Currency and Gold: Why Some in Fallout Don't Care About Gold

[@memorymangaming]

imagine if after escaping the sierra madre within an inch of his life, the courier tries to sell all the gold he collected only for no one to buy it because gold has no use in the mojave

[@ded2thaworld963]

I always thought about that

[@RaptorJesus]

I'm reminded of that Twilight Zone episode where the guy is struggling out in the desert, dying as he offers an entire gold bar for a sip of water, only for the two who saw him die mention how utterly worthless gold was in their time.

[@greywolf535]

@Ded2thaworld ! which is funny because the quickest way to get rich in New Vegas is do old world blues, than Sierra Madre. Take all the gold from Sierra and teleport to old world player home and bit by bit take the gold to different vendors like the gun runner vendor bot outside of vegas

[@picardsolo2471]

I'm sure robco would pay for it at the least. The NCR would pay for it too. They have plenty of technicians and engineers that need gold as a conductor. It just wouldn't be as valuable as one today would think. The van Graff's would probably murder you for all your gold if you pulled up into Free Side. Gold would be so handy in their plasma and laser tech.

[@paulraines9635]

I just leave it in the trashcan next to the Gunrunner's vendotron.

[@BionicleFreek99]

Ironically, I feel like gold, silver, and copper should be valuble in fallout for an entirely different reason. All three are great conductors of electricity and essential to make or repair any kind of advanced devices wastelanders might find or want to build (particularly gold and copper).

[@Noswiatel]

And its more difficult to counterfeit.

[@DovahFett]

Most wastelanders have no education, so they wouldn't even know that precious metals would have those uses. They'd be much more concerned with more immediate needs, like food, shelter, and heating. Those that do understand the technical value of those things and have the knowledge to use them are far and few between. Examples of groups who would understand their value would be the Enclave, Institute, Brotherhood, and the scientists of Rivet City. The common man, however, would not.

[@shroomer3867]

Yes, but that would make it even more valuable to those who know how to use it

[@ivaylotsvetkov3801]

@@shroomer3867 Indeed, it would make them far more valuable to those that knew of their worth as a material to work with rather than a currency. They would be far less likely to disclose the usefulness and actual usage to the masses and instead trade these precious metals for useless caps. The ignorant receive the currency they like and the knowledgeable receive the materials they want at almost no cost.

[@robrib2682]

@@ivaylotsvetkov3801 well if its so useless to the ignorant then they wouldn't risk going to places that have it, so either it has some value because the scientists and such have some idea how barter with scavvers/prospectors work.... or it truly is that hard for the ones in the know to get that its the equivalent of buying rare antiques today. Either way, it will cost more then almost nothing vs its actual value (and thats assuming that the scavvers don't organize themselves into a gang or "guild" of sorts and decide to horde scrap and drip feed it to people looking for it at a markup because they can.) Edit: and all this is assuming that they can keep its value to them secret

[@mikedawolf95]

Makes sense gold is worth a lot in Fallout 2 and NV. If technology is somewhat like our world laser rifles, robots, computers and electronics need gold to work. With the Van Graffs, brotherhood, gun runners, NCR making weapons and technology they need gold.

[@thedipermontshow]

In Fallout 4 you need quite a lot of gold for the Laser rifles so i can see how it's quite useful.

[@TheinvisibleTV19]

precisely, gold is one of the best conductors in the world

[@Bothrops_Asper_89]

@@thedipermontshow For laser rifles and robot mods. I imagine places like Greygarden really need gold to maintain their robot population.

[@danf3201]

The thing is, that would make gold a terrible currency in that case. Your money is being removed from the economy in a rapid and consistent manner, but cannot be replaced at an equal rate. Unless you are using a gold backed paper money but even then the reserve would dwindle over time. It's a great tradeable commodity though.

[@thedipermontshow]

@@Bothrops_Asper_89 that makes a lot of sense.

[@Warrior-Of-Virtue]

Gold is generally considered to be the best conductor on the planet making it ideal for complex circuitry. Also, it alloys extremally well with metals like titanium which makes it very useful in armor plating. For these reasons, you'd think groups like the Brotherhood and the Enclave would literally be going to war over gold stockpiles.

[@catman-du8927]

Do they have the ability or knowledge to make those things?

[@tensei_alter]

Alternatively- gold is not a rare element at all; it's just that "pure gold" is rare, and the rest of the gold in the world is hard to extract with current 2020s technology. If there are factions in Fallout with the ability to extract gold, and have the means to do it without incurring cost due to the dangers (sodium cyanide processing for an example) due to automation/robots, it's very possible that the actual value of gold is far less than we would assume

[@Bothrops_Asper_89]

​@@catman-du8927 that's why the BoS has scribes and engineers. They know how to build, maintain and repair power armor, laser guns and their aircraft.

[@lcmiracle]

Meh, I think there's an abundance of gold in the dump fields and trashed electronics for the brotherhood not to bother with that. The amount of gold used in electronics is very small, according to techdim, "To acquire 1 gram of pure gold, we need to recycle at least a thousand sim cards." Or, inversely, to build one thousand sim cards, we need just 1 gram of gold. And then you need to consider just how high the production rate of these factions have -- if they built them by hand with minimum machine aids, they would not be able to consume 1 kg of gold in perhaps months. Thus having scavengers pick up discarded motherboards and CPUs etc. might well be enough to meet the demands. That and no doubt the wasteland tech factions recycle their own electronics, thus further lowering demand for gold in electronics.

[@ayyydriannn7185]

Gold is not the best conductor on the planet. Gold is only okay at conducting, but it’s used on small electronics because it does not corrode. A very thin silver wire, the best conducting metal, would be prone to corroding and even a minuscule amount of corrosion could completely ruin wires that are the size of human hairs in complex circuits, so they’re often made of gold instead, which is worse at conducting but does not corrode

[@rookie2668]

I like how in Metro the currency is pre war ammo because the ammo they make isn’t as good as the pre war ammo so they trade that because it is the best ammunition.

[@comradeurod9805]

Can't remember the amount of times I accidentally unloaded a mag of literal money because I panicked

[@algonuevo5232]

@comradeurod9805 that is why you probably shouldn't be a banker in that universe.

[@comradeurod9805]

@@algonuevo5232 I'd probably be dead in some maintenance tunnel in that universe

[@mitchellgustafson3662]

In the book it was interesting because any “cartridges” was considered currency or it may have just been 7.62 im not too sure in all honestly. Regardless artyom in the books constantly had to think about his cartridge store in relation to the conflicts he’d get himself in. Every right was blowing money away for him.

[@comradeurod9805]

@@mitchellgustafson3662 the currency they use is pre war ammunition, which is of course because they were much more reliable than the ammunition they make in the metro (naturally), and I think it was 5.45 iirc

[@BoisegangGaming]

Currencies are often cultural just as much as they are economic. While personally the use of Bottlecaps for currency is just a "thing that happens because fallout" (Fallout 1 and 2 not withstanding), any sort of large amount of gold, silver, or precious metal will probably need a large infrastructure to support its distribution and minting of coins. Caps are already mostly coin-sized, which gives them more portability and utility over giant hunks of metal bars. Ironically, the use of caps as a shared or recognized currency also means that what would previously be not considered valuable to Raiders becomes a target: if people are trading in caps, well, then time to start "enterprising". That said, without a central government to provide fiat value and regulations for what exactly a single cap is worth, the prices and value of a cap should logically vary from place to place. Even in the Commonwealth, Diamond City is just the largest settlement, not a seat of governance or a local Hegemony with hard and soft power projection capabilities. The value of a single cap would probably be determined by if the settlement does any trading with others, how many caps in total people have there, and how easy it is to get caps. Would be interesting if a dynamic value system like that could exist in a future fallout game, but it would likely result in the protagonist inflicting hyper-inflation on local economies.

[@justanotheranimeprofilepic]

It would also just make the protagonist have a settlement to buy things from, where prices are low, and a settlement to sell things at, where prices are high.

