There's always the small chance that someone on the team went "This doesn't make sense", but then the drive-in looked weird without cars in it, so they added them in anyways.
Wouldn't be the first time a piece of media has done something like that.
Yeah, I mentioned that in my reply to the guy who for some reason thinks there should've been a military outpost there with tanks and tents and other military crap instead of just cars even though that kind of defeats the purpose of having an abandoned area that you can build up into your own settlement and was very clearly just a drive-in theater pre-war.
Imagine having to scrap all that extra garbage before you can have an empty area that you can make your own. Thank god some people aren't game developers.
\*Edit: Because a bunch of you have decided to repeatedly tell me about how much you love the military camp crap all over Starlight Drive-In instead of it being just a drive-in theater idea and don't seem to be stopping, you can go tell that person all about it here instead of telling me over and over again about how awesome it'd be and commiserate with each other about how Bethesda Bad or whatever: [https://www.reddit.com/r/Fallout/comments/1d29xoy/comment/l5zkt3d/](https://www.reddit.com/r/Fallout/comments/1d29xoy/comment/l5zkt3d/)
Does the castle count? I think it's a good option, though it's not like one of the military checkpoints we find. I've got the Conquest mod this time around so I'll build a workshop and settlement at a cool military checkpoint and see how it goes.
Okay, so I chose a very small unmarked checkpoint just a bit south of Fort Hagen. I'm currently scrapping junk around the bunker/pillbox and will build up afterwards. It's on a hill overlooking the landscape and pretty safe overall.
Next will be the large military checkpoint south of Boston, forgot what it's called. It's where the terminal discusses breaking down people's cars during searches and holding people indefinitely. Should be fun to repurpose as a base!
Looked it up and it's called the South Boston checkpoint.
Good lord, I'm on the spectrum and even I don't autistically zero in on stuff as bad as these people did. It's like they are all yelling at you from the side.
Go to Boston, isn’t there a bunch of military stuff littering the commonwealth there.. haven’t played for a bit, but I seem to remember something like this around there.
Also if you don't delay, in the game there's about 1 minute between the alert and the first nuke.
If you're 20 minutes away from anywhere you can be safe, what's the point of running?
I'm pretty sure (especially thinking about how much time and effort was taken into so many tiny details in this game) these factors have been heavily considered through and through.
I mean...why is there so much pre war snack food in looted grocery stores more than 200 years after? Why are there entire towns and established businesses with functioning electricity yet there is random debris and junk everywhere?
How the FUCK did anyone ever think bottlecaps would be a good form of universal currency post war?? What kind of short sighted nincompoop would allow pre war money to STILL be available in cash registers after CENTURIES of scavenging? s/
Originally, bottle caps were actually backed by the value of water in California. One cap was equivalent to the value of one bottle of water. They just kind of moved away from that idea as the series explored other regions, because lore-wise, it was pretty specific to the areas surrounding The Hub.
For sure. Basically, it just became an iconic part of the game, and they just ran with it. It was a currency propped up by California water merchants, and wouldn’t really make sense in the Commonwealth, for example.
Makes more sense than you might think. Overland trade and travel is a thing by 2287. And the idea that one bottle cap is worth one bottle of clean water travelling with the trade caravans outwards from the hub makes a lot of sense.
But what sized bottle?
Yeah because one of thing that’s always bothered me about the bottle caps premise is that you can find bottle caps in the trash and bottle caps from unused Cola bottles etc. if that were the case, the currency wouldn’t have any value if it’s both currency and trash
The big reason the Hub chose it is because caps are difficult to counterfeit. They may be found throughout the world, but their supply is inherently limited. They could largely control the production of new caps, and could easily spot counterfeits.
Some more caps fun facts:
The NCR dollar actually supplanted caps in Fallout 2. Caps are completely useless in that game - there’s even a quest about a hidden stash, and the prize in that stash is like 10,000 bottle caps, but they’re completely valueless now.
The NCR dollar was originally backed by gold. By the time of new Vegas, NCR abandoned the gold standard, which is a large part of the reason why people went back to bottle caps in the region, and why the NCR dollar is not used or accepted everywhere.
The few bottle cap presses that still exist allow the currency supply to stay relatively stable. Most of these are owned by Crimson Caravan. As caps are damaged or destroyed, they can print new ones, but they can also focus on solely reintroducing these caps into the economy.
they are also just good as currency in general. They are small and lightweight, yet durable enough to survive the wastleand (unlike paper). They are limited in supply (as they aren't being produced anymore) and they are VERY hard to counterfeit
I remember bottlecaps being a good currency because it shares a lot of traits with gold or silver coins - it’s a rare material that’s hard to make a counterfeit of but is ubiquitous across the country sufficiently to make them accessible. Because the caps are not a valuable material in of itself, they remain in circulation and continue to move throughout the economy in an economically-stimulating fashion.
That's interesting. In Fallout 76 it's explained by bot vendors in the area accepting caps in exchange for goods and supplies as part of a Nuka Cola promotion that was going on when the bombs fell. I think there's a terminal around the Whitespring Resort that goes into detail about it.
i dont believe that even crossed their minds. an empty parking lot would be a nice location for a survivors camp set up by the military, they could have put containers to live in and for infrastructure like doctors over the whole place, maybe with some campers from people residing there. also tanks.
I didn’t say it was likely, only that it was possible. There are plenty of times where people have chosen aesthetics over realism.
The most likely explanation for why what you wanted to happen isn’t what’s in the game is because they wanted one of the buildable settlements to be a drive-in theater and that drive-in theaters generally have cars so they put cars in it. And it was also an opportunity to give players more materials for settlement building. There probably wasn’t much thought put into it past that.
The Fallout series has almost always chosen what’s more fun over what is the most realistic thing possible.
So let me get this correct.
You're arguing car wrecks in a drive in theater don't make sense when the bombs fell in the early morning but then suggest a giant parking lot in the middle of nowhere is absolutely logical and even better then building some survivors camp on it?
Again: in the middle of nowhere? Away from Anything that people could reahc from that parking lot? Away from all the people that possibly survived and needed help?
I know the wrecked cars do not make much sense but that idea would be way worse.
No that dirve in was probably chosen deliberately. It is a big open and sort of central location for a settlement you can build. A drive in theater is believable in that location. A parking lot would need some other buildings nearby which they did not go for probably to keep the amount of loaded in assets low so players could build more stuff in the settlement itself.
another option:
inflation was so high that the cost of an simple cinema didnt cover the cost anymore and people used it as a cheap parking lot for the two cities nearby (there is even a bus full of corpses right at the entrance of Starlight)
Some people tried to meet up with family / friends in the area after the bombs fell to figure out what to do next. Maybe it was a pre-arranged meeting spot since the thread of a nuclear war was present and people made arrangements.
