Board Thread:Questions and Answers/@comment-96.23.142.157-20140601175617/@comment-73.185.198.233-20160308233543

I know that this has been inactive for a while, but I'd like to point out the fact that election years are every four years. This means that the POTUS at the time of the nuclear war (in 2052) was either elected as POTUS in 2048 (or possibly as VP and assumed presidency (which would make sense if someone had planned a nuclear holocaust) and/or possibly up for reelection in the election year 2052. Since the Consitution states that a POTUS must be at least 35 years of age to be elected (same for a VP), that means that the POTUS at the time of the nuclear war was born before 2014. Since most POTUSes and VPs are usually elected in their 50s-60s, we can estimate that the POTUS and VP elected in 2048 were born around before about 2003. This would also place the POTUS and VP at least at 50 years old, which is quite old for fathering children. This means that if the theory that Dante's father was the POTUS at the time of the nuclear war, and that Dante is 63-64 in the year 2149-50, then Dante would have been born in 2086, which would mean that Dante's father would have had to been at in his 80s by the time Dante was born, which is an age that men are extremely unlikely to be able to father a child. Since we were never told how long Dante's father had been in office, nor when Dante assumed office, it would be a safe bet that Dante is at least the grandson of the POTUS or VP from the nuclear fallout, assuming that the POTUS or VP actually did have kids and that the parent/child duo made it safely into Mt. Weather, it is also assuming that the citizens of Mt. Weather actually kept the POTUS as their leader at the start. Which in any case, means that Dante is not the son of the POTUS at the time of the nuclear fallout and that Cage is not the grandson.

However, a fact displayed clear as day can completely negate the idea that the POTUS or VP were the first president of Mt. Weather (POMW), and that is that the position is hereditary, as seen quite obviously when Cage performed a coup against Dante in the middle of season 2. It is also seen (not as obivously) that "there has been a Wallace in office..." as said by Dante to Cage, when prompted by Cage to use that 48's blood for healing. This means that the citizens of Mt. Weather did not keep the four-year terms system that the USA has today. So there is always the possibility that the White House was trashed first by the nukes among other US Gov buildings and that the POTUS did not make it out of office.

With this more likely scenario in mind, then Dante's grandfather could have been the first POMW.

In conclusion, there are at least three different answers that are plausible. The first being that Dante is the grandson of the last POTUS at LEAST (since Dante's father would have been about 40ish when Dante was born). The second is that Dante could have been the third POMW, assuming his father was the second POMW (due to biological capabilities). The final one is one in which Dante's grandfather was both the last POTUS and the first POMW, which all still contradict the idea that Dante was the second POMW.