[@umbra6772]

@@justanotheranimeprofilepic or do what Skyrim allows already. Break the economy but invest in the shops. If they made that repeatable so you don't kill the economy the game can always continue to create value

[@squaeman_2644]

Gold is money

[@BoisegangGaming]

@@squaeman_2644 No. Gold is gold. Money is perceived value. If a culture or civilization has no use for gold, they won't use it as money. There is no intrinsic value for anything in terms of $$. For example, imagine you're a small village and you live near a gold deposit. Is gold going to be valuable to you without any trade partners? Probably not. The value of gold in terms of coinage and backing currency came from its rarity and its lack of practical uses. It wasn't until electricity and computing that gold actually was considered usable for anything besides just "rare and shiny".

[@d3str0i3r]

@@justanotheranimeprofilepic it would, in theory, be easy to prevent that, as the player is the government in these settlements, there logically would be no settlement where caps are more valuable than in another settlement, thus the most logical and immersive balancing measure would be to directly tie a settlement's treasury to the player's wallet, this would also streamline purchasing, no longer do you need to pick up your caps before spending them

[@BloodiedDoomguy]

Honestly, I just assumed the reason gold had value in New Vegas was there were two major factions in close proximity that likely *would* be eager for gold stock. Iirc the NCR reserves got a hearty hit, and the Legion uses metals for coins anyhow. Pure, solid gold holds a high price in NV because anyone even vaguely associated in economics knows darn well they can turn a reliable and bountiful profit off of it with either side in demand.

[@JohnSmith-fq3rg]

Well not pnly that but given the close proximity of new vegas and it's focus on luxury accomodations and gambling associated tourism targeted towards wealthy merchants, business owners, and politicians, it's not a stretch to see the value it would have for decorations, trinkets, and jewelry in that region. I mean just off the top of my head I don't think it had any gold but Im pretty sure benny's handgun had pearl grips. Luxury obviously has not stopped being a human desire for those who can afford it.

[@DovahFett]

According to Victoria Van Graff, the NCR basically has more money than God, and far more wealth than the Legion. And since the NCR doesn't use high-tech equipment or coinage (they have their own dollar), gold would be perceived by them as having limited use. They wouldn't rely on it economically or militarily. The Legion would actually probably value it more since it exclusively uses metal coins.

[@BloodiedDoomguy]

@@DovahFett I figured they'd probably want a malleable gold stock since, unless I was lead to believe otherwise, their dollar is simply fiat currency like pretty much every other nation on Earth now. I know I'm certainly missing the finer points of economics and global trade to make such a point, BUT if they're operating on the paper/fabric monetary system it makes sense to me at least they might be tangentially interested in something to help back that dollar. Still thanks for that Van Graff line. I tend to miss it since it's fairly rare for me to do an NCR playthrough.

[@beesafterdark5644]

​@bloodieddoomguy1961 I think the ncr dollar is actually backed by potable water no?

[@BloodiedDoomguy]

@@beesafterdark5644 I thought that was the old Water Merchants. One cap being equivalent to one bottled water and such.

[@ryanrusch3976]

Part of the reason I like Fallout so much is because of how much history you can get from a region or nation just by its currency. The NCR currency in particular is so interesting to learn about and it just makes the world feel more real, it's only a shame we don't get any currency history from the East Coast games but it is understandable.

[@Bothrops_Asper_89]

76 has gold bullion and national reserve notes, but that's still a budding system backed entirely by the reserves in Vault 79.

[@JonathanRossRogers]

The history of currency isn't very developed in Fallout 3 and 4 because Bethesda doesn't care about creating coherent worlds. They're good at creating objects and places that look interesting, but don't often enough ask why things function as they do. They took images and ideas such as caps, Super Mutants and the Brotherhood of Steel from Fallout and transplanted them into the Capital Wasteland without thinking too hard about whether they fit in the new environment.

[@ryanrusch3976]

@@JonathanRossRogers That's being too harsh, if fatally misunderstands the hows and whys for how Fallout 3 was created and is generally oblivious to the game theory I was talking about. Obsidian(Interplay) thinks alot about currency, how the currency would affect the world, and all its impacts. While Bethesda is more doing social commentary and theming. neither is wrong and when both are happily married it creates a very pleasant gaming experience, aka Fallout NV which takes both systems and marries them.

[@JonathanRossRogers]

@@ryanrusch3976 Perhaps I should have made it clear that I greatly enjoyed Fallout 3 and it didn't bother me that bottle caps were used as currency while playing. I spent many hours exploring the Capital Wasteland and encountered many interesting characters and side quests. I'm also grateful that Bethesda decided to let Obsidian make New Vegas since that game wouldn't have been possible without all the work that went into Fallout 3. While many parts of Fallout 3's world are well designed, they don't all fit together into a coherent whole. Bottle caps as currency is a good example of this. As mentioned in the video, no rationale is given in the game for why a merchant in Rivet City would assign the same value to a cap as a merchant in Underworld. In contrast, all three West Coast games contain explanations for why particular currencies are used.

[@kraigisboss]

@@JonathanRossRogers Look at the Elder Scroll games for why their writing is the way it is. each elder scrolls game has in-universe hundreds of years of separation each game and takes place often on different continents. meanwhile fallout timelines for after bombs are about 200 years and a single continent.

[@giventoringybanez5799]

My headcannon on caps for FO3 is that the Brotherhood introduced the currency to the Capital Wasteland way before the Lone Wanderer was born or it might have been the Enclave

[@Gilhelmi]

I personally like the "Jet Road" theory. There is a very long trade route similar to the real "Silk Road". So Caps were introduced that way. Or the Fallout 76 BOS introduced it. They are still in partial contact with the West.

[@MegaZeta]

No “canon” is really needed, because no game in the series, Interplay, Bethesda, Obsidian, etc., presented currency realistically. It’s all just flavor for the setting.

[@Imperial_Lizardgirl]

​@@MegaZeta r/Whoosh звідци! Кловун.

[@chemputer]

I'm honestly surprised you didn't mention the story of the Aftican King Mansa Musa in the 14th century who had so much gold that on his pilgrimage to Mecca he gave away so much gold in Cairo that it made it completely worthless in many areas in Egypt.

[@JamesBond-xx1lv]

Do we really have to bring up that prick every time gold/currency is mentioned somewhere? Rich guy took a vacation and everyone clapped.

[@MajinMoon]

It was always interesting to me that Mansa Musa balled so hard in Alexandria that the city had inflation issues for a good 5 years after he left

[@johnwinter2252]

@@MajinMoon You could say he was ballin' but what caused the inflation was that he gave away so many gifts. Which I think is indeed ballin.

[@jrickducking6685]

@bananamandan7842 King was playing 4th dimension chess by wrecking every civilization economy so they can't pay for a amry to invade his kingdom

[@DovahFett]

He also nearly himself in doing so. He gave away all the gold he had taken with him on his trip and had to return home as he had no more for travel expenses.

[@JonathanRossRogers]

Bethesda brought back caps as currency in Fallout 3 because they thought it would make their game feel like a Fallout game, just as they included Super Mutants and the Brotherhood of Steel. Caps makes less sense in the Capital Wasteland than they did in the Core Region, where Hub merchants backed the currency with water. The continued inclusion of caps as currency is better explained by nostalgia than anything else.

[@kaizenregimen]

Everything you mentioned makes less sense in the capital wasteland

[@Supernoxus]

@@kaizenregimen Nah, he is totally right. In Fallout 2, they even largely replaced bottlecaps by real money already. The only reason why Fallout 3 had caps was for the nostalgia.

[@arcanedoughnut2016]

They should've just used subway tokens as currency instead.

[@JoshuaKevinPerry]

@@Supernoxus then you both agree. Bethesda is stupid

[@I_Am_Wasabi_Man]

yeah, you can even see obsidian try and bring back proper currencies in NV like the legionary coins and NCR bills, but bethesda keeps forcing marketable aspects of the game for recognition sake.

