Well even from FO1, only 50 years after the bombs, they still have a token currency in operation (bottlecaps in FO1, NCR dollars in FO2). Prior to advanced currency markets, you needed some 'hard currency' - something that doesn't depreciate - to give the dollars value. Traditionally that has always been gold, even though gold in the middle ages didn't have any more practical use than it does in the FO setting. Basically states have a system where they have a reserve of gold 'supporting' their currency, and anyone is allowed to trade their paper/token currency for a fixed quantity of gold, hence giving the token currency its trading value. I think it's actually specified (either in FO2 or NV, or both) that NCR (both games) and Vault City (FO2) do exactly that.
In between FO2 and NV, NCR has taken over the other FO2 factions (Vault City, New Reno, Klamath, Marcus's town, that ghoul community with the nuclear reactor etc) - the plot for the 1st half of FO2 is basically about which of the new states will determine the model by which the future state operates (New Reno ultra-freedom ultra-crime, Vault City's wealthy but racist science-based society, NCR's non-racist and stable police state), before the Enclave show up and start taking over - it has the opposite journey to FO1, where the more you go on the more the world is shown to be recovering (c/f FO1 where you start in the vault and end up venturing into The Glow/ground-zero), and then the old rulers reappear in the form of the Enclave, not having learnt a thing from nearly destroying the world, seeking to re-establish their control by throttling the new society at its birth.
NV basically has it that NCR 'won' the power struggle in FO2 (i.e. that the NCR-expands ending is the canon one), but that the states it conquered influenced it from the inside - which is why it goes from being a police state in FO2 to full of crime and drugs in NV. Even by FO2 they're in a much more advanced position than the setting in FO3 - there's a nuclear power plant creating electricity that the various factions are vying for control over (with Harold and his ghouls running it while desperately trying to leverage a deal that preserves their freedom), NCR, Vault City and Broken Hills all have democratic governments (though Vault City is viciously racist/facist towards non-humans), and things are civilised enough that no-one outside of Vault City finds it surprising that a Supermutant is mayor of the mostly human community of Broken Hills (Marcus - there's a voice recording of his in NV at Black Mountain, so he might reappear in a later game).
You also get a car in FO2, and resources are sufficiently available to keep it running. The 'everything is dust' setting only really applied to FO1, and maybe FO3. And FO3 was really stretching it - it looks like it should have taken place at the same time as FO1, not 200-300 years later. It doesn't make sense for there to be computers running and waiting to be hacked all over the place, given that they're not advanced enough for electricity. Not to mention that even with the heavier bombing, if there's been people living there and rebuilding for 200-300 years, you'd expect a lot more in the way of new buildings.
In between FO2 and NV, NCR has taken over the other FO2 factions (Vault City, New Reno, Klamath, Marcus's town, that ghoul community with the nuclear reactor etc) - the plot for the 1st half of FO2 is basically about which of the new states will determine the model by which the future state operates (New Reno ultra-freedom ultra-crime, Vault City's wealthy but racist science-based society, NCR's non-racist and stable police state), before the Enclave show up and start taking over - it has the opposite journey to FO1, where the more you go on the more the world is shown to be recovering (c/f FO1 where you start in the vault and end up venturing into The Glow/ground-zero), and then the old rulers reappear in the form of the Enclave, not having learnt a thing from nearly destroying the world, seeking to re-establish their control by throttling the new society at its birth.
NV basically has it that NCR 'won' the power struggle in FO2 (i.e. that the NCR-expands ending is the canon one), but that the states it conquered influenced it from the inside - which is why it goes from being a police state in FO2 to full of crime and drugs in NV. Even by FO2 they're in a much more advanced position than the setting in FO3 - there's a nuclear power plant creating electricity that the various factions are vying for control over (with Harold and his ghouls running it while desperately trying to leverage a deal that preserves their freedom), NCR, Vault City and Broken Hills all have democratic governments (though Vault City is viciously racist/facist towards non-humans), and things are civilised enough that no-one outside of Vault City finds it surprising that a Supermutant is mayor of the mostly human community of Broken Hills (Marcus - there's a voice recording of his in NV at Black Mountain, so he might reappear in a later game).
You also get a car in FO2, and resources are sufficiently available to keep it running. The 'everything is dust' setting only really applied to FO1, and maybe FO3. And FO3 was really stretching it - it looks like it should have taken place at the same time as FO1, not 200-300 years later. It doesn't make sense for there to be computers running and waiting to be hacked all over the place, given that they're not advanced enough for electricity. Not to mention that even with the heavier bombing, if there's been people living there and rebuilding for 200-300 years, you'd expect a lot more in the way of new buildings.