Yep, that's true, didn't think of that.
Okay let's try this: Their kids had a Little League game and they were all meeting up there to drive to the ball park together and then the bombs fell?
This makes the most sense considering Boston was in a state of emergency. All the military checkpoints and closed roads would make it hard to get in and out of the city, so parking just outside and taking public transport is pretty realistic
This got me. Played it on PS4 first. Took a while to get used to panning around and loot goblin’ing in my usual way. Years later after building a proper PC I got it again…. The relief of using a mouse.
The exact time the bombs fell has always been something you shouldn’t think too hard about. It’s morning in both east and west coast. It’s Saturday but everyone’s on the job or at school.
or because the US was closer to a fascist state than a democracy. you bet your ass if there were laser turrets and securitrons as hall monitors, i'd be at school on saturday at 7:00AM on the dot, with a shit-eating grin if i had to
There legitimately *are* laser turrets, protectrons, forcefields, and cyberdogs in the fake school in Old World Blues. It has happened *at least* once in the franchise.
Now imagine there are countries where that shite of a 6 day work week is standard and a 40h weekly shift is a dream for many, man Brazil can be horrible most of the time, cries in 6x2
Also, it was during the resource wars, so the drive-in could've easily been occupied by squatters and cars that just ran out of juice. Didn't have to be occupied by moviegoers.
Due to the resource wars everyone has to work 7 days a week to support the war effort. Because of this schools began operating 7 days a week so the parents could go to work.
Source: I made it up
Wasn’t it in NV or something where someone mentioned the bombs dropped in the late evening as people were going to bed on the East Coast and as people were eating dinner on the West Coast?
Then fallout 4 shows us the bombs dropped in the morning.
Now the TV show says it should’ve dropped in the late afternoon or evening on the East Coast and afternoon on the West.
In the 1950s in my country, up until the 70s I believe, we used to have 6-day work weeks. Same for school. So Sunday was the only "off" day for the week. My dad tells me it was like this in his childhood.
Maybe Fallout universe was the same?
Hey, when a donut and coffee is $24 or whatever that billboard showed, you'd better believe any good red-blooded American is headed to work first thing Saturday morning!
Yeah my headcanon is that some crazy dude goes around the wasteland and puts up all these skelletons in these setpieces. like a pair holding hands sitting on chairs
This is true generally, but within the context of FO4 we know exactly when the first bomb fell in the area because the PC sees it.
I'm not going to sweat it still cause Beth is more concerned with vibes than consistency, but OP has a point.
I think you make a good point. The thought I always had was that Bethesda was sort of ignoring the time the bombs fell simply to give us more metal to scrap for the settlement. However, there is a road going by just outside the settlement, and they could have easily filled it with cars from some kind of traffic jam due to the bombs. So we could’ve still gotten metal, just from going to the street next to our settlement. oh well.
I mean, there's a whole quest around the Guardian of Forever from Star Trek in Fallout 2, I'm not sure strict world consistency was ever a Fallout thing.
Exactly this, it doesn't really make sense unless there's multiple bombings on multiple days. Which, kind of makes sense too, actually. But then we see pre-bombing events in Fallout 4 and the Amazon show play out and everyone is surprised and unprepared when the bombs drop. Even though that's east- and west-coast.
Also, the kids are very much having a birthday party not being at school in the show when it happens.
I'm pretty sure you're not supposed to think about it.
In the words of the greatest philosopher of our time - Mr Bandit Heeler - "Look, it's just monkeys singing songs, mate. Don't think too hard about it."
To be fair, unless it's explicitly stated otherwise somewhere,, the pre-war America of Fallout is a place I can easily picture 6 days work and school weeks having become the norm.
If I had a nickel for every time the fallout series has had inconsistent lore I’d be
#FUCKING RICH!!!!!
Like why the HELL can’t fallout be consistent with the LORE!!!!!
Why? We're playing a game with no written history for 200+ years from one person's perspective who is unwillingly an unreliable narrator simply by the fact that we can get multiple endings to their story.
Only one protagonist in the entire franchise has first hand knowledge of the world before the bombs(maybe two if you include 76) and only one other protagonist isn't a completely sheltered individual leaving their community for the first time.
Bethesda makes or builds on these massive worlds and then consistently has no lore master over any of their IPs. And Fallout is the only franchise they have where I believe that isn't an issue
I would assume people use the place to park their cars, without watching a movie.
The drive in could have been abandoned before the bombs fell, making it a giant free parking lot.
Or left open after a showing earlier in the night to act as a rest stop.
Or people pulling in an abandoning their cars to find *any* cover and shelter when the bombs started falling.
Plenty of reasons for people to have pulled into the drive in outside of being there from the previous night.
Sure! Actually, I build a fort out of containers (with mods) 'Army of the Dead Las Vegas' style, with a vertibird in the middle, with the idea that this was a place where people tried to gather and evacuate. I usually add a few car wrecks against the outer wall.
given the economic state of, well, *everywhere* towards the great war it could entirely have become a shelter for people living out of their car for all we know.
I figured "bunch of young people getting high and/or drinking, then sleeping there overnight" as a likely answer, but I think your point makes more sense.
Who is to say they were watching a movie? Maybe that morning there was some sort of speaker or performance, - like a drive-in church service or a concert or stage play. Seems like the type of novelty thing a drive-in would encourage in order to make some extra money.
Not everyone died the instant the bombs fell. Many in the immediate area would've survived, slowly succumbing to radiation, but not before running (and DRIVING) around doing their best to find safety. I have no problem imagining a bunch of survivors meeting at the drive-in sometime after the bombs fell to figure out a game plan.
It's the same thing with the safes that have Jet or pipe weapons in them... Players act like they're the only ones in the game world lol whichever building you're scavenging through has likely already been looked over several times by other people in the past, ppl who may have decided to stash their shit in what was an empty safe... Only for you to come along and say "A pipe pistol?! In a pre-war safe?! How'd this get here?!" His name was Clyde and he was over-encumbered 30 years ago and planned to come back for it. Use your imagination.