[@gldni17]

Honestly, it does make sense for some groups to want gold for practical uses, like circuitry. Therefore, groups like the Brotherhood or the Institute probably have use for it, along with independent scientists, aside from groups like the NCR who would benefit from it for backing their dollars, or the Legion who seem to fashion their coins from it. My best guess for why Fallout 3 uses caps (in universe) is either the prewar machine theory from 76, or possibly the point made by Alice McCafferty in New Vegas: They are hard or near impossible to properly replicate without specialized equipment, and in the case of the Capital Wasteland, they seem to require Nuka Cola caps specifically due to their unique shade of red paint. It makes sense that something that survived this long and isn't easily replicated could be used as currency, but it's a heck of a coincidence. Maybe it also has a bit to due with their limited value as scrap metal compared to lots of other sources. From an out of universe perspective, caps are used now because they are iconic, and I'm guessing that Bethesda chose those over NCR currency because the NCR is... you know, in California. Making a new currency would have been neat, but I see value in keeping a few key threads throughout the universe of Fallout now that it as grown beyond the early games into a generation bridging series.

[@ambiguousdrink4067]

The only alternative to caps I see in fallout 3 and 4 are generic precious metal coins that hold value on their own, but they aren't as cool and recognisable.

[@thebreacher3219]

With this channel and Norte uploading every Saturday, it's become my weekly Fallout lore day and I look forward to it every week

[@VAULT-TEC_INC.]

You need to take a Deep Dive into Oxhorn’s channel from 5 years ago.

[@jakel5801]

I hope in the next fallout we will have a more complex economic system that has fluctuating prices depending on supply and demand. This would work perfectly for purified water and having settlements (NPC and Player owned) consuming the water should affect pricing.

[@picardsolo2471]

It's already a mod in F4 and NV

[@siluda9255]

that sounds boring

[@martinpachu7125]

​@@picardsolo2471what are their names? more interested in the NV one

[@skullthrower8904]

Yes make things more complicated betesda of all developers can pull that off

[@Gilhelmi]

​@@skullthrower8904Bethesda might just have to break down and hire the mod authors.......... Actually, that is a good idea anyway. "Fallout 5. Made by Fans for the Fans."

[@pajamapantsjack5874]

I love the idea of gold, diamonds and other stuff like that being made completely worthless in the fallout universe. Like “this rock is shiny” doesn’t really matter if you can’t use it to get food ammo etc. that diamond tip spear is honestly one of the best uses for valuable stuff like that

[@Gecko....]

It's a common misconception that gold and silver are useless. They are amongst the most useful resources on earth. They are in so many things it's easier to list what they aren't in. Gold for instance is one of the best conductors of electricity.

[@munanchoinc]

@@Gecko.... problem is the lack of training to even implement gold for electronics or other utilities. The Apocalypse caused generations of people to not read or write. Not to mention the pre conceived notion value doesn't exist as the idea of gold as currency was not established in their generation.

[@ihaveacookie4226]

@@munanchoinc Beth games show stagnation while the other games had nations and growth so there are a lot of people with the knowledge just not as prevalent.

[@DJWeapon8]

@@ihaveacookie4226 You see that on the West Coast where worldbuilding actually makes sense. Compare California in Fallout 2 to Boston in Fallout 4 which is ~40 years apart.

[@Bothrops_Asper_89]

​@@DJWeapon8 California had a functional government. Boston was screwed because the Institute sent synths to mess with any formal attempt at establishing a working government. Its why University Point got destroyed and why they infiltrated Diamond City by replacing the mayor with a synth.

[@Merlin_Ambrosius_1100]

Bit late but my headcanon for F4 was been that the close proximity to nuka world and it being a prominent trading hub before the raiders caused caps to be a common currency. And the cpg, before it’s destruction, was able to agree on using caps in collaboration with nuka world and, after it was gone, it was easier to just accept it as the currency still since they were already transitioning to it It’s actually due to this headcanon that i use a mod that changes caps to nukacade tokens. As i headcanon before the raiders a trading caravan could trade in boston, then go to the hub that is nuka world and resupply or export/import with the tokens It’d make it singular in creation, and standardized in shape and design

[@coopernut]

I would love to see a video on the animals of fallout. Like those that have survived the wasteland and those that have died out and gone extinct. Something like that. For Atom's sake and for the enlightenment of his glow ofc!

[@zeedavis5176]

I think another thing to note about gold and silver is availability. Nevada and Cali are known for gold and silver mines, there’s a lot of it, still if you’re willing to look hard enough. But it’s not as common in the east. theyd have to rely mostly on what they could scavenge instead of dig up, which isn’t as reliable in the long run. I think itd be interesting to have coal as a type of currency over there in relation to Virginia’s coal mines, or using another natural resource that can easily be attained over there. There’s several southern cash crops I can think of rn that might be good

[@SakuraShirakawa]

when making ,a currency you have to keep in mind that what you are backing it with has to not be extremely common, but it cannot also be extremely rare, you have to find a resource that is middle of the road in rarity. Enough to stockpile but not something you can just go into a mine and it is everywhere.

[@richardarriaga6271]

Coal wasn't used because it was being turned into Ultracite. The mining companies turned a whole coal town into an Ultracite field.

[@bj20715]

Nice deep dive. I've seen a few others examine this, but not to the extent of all of the Fallout games. Well done!

[@HovektheArtist]

Sierra Madre, big mt, and the institute are connected with vending machines whos debug mode uses bottle caps for testing purposes, and rads kick em into that mode. Not about gold but thought I'd throw it in there. Also prewar money is used in Boston commonwealth with 1 bill being 3 caps

[@TOBAPNW_]

nobody uses the pre-war money as a currency (except one pre war robot who works in a bowling alley) It has a value in caps, but that's not the same as being used as money

[@Zombiekilleryamato]

Pre war money value in 4 is because of its crafting use as cloth

[@doomfan8603]

My prewar money is worth 8 caps each

[@HovektheArtist]

@@doomfan8603 thats with max barter perks for increased selling prices and decreased buying prices, standard is 3 caps, which iirc is the same conversion rate for ncr dollars in fo2

[@richardarriaga6271]

Sierre Madre had tokens with radioactive fuel inside. It wasn't caps.

[@FrancisFjordCupola]

Clay tablets don't sound that weird at all. One of the uses of clay tablets was to keep track of who deposited how many grains at which silo. Swapping the tablet back for food sounds reasonable to me.

[@Gwyn1stborn]

History lesson that gets me hype and informed for one of my favorite series? This is the best Fallout vid I've seen. You're pretty good

[@Twilightmidnight1987]

I hope one day these videos are used in classes to teach about currency because damn it was informative

[@ansonang7810]

Gold very important in the industry, you can make electronics that never tarnishes, radiation resistance clothing, jewelry, chemicals, medicine, catalyst, very durable battery or electrolysis device.

[@williamchastain9510]

Bro the the thumbnail for this video had me dying 😂😂😂 it is interesting though, funny enough I think Kentucky would be a great fallout location, smooth rolling hills with wide open valleys, Fort Knox??? What if theres a gunner group who holds all the gold in the wasteland inside that fort. The city of Lexington? Louisville? Mammoth cave national park? The longest cave in the world is what that is. If you were to put the second and third largest together it still wouldn’t be anywhere near the same size as mammoth. With that being said they could have some badass new monsters living down there and perhaps the children of atom. So much potential I think we need to start a petition.

[@jordanjames2956]

The building that the gold is supposedly stored in at Fort Knox is actually very small. And as for a Fallout game in Kentucky it would probably be centered on Louisville and not Lexington. That said Louisville is basically already a post apocalyptic, especially the west end. I would know I used to live their. One of my roommates had a collection of shell casing he picked up off the side of the road. He had about 150 of them.

[@sirstone]

Well the thing with Fort Knox is that the gold isn't there anymore. If the lore of 76 is cannon all the gold got moved to a vault in WV. That's if I remember that questline properly.

[@Pigness7]

@@sirstone Correct, all of the gold reserves are in vault 79. Fort Knox is empty and likely nuked

[@FTZPLTC]

I always assumed that the main reason to use caps is that there's a finite existing number of them, and that you can't easily make more of them. They also have the advantage of only having token value, rather than inherent value, which removes a lot of the incentive to destroy them or melt them down. And there are lots of them, which allows for a lot more granularity. Trying to pay for a pint of water with gold makes no sense - it's such a ridiculously small quantity of gold that you can't reasonably trade it.

