the nuke would be dropped sometime later while the overseers secured silo codes. It is never said whose pipboy was at Filly.

just because its called plague of [year] doesn’t mean that its the only year that plague happens in. COVID started in 2020 but we were in quarantine and affected by COVID for two years after. the plague of 2277 just tells us that the plague started at 2277

Unless due to the nature and lies from vault tec the chalk board is deliberately misleading, hank and family came from one of the other adjoining vaults, one other thing i was wondering is what happened to all that power from Helios one ? being as the ncr beat the brotherhood and took over the plant, but does that mean the ncr still could not figure out how to use it ?

The "fall" of Rome wasn't limited to one event or year, it started with several events and a given year and then proceeded to an eventual end. You're interpreting "fall" as "end", like others have. If they wanted to make it a hard date, they would have just had the year UNDER the nuke cloud. People forget that the NCR was already over-extended by the time of New Vegas, and was running out of resources to maintain their hold over the territory they had, just like the Romans dealt with at times. They very likely moved the capital north to be more centrally located, to respond to events on the fringes of their territory, giving some ground when needed to avoid losing a lot of ground.

As far as the timeline goes, I have always said exactly what you said at 16:55. Long story short, the board started off as a timeline, but when the person came to the explosion, they pointed to it after the date because they don't know the date of the explosion. The other two points you raised are interesting. The library book could have been left in the locker for that period of time because the person who checked it out forgot about it, unlike the people who checked it out before them who returned it responsibly. The point about the canibilism scene is really interesting and a strong theory that I haven't heard before. At the same time, all of that could have happened after 2277. Also lucy could have had that memory as an older girl as you mentioned. I expect a flashback to this event will turn up in season 2 and I'm looking forward to it.

Just my personal headcanon, the way I explained this problem was the nuclear explosion happened in 2077, but because of the cold fusion and power being restored to shady sands that shady sands remained the capital of the NCR. Also, maybe the plague of 2077, Lucy was already back in the vault and the destruction of Shady Sands was because Lucy's mother was trying to retrieve her children from Hank. As a last resort from having the Vault's plan ruined, Hank and Betty destroyed Shady Sands. This could make Lucy older than being a child. My only problem with this I think is I'm actually not quite certain the current date within the show. Maybe I've just overlooked it. But if the show takes place before the events of New Vegas then the power being restored to shady sands would mean the seat of government is still in shady sands. Maybe it's too simplistic of an explanation but that's my personal headcanon. Someone please correct me if I'm way off.

I think the Fall of Shady Sands isn't exactly one event but a combination of many events. You have the battles for hoover dam, corruption in the government, Kimball being elected, the creation of The Divide that severely damaged ncr routes. Since vault 4 had many survivors of shady sands I like to think that a lot of the ncr citizens were leaving the corruption of the city thus making Shady Sands fall

The chalk board can be wrong too. Overseer called lucy goosey as well People can be wrong

Lets be real, the writers used the word fall who all educated ppl understand that if used to describe a city or nation, it means that it is in the proces of decline not that it has been destroyed. Thats why Todd had to clear it up since it was missunderstood by the video games educated population who think the fall of rome or greece or spain or germany or any of those was inmediate.

Pay attention to the line and arrow that continues on to the explosion symbol, for crying out loud Oxhorn! You are supposed to smarter than this!

The problem is when showrunners don't know the cannon of a series. Just am hoping season 2 isn't a bad wash like we have seen with Rings of power

Even if the year does end up being a continuity error, just remember Todd said long ago that what is in the games comes first for lore.

Warhammer 40k has taught me to not nit-pick "exact" dating, as even the people writing stuff down are only human and prone to getting numbers wrong. Trying to accurately timeline things like historic England is an absolute riot of missing years, legitimate reboots of the whole thing, missing months, missing decades, all because the Earth doesn't perform an exact 365 day orbit, much less an exact 24 hour rotation, and God help your calculations if you are on a different planet, or stuck on a planet that is also stuck in the warp, where time has no meaning. Back on Earth though, these microscopic errors compound literally on the daily and once you expand stuff by 200+ years it becomes a real problem. With this being said, I don't blame historians for being off as much as 10 years when trying to timestamp stuff with a pip boy that may or may not have been turned off for several years, and you only have to miss a few years of no one counting for it to be 2280+ instead of 2277. And this can be a local problem as well for following the paper-trail, in a world that has precious little paper.

“First Capital of the NCR” means at some point there was a second capital. You don’t make billboards for places that have been nuked. The fall was likely related the famine Lucy mentioned leading to it no longer being the NCR capital.