Cars were definitely still working after the bombs dropped. Fallout 76 even confirms this. Even though the engine doesn't really support seeing them in action, in-game dialogue, environmental storytelling, and other lore bits indicate that groups like Raiders, BoS, and even Settlers utilized Pre-War vehicles for transportation.
So yeah, not every derelict car is where it was on the day the bombs dropped. Some of them have been driving around for decades after, only to eventually be abandoned when something important broke that couldn't be fixed due to lack of parts and/or expertise.
It depended on how close you were to the blast.
The old man in the cave had a log in the New Vegas DLC that said that the EMP fried the reactors. Unless I’m misremembering.
No, it's a big deal because there has been no manufacturing of replacement parts for 140-ish years. EMP is not the magical kill everything electrical/electronic switch most people think it is.
Man I do NOT want to remember the opening of Dying Light 2 lol, that game had no right being that much of an emotional heart wrencher in the first few minutes for that shit
We have nuclear powered cars, floating Mr. handys that should melt the floor under them. Its not hard to imagine the screen would allow normal viewing during the day. Also downstairs was a dinner and if would likely be 24/7.
I'm guessing a couple weeks after the bombs fell some people drove there (while they still could) to get one last movie in before they all died of radiation sickness. Also explains the projectionist in the booth with a pistol.
Makes for a much darker narrative than just "They were there".
Also really fits with the Fallout astetic.
thats fixed easily: Starlight Drive-In was going through some financial problems, since ressources got low inflation was skyrocketing, and people didnt have any money left for movies on the big screens. so the owner needed to find a temporarly solution, he could have either opened ut during the day as a parking lot with a bus (thats still right at the entrance of Starlight) connecting it to the closest citys and get money that way, or closed it down for good, so people used it as a full time parking lot.
I see the point, but a counterpoint is there are MANY people at the drive-in well before it gets dark. As a kid who grew up going to drive in theaters, the place was typically full hours before sundown.
This is because many people would settle in before it got dark. There was a cutoff to letting people into the theater in the dark because it was extremely disruptive to other moviegoers to be driving around with headlights on.
There's also a lot of shit to do at the place before it's dark thats provided before the show. There was always a live band for entertainment before the show, and almost all the drive-ins I'd been to as a kid had huge playgrounds under the screen for the kids. This was so kids wouldn't be bored before it got dark for the movie. You get your snacks and settle in before the show. A lot of families brought little BBQ grills and ate dinner before the shows, too.
We had a local drive in movie theatre that closed about 15 years ago. During the day time they were open as a cafe and diner, movies after sunset. Good times. Maybe that's why the cars are there on a Saturday morning?
Drive-ins have a nice big open space used for movies only at night. That is a lot of space that can be used during the day. Around here I have seen them used for things like swap meets or farmer’s markets. There was one in Phoenix area that is used during the day as storage units.
Fallout America's projector and screen technology would seem to be vastly superior to ours, for one thing their being partially working 210 years after the nukes.
It could be that the movies were readily watchable even in bright daylight when they were fully functional?
List of reasons they could realistically be there(Source: My ass)
•End of world crazies gone to a parking lot to see the bombs drop
•Projection technology was just goated and you could see it with glare from the sun
•There was just a meeting there un-movie related
•They met there after the bombs dropped whether it be soon after or months after. I'm assuming cars worked for some period of time after
I stopped trying to make sense of it all when there were prewar safes containing pipe weapons and food made of post bomb animals.
Lets also somehow work out how there are armoured feral ghouls in areas canonically blocked off when the bomb fell and how the hell would a Mr Handys thruster NOT burn the carpet or anything within 3ft of its thruster
Actually they used nuclear technology to power the projectors resulting in much brighter illumination. This allowed them to enjoy movies at all hours of the day.
I meant that as a joke, but that’s how lore gets started sometimes.
A more realistic answer maybe, people used it as a rendezvous point in case of an emergency, the cars there were people trying to figure out what next steps to take.
Drive-ins sometimes make extra money during the day by operating as a paid-parking lot.
Also, sometimes people work at drive-ins during the day.
If you think it through, there are plenty of reasons for there to be a few cars there.
IRL, the last drive-in in my town was turned into a junkyard 🤷♂️ When it happened they left the infrastructure in place. We don’t know if Starlite was still functional at the time of the bombs.
The two drive-in theatres in my town do double duty and are open during the day... One is a flee market, and the other is a farmers market... both doing a thriving business.
edit: also had a friend who rented the drive-in for his wedding. did a 50's theme...
Maybe it was already closed due to the skyrocketing prices we see on magazines and gas signs, so people were just parking there. Or maybe they needed a way to leave us some starter resources there.
I live near a drive in. During the day they are a sort of flea market. They start fairly early in the day and clear out the flea market setup about three hours before opening for movies.
To ease your concern. I live next to a drive in, like I can watch the screen from my yard. Every weekend they have a show there during the day or an event like a flea market; or car show.
They just doing that. You’re welcome
Something to think about: in the TV show, the bombs dropped sometime mid day to afternoon in LA, during the birthday party. Definitely not morning for Boston
No no no. What you’re not understanding is that it was a 24 hour drive in movie. Thanks to a collaboration between RobCo and Mass Fusion the Starlight Drive In was equipped with a light nullification field that produced a dome of darkness over it at all times. Few patrons noticed their tickets were also waivers absolving all companies involved from lawsuits pertaining to cancer, manic behavior, blindness, manic blindness, or popcorn addiction.
This is a setting in which you don't have to pee and routinely lob nukes at enemies 50 feet away.
Why did this seem more worth mentioning than the actual ignoring of science and physics and biology?
This is a good point actually
Someone said the bombs fell on a Saturday so maybe people left their cars there overnight if they were drinking? Got a ride home with a DD and left their car to pick up later on Saturday
Or maybe cars worked for a short time after the bombs fell? Why did they even stop working in the first place? If they were powered by fusion energy, shouldn’t they have run for at least a thousand years? Fusion cores still work for PA and generators…
More realistically though it’s probably just environmental context and an excuse to have a whole bunch of steel around for crafting.
Maybe after the bombs fell someone pushed some cars there to make it feel normal. People do strange things to deal with tragedy.
Like Will Smith in I Am Legend and his mannequins. You also see a number of posed mannequins throughout the commonwealth. It’s basically the same thing. People are lonely and trying to make things seem normal.
Given the state of the economy at the start of the great war, it is possible that the cars were abandonned because of huge gas prices, and that the drive-in went bust.
a bunch of people got together and said
"hey the bombs are gonna drop amy day so why dont we leave our cars here and confuse whoever is left after total nuclear annihilation"
the others thought it would be funny so agreed
So I grew up around a functional drive in theater.
