Oak Ridge, TN / Smoky Mountains

[HouseMutant]

I think this would be a good setting for a future Fallout. Oak Ridge was one site where the Manhattan Project was developed. TVA gave the whole area a boost in the 40s, building nuclear power plants, and dams. All the ruined dams would be good post-apocalyptic structures, like the Hoover Dam was in New Vegas. The mountain setting would make for a lot of nuclear walls and the cave system is also vast.

There are many other potential side stories. With society in nuclear ruin, the mountain people in Appalachia would probably keep their self-sufficient society going with moonshine running like they did in the Prohibition. Being nestled in the mountains, and fairly isolated from big cities, they may have avoided direct hits by Chinese missiles.

Of course with the collapse of American government, there would be a revival of Southern nationalism. If Fallout is a 50s-style society, I think the Southern attitudes of that time would still be prevalent at the point of the war. The new government would likely be centered in Atlanta, which is just south down I-75 (previous games established that the present Interstate system is built). Like the NCR, it would probably trying to expand. It could face opposition from the rugged hill people (who would also have a government forming), and the transplants that moved south to work for TVA and NASA.

Also think of the scary situations possible in the backwoods of post-nuclear Tennessee. Deliverance + Fallout would be a good combination. The only difference could be that feral ghouls, super mutants or deathclaws are stalking you instead of feral hillbillies (didn't they have those in Point Lookout?).

It would be nice to play a Fallout with more trees - dense forests, creeks and rivers. It would be more like Oblivion as opposed to the desolate Morrowind. The key cities and research cities would likely be bombed, but mountains would provide a shield to some of the fallout.

You could also loot Civil War battle grounds for relics and maybe even some useable parts for weapons (300+ years old...).

Knoxville would probably be the "large" city for exploring. Not the sexiest city to center a game around, but it's serviceable. They would have to decide whether they had the World's Fair there or not in the alternate timeline, since that happened in the 80s. There's also the University of Tennessee there, including the one of the largest college football stadiums in the country - Neyland. There are plenty of other interesting buildings on the hilly campus.

The area can be expanded to include Chattanooga. It has Lookout Mountain, which was used during Civil War battles. There would be a lot of natural wonders to explore.

 

[semajnollissor]

I think that area would work better for the game style used in Fallout 1 and 2. That way, you could include more cities without worrying about the logic behind being able to walk from Atlanta to Knoxville in an hour.

The main problem with setting the new-style games in any given city is that the city has to have something that would be unique and identifiable to see on the horizon (like the Lucky 38, which is ficticious but thematic of 50s Vegas, or the Washington Monument, which is real but not constructed the way it is shown in F3). I don't think the Sun Sphere qualifies.

Also, while I do agree that Oak Ridge would be an appropriate location to explore, that also applies to the Nevada test range, Los Alamos, and Area 51. Of those three, only the Nevada test range got a mention in NV, and then only for some weird gag about a dead woman who wanted to turn herself into a ghoul.

Now, if we could have a game with travel on a world map, then hell yes. Nashville could be included to tie in some old-timey music from the likes of Hank Williams Sr, Patsy Cline, Bill Monroe, etc. Include Redstone Arsenal near Huntsville, the (former) steel mills in Chattanooga and Birmingham, and the World of Coka, er Nuka-Cola in Atlanta, and that would be a cool game. Or, go north and include Fort Knox and Mammoth Cave in Kentucky.

However, I've said before that the 'South Will Rise Again' trope is a bit overdone. A better conflict would be between the hill folk and the city folk, which would more accurately mimic what was actually happening in the area when the civil war started (with the hillbillies not wanting to secede).