I think this is just one of those mistakes that happens with all adaptations of books or games to shows and movies is some things are overlooked to make more impactful scenes or deeper visuals for the viewer. Don't get me wrong there is definitely something wrong with the date change and it should definitely be addressed at a higher level than it is, but you need to defend your disbelief just a little bit nothing's going to be completely perfect. I am still sad to hear something more impactful in this universe was overlooked but at least it wasn't as bad as like I don't know saying the NCR never existed or the brotherhood of steel are communist.

Ox, it's Todd Howard we're talking about here. Never. Believe. His. Lies.

Okay after some thought I can make 2077 work with the official timeline. It seems to me the only ones that are traveling from the NCR are you working for the military or government officials. It is possible is that the government is keeping it silent about the destruction of shady sands. Basically the military doesn't know that shady Sands has fallen. Most of the military has been there for decades, and they're already losing ground. The message that shady sans is following would be a Deathstroke to the New Vegas initiative. So no one tells them, and the military in Vegas believed that the NCR still strong. The reason no reinforcements are coming, it's because there's no reinforcements. The soldiers in Vegas maybe the strongest regiment in all of the NCR right now

Todd doing the Ryan George voice: “Heyshutup”

I don't recall that they speak the date out loud so they should just edit the scene and change the date. That kind of stuff has already been done in other shows

Can almost guarantee there will be clarification in season 2 when Shady Sands was destroyed.

We clearly need a scene in S2 where someone walks into the classroom, look at the board and mutters "Wait, that's not right." - erases the date and puts a "correct" one. :D

I’m calling it in season 2 The NCR returns more authoritarian and their first cameo is attacking vault 33 (fallout 2 enclave style) as a declaration of war against vault tec also their military is much more advanced and better organized then they were in New Vegas and their new president would have to be someone we know in fnv that is from the ncr faction (personally I would pick Cassandra Moore to be their president) “ Remember Shady Sands “

i’m withholding judgement until i see proof that it’s not an intentional lie

Shady Sands was the “First Capital of NCR” hence the fall of the first capital began in 2277 (maybe due to the politics of taking in vault dwellers) and a new, not named capital risened after. The nuclear destruction happened four years later in a broken capital city that probably had uprisings due to those politics. Muldiver prominence arose during that time as before that she was just working on her new relationship with Rose.

The easiest cheesiest explanation is the new capitol of the NCR is also called Shady Sands. Praise to Oxhorn, king of Fallout.

Unless communication was so bad the inhabitants of New Vegas didn't know and the NCR didn't tell anyone.

12:39 Moldaver say's Hank "burned that city to the ground" . this is just a theory. so what if he set a fire to distract people so he could grap Lucy and Norm but the fire got out of control and the NCR wanting to save face and not broadcast there embarrassment that there capital city was gone so easily that it was quietly transferred the capital somewhere else and chose not to tell those on the frontlines whom were already demoralised. And the nuke was someone else entirely

The show confirms that vault tech dropped the bombs and started the war

When it comes to canon, the foremost source is the actual IP, that is to say the show, game, movie, or whatever other medium through which a story is being told. Often times, the creator of a work tries to explain things away to sate things like continuity errors or simple questions, but they can make a mess of things by coming up with reasons or explanations that either don’t make sense or outright contradict what is already established canon. And I’ve previously tried to explain it away in my own headcanon that maybe the people of New Vegas were unaware of the fall of Shady Sands, seeing as there’s likely little communication between the cities, but that doesn’t work at all either. Even if somehow the residents of New Vegas hadn’t heard that Shady Sands was nuked, which is unlikely, no one who actually works with or for the NCR acts as though this event happened or even mentions it. You’d think Crocker would be fairly aware that his higher ups are nothing but nuclear material now, or that troops freshly brought in from the NCR would tell at least their fellow soldiers “hey, our capital is gone.” Worst of all, President Kimball visiting Hoover Dam shows, primarily, that he’s still alive and that the seat of the government is in decent enough shape to be able to send the top guy in the Republic to the site of an upcoming battle to boost troop morale. Like you said in a previous video, I’d the capital of the NCR had been nuked but the government was still around, you’d think they would prioritize their homeland as opposed to expending a considerable amount of resources to try and expand into what is clearly a very hostile environment. So I don’t know what possible explanation Season 2 could have that would remedy this without creating even more problems.

So, you believe that Hank was able to walk to Shady Sands, get his children, walk back to the Vault to secure his kids, plan, and then destroy a city in less than a year? Also, food for thought, Hank and Betty could easily leave the vault without the vault residents knowing by lying and saying there was an Overseer's meeting in vault 31, then exited from there.