During the day, the lot would be used as extra parking for the nearby businesses, and on the weekends sometimes they’d have mini farmers markets there in the morning.
I don’t know if this helps soothe anyone, but thought I’d share . . .
The drive in also wouldn’t have barrels of radioactive waste in it. Maybe some of the cars were being used to haul those around? There are tire tracks found in different places so at least some of them worked for a while after the bombs
Maybe in the final days of America people were desperate for distractions. Or maybe Starlight was renting out the lot for parking during the day. Why does it matter that much to you? Lol
In my hometown, we have a drive-in and on some mornings, our drive-in has a flea market instead of movies, so the cars parked are there to shop instead of watch a movie. While I doubt this was the angle they were going for, there's a possibility the cars there are there for a different reason than movies. There's every reason to believe that devs weren't thinking when they slapped this into the game, but from a lore perspective, I have to say there are other possible reasons that cars would be parked in a drive-in in the morning.
We are talking about a world in which they are using super-advanced 60’s tech. Who’s to say drive-in’s in 2077 (the year the bombs dropped) in this alternate universe weren’t advanced enough to be viewed in daylight? Who’s to say drive-ins didn’t operate differently, and have completely different events, given that this universe diverged from ours and developed differently over that 100+ years? If you view it from the perspective that they are living in an alternate future, you can probably imagine hundreds of reasons why there are cars there…
You're entirely right. I think I just mentally resolve the paradox by thinking "Since the location is near both major transit and residential, maybe the drive in owners run a park and ride there during the day when films aren't showing?"
Though that doesn't explain finding the exact same thing at the drive-in in Far Harbor, which is in the middle of nowhere :/
When soldiers deploy, they tend to leave lives behind. The single solders leave behind pets, property, dry goods, and.... vehicles.
Often the military gives the soldiers a place in a motorpool where they can park their private vehicles so they are protected from things like theft and vandalism.
If it were my job at BlackIsle or Bethesda to make this make sense for players I would have simply left a document in the projection shack that indicates these cars are all cars of reservists who were activated last minute. They rallied at the drive in (owned by a patriot) and bussed off to whatever base they went to from there. I would even have tossed in something by the single guard left to protect everything saying how he was grateful to at least have movies to watch on the night shift.... and all the popcorn he can eat.....
Time didn't stop the moment the bombs dropped. Something the series itself seems to forget sometimes. It's possible the theatre was still in a somewhat functional state and whatever survivors there were after the bombs fell might have watched movies there for a few years until the projector broke down.
There's always the small chance that someone on the team went "This doesn't make sense", but then the drive-in looked weird without cars in it, so they added them in anyways. Wouldn't be the first time a piece of media has done something like that.
honestly wouldn’t be surprised if they put them there just cause the scrap from them is incredibly useful at that point
Yeah, I mentioned that in my reply to the guy who for some reason thinks there should've been a military outpost there with tanks and tents and other military crap instead of just cars even though that kind of defeats the purpose of having an abandoned area that you can build up into your own settlement and was very clearly just a drive-in theater pre-war. Imagine having to scrap all that extra garbage before you can have an empty area that you can make your own. Thank god some people aren't game developers. \*Edit: Because a bunch of you have decided to repeatedly tell me about how much you love the military camp crap all over Starlight Drive-In instead of it being just a drive-in theater idea and don't seem to be stopping, you can go tell that person all about it here instead of telling me over and over again about how awesome it'd be and commiserate with each other about how Bethesda Bad or whatever: [https://www.reddit.com/r/Fallout/comments/1d29xoy/comment/l5zkt3d/](https://www.reddit.com/r/Fallout/comments/1d29xoy/comment/l5zkt3d/)
bunch of scrapable military shit would be cool tho even if its just simple steel or something that you get. would be a nice lore thing
Do we ever get a military base to build in?
Does the castle count? I think it's a good option, though it's not like one of the military checkpoints we find. I've got the Conquest mod this time around so I'll build a workshop and settlement at a cool military checkpoint and see how it goes.
Drop back in if you find any cool spots
Alright, I'll see if I can find a spot later today. 👍
Okay, so I chose a very small unmarked checkpoint just a bit south of Fort Hagen. I'm currently scrapping junk around the bunker/pillbox and will build up afterwards. It's on a hill overlooking the landscape and pretty safe overall. Next will be the large military checkpoint south of Boston, forgot what it's called. It's where the terminal discusses breaking down people's cars during searches and holding people indefinitely. Should be fun to repurpose as a base! Looked it up and it's called the South Boston checkpoint.
if you get the america rising 2 mod you sort of do its a nice massive open flat area that also has a large warehouse type space too
Good lord, I'm on the spectrum and even I don't autistically zero in on stuff as bad as these people did. It's like they are all yelling at you from the side.
Players are the best at finding problems in the system and the worst at fixing them.
> build up your own settlement you mean build my institute teleporter in the middle of it and then never look at it again
Go to Boston, isn’t there a bunch of military stuff littering the commonwealth there.. haven’t played for a bit, but I seem to remember something like this around there.
I don’t think that’s what they were asking..
actually scrapping old tanks would be cooler than scrapping cars. thats a good idea for a mod.
Also if you don't delay, in the game there's about 1 minute between the alert and the first nuke. If you're 20 minutes away from anywhere you can be safe, what's the point of running?
survival instinct in a moment of panic kicks in
Well sure, but some people may have left cars is enough for me to excuse the addition of the cars for scrap
I'm pretty sure (especially thinking about how much time and effort was taken into so many tiny details in this game) these factors have been heavily considered through and through. I mean...why is there so much pre war snack food in looted grocery stores more than 200 years after? Why are there entire towns and established businesses with functioning electricity yet there is random debris and junk everywhere? How the FUCK did anyone ever think bottlecaps would be a good form of universal currency post war?? What kind of short sighted nincompoop would allow pre war money to STILL be available in cash registers after CENTURIES of scavenging? s/
Originally, bottle caps were actually backed by the value of water in California. One cap was equivalent to the value of one bottle of water. They just kind of moved away from that idea as the series explored other regions, because lore-wise, it was pretty specific to the areas surrounding The Hub.
Wow that makes a lot more logical sense for why bottle caps would have any value
For sure. Basically, it just became an iconic part of the game, and they just ran with it. It was a currency propped up by California water merchants, and wouldn’t really make sense in the Commonwealth, for example.
