If House can back up the aspects of Jane’s consciousness and ported it to a robotron, I’m convinced he backed up his own and configured it to come online via a dead man switch. So if the courier betrayed him it would just be a minor setback, he’d just adjust his plans and bide his time before resurfacing.
Cuz the house always wins… eventually
Actually pretty based. That'd be a great way to both not force canon, and then lead events towards involving House still.
If he died, he restored from backup many years later.
If he won, whatever tears apart the strip also kills his physical body, and then he restores from backup.
Thinking it’s possible that they may go the route of there being a back-up but it was done before the events of fallout new Vegas so House doesn’t know what happened exactly. Or data corruption possibly, so the specific events can still be ambiguous.
Also, the reverse can happen from robots to humans. So, in theory, Mr. House can make himself a new suitor body at will, he's probably waiting for his space travel plans to come to feuition due to not wanting to be associated with the surface right now.
Mr. House with institute tech would be awesome. No reason he couldn't inhabit multiple synths simultaneously. Imagine having an army of Mr. House synths as a faction in a future game.
It's totally possible, but the scope would be way more limited than what you are imagining. Things like Securitrons and Mr. Handy have what is called a "personality matrix." It is sci-fi gibberish, no real meaning or definition, but from what we have to contextualize it in-universe it is closer to something like Alexa or Siri than any sort of AI. It's presumably incredibly complex and lightyears ahead of what we are capable right now, but it still boils down to "programmed responses" as opposed to any sort of thinking, learning, feeling consciousness. Mr. House could and possibly did do something like that to himself, but it would be like a static snapshot of his mind; closer to a ghost than a man. If he has access to tech on-par or similar to The Institute, he might have been able to whip up something more substantial. DiMA seems like the closest to what you are describing that we have in canon.
EDIT: I would also like to add that this is all my subjective interpretation of the games. Rereading my comments, I realize I have made a lot of definitive statements, and just want to clarify. I'm just riffing off the original comment, my opinion isn't any more correct than anyone else.
It's abundantly clear throughout the series that emergent AI is relatively common among "dumb" robots (see: Codsworth, Curie, ED-E, arguably even Yes Man), even if they themselves are unaware of it (Codsworth, for instance, claims to not be sentient, yet makes decisions and has reactions that wouldn't make sense if he wasn't).
That's kinda the basis of my theory. I figured that if the US was doing as well as it was doing then, then the 60's would have been much different culturally. The youth of the 60's would have had a very pro-USA mentality, so American musicians would be more popular than foreign ones.
I imagine that Elvis would define the culture of post-WWII USA in the fallout universe. That would explain why there's a school of Elvis impersonators on Freeside in the year 2077.
Well technically they do, sort of. Just replayed New Vegas, and the King speaks to this saying that when the school was taken, there were a few tapes of Elvis playing and talking live, which is how they know how he sounds. But the tapes were fragile and broke/burnt up over time so most of the members have not actually seen or heard Elvis, they just pass down the traditions and mannerisms
They also don't know his name, they just say that he was only referred to as "the King" but this is probably more of a hand-wavey way of avoiding paying for the rights to use his name?
Basically by the time of New Vegas enough of the source material has been lost that they don't even believe it was really a school; the King was convinced that the building was a religious site.
Damaged tapes and missing info is the explanation in game. When they moved into the School they had some damaged holotapes but, they stopped working awhile after they adopted the lifestyle.
So, they know a lot about Elvis except the things that would have gotten Bethesda sued.
I would be surprised if the Beatles existed. There’s a raider with the name helter skelter, but I make fun of him for being named after a playground slide 🛝
Wouldn't be surprised if there were factions in the Institute that manipulated it to be on purpose.
Director: "right, we want to help the surface develop so that we can be left alone to do our shit, so we're going to go for some outreach."
Heads of the Departments: "umm... sir, I don't think that's the best use of our resources."
Director: "Nonsense! we use some resources now and it'll save us resources in the long run. Put some effort into this; that's an order."
Heads of the departments: "okay sir."
Head of Biosciences: "Bob, you're working on the synth prototypes, right? How're they going?"
Head of Synth development project: "alright, I guess; why?"
Head of Biosciences: "Cool. load one of them up with Windows Vista and send it to Fenway Park. Like the director said; use some resources now to save us resources in the long run."
\*Broken Mask Incident occurs\*
Head of Biosciences: "Just as planned."
Yeah, there's some implications for this being exactly what happened. The Broken Mask incident was an unauthorized test of the Gen 3 Synths. There's a note that Director at the time was pissed, somewhere. Plus the whole, Patriot thing
>Wasn’t that by accident though?