[@DravenWaylonGaming-jk9ez]

The short answer would be that in a waste land, water is more valuable. The caps represented how much water you have.

[@wastelander138]

It's funny learning about the relationship between Caps and water when a whole bunch of us have water farmed at some point in Fallout 4 to make a ton of Caps or use for trade 😆

[@Cosmic-Sorceress-17]

The point at the end is always why I figured caps became the most popular wasteland currency: they're everywhere, easy to carry, and easy to assign value to as a single unit. It's also interesting because simply scavenging around and regularly drinking soda can bring you as much a fortune as actively participating in the local economy. With people just trying to survive, it's a perfect currency that can be amassed in a number of ways during daily survival. It honestly puts a smile on my face that how in 4, the treasure people have faught and killed for across history is now only worth anything because it's pretty or makes a good conductor in electronics and energy weapons. Mostly the latter in my specific case.

[@martinpachu7125]

or robots!

[@Cosmic-Sorceress-17]

@@martinpachu7125 Those too, certainly.

[@jetrifle4209]

Caps are onlyin here because of bethesda. Nice little story tho

[@justnoob8141]

@@jetrifle4209no, Bethesda didn’t invent bottle cap currency, Black Isle did, and by proxy, Obsidian did

[@TheMaghorn]

It's so jarring to see how much thought Interplay and Obsidian put into the economics of the wasteland out west, and compare that to how little Bethesda seems to have put into it in the east.

[@ghastlybespoke9541]

if it wasnt for bottlecaps being established and expected, theyd probably have just used prewar money lol

[@siluda9255]

i'm so fucking tired of this NEW VEGAS GUD EAST FALLOUT BAD MUH GAME GOOD YU GAME BAD debate, why everyone want put they dick on the table and see who has the best one when both are stinky and full of bubbles and mushrooms

[@vladdietheladdie7345]

You have quickly become my favorite Fallout youtuber. Congrats sir! Thanks for keeping me interested in this incredible universe

[@lamebubblesflysohigh]

It is simple.... just as in pre-history. Gold/silver doesn't have any intrinsic value in survival situation. You cant eat it, you cant make weapons from it, you cant make useful tools from it etc. The only 2 things they are good for are turning them into pretty things and their conducting/chemical properties. But these are important only after you figure out surviving. There is also not enough of it to use it for minting coins on large scale and avoid trouble with hoarding. Bottle Caps, however stupid it might look have two shared attributes - there is a finite amount of them and they are reasonably scarce. They actually have two advantages - they are lighter AND they (if in reasonable shape) can be re-used for their original purpose which is megavaluable in world where clean water is a top shelf item.

[@KuroToaster2199]

Yay the economy!

[@shedninjareal]

yes~

[@theotheyoutubewatcherista]

I really like the idea that a prewar promotion was the start of the easy coasts adoption of a cap based economy. Since no major governments have formed (yet) it definitely makes sense that they wouldn't bother to make a new currency, and it's a great reason for gold to not be that valuable on the east coast and is basically only a crafting item

[@CaptainJZH]

and in those 200 years it just spread from there - who's to say some traders from Appalachia didn't make their way to DC, accepting caps as payment, which then became the dominant currency sometime later. Could have even made its way up the coast to Boston in that time too

[@theotheyoutubewatcherista]

@@CaptainJZH oh yeah absolutely. A good chunk of the merchants in 3 and 4 are roaming so it fits lore wise. Although with how up and down Bethesda is with lore consistency I'd say it's a coin flip on how purposeful the cap robots in 76 are lmao, doesn't make thinking about it any less fun though

[@luska5522]

Just fyi, the New Califórnia Repúblic has its own paper currency, the NCR Dollar and its backed by water. The Caesar Legion has Gold coins

[@CaptainJZH]

@@luska5522 they said "the east coasts adoption of a cap based economy"

[@luska5522]

@@CaptainJZH my bad

[@MaxiemumKarnage]

"Bro, banks are collapsing! You'll want to have invested in something for when there's no more money. I have a reliable site for buying gold and si- Why are your pockets jingling?" Boddle cabs

[@hhs_leviathan]

​@Falcon_by_the_lake ...and they sing, Ohh, ain't you glad you're single.

[@richardarriaga6271]

Why buy gold when you plant a surprise in someone's pocket? One of the most fun game mechanics.

[@joshuacookie6386]

24:33 Look how Rad that hairstyle is! It’s the RadKing himself :D

[@Sapper21b10]

If I remember correctly, precious metals are easy conductors of radiation. While not "radioactive" themselves they carry it a long time. Could be a good explanation also

[@getaround1276]

"Conducting radioactivity" doesn't mean shit, if it did if you picked up an object that has been in the sun for a while it would give you instant sunburn. Hell chances are most old world gold reserves would be fine because they're underground and therefore immune to radioactive dust from falling on them (that's what nuclear fallout is)

[@BM-rm9zy]

That's wild to try to say that a half dozen robots in some place in WV is the reason why the east coast uses bottle caps lmao. Here's why they use caps: It's just bad writing

[@DontDoDaylight]

You’re the man, RadKing! As someone who promotes stacking silver/gold in real life, this is going to be super interesting!

[@MaxiemumKarnage]

Hell, I've even invested a bit into copper at this point. Banks are on the rocks

[@DontDoDaylight]

@@MaxiemumKarnage That’s what I like to hear! I’m in the rather unfortunate circumstance of needing to buy a home right now, on top of everything else. Of course, that has changed my spending as of recently but I did get in pretty well before the recent jump in spot prices! My latest purchase was another case of 5.56. Gotta keep that balance and hey that includes copper! I think copper looks awesome, too.

[@funnyjoke9225]

​​@@DontDoDaylight did you just admit to stacking and hoarding ammo to sell at a higher price? Genuinely scumbag behavior.

[@napatora]

@@funnyjoke9225 he didn't say anything about selling ammo lol he's probably just stashing it for future use/emergencies

[@DontDoDaylight]

@@funnyjoke9225 Absolutely I’d do that and if it makes you mad then… haha! I got used to being called a “hoarder” back when people were stabbing each other over toilet paper and I was living life as normal 🤣 good times! My buddy and I were chilling at his homestead with our horrifically shameful “stockpile”… more comfortable than ever! Would do again! Gosh… the value of my ammo went from like 28 cents per round to over a dollar and it’s still pretty high. So glad with myself to have gotten in when the buying was good!

[@FecklessandKekless]

23:01 imagine they require a certain amount of caps as an initiative to get wastelanders digging through/ clearing wreckage in their search for caps

[@cassievania]

I haven't played 76 so this is the first I'm hearing about the caps situation there. As far as handwave retcons go, it's not bad. For Boston and DC, I would suggest that the caravans are the economic driving force for those regions and everyone uses caps because THEY are backing caps for whatever they determine the value. Bunker Hill is a bit more fleshed out here than Canterbury Commons, but I could see it for both. Or it could be a legacy thing from Appalachia.

[@GumMonster1]

The 3 Gold Bar found in root cellar - Weighs 1 unit, breaks down to 10 gold, and sells for 250 caps Gold - weighs 0.1 unit and sells for 8 caps 😂 Both look identical but one gold bar is worth substantially more by weight than the same weight in Gold. I believe this oversight by the developers of Fallout 4 was made because they wanted nuclear material to be worth more than gold, a price difference of 1 cap.

[@WhackyWeiner]

Gold has many different potencies. A 10k ring that weighs the same as a 24k will cost way less because of the percentage of gold.

[@lucvenoml3376]

What a great video i can tell by your content that your discord mod team must be the best!!!!