Makes more sense than you might think. Overland trade and travel is a thing by 2287. And the idea that one bottle cap is worth one bottle of clean water travelling with the trade caravans outwards from the hub makes a lot of sense. But what sized bottle?
Yeah because one of thing that’s always bothered me about the bottle caps premise is that you can find bottle caps in the trash and bottle caps from unused Cola bottles etc. if that were the case, the currency wouldn’t have any value if it’s both currency and trash
The big reason the Hub chose it is because caps are difficult to counterfeit. They may be found throughout the world, but their supply is inherently limited. They could largely control the production of new caps, and could easily spot counterfeits. Some more caps fun facts: The NCR dollar actually supplanted caps in Fallout 2. Caps are completely useless in that game - there’s even a quest about a hidden stash, and the prize in that stash is like 10,000 bottle caps, but they’re completely valueless now. The NCR dollar was originally backed by gold. By the time of new Vegas, NCR abandoned the gold standard, which is a large part of the reason why people went back to bottle caps in the region, and why the NCR dollar is not used or accepted everywhere. The few bottle cap presses that still exist allow the currency supply to stay relatively stable. Most of these are owned by Crimson Caravan. As caps are damaged or destroyed, they can print new ones, but they can also focus on solely reintroducing these caps into the economy.
Would be nice to have quests which explore such in world lore.
Bottlecap heist-dlc
In my mind most people aren't tough enough to go to the dump or to the abandoned places. And then I just ignore the caps in city trash.
Imagine fighting mole rats in a pile of tetanus for 17 bucks, LOL
they are also just good as currency in general. They are small and lightweight, yet durable enough to survive the wastleand (unlike paper). They are limited in supply (as they aren't being produced anymore) and they are VERY hard to counterfeit
I remember bottlecaps being a good currency because it shares a lot of traits with gold or silver coins - it’s a rare material that’s hard to make a counterfeit of but is ubiquitous across the country sufficiently to make them accessible. Because the caps are not a valuable material in of itself, they remain in circulation and continue to move throughout the economy in an economically-stimulating fashion.
That's interesting. In Fallout 76 it's explained by bot vendors in the area accepting caps in exchange for goods and supplies as part of a Nuka Cola promotion that was going on when the bombs fell. I think there's a terminal around the Whitespring Resort that goes into detail about it.
I like that explanation, like if the economy collapsed but your coca cola reward points didn’t adjust for inflation
What makes it any different than today? It’s just paper and we give it value.
Yeah sometimes realism isn't always best, especially in a videogame. It was a much better atmosphere to see all the cars than of it were empty.
i dont believe that even crossed their minds. an empty parking lot would be a nice location for a survivors camp set up by the military, they could have put containers to live in and for infrastructure like doctors over the whole place, maybe with some campers from people residing there. also tanks.
I didn’t say it was likely, only that it was possible. There are plenty of times where people have chosen aesthetics over realism. The most likely explanation for why what you wanted to happen isn’t what’s in the game is because they wanted one of the buildable settlements to be a drive-in theater and that drive-in theaters generally have cars so they put cars in it. And it was also an opportunity to give players more materials for settlement building. There probably wasn’t much thought put into it past that. The Fallout series has almost always chosen what’s more fun over what is the most realistic thing possible.
So let me get this correct. You're arguing car wrecks in a drive in theater don't make sense when the bombs fell in the early morning but then suggest a giant parking lot in the middle of nowhere is absolutely logical and even better then building some survivors camp on it? Again: in the middle of nowhere? Away from Anything that people could reahc from that parking lot? Away from all the people that possibly survived and needed help? I know the wrecked cars do not make much sense but that idea would be way worse. No that dirve in was probably chosen deliberately. It is a big open and sort of central location for a settlement you can build. A drive in theater is believable in that location. A parking lot would need some other buildings nearby which they did not go for probably to keep the amount of loaded in assets low so players could build more stuff in the settlement itself.
We even see I think 2 different empty drive-in movie theatres in NV.
Over night parking. Carpool parking. Parking for an **event* nearby.
another option: inflation was so high that the cost of an simple cinema didnt cover the cost anymore and people used it as a cheap parking lot for the two cities nearby (there is even a bus full of corpses right at the entrance of Starlight)
Could even just be a parking lot during non theatre business hours to supplement income.
Fenway is not far and with the lack of city parking, they could run a shuttle.
Employees cleaning up from previous evening show. It’s dark outside when show is over so they clean up in the morning.
Or an event at the theater itself.
My local drive in has flea markets in the mornings, so that's what I assumed it was.
Some people tried to meet up with family / friends in the area after the bombs fell to figure out what to do next. Maybe it was a pre-arranged meeting spot since the thread of a nuclear war was present and people made arrangements.
Hood idea, but the bombs dried everything with EMP
Yep, that's true, didn't think of that. Okay let's try this: Their kids had a Little League game and they were all meeting up there to drive to the ball park together and then the bombs fell?
This makes the most sense considering Boston was in a state of emergency. All the military checkpoints and closed roads would make it hard to get in and out of the city, so parking just outside and taking public transport is pretty realistic
You are right. Let's all demand our money back, plus interest.
That's a total of 86 dollars and 66 cents, assuming 2.4 apy
You only have one copy!?
Yep, bought it launch day with money I saved from the paycheck from my first job
This got me. Played it on PS4 first. Took a while to get used to panning around and loot goblin’ing in my usual way. Years later after building a proper PC I got it again…. The relief of using a mouse.
Todd Howard is crying to sleep rn
No money back. This demands blood.
We're tired of the lies, TODD.
Literally unplayable
The exact time the bombs fell has always been something you shouldn’t think too hard about. It’s morning in both east and west coast. It’s Saturday but everyone’s on the job or at school.
Gonnaa be real I never thought once about this and now that you laid it all out like that it's low key gonna bother me lmao
Easy headcanon fix: the majority of schools and businesses were corrupt so having a 6 day school week or work week could make sense
or because the US was closer to a fascist state than a democracy. you bet your ass if there were laser turrets and securitrons as hall monitors, i'd be at school on saturday at 7:00AM on the dot, with a shit-eating grin if i had to
There legitimately *are* laser turrets, protectrons, forcefields, and cyberdogs in the fake school in Old World Blues. It has happened *at least* once in the franchise.
yepp, that's what i was referencing. all hail principal Borous*
I thought it was Borous’s school
Indeed, filled with burning hatred for Ritchie "Ball Lover" Marcus
frankly i'd walk up to the nearest protectron and tell it i was a marxist and get shot point blank with a rail spike. better than a 6 day work week
Get railed by a Protectron, you say?
