Since 1997, the Fallout video game franchise has imagined an alternate America in the shadow of nuclear annihilation. Players wander the Wasteland, trying to survive and piecing together how things went so horribly wrong. They eventually discover that, having captured Mexico in 2072, the United States annexed Canada as part of an oil war with Communist China, ultimately leading to the Sino-American War and a civilization-ending nuclear exchange — an event that lasted two hours and obliterated most of the planet’s population.
Amazon Prime’s TV adaptation of Fallout, now having completed its second season, has brought that premise to millions of new viewers. Unfortunately, the satire is aging a little too well, as American politics swiftly catches up to the hyperbole and cynicism of the Fallout universe. An alternate timeline in which hyperaggressive anti-communism and resource instability spur the United States toward oblivion doesn’t feel as far-fetched as when it debuted nearly thirty years ago.
Of course, the paradox of apocalypse is that it can never be depicted. Just as there is very little drama or comedy to be derived from Mars rover footage, the cessation of all living things is boring. Apocalypse media is therefore never about the true end of days so much as about our world dressed up as the Wasteland — a costume for contemporary politics, modern anxieties, and important warnings. Accordingly, a big theme of Fallout is that prewar hypercapitalist America was never trying to avoid self-destruction. In fact, many desired a nuclear war, happily prepared for it, and saw an irradiated holocaust as an opportunity for profit.
An alternate timeline in which hyperaggressive anti-communism and resource instability spur the United States toward oblivion doesn’t feel as far-fetched as when it debuted nearly thirty years ago.
Watching Fallout on Amazon Prime in 2026 is especially uncanny. From Steve Bannon to Stephen Miller, the real world is populated…
Auteur: Devin Thomas O’Shea