[@justanime-ec1yt]

nah bro the KZbin mod team is better

[@palemoon689]

the discord mods kicks ass

[@highlordlaughterofcanada8685]

Yeah, I hear they're all pretty Giga Chad

[@shedninjareal]

who are the youtube mods isnt it just rad

[@abdalln8554]

I kinda wish they'd implement a barter system in the games, without needing a flat currency value to simplify everything. Debts credits and gifts as part of a tradibg system could be pretty rad. For example maybe a reputation score for each questing hub, donating food and supplies earns you credit among a group, so does doing quests and just helping folks out so they feel they owe you. On the flip side you can use that reputation to buy supplies, using pursuasion scores to allow yourself to buy more than what you can "afford" by schmoozing the townfolks. Or going into "debt" buying supplies and owing the town a radiant quest or eating a severe hit to your reputation/disposition among the town.

[@justnoob8141]

Funnily enough, there’s this porn game that did exactly that, you sell thing for credit point and you go from there if you don’t like porn, there is “This War of Mine”, the game that you will only get failure and game over. A lot. You won’t beat it, no matter how much you try

[@shawnleek4970]

Gold has an odd hold on Humans. There is an ancient connection to humans and gold that we modern humans have forgotten and will most likely never know. Good video Brother.

[@FijiAC]

It alloys easily with titanium making it good for old armour, and it's soft enough to be melded into other things.

[@kingofhearts3185]

It's mostly chemical. Gold and silver are relatively soft and easy to mold for metals, with low melting points. Combined with not reacting to water (rust) they’re easy to work with and will last a long time. That's probably why we started making coins and jewelry with them.

[@joshwist556]

@@kingofhearts3185 It’s also because it’s shiny. We are still simple minded like that.

[@somethingedgy2185]

I don't really think that we have forgotten it

[@I_Am_Wasabi_Man]

what is this "gold" you're speaking of?? people used this before ipad was invented???

[@ZeroKitsunei]

Something I feel like you skipped or glossed over real quick was the fact that the reason why gold and silver even to this day is worth something is cause it's not an easy material to get a hold of. But with some effort governing bodies could get a large amount of it. So it's something that everyone could agree on the value of. It's still like that now days, but it's used in computer parts. So in a world where survival is a daily struggle, and there aren't really a lot of people to mine gold. What's it worth? A lot if you have the machines and knowhow to make laser weapons, e cells and chips. Otherwise it's of no more use to anyone than a brick is.

[@BobdaButcher]

Gold and silver actually have more inherent value today than in the past. Both are manufacturing materials in electronics and industrial applications. In addition to their worth due to beauty as jewelry. This is why they will never be worthless, they can fluctuate in value but can never become worthless unless we literally go back to the Stone Age.

[@nikik5567]

I mean in a post apocalypse we wouldn’t need them. There’s no manufacturing, electronics, etc. to be needing it. So outside of jewelry, which has very little meaning in a scavenger based society unless it has sentimental value, what exactly would the gold and silver be good for enough to make them valuable?

[@DaUziel]

This fact makes them less valuable as currency, because now they have a use-value that didn't exist before. Its value becomes less stable because it's being consumed by use.

[@redlight3932]

@@nikik5567 you're missing the point that gold is used to repair items common place in that universe like Lazer and plasma weaponry and infrastructure that alone would make it useable as currency to let's say the van Graff's

[@genericscout5408]

@@nikik5567 in a post apocalypse there could be a vibrant electronics and manufacturing sector. Society tends to keep the top 1% alive who also tend to know all the technology which passes on to the next generation. with the collapse of society these people would most likely be the only ones to survive after amassing all the resources of their local nation. They might manufacture these sort of components for security cameras or eventually for entertainment purposes. Unless the apocalypse specifically targetted them somehow and only them.

[@nikik5567]

@@genericscout5408 in a post apocalypse there isn’t any industry of any kind. If society has rebuilt itself enough to have thriving tech and manufacturing industries then ur no longer in a post apocalypse.

[@jacob5395]

I'm amazed that people are willing to pay with sandwich bag sized cap purses to pay for food/water and carry around garbage bags of caps to pay for armor. No wonder people don't have that many good guns.

[@protojager]

Caps make sense as a currency on the basis that they degrade and become unusable, while also continually coming into circulation via either bottling plant presses or newly uncovered stashes of sealed cola.

[@NegativeDumpster]

My guess is that people in the Capital Wasteland and Commonwealth eventually started trading with Appalachia, and noticed that many Appalachian traders insisted on trading in caps. The traders were likely willing to barter for goods if they needed to, but the use of caps as a makeshift currency caught on nevertheless. And over the next few decades, caps just kinda stuck. This can be attributed to several factors: One: Bottle Caps are small and relatively lightweight, which makes it easy to carry around small bags of them. And most Wastelanders are what we would consider "impoverished", thus the dilemma of having too many caps to lug around would almost never become an issue. Looting the bodies of dead Wastelanders in-game seems to confirm this, as they only have a few measly Caps on them, if they have any at all. Two: Bottle Caps are vaguely circular, and made of metal. And while it isn't what most people would call "precious" metal, it's still close enough to a coin that it would grow to serve a similar purpose. In fact, they have a few passing similarities to existing US coins (pennies, dimes, and the like). And in a world mostly made up of (former) Americans, this made them a pretty attractive currency; it wouldn't take much imagination to replace "spare change" with "Bottle Caps", after all. And Third: Bottle Caps aren't being made anymore. Meaning no new Caps are going into circulation, and thus, one cause of financial inflation (more currency being minted) is a non-issue. They're also damn-near impossible to counterfeit, due to the scarcity of machinery needed to make them, as well as efforts by influential Wastelanders going out of their way to destroy the aforementioned machinery (as mentioned in the video) as a preventative; this, in turn, means Caps are an extraordinarily stable currency. Behind-the-scenes, Interplay likely used Bottle Caps as a currency because many RPGs use gold coins, to the point where players naturally expect to find them and/or buy stuff with them, and old-fashioned metal Bottle Caps are rarely seen by most people, making them seem "retro". This, combined with their aforementioned visual similarities to coins, made them the perfect currency for a retro-futuristic game set in a post-apocalyptic America.

[@justinisenberg1841]

Can you imagine buying a gun for 4, 000 caps then having to count out each cap... Then watch the weapon merchant count them after you've paid...

[@globalelite3042]

I find that i almost never pay fully in caps for anything. At most i pay a few hundred and the rest is valuable stuff i collected but dont need like chems, booze, weapons and armor

[@cynic5581]

You could use weight to get close enough. Than the vendor would just need to briefly inspect the caps to make sure there is no funny business. Oddly according to Google a bottle cap weighs 2.22grams. This makes the math very easy for any domination.

[@justinisenberg1841]

@@cynic5581 True, you could use weight which brings up another issue. I've seen antique Coke bottles and usually the caps are rusted, intact but rusted. So some 210 years after being manufactured, you'd think most caps would just be chunks of rust, if even that. So, would that affect their weight?

[@DanielleDark]

@@justinisenberg1841 Rust has weight, but the difference would be negligible.

[@bgiv2010]

Are we not gonna talk about how those large entities that are capable of creating fiat currency eventually implode due to internal or external contradi- I mean conflict?

[@KP-uc1ez]

Haha, agitate, educate, my friend! No, I didn't expect him to subtly employ marxian analysis on currency for a fallout lore video. Some fallout content creators have slipped in some based takes here and there, though, lol

[@TrippinBusa]

I sometimes pickup bottle caps in real life just because you never know.

[@PivotLover94]

I feel like i read or watched something talking about fallouts development, that specifically notes that caps became the dominant currency because they were A. Abundant and B. No longer being manufactured, thus creating a true scarcity to the object that allowed it to have some value. Cant remember where I heard that though.

[@TerraCloud82]

Who needs gold when we have Atom's glow?

[@shedninjareal]

mmm atoms glow

[@tensei_alter]

It's also possible that in some regions, access to certain technology has rendered gold to be of lower value due to commonality. Gold is not a particularly rare or limited element out in the world- it is, however, very difficult to extract from common sources without the use of chemically unsafe refinement. We have mining corporations that are just sitting on very large gold deposits that they are not exploiting because the cost of extracting the gold outstrips the value of the gold.