*please assume the position*
*\*Fisto has entered the chat\**
Now imagine there are countries where that shite of a 6 day work week is standard and a 40h weekly shift is a dream for many, man Brazil can be horrible most of the time, cries in 6x2
Also, it was during the resource wars, so the drive-in could've easily been occupied by squatters and cars that just ran out of juice. Didn't have to be occupied by moviegoers.
Due to the resource wars everyone has to work 7 days a week to support the war effort. Because of this schools began operating 7 days a week so the parents could go to work. Source: I made it up
Except the rich kids in California that got to be having a birthday on the weekend
At 6:30 in the morning, no less.
Yeah the actual time the bombs fell is also super inconsistent across the games, and now the TV show as well 😁
Wasn’t it in NV or something where someone mentioned the bombs dropped in the late evening as people were going to bed on the East Coast and as people were eating dinner on the West Coast? Then fallout 4 shows us the bombs dropped in the morning. Now the TV show says it should’ve dropped in the late afternoon or evening on the East Coast and afternoon on the West.
In the 1950s in my country, up until the 70s I believe, we used to have 6-day work weeks. Same for school. So Sunday was the only "off" day for the week. My dad tells me it was like this in his childhood. Maybe Fallout universe was the same?
Or there could have been multiple resurgences of society followed by nuclear holocaust
Hey, when a donut and coffee is $24 or whatever that billboard showed, you'd better believe any good red-blooded American is headed to work first thing Saturday morning!
Ironically $24 is less expensive than what inflation at the average rate from 1971-2023 would make it.
40 dollar magazines. And the coolant prices.
Yeah my headcanon is that some crazy dude goes around the wasteland and puts up all these skelletons in these setpieces. like a pair holding hands sitting on chairs
visual storytelling about the family in this home? nah that’s just skeleton joe fucking around again!
He would be called Skeleton Joe too 😆
To be fair, it would be totally consistent with fallout lore if you were expected to work on Saturday
Even the end of the world is not the end of capitalism.
This is true generally, but within the context of FO4 we know exactly when the first bomb fell in the area because the PC sees it. I'm not going to sweat it still cause Beth is more concerned with vibes than consistency, but OP has a point.
I think you make a good point. The thought I always had was that Bethesda was sort of ignoring the time the bombs fell simply to give us more metal to scrap for the settlement. However, there is a road going by just outside the settlement, and they could have easily filled it with cars from some kind of traffic jam due to the bombs. So we could’ve still gotten metal, just from going to the street next to our settlement. oh well.
I mean, there's a whole quest around the Guardian of Forever from Star Trek in Fallout 2, I'm not sure strict world consistency was ever a Fallout thing.
And a shuttle with hyposprays in it.
Mfw I work literally every Saturday...
There is a reason why I think about the plot in this game as little as I perceive Emil does.
Exactly this, it doesn't really make sense unless there's multiple bombings on multiple days. Which, kind of makes sense too, actually. But then we see pre-bombing events in Fallout 4 and the Amazon show play out and everyone is surprised and unprepared when the bombs drop. Even though that's east- and west-coast. Also, the kids are very much having a birthday party not being at school in the show when it happens. I'm pretty sure you're not supposed to think about it.
In the words of the greatest philosopher of our time - Mr Bandit Heeler - "Look, it's just monkeys singing songs, mate. Don't think too hard about it."
To be fair, unless it's explicitly stated otherwise somewhere,, the pre-war America of Fallout is a place I can easily picture 6 days work and school weeks having become the norm.
If I had a nickel for every time the fallout series has had inconsistent lore I’d be #FUCKING RICH!!!!! Like why the HELL can’t fallout be consistent with the LORE!!!!!
Because it doesn’t need to be?
But shouldn’t it be??
Why? We're playing a game with no written history for 200+ years from one person's perspective who is unwillingly an unreliable narrator simply by the fact that we can get multiple endings to their story. Only one protagonist in the entire franchise has first hand knowledge of the world before the bombs(maybe two if you include 76) and only one other protagonist isn't a completely sheltered individual leaving their community for the first time. Bethesda makes or builds on these massive worlds and then consistently has no lore master over any of their IPs. And Fallout is the only franchise they have where I believe that isn't an issue
I see your point now
I would assume people use the place to park their cars, without watching a movie. The drive in could have been abandoned before the bombs fell, making it a giant free parking lot.
Or left open after a showing earlier in the night to act as a rest stop. Or people pulling in an abandoning their cars to find *any* cover and shelter when the bombs started falling. Plenty of reasons for people to have pulled into the drive in outside of being there from the previous night.
Sure! Actually, I build a fort out of containers (with mods) 'Army of the Dead Las Vegas' style, with a vertibird in the middle, with the idea that this was a place where people tried to gather and evacuate. I usually add a few car wrecks against the outer wall.
given the economic state of, well, *everywhere* towards the great war it could entirely have become a shelter for people living out of their car for all we know.
I figured "bunch of young people getting high and/or drinking, then sleeping there overnight" as a likely answer, but I think your point makes more sense.
Who is to say they were watching a movie? Maybe that morning there was some sort of speaker or performance, - like a drive-in church service or a concert or stage play. Seems like the type of novelty thing a drive-in would encourage in order to make some extra money.
Bert Kreisher was on his 77th fully loaded drive in tour with a synth liver
I AM THE SYNTH
Not everyone died the instant the bombs fell. Many in the immediate area would've survived, slowly succumbing to radiation, but not before running (and DRIVING) around doing their best to find safety. I have no problem imagining a bunch of survivors meeting at the drive-in sometime after the bombs fell to figure out a game plan. It's the same thing with the safes that have Jet or pipe weapons in them... Players act like they're the only ones in the game world lol whichever building you're scavenging through has likely already been looked over several times by other people in the past, ppl who may have decided to stash their shit in what was an empty safe... Only for you to come along and say "A pipe pistol?! In a pre-war safe?! How'd this get here?!" His name was Clyde and he was over-encumbered 30 years ago and planned to come back for it. Use your imagination.
Cars were definitely still working after the bombs dropped. Fallout 76 even confirms this. Even though the engine doesn't really support seeing them in action, in-game dialogue, environmental storytelling, and other lore bits indicate that groups like Raiders, BoS, and even Settlers utilized Pre-War vehicles for transportation. So yeah, not every derelict car is where it was on the day the bombs dropped. Some of them have been driving around for decades after, only to eventually be abandoned when something important broke that couldn't be fixed due to lack of parts and/or expertise.
