A little background on the Fallout universe for those that don't know about it. The Fallout universe takes place in an alternate timeline after the bombings of Heroshima and Nagasaki. The United States tries to harness fusion power to in an attempt to rely less on petroleum. Waning off petroleum was a slow process and while it is eventually achieved, it was too late as China and The United States have already been at war for a decade or so. This was billowed up to the point of aiming nuclear missiles at each other. The United States government, under the guise of a company named Vault-Tec, starts building underground vault to shelter people from impending nuclear exchange. When the nukes are finally launched, some people are saved by taking shelter in the vaults, many more perish. The death of the culture production, the people, gives us the stuck in the '50's Fallout games that we enjoy.
Within the Fallout universe the technological advancements have become so great that there are androids, or synths as the people in Fallout 4 say, walking among humans. These synths are created by an organization named The Institute and they perfectly encompass some social events that were happening at in the 1950's. By just talking to the people in the game, we learn that The Institute is incredibly disliked. People don't know what happens inside The Institute other than that synths can come out. The paranoia becomes so great that The Institute is blamed for everything. Child is lost? The Institute took them. Business hasn't been doing as well? The Institute told people your business is terrible. Spilled your glass of water? The Institute made your hand clumsy. This is exactly the same paranoia seen tied to the U.S.S.R. post World War 2. Everyone is scared of the Russians because they were doing something, just nobody knew exactly what. This craziness grew to the point where something out of the normal just had to be the Russian's at work, just like the people of Fallout 4 blame The Institute. While the people in Fallout 4 fear what goes on behind closed doors, they also fear the synths that walk among them. The synths, indistinguishable from an actual person, are very similar to idea of Russian invaders during the Red Scare. People were terrified of communist sympathizers and Russian spies. Any actions that one thought was suspicious could be interpreted as traitorous and the one acting 'suspicious' was labels an enemy of the state. This kind of paranoia can also be seen in Fallout 4 by talking to people as some will have questions that are part of a synth test or will become jumpy around you if you buy certain items.
Within the Fallout universe the technological advancements have become so great that there are androids, or synths as the people in Fallout 4 say, walking among humans. These synths are created by an organization named The Institute and they perfectly encompass some social events that were happening at in the 1950's. By just talking to the people in the game, we learn that The Institute is incredibly disliked. People don't know what happens inside The Institute other than that synths can come out. The paranoia becomes so great that The Institute is blamed for everything. Child is lost? The Institute took them. Business hasn't been doing as well? The Institute told people your business is terrible. Spilled your glass of water? The Institute made your hand clumsy. This is exactly the same paranoia seen tied to the U.S.S.R. post World War 2. Everyone is scared of the Russians because they were doing something, just nobody knew exactly what. This craziness grew to the point where something out of the normal just had to be the Russian's at work, just like the people of Fallout 4 blame The Institute. While the people in Fallout 4 fear what goes on behind closed doors, they also fear the synths that walk among them. The synths, indistinguishable from an actual person, are very similar to idea of Russian invaders during the Red Scare. People were terrified of communist sympathizers and Russian spies. Any actions that one thought was suspicious could be interpreted as traitorous and the one acting 'suspicious' was labels an enemy of the state. This kind of paranoia can also be seen in Fallout 4 by talking to people as some will have questions that are part of a synth test or will become jumpy around you if you buy certain items.
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