[@SvengelskaBlondie]

"currency, with the shekel" Starts to furiously rub hands 🤝

[@skullthrower8904]

Lmao that word will never sound the same way again

[@kevinsiscoe]

This is a great video! I love it! I always liked to imagine that the value of a cap wasn't actually in the cap itself, but instead represented a unit of volume. With fresh water being a resource in high demand, a "Cap" of water is a fixed unit of volume, and can be easily measured across the wasteland. "That item costs 4 caps" therefore would initially mean that it's value was placed at 4 caps full of water. This barter system then shifted as time moved on since "caps" and "trade" were synonymous with one another, and thus the new currency was born.

[@bendavis3778]

I know it's not canon, which is probably why you never mentioned it, but in Chicago they use ring pulls instead of caps, which I thought had interesting implications

[@Vlad2319]

It's been theorized that gold and silver became such a popular coin/monetary system because they are harder to produce by the general population, not to mention that they also take time to tarnish. This made the material valuable to the rich to make jewelry. There's some suspicion that metal workers could also be the cause of this as well in some cultures as the metals are found among other useful metals and were otherwise scrap. (You have to think that metal workers in the earlier times of history would be looked at as some sort of supernatural being or magic user, so would frequently be aligned with the religious leaders. Caps can also fall under this; they are primarily scrap material. Yes nuka world had a prewar promotion, but caps can be used to seal bottles as well. Not to mention that the drinks they originally sealed are seen as extremely valuable (being one of the few prewar foods that doesn't seem to expire.)

[@GaratghDeloi]

According to the institute (not just what they say but supported by documents you can dig up in their computers) the attempt to form a goverment for the Commonwealth was their idea and they didnt massacre the attendees of said meeting, the attendees managed that themselves and the institute got the blame for being the sole survivors. It was at this point they kinda gave up on the common folk of the Commonwealth.

[@caav56]

One more possibility's just that their synth attendee had a garbage programming and simply went berserk when some integer overflowed in its mechanical brain. The meeting was massacred by a Synth, but Institute didn't intend for it to happen.

[@abdalln8554]

​@@caav56yeah its just a very happy accident for them considering either way, a commonwealth govt with them at the head or no uniting force between scattered settlements, both leave them as the biggest bois in the wasteland. I do wish they didnt backpedal on that to make the institute more morally grey or whatever. Let em be the evil faction, let em kill folks for their interests.

[@LenKusov]

Considering this is an era before plastic bottles and screw-on lids became mainstream, and literally everyone needs some way of securely transporting liquids or fine powders - purified water, liquor, beer, lubricating oil, glue, gunpowder, drugs, etc - bottlecaps have inherent value just via the fact you can reuse them many times and they don't rot or leak or leech weird contaminants into your precious fluids like makeshift wood or rubber corks would. That's the reason the Water Merchants traded in them, but that's a need pretty much everywhere in the wasteland, especially places with high amounts of radiation where trees don't grow much and any wood you find is likely contaminated, like the Capitol wasteland. They're coated, painted, have an integrated gasket, and as long as they aren't bent to the point of cracking, you can keep on reusing em. Everyone needs bottle caps, heck, that's why so many crafting recipes in NV and 76 call for some flavor of empty bottle and a bottlecap even if they make something that the game's texture model shows isn't in a Nuka Cola or Sunset Sarsaparilla bottle. There's also a LOT of different prewar automated systems that have bottlecaps as an accepted currency - whether by a promotion deal like the Sierra Madre or the bots in 76, or because it got left in the code as a debug unit or a weird coincidence of "these are the same size as the scrip tokens" like in The Divide or Big MT, leading people to adopt the currency in microcosm that spread via trade to being accepted everywhere.

[@trelauney]

*lays a gold bar in front of the cashier in the checkout line* Hey can I get change for this

[@shedninjareal]

sir this is a dry-cleaners

[@elijahguyer6722]

I would watch any fallout video you make dude. Love this stuff

[@carbondragon]

It would be hard to get the gold plating off of an item. And if there are no bottlecap presses left, there probably also aren't ways to mint gold coins easily (which makes you wonder about the Legion). But gold is still valuable because it's pretty and makes a good, durable jewelry. Also good for cooking if you could afford to make a gold frying pan (and you probably could here). Gold as a surface covering is great for eliminating wear or tarnishing or rusting. It might not have money value in Fallout, but it should have commodity value in somewhat stable societies (granted you could say that few societies in Fallout are really stable).

[@matguimond92]

people suddenly forget how to do things in the apocalypse lmao pretty sure some egg heads would be able to replicate old bottlecap presses unless lore says otherwise _nope_ people in the wasteland can't make bottlecaps you can't do that *no*

[@TOBAPNW_]

You dont have to press or stamp coins - you can cast them.

[@higueraft571]

@@matguimond92 Honestly, it likely wasnt the case initially... Except of course Those who know wouldnt be able to DO so, accounting for the whole collapse of civilization thing :V

[@lordcthulhu8472]

We been minting choins for close to 3000 years, it's fairly easy work if you have a mold and a funance, even a primitive one. If you in society that can work iron into a useful martial then your already more advanced then it required to use gold. Gold is extremely valuable for use in electronics, it can't erode and it is a good eletectic conductor, so if you going be making or reparing stuff like laser guns, computers, or anything more advanced then an internal combustion engine you going need gold. Bottlecap presses do exist, NCR have several in working condition, or had might be better to say, as they trying to replace it with their own paper currency that's on the gold standard or rather water standard in this case. There is a sidequest for NCR in New Vegas where you are asked to destroy a bottle cap press in Sarsaparilla factory, that someone had been using to make "fake" bottlecaps with.

[@kotzpenner]

Gold is very soft if pure, to mint gold coins you'd only need a hammer, anvil and a stamp, like in medieval times.

[@assasin19991999]

AMAZING VIDEO! I knew of many things about money through history, but you did it like a history teacher, with anthropological ability to discuss this topic within a fantasy realm.

[@lorthras8248]

As a guy named Adam, I never feel as good about myself as when a youtuber hails me in every video. You are welcome everyone, and please do continue to bask within my blessings.

[@johnnycovenant2286]

He says atom not Adam...

[@shedninjareal]

@@johnnycovenant2286 blessings to adam

[@lorthras8248]

@@johnnycovenant2286 Really? I didn't expect Fallout to have references to atomic science but I think you might be onto something. I'll look into it, but in the meantime, receive my blessing.

[@johnnycovenant2286]

@@lorthras8248and John Quincy Adams blessings upon you

[@k-raemccormack1592]

@@lorthras8248 for this you are my new favourite person. *basking in your glory*

[@cawcawcaw9160]

I'd love a full bartering system. Maybe individual settlements have their own little currencies. Assign everything a general value for what it is, like gears, screws, various tools, duct tape and such being higher value than basic materials and semi-useless junk. Those limited currency items you'd get trading with certain places could have weight too. But i imagine most areas would do pure bartering. Maybe accepting those tokens at a lower value if they're not trading in that area. So you'd have to haul things to trade. Instead of that bottomless weightless bag of bottlecaps attached to the player in bethesda's fallout games so far.

[@smilingnid4276]

They really should have had a Nuka cap rewards program prewar nation wide. That would just give the wide spread cap usage a blanket excuse.

[@snausages43]

Why is it when you drink a beer in fallout you don’t get a bottle cap from it?

[@SirAroace]

What I dislike about East Coast Bottlecaps are not backed by anything. FO1: Bottlecaps are backed by bottles of water, FO2: Bottlecaps are worthless, FO-NV: Bottlecaps are backed by the Caravan Companies (as a legacy currency). In Fallout 3-4 the Bottlecap is backed by nothing and no-one. There are groups in FO3/4 that COULD back the Bottlecap but their no proof that they do and even then we have to ask "why Bottlecaps?".

[@DJWeapon8]

Iconography. 3 should've continued the trend of Fallout 2 and used a different type of currency. Like Metro using prewar 7.62x39mm as their currency. Or at least reused the lore of powerful merchant groups dictating that bottlecaps stand in for water like in Fallout 1. There's precedent and it makes even greater sense what with the main quest being written with a *state-wide water crisis* as its conflict source.