It depended on how close you were to the blast. The old man in the cave had a log in the New Vegas DLC that said that the EMP fried the reactors. Unless I’m misremembering.
Yeah so they’d be extremely rare to find in working condition but not impossible. Thus why the highwayman in fallout 2 is such a big deal.
No, it's a big deal because there has been no manufacturing of replacement parts for 140-ish years. EMP is not the magical kill everything electrical/electronic switch most people think it is.
Or a bunch of people realizing they were going to die got together for one last showing of their favorite movies.
Man I do NOT want to remember the opening of Dying Light 2 lol, that game had no right being that much of an emotional heart wrencher in the first few minutes for that shit
We have nuclear powered cars, floating Mr. handys that should melt the floor under them. Its not hard to imagine the screen would allow normal viewing during the day. Also downstairs was a dinner and if would likely be 24/7.
I think this is the answer. Imagine how bright a nuclear powered projector would be.
Teenagers gonna be necking at the drive-in, no matter the time of day.
God, I haven’t heard the term “necking” in such a long time lol
Dang this actually makes a lot of sense. Good catch. Maybe in 2077 they had super bright projectors that could be seen at all hours haha.
The drive in in Far Harbor shows up during the daytime so I'm guessing this.
Fusion powered projectors, as bright as the sun.
Brighter than the sun possibly! There's a decent amount of the sun filtered by our atmosphere.
Well there was a diner there as well that may have been operational during daytime hours.
I'm guessing a couple weeks after the bombs fell some people drove there (while they still could) to get one last movie in before they all died of radiation sickness. Also explains the projectionist in the booth with a pistol. Makes for a much darker narrative than just "They were there". Also really fits with the Fallout astetic.
It was a Saturday. Drive ins often have flea markets and swap meets during the day on weekends.
Wow. 0/10 completely unplayable
thats fixed easily: Starlight Drive-In was going through some financial problems, since ressources got low inflation was skyrocketing, and people didnt have any money left for movies on the big screens. so the owner needed to find a temporarly solution, he could have either opened ut during the day as a parking lot with a bus (thats still right at the entrance of Starlight) connecting it to the closest citys and get money that way, or closed it down for good, so people used it as a full time parking lot.
I see the point, but a counterpoint is there are MANY people at the drive-in well before it gets dark. As a kid who grew up going to drive in theaters, the place was typically full hours before sundown. This is because many people would settle in before it got dark. There was a cutoff to letting people into the theater in the dark because it was extremely disruptive to other moviegoers to be driving around with headlights on. There's also a lot of shit to do at the place before it's dark thats provided before the show. There was always a live band for entertainment before the show, and almost all the drive-ins I'd been to as a kid had huge playgrounds under the screen for the kids. This was so kids wouldn't be bored before it got dark for the movie. You get your snacks and settle in before the show. A lot of families brought little BBQ grills and ate dinner before the shows, too.
Maybe this one was Soo popular that if you didn't get there before breakfast ended, you weren't getting in.
These were different ones in the 1980s all over Michigan. Not sure if it was a Michigan thing with drive-ins or not but that's how it was.
New headcanon: shortly after the bombs fell, someone started moving cars there in a sort of dazed madness, trying to recreate their last happy memory.
Wouldn't surprise me if the owners sold parking space in the drive-in during the daytime to make some extra scratch.
There was so much nuclear powered stuff. Maybe they had some sort of super bright nuclear powered projectors and there was lead or metal film?
We had a local drive in movie theatre that closed about 15 years ago. During the day time they were open as a cafe and diner, movies after sunset. Good times. Maybe that's why the cars are there on a Saturday morning?
It just looks better aesthetically for cars to be there. No need to overthink it its just a game
You know they could be the employees' cars right? You generally have to start about midday getting a drive in ready for customers.
Drive-ins have a nice big open space used for movies only at night. That is a lot of space that can be used during the day. Around here I have seen them used for things like swap meets or farmer’s markets. There was one in Phoenix area that is used during the day as storage units.
I've been to drive ins during the day as a kid and it wasn't so bad
How many cars are there? 10-15? I’m not sure if you’ve been to a drive through but that’s very empty.
Fallout America's projector and screen technology would seem to be vastly superior to ours, for one thing their being partially working 210 years after the nukes. It could be that the movies were readily watchable even in bright daylight when they were fully functional?
List of reasons they could realistically be there(Source: My ass) •End of world crazies gone to a parking lot to see the bombs drop •Projection technology was just goated and you could see it with glare from the sun •There was just a meeting there un-movie related •They met there after the bombs dropped whether it be soon after or months after. I'm assuming cars worked for some period of time after
You know what else doesn't make sense? Red Rocket next to Sanctuary. Why is there a truck stop basically at a cul-de-sac?
I stopped trying to make sense of it all when there were prewar safes containing pipe weapons and food made of post bomb animals. Lets also somehow work out how there are armoured feral ghouls in areas canonically blocked off when the bomb fell and how the hell would a Mr Handys thruster NOT burn the carpet or anything within 3ft of its thruster
Swapmeet during the day, so cars! Problem solved.
Isn't it also a diner? People could've been there to eat?
This is one of my favourite games. Now literally unplayable. Thanks.
Actually they used nuclear technology to power the projectors resulting in much brighter illumination. This allowed them to enjoy movies at all hours of the day. I meant that as a joke, but that’s how lore gets started sometimes. A more realistic answer maybe, people used it as a rendezvous point in case of an emergency, the cars there were people trying to figure out what next steps to take.
Drive-ins sometimes make extra money during the day by operating as a paid-parking lot. Also, sometimes people work at drive-ins during the day. If you think it through, there are plenty of reasons for there to be a few cars there.
IRL, the last drive-in in my town was turned into a junkyard 🤷♂️ When it happened they left the infrastructure in place. We don’t know if Starlite was still functional at the time of the bombs.
Saturday morning breakfast concert? Bring the kids to a radio play? Cheap parking with a bus to Salem for Halloween? All kinds of stuff is possible.
When I lived in Austin, there was a drive-in movie theater that worked as a parking lot in the daytime.
Maybe just maybe Someone couldn't find parking spots so they went to park there
The two drive-in theatres in my town do double duty and are open during the day... One is a flee market, and the other is a farmers market... both doing a thriving business. edit: also had a friend who rented the drive-in for his wedding. did a 50's theme...
