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View Full Version : Brainstorming Project Apocalypse : Mall Of America



ArlEammon
2017-02-26, 05:06 PM
In Fallout 3 we find an Aircraft Carrier as a city in the Wastelands. I was thinking, the Mall of America would be a large city, if treated as a city, in Fallout. So I was thinking, how effective of a city would a mall like that be for a city?

Vogie
2017-03-14, 11:57 AM
Theoretically, it could work. There's another mall in Providence, RI, that has been converted to apartments even now, and the Galleria mall in Ohio was turned into a greenhouse (albeit unsuccesfully).

According to the website, it employs over 12,000 people (already larger than some towns), so you could make the case that it could easily allow double or triple that to comfortably live there with sheer space requirements.

It already has an aquarium, so hydroponics and raising sustainable fishing could be available. The golf course and roof space converted to farmland (if the air allows) or the entire galleria that houses the theme park into farmland (if the outside air is less than hospitable to crops).

ArlEammon
2017-03-14, 04:27 PM
That's exactly what I thought when I read it, but I'm also curious how secure it could be, It has it's own anti-terrorism unit, but it would be vulnerable to weapons like mini nukes.

VoxRationis
2017-03-15, 07:12 AM
All civilian architecture is vulnerable to mini-nukes. Fallout doesn't do environmental damage because keeping track of that over that size of environment would be ridiculous. If it did, there'd be nothing standing by the time you finished the game.

I also have the issue that modern architecture tends to emphasize "cheap to build" over "needs minimal maintenance when left to the elements for long periods of time." I would expect that most malls would start to collapse after a fairly short time of disrepair. Moreover, it has the issue that malls are not made to be defensible. They typically are designed to admit large numbers of people into multiple entrances, and allow unrestricted movement once inside. You could, of course, block off entrances (perhaps by dragging cars from the parking garages to form barricades), but you'd be putting in a huge amount of effort in order to secure the area.