[@MrNoot39449]

Leave it to Bethesda to mess up the lore of a franchise they know nothing about

[@kanrakucheese]

@@DJWeapon8 Fallout Tactics actually continued the trend of F2 and used its own currency, aluminium can tabs. That's actually an interesting choice because relatively pure aluminium actually *is* somewhat intrinsically valuable (especially since the pre-war alloy is even more useful than just pure aluminium) since while common it's a horrible pain to refine from ore without massive amounts of electricity, but relatively easy to use when pure. The tab would be more valuable on average than the rest of the can since there's no paint to deal with when scrapping it. It also fits the retro future because easily detached tabs were phased out well before FT came out.

[@justnoob8141]

@@DJWeapon8they can try and YOU will be moaning over it anyway

[@justnoob8141]

@@MrNoot39449you mean like Black Isle did with Fallout?

[@mattt233]

Big mistake on the part of the US. With gold only so much money can be printed based on the amount of gold backing it thus vastly reducing, if not eliminating, inflation. With the ability to print as much as you want it devalues the currency thus causing inflation.

[@totallytubular618]

I think the real reason caps are adopted on the East Coast is that Bethesda doesn't try very hard to make their world believable and kinda treats Fallout as a checklist. New source of FEV? Check. New breed of super mutant? Check. New branch of the Brotherhood? Check. Caps as a currency? Check.

[@DovahFett]

How about you try thinking instead of immediately jumping straight to "Bethesda are dumb and don't care". Caps are used on the East Coast because they were readily available (Nuka Cola was insanely popular in the East), durable (so they survived the Great War), can't be replicated (no one has the equipment to do so) and don't have any other obvious purpose aside from being used as a currency. Paper money by comparison would be better used as kindling for fire, material for patching clothing, or even toilet paper. I swear, Fallout "fans" like you give Obsidian and the OG developers of the series a really bad rep. I mean, you are aware that there were new branches of the Brotherhood, new sources of FEV, and new breeds of Super Mutants in the older games as well, right? You aren't *that* ignorant of the franchise, are you? Furthermore, the appearance of all those things in Fallout 3 was more than justified by the lore of that game. There's a new Brotherhood branch because Lost Hills wanted to know what remained of the former capital, and what secrets technologies it might hold. There's a new breed of mutants because Vault-Tek was in bed with the US government and West-Tek prior to the war and had their own supply of F.E.V. for experimentation. That fact is not out of place at all since all the company ever did was look for new ways to pervert science for personal gain. Experimenting with cutting edge bioweapons is perfectly instep with that goal. Likewise, it isn't simply a new source of F.E.V. that they used, but a modified strand. That's true for the F.E.V. the Institute experimented with in Fallout 4 as well. They are unique localized variants that create unique localized results. That's why the Super Mutants in those games are not even similar to each other, let alone similar to the Mutants made by The Master in the West. For example, Fallout 4's mutants are smarter, smaller, and less physically deformed than the ones in Fallout 3. That is because they were made by scientists in the controlled environment of a lab, while the ones in Fallout 3 were made by other mutants. Mutants, mind you, who cared nothing for things like controlled environments or genetically pure test subjects. They would literally kidnap anyone they could find and take them back to Vault 87 for exposure, which meant that there was no quality control whatsoever. Also, the mutants in the Commonwealth are much less common than the ones in the Capital Wasteland, as no new mutants were being made by 2287. The Institue had stopped their F.E.V. work and dumped their failed test subjects above ground by the point. Vault 87 on the other hand, never stopped making new mutants, so they were all over the place in Fallout 3. I didn't pull any of this information out of thin air, by the way. It's all in the games. If you had paid attention to what they were trying to tell you instead of reverting to the same old tired "Bethesda man bad" mindset maybe you'd know this stuff.

[@totallytubular618]

@@DovahFett you got way too hurt about this comment. I am aware of the paper-thin pretextual justifications that Bethesda put in the lore for continuing using these gimmicks. At a certain point, it requires a suspension of disbelief and it's harder to take the universe seriously. I still like Fallout 3 and 4. Fallout 4 is my favorite Fallout. But why do we need so many different sources of super mutants? Answer: Bethesda thinks it isn't Fallout without super mutants. It's very superficial. The Institute super mutant breed is very poorly explained. The BoS being in Appalachia is extremely contrived. Caps as a currency on the East Coast was not explained until Fallout 76 because Bethesda didn't really care about making it make sense. "It isn't Fallout without caps." Not every region in the US needs the same factions, mutants, and currency. It makes the universe a caricature of itself. Not every game needs caps, super mutants, the BoS, deathclaws, etc. Bethesda starts with the conclusion that "it isn't Fallout without these things" and then works backwards from there. It was okay in Fallout 3 but it's apparent that Bethesda has become formulaic in their approach to a Fallout game's world.

[@gamersland2557]

I don't think it was mentioned so I'm gonna say this. Bottle caps are also valuable because there is a finite number, due to they need special machinery to produce, that was mostly destroyed by the war. Thus they have some value not from materials but from rarity and how hard it is to manufacture, thus they can have some value similar to a commodity currency.

[@Name_Violation]

there are 4 gold bullion traders in 76, not 3. Regs, Samuel, Mortimer, and Minerva But you did say 3 people, and Mortimer is a robot.

[@thatguyonyoutube989]

There's actually no in-game support for the BOS attacking NCR gold reserves. That comes from an out of game explanation in JE Sawyer's tumblr blog.

[@Sksk27547]

Rad king, you mention Mesopotamia. In that place, the barley was given to the priests and the priests gave a clay tablet to the farmer. The priest feed themselves throughout the year off of the donations and distributed the rest to the army. That's what the basics were. In slav society, of which I am a slav. The priest or religious man, was also a minor army captain in a town or village.

[@vanandagames7350]

almost 100k man! keep pushing :)

[@Jkrocsko]

25:22 AHH A FACE REVEAL

[@seanromine3932]

Well, in fallout 3, there was the council that was established in Rivet City and they were also connected in time to the Brotherhood of Steel that had come up from the west. If you knew that you were going to have a massive source of clean water, caps would work well for bottling that fresh water for storage so, in theory, they might have begun trading in them in preparation for the eventual need for them since again, simple container that can be dug up everywhere. Which then would honestly make sense. As far as Fallout 4, there is the bowling alley that will only barter in prewar money but also, there are the coupons and tokens that can be spent in nukaworld. Aside from that, there is also the subway tokens that can be found as well as metro tickets that can be handed over to the various guardian robots that will otherwise attack you if you don't have one outside of one of the free days which was a nice touch. As for why caps in fallout 4, again, similar to the fallout 3 scenario. There are pumps and purifiers that would allow you to bottle clean water and therefore metal caps would have merit. They enable you to have a single filled bottle of water which, dirty or clean will hold different values. Just seems stupid to me that you can't bottle dirty water given it's use in recipes.

[@ineptitude]

There’s a saying “you can’t be in love if you have a toothache.” I guess that means the pain is too distracting & you can’t think about anything else. So maybe the NCR water traders who use caps would say “gold doesn’t have value when you’re thirsty” XD

[@1313puredragon]

"You can drink gold but only once!"

[@bgiv2010]

I know you were just doing a summary but, no, ancient people did not use bartering before local currency or commodity money.

[@Neoentrophy]

It's hard to understate the importance of gold as a method of trade, we've tricked ourselves into thinking it's no longer important, but when the chips are down something as immutable as gold becomes a hot commodity.

[@FrarmerFrank]

I can't drink it I can't eat it It won't heal me It won't stop my headache, heal my wounds, or cure pneumonia You want water I'll give you 5 gallons for a can of cornbeef I'll all give you 2 cans of baked beans for that can of cornbeef as well I have Tylonol, Cplax,and Neosporin.......they are 5 cans of cornbeef each Only got that shiny rock? Maybe next time stock canned goods,water filters,and trading items instead of stacking shiny rock bars and coins.......have a nice day😏

[@Foundry_made]

When I got back from the Sierra Madre, I was carrying seven gold bars. I dropped five of them at the BoS bunker and immediately went to sell the other two, going to see old lady Gibson, as she was the only vendor I knew who would be holding enough caps to buy the two I was carrying. She offered me roughly two grand less per bar than what they had been valued at inside the vault. It's whatever, but I took it. After the transaction was made, she had only paid me for one of them, but took them both, so I blew her head off. She had no idea what I had to go through to get those gold bars.