It says fall of shady sands, then the line continues and the mushroom cloud is seen. Maybe the bomb fell after but fall of shady sands means something else.

Given the lack of NCR presence in the region, I'm inclined to think that the First Legion War weakened the local defenses and Shady Sands was sacked by raiders. It wasn't destroyed, but it was devastated. The NCR likely pulled out of the region (akin to Rome pulling out of Britain, perhaps, with plenty of NCR loyalists remaining but official presence being withdrawn) during the following years, which culminated in Hank blowing up the city.

There’s a year listed as the fall of shady sands, and pinning the idea that it’s not possible based on new Vegas?? Vegas is in Nevada and Shady Sands is in California, so why is it so hard to take in new information that the place we didn’t experience during the game has its own issues. And the problem you and a lot of people are having is you can’t read correct? The year listed is not beneath the nuke it’s beneath the fall. After the fall they were nuked, the date you’re upset with doesn’t retcon anything! How is it possible? The NCR is a faction capable of moving around and without the courier’s help they kinda suck. And also again when the game takes place it’s not destroyed it’s falling apart piece by piece probably because of the NCR’s terrible terrible government and politics.

I'm glad you're still talking about this - not that it's the most important thing in the world but it bugs me, too, especially considering anytime this issue is brought up, you have a lot of apologists and myopic folks (or folks who simply do not care) attempt to bury it with scorn or mockery. Like, why can't we discuss how this is an issue? I love the show, too! We all do! We just want the lore to make sense and to be consistent; I understand that sticking to lore can be limiting creatively, as that is one extreme, as is the other where lore is completely ignored or ridiculed by showrunners and writers who hate the source material, but Fallout (the show) managed to find a really great balance somewhere in the middle. Why, then, did this slip? And more importantly, is there a way to fix it without muddying things further?

You can name a new town shady sands after one is destroyed. That would also be the reason shady sands is in different locations.

The comments were _absolutely_ made to douse controversy. There's no reason, aside from playing devil's advocate, to infer without producer comment that the destruction of Shady Sands happened at a later date than 2277. And, therefore, no reason to think that the original plan wasn't to completely invalidate New Vegas. However, the production team saw the blowback received for invalidating New Vegas and bullshitted an answer. "We're threading it very closely," he says, only because, post-hoc, it's a tight game of bullshit to play. The only justifications and attempts at retcons they give for this decision is that "It's possible..." for their time shift to work, but only under the weakest hand-waving to act like there's no reason to be concerned about the fate of New Vegas' story. Ultimately, I really think _that's_ the game they're playing, too. They _specifically_ wanted to take down New Vegas' story and make the players' actions in that game, specifically, invalid. And they did it at the cost of Fallout 1 and 2's stories to some extent, too. And they did what they wanted to. They _assassinated_ Mr. House's character _and_ showed New Vegas destroyed _and_ act like the Legion never existed. Almost ALL of the players' choices in New Vegas, with the release of this show, were erased and invalidated. House is gone, NCR is decimated, and the Legion is nowhere to be found. This was _nothing_ more than a slap in the face of New Vegas' creators (whether they were compelled to say they accept it later or are just too spineless to call it what it is) and fans. And it's not like they haven't taken cheap shots at other Fallout games that weren't made by them. When Fallout London was _just about to release,_ Bethesda threw an update out the door that upended London coming out and is a _stain_ on the modding scene of Fallout 4, because so many mods and modders now require a Downgrader to before Bethesda spitefully threw shit at their fans again. I don't know why they're doing this. I don't know if the Angry Todd meme is real, or if more people in Bethesda than Todd are _furious_ that their projects keep receiving so much criticism and blowback while non-Bethesda Fallout works get so much praise. I wonder if New Vegas was set up to fail with the 18 month deadline and if Bethesda is still pissed that Obsidian turned it into what's considered the best Fallout game. But this show is too much of Bethesda pissing into the pool to think that they didn't drop their pants on purpose. Shady Sands was Fallout 1 and 2's. It was before Bethesda, it wasn't theirs. So NCR isn't theirs. The Legion isn't theirs. Mr. House was made something greater than what they'd done with him. And, so far as I can tell, all signs point to them vindictively sabotaging those factions and stories _because_ they weren't Bethesda's. And no-one can act like they wouldn't do something openly spiteful to their fans. Does the Creation Club exist or not? Exactly. Calling it a "continuity _error"_ assumes this wasn't done entirely purposefully.

What i don't get is why they couldn't have just set the show 5 years later? That makes me think its either a mistake they made twice and refuse to go back on or that they for some reason wanted to intentionally fuck up the new vegas lore. I doubt they would do that even if people at bethesda dislike new vegas.