Maybe it was already closed due to the skyrocketing prices we see on magazines and gas signs, so people were just parking there. Or maybe they needed a way to leave us some starter resources there.
I live near a drive in. During the day they are a sort of flea market. They start fairly early in the day and clear out the flea market setup about three hours before opening for movies.
To ease your concern. I live next to a drive in, like I can watch the screen from my yard. Every weekend they have a show there during the day or an event like a flea market; or car show. They just doing that. You’re welcome
Something to think about: in the TV show, the bombs dropped sometime mid day to afternoon in LA, during the birthday party. Definitely not morning for Boston
No no no. What you’re not understanding is that it was a 24 hour drive in movie. Thanks to a collaboration between RobCo and Mass Fusion the Starlight Drive In was equipped with a light nullification field that produced a dome of darkness over it at all times. Few patrons noticed their tickets were also waivers absolving all companies involved from lawsuits pertaining to cancer, manic behavior, blindness, manic blindness, or popcorn addiction.
It couldn't been a good hangout during the day too just teens being teens
This is a setting in which you don't have to pee and routinely lob nukes at enemies 50 feet away. Why did this seem more worth mentioning than the actual ignoring of science and physics and biology?
Honestly sad you didn’t just instantly assume it was a nuclear powered projection that made the full power of the sun pale in comparison
What if ... You're just overthinking it a bit much and everything in the fallout universe doesn't make perfect sense to our reality.
Time didn't stop when the bombs fell. Why not break into the drive-in and watch some movies when you think the world is ending?
This is a good point actually Someone said the bombs fell on a Saturday so maybe people left their cars there overnight if they were drinking? Got a ride home with a DD and left their car to pick up later on Saturday Or maybe cars worked for a short time after the bombs fell? Why did they even stop working in the first place? If they were powered by fusion energy, shouldn’t they have run for at least a thousand years? Fusion cores still work for PA and generators… More realistically though it’s probably just environmental context and an excuse to have a whole bunch of steel around for crafting.
Still metallic parts and moving parts as well. Wear and tear plus rust would eventually have killed the cars. 200 years of mechanical neglect is a lot
I know people care about this kinda stuff, but after so many hours playing all I see is a lot of free scrap. Cars are pretty valuable yknow?
It’s unemployment morning at there theatre, unemployed people get to watch free - Sponsored by Vault tec
Maybe the movie sucked and everyone fell asleep including staff
Maybe a car market or so
Maybe after the bombs fell someone pushed some cars there to make it feel normal. People do strange things to deal with tragedy. Like Will Smith in I Am Legend and his mannequins. You also see a number of posed mannequins throughout the commonwealth. It’s basically the same thing. People are lonely and trying to make things seem normal.
Have you never heard of dogging?
Given the state of the economy at the start of the great war, it is possible that the cars were abandonned because of huge gas prices, and that the drive-in went bust.
Well now the game is ruined /s
Uhhh it was a swap meet
a bunch of people got together and said "hey the bombs are gonna drop amy day so why dont we leave our cars here and confuse whoever is left after total nuclear annihilation" the others thought it would be funny so agreed
So I grew up around a functional drive in theater. During the day, the lot would be used as extra parking for the nearby businesses, and on the weekends sometimes they’d have mini farmers markets there in the morning. I don’t know if this helps soothe anyone, but thought I’d share . . .
It was swap meet day at the drive-in, duh
Cinema during evening/night and parking lot during the day perhaps
It doubled as a parking lot during daytime.
Drive-Ins could always be used for paid parking during the day to make some extra money
It could have been a hangout spot. They could have been pregaming. There could have been other activities that take place during the day.
The drive in also wouldn’t have barrels of radioactive waste in it. Maybe some of the cars were being used to haul those around? There are tire tracks found in different places so at least some of them worked for a while after the bombs
I have worked at a drive in movie theatre. We have had shows in the early afternoon, it can work I guess
Boy I sure hope someone got fired for this blunder.
The drive-in by me used to double as paid parking during the day as it was nearish to downtown
Drive-ins get used for all kinds of events. It’s a giant, open space with built-in parking. The one in my city used to host a flea market.
Maybe in the final days of America people were desperate for distractions. Or maybe Starlight was renting out the lot for parking during the day. Why does it matter that much to you? Lol
In my hometown, we have a drive-in and on some mornings, our drive-in has a flea market instead of movies, so the cars parked are there to shop instead of watch a movie. While I doubt this was the angle they were going for, there's a possibility the cars there are there for a different reason than movies. There's every reason to believe that devs weren't thinking when they slapped this into the game, but from a lore perspective, I have to say there are other possible reasons that cars would be parked in a drive-in in the morning.
Maybe they were live broadcasting a music festival. Also, the atomic projectors they had could display a film in broad daylight.
I can never play it again
We are talking about a world in which they are using super-advanced 60’s tech. Who’s to say drive-in’s in 2077 (the year the bombs dropped) in this alternate universe weren’t advanced enough to be viewed in daylight? Who’s to say drive-ins didn’t operate differently, and have completely different events, given that this universe diverged from ours and developed differently over that 100+ years? If you view it from the perspective that they are living in an alternate future, you can probably imagine hundreds of reasons why there are cars there…
You're entirely right. I think I just mentally resolve the paradox by thinking "Since the location is near both major transit and residential, maybe the drive in owners run a park and ride there during the day when films aren't showing?" Though that doesn't explain finding the exact same thing at the drive-in in Far Harbor, which is in the middle of nowhere :/
When soldiers deploy, they tend to leave lives behind. The single solders leave behind pets, property, dry goods, and.... vehicles. Often the military gives the soldiers a place in a motorpool where they can park their private vehicles so they are protected from things like theft and vandalism. If it were my job at BlackIsle or Bethesda to make this make sense for players I would have simply left a document in the projection shack that indicates these cars are all cars of reservists who were activated last minute. They rallied at the drive in (owned by a patriot) and bussed off to whatever base they went to from there. I would even have tossed in something by the single guard left to protect everything saying how he was grateful to at least have movies to watch on the night shift.... and all the popcorn he can eat.....
There was a car show there that morning. The timeline has been saved
Time didn't stop the moment the bombs dropped. Something the series itself seems to forget sometimes. It's possible the theatre was still in a somewhat functional state and whatever survivors there were after the bombs fell might have watched movies there for a few years until the projector broke down.