[@theenchiladakid1866]

I would like to see more paper type money like food wrappers to represent large amount of money so you don't have to carry a million caps

[@reallyoriginalname1221]

Personally I think it's fair that the capital wasteland is evolving slower and slower. Considering it quite literally got blasted into the stone age, America's capital being one of the most targeted spots in all of America for an enemy to hit after all. They got nuked so hard, buildings and metros collapsed shutting off access to large swaths of the city, land surrounding DC is hostile and dead. In all honesty, it's probably only been a few decades to a century since humanity has managed to gain even the slightest foothold in the area. Megaton city, the city that cannonically was the trading starting point for the DC area, isn't even a whole century old, since a citizen there was a child when it all happened, and her father was the one to start megaton up And the events of fallout 3 happen only a decade before the events of new Vegas. No string governmental factions or currencies have been started up because really, humanity is just barely managing to bounce back. And that's not even talking about the other issues. Such as the massive slaving camp and being near Pittsburgh, where I can guess said camp sells the majority of their slaves to. Hell, most likely the most dangerous jobs in DC is probably caravanner and scavenger

[@foxbosmit521]

I always figured caps were valuable because it was undamaged metal that could be repurposed like the cars and sheet metal are always rusted but caps stay in good condition

[@stuglife5514]

I never thought of that! The caps are probs made from aluminum which doesn’t easily tarnish from what I understand

[@HectorCotto97]

To be fair once the world becomes a barren wasteland a lot of things lose their value. In a post apocalyptic world like Fallout I just think it's more convenient to both find and carry around caps then it is to carry around heavy blocks of gold. Not to mention even if you get your hands on all the gold in the world, what does it matter once you have nothing to spend it on? There is also the fact that bottle caps are easier to find than gold or other similar valuable metals, so it was probably just easier to rebuild an economy using something small and easy to carry around like caps. It may seem silly on the surface but it works. I just think that generally the valuable metals like gold aren't going to be as valuable in a post apocalyptic world as it would be in the pre apocalypse.

[@hvarthtonn6870]

imagine getting shredded by a bunch of gold bullets cuz some raider started moulding his bullets from a chunk of gold. its basically just lead but fancy.

[@diveforknowledge]

Also less toxic to work with.

[@hvarthtonn6870]

@@diveforknowledge more conductive, too. might help with heat buildup by acting as a rapidly disposable heatsink, same way as brass catridges. honestly, there could be a lot of benefits to gold as a projectile material. not exactly practical unless gold loses its value, but interesting.

[@diveforknowledge]

@@hvarthtonn6870 with how expensive bullets are getting these days it might not be too far off. Lol

[@hvarthtonn6870]

@@diveforknowledge eh. in my country its not too expensive, the laws are just highly restrictive. NZ, for reference. so no magazines holding more than a few rounds, lots of feature restrictions, and a long wait time between sitting your test, getting your license, and getting your storage facilities checked by police (which must be done before you can purchase a firearm)

[@tiggytheimpaler5483]

Another reason the bottlecaps made a comback is because the caravans travel everywhere for trade outside of the legion and ncr and i think the enclave technically makes payments to informants and mercs in gold in some smaller areas. Basically gold is the currency for stable states but wheb there are only like 2, caps make more sense

[@tristanseaver9054]

Maybe the real currency was the friends we made along the way.

[@thebrittaniondragon6183]

I wouldn't be surprised if the Enclave had taken most of the Gold reserves with them, when they fled to the oil rig, also another issue is that realistically how many of those gold lighters are actually just gold plated and just like issue with real currency's in the medieval era not all coins were equal some contained more other less gold within each coin which could make standardised trade difficult seeing what could be £100 in east cost, might only be £50 in the west

[@fortnightman8669]

The gold reserve was stored in Vault 79.

[@thebrittaniondragon6183]

@@fortnightman8669 Oh well don't i look like an idiot

[@fortnightman8669]

@@thebrittaniondragon6183 Eh, it's in 76 which is super underappreciated for the interesting lore it adds. I don't blame you.

[@centurion7993]

The explanation for the east coast using caps is the jet road, in which the west coast currency of caps was used because the west coast goods such as jet were in demand and thus the use of caps on the east coast

[@Monderoth]

There isn't direct evidence of any society that used barter as it's primarily economic system, but barter does emerge whenever a society's economic system doesn't work for the people. That assumption about barter comes from Plato, and he was just theorizing without concrete data to draw from. There is sooome evidence of historical and contemporary gift economies though. Economies where they don't have a direct exchange, but instead just share resources with people they trust or indirectly incentivize people to reciprocate gifts at a later date- which isn't a direct barter of one item for another but instead a way of building social cohesion through generosity.

[@kanrakucheese]

Actually there is: Matthew Patten's diary is very clear that pre-Revolution New Hampshire *absolutely* worked on a barter system. It depended heavily debts within the community, but it absolutely was a barter system with intended repayment pre-arranged at time of "purchase" (In exchange for X now you will get Y in Z).

[@user-xsn5ozskwg]

@@kanrakucheese "[B]ut barter does emerge whenever a society's economic system doesn't work for the people", which definitely includes being a colony like that, no?

[@mikelapine1]

I think that another complication to the fact that “it’s difficult to get from the earth and a lot of the technologies simply doesn’t exist” angle is that there likely isn’t a whole lot of it left in the earth to begin with, like with oil and uranium. The only place that you’re likely to find gold in bulk would be vaults and Vaults, places that hard to get access to and probably have heavy protections in the forms of land mines, turrets, and robots. Since gold, at this point, has more value as a crafting resource it kind of brings up the question of how the NCR and the Legion could justify using it as a currency.

[@saintpatience8426]

Very insightful! I love the Fallout universe and this was exceptionally informative! Great video!

[@thatoneguy7781]

Irl reason: When Bethesda bought the rights to the Fallout universe Todd thought it would be a neat idea to replace all forms of currency with bottle caps just like in FO1. Except unlike FO1 there wasn't an answer given as to why the East Coast used bottle caps instead of literally anything else for currency, undid the monetary progress the previous games were showing off a little, and then made Obsidian come up with a reason why bottle caps were still in use at least in the West Coast despite FO2 making it clear that they were considered practically worthless at the time

[@KonekoKoji]

Thinking about the speed of evolution in the areas - two things come to mind, 1. is the most heaviest hit are going to have had the largest loss of knowledge and skills (due to death), but 2. some locations would possibly lend themselves to different types of knowledge (DC for example being largely political and business not services and skilled labour) which surely would impact the skills and abilities of the survivors and generations going forward. (I freely admit I know nothing about the labour division in the US, so this could be crap - in which case, my bad).

[@TimeKillerGuy]

Here’s the thing In the Mojave only two factions I can think of that would actually take is, the ncr and I think they would just beat the soul out of you and steal it, or would tax you and force you ton hand it over, the only other person who would have the slightest use for it, would be mr house, what he would do with it, the only thing that comes to mind would again sell/give it to the ncr as a gift so he could pull more string in the Mojave giving him a stronger bargaining position, but here’s the thing in the Mojave the gold bar you have are legit, not just some small scraps but pure gold, but it would have been super funny for those who stole all the bars if you had a high perception/high intelligence you could exam the bars to find out you died multiple times just to find out you stole fools gold bricks or painted bricks.

[@PotatoPatatoVonSpudsworth]

*To Summarize Gold's Value:* Gold has remained consistently valuable across every human civilization in every continent since the dawn of currency. While it holds no practical use, it looks pretty and never stops looking pretty, since it doesn't tarnish. This makes the value of gold consistent and reliable. Once any civilization has reached a point where people have time to appreciate something for being pretty, they will inevitably gravitate to gold.