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TheFalloutseries is set in a post-apocalyptic world where a great war decimates the world. You usually play as someone who took shelter in a Vault, living their lives protected from the nuclear fallout (get it?) until it becomes safe to go outside.
This world (or at least, North America) isn’t just a barren wasteland, however, since there are towns and merchants going around, trying their best to survive. To this end, people have developed a new currency, the caps from bottles of an old-world drink: Nuka-Cola.
Why Are Bottlecaps Used As Money?
The first to use bottlecaps as currency werethe Hub Merchantsin 2093, since they needed a simple way to trade goods among each other. From the many ideas thrown around, the caps from old Nuka-Cola bottles were chosendue to a few key factors:
Granted,bottlecaps aren’t the only item that matches those qualities, but at some pointthe choice of currency has to be an arbitrary one.What gives them value is the trust of the people and widespread use, which wouldn’t happen until many decades later.
In reality, anything the Hub Merchants chose as currency would eventually stick, sincethey had the most valuable resource to back anything up: water.If they decided that you could give them stuffed animals for a bottle of water, then stuffed animals would’ve been the de facto currency.
Are There Factories Making Bottlecaps?
At first,there was no way of making new bottlecaps, at least not in mass; handcrafted bottlecaps would be indistinguishable from the real thing, but that method would never destabilize the economy. Yet as years went by (and the value of the caps went up), the need to control the production of bottlecaps rose.
In the latest entries of the series,the production of bottlecaps is being controlled by the Hub Merchants.This allows them to avoid any disruption to the economy while having the means to replace any caps that can’t be in circulation anymore.
Is It Realistic To Use Bottlecaps As Currency?
The logic behind the bottlecaps is sound, since they didn’t become prominent overnight, and being backed up by water makes a lot of sense. Besides, other currencies did try to rise; eventraditional dollars tried to make a return during Fallout 2.
But in a barren wasteland,the way you’d expect merchants to work is via bartering, offering things of actual value for something you think has equal or more value. The way the capitalist mindset comes back into play after a world-ending event seems rushed, although we can’t say it wouldn’t happen to us.
In the end,Fallout is avideo game series, and as such,it needs to have systems that are fun for the player.An economic system where you complete a quest for a flat currency reward is simple, easy to understand, and lets you trade that for whatever build you’re looking for.