The way yall RACE to tear down this show

We take in the information we are given in a show as part of the show itself. Its not hard to imagine that they kept track of time since it was created in 2186. So, yeah they did keep track of the years, it would be nonsensible for former shady sands residents to not know when it fell, but 4 years shy of the date would imply some discrepancy, given that real survivors were alive after the fall of shady sands. So, we are stuck with a divergent time-line at best. At worst, they stopped keeping track of time, which would put a whole different impact on the lore. Since it is both based on the game and written as an extension of the games, I find it very difficult to think people did not know before the fall that the year was wrong, considering the scope the NCR had.

It’s just one little error or so. Why is this such a big deal. Can’t get everything perfect. We are just humans

I'm sure plenty of people have said the following but I might as well do the same. It's like the fall of Rome. Rome was devestated after it was sacked by the Visigoths in 410 CE and that was the start of Rome's fall. It wasn't actually completed until around 476 CE when the last emperor was deposed. Also we're assuming the chart was complete. Or it could be so well known that labeling it wasn't necessary. Like 9/11 for us. There are couple of possible explanations.

I'm mere curious about what happened in 2277. An why is it reference so much through out the show. Game play doesn't really touch on that date. Yet it's referenced multiple times in show as a major date.

I think that some of the characters are just lying or confused about it. We can't take what people say in the wasteland at face value haha

My issue with the bomb being a separate later event to “the fall of shady sands 2277” theory is that still means something bad happened in 2277. After which the NCR decided to scale up expand into the Mojave despite their capital “falling”?

16:55; thats how I view it...

On another note I want to know what happened in the Commonwealth because I don’t see the Institute realistically losing that battle

They also moved Shady Sand's location slightly. It's supposed to be up in the mountain, where all the water is once nukes destroy all the reservoirs and aqueducts. Wheras here it's seemingly in metro LA.

Tldr: Todd was seething that new Vegas is so loved and wanted to make it no longer cannon

1 - Having a problem with broken lore and key components of the story being changed does not make someone negative. It's more that we have an eye for detail and immersion breaking details stand out more to us. 2 - Even putting the SS problem aside there are still multiple other discrepancies in the show. They are constantly pointing to 2277 being the major event date. Why has not one other piece of info shown 2282 or even 2283 instead. The 2277 is constantly thrown in your face to intentionally sway your mind. 3 - The NCR had 5 New States combined to make up the faction. The fracturing of the NCR starts in 2281due to the President acting like a typical power hungry political leader of the old world. The courier wakes up in Oct of 2281 and goes on a major journey with the 2nd battle of Hoover Dam taking place in 2282. The events of NV couldn't have happened at all if SS was demolished in 2277. 4 - How the hell does a child in a fridge survive a freaking nuclear blast? 5 - I can accept a lot of things in video games and shows/movies but I always think it's so absolutely ridiculous that so many people supposedly had access to nukes, could figure out how to launch them and that there were still so many intact after the world destruction and even many decades later.

It's simple: the show breaks lore, regardless of whether it was destroyed before or after. It’s still an issue. And let's not even talk about other problems, like Shady Sands being inside the Boneyard, the Master skipping Vaults 31, 32, and 33, and the whole Vault-Tec 'table of evil' scene.

Why are we just accepting that the chalkboard is 100% accurate? It could simply be wrong, for any number of reasons.

I still think the biggest problem the show creates is location, how is shady sands now located in the LA boneyard this completely changes canon as now vault 13 is no where near shady sands neither are groups like the great khans, how are they going to explain the location change and why didn’t they just use a settlement like Additum or any other settlement already in LA

Hank lost his weight due to cancer treatment. He and Betty were carring nuclear bomb with them, which radiated their body to create cancer. Then he took a treatment back at Vault 33 while they artificialy created famine to hide everything.

I think you're spot on, here. Conveniently, 2277 is a nice, round, 200 years after 2077. Coincidence? This is basically what i've thought all along. Barring some outrageous reveal in future seasons; the justification interview seems more like a backtrack after a controversy and not a cleverly worked explanation. It could turn out to be something extremely well thought out and surprise us all - but this reminds me of the seemingly unnecessary changes made in the first season of The Witcher. At the time they were written off as small mistakes or inconsequential changes and/or oversights. The following seasons deviated wildly from the established story and the quality drop-off was immense. The first season of Fallout was fun and beautiful and the characters are beyond what we could have hoped for - but some of the writing seems a little lazy and, simultaneously, a little too clever. Fingers crossed this isn't foreshadowing a similar deviation.