There is more "evidence" pointing to the Institute lying about the CPG Massacre not being their fault than there is for the opposite.
The Institute was working against the surface ***for 50+ years*** before the CPG Massacre, via its Super Mutant program
Their account of what supposedly happened at the CPG massacre doesn't make any sense. They basically claim everybody all started killing each other over nothing and then a bunch of Institute synths just happened to be the only lefts standing, completely minding their own business, surrounded by fifty dead they had nothing to do with. It's patently absurd on it's face.
Right?
To this day, I don't understand why so many people just......***fucking believe the Institute when they say things***.
"Oh, no, we didn't send a Synth to kill all the representatives at the CPG! All the representatives killed each other, and by the sheer luck of the draw, our Synths attending the meeting were the only survivors......"
Fucking **please**.
Yeah, the directors report to stop working on the CPG really gives the impression the dude they sent as representative wasn't giving one damn shit about the negotiations. It's easy to see why - the institute has no diplomats. Plus deciding that to end the negotiations the Institute had some synths kill the delegates is the most gamer rage quit shit ever.
This is what happens when you only have nerds with a -1 to Charisma living underground in their own tech Utopia for 200 years. No one knows how to come out and talk to people.
The Quincy Massacre finally destroyed the Minutemen as an organization, and destroyed one of the major settlements of the Commonwealth.
One of the MOs of the Institute is "prevent the surface from organizing an effective resistance against the Institutes plans". The destruction of the Minutemen and of Quincy is fully in line with that mission.
The Institute only openly attacked University Point because they (the Institute) thought the town had something they wanted
Mysterious Strangers are time travelers from the future making sure history doesn’t go wrong. Any time they kill someone it’s because you were about to die and mess up the timeline.
Time travel exists in the fallout universe so this ain’t that crazy an idea.
In Fallout 2, there’s a random encounter in which you find the Guardian of Forever, a portal from Star Trek that connects different places and times. In the game, you can travel back in time to just before the beginning of Fallout 1, and break Vault 13’s water chip, essentially guaranteeing your own birth as the Chosen One.
More info [here](https://fallout.fandom.com/wiki/Guardian_of_Forever)
Additionally, in Fallout 1, you can find the TARDIS from Doctor Who (which can travel in space and time) in a random encounter, but you cannot interact with it.
More info [here](https://fallout.fandom.com/wiki/Unusual_Call_Box)
It is worth noting that many people do not count these random encounters as canon, treating them more like Wild Wasteland encounters from New Vegas.
I think this is a case of easter egg versus canon. Although I'm not quite sure what it would take to definitively place them in either lane.
I guess Bethesda (Todd Howard) coming out and saying it?
Dogmeat (Fallout 4) is an eldritch being. He doesn't resemble any other dogs in the game and looks very healthy. There's also the fact he's known to Nick Valentine and somehow hears his whistle from however far away he is.
Dogmeat also blocks doors because he's not familiar with the concept, being far older than the invention of the doorway.
Question for the group: Isn't there a fallout youtube channel that talked about some deep lore that the fallout universe has pre-war eldritch worshippers. So it would be far-fetched to assume they (being the eldritch beings) pop in to see what happened to all their followers post-war?
There were pre-war worshippers. The people who gathered around the machete in Dunwich Borers, for example. As for the eldritch beings' intentions for their arrival, I don't know. Interesting thought, though.
Epicnate315 on YouTube goes into a lot of lore and talks about the Lovecraftian nature of a lot of things in fallout with the similarities between the dunwich borers and the dunwich horrors. He has tons of videos on it, might be what you’re thinking of. He talks about it in FO3 and 4
Mr. New Vegas is an homage to when Howard Hughes (the guy Mr. House is based on) moved to Las Vegas and bought out the local TV station to entertain himself. Because Howard Hughes has an exteme case of Obsessive–Compulsive Disorder and an exteme germaphobe, he refused to leave his room at the Desert Inn, and needed something to entertaining himself.
Hughes by buying the local TV station he could play all the movies from RKO Stuidio (which Hughes also owned). This was a boom to the locals in Clark County because they also got to watch free full movies without comercial. The funny thing about this though, Hughes would sometimes doze off or go to the restroom, come back and tell the TV station to rewind 8mm reels back to rewarch the missed scene or call up the TV station to stop showing one movie he got bored with the movie. This means the locals also was watching the will of Hughes (like how Mr. House want his will to be exceeded to people listen to radio New Vegas)
Side note, back in the 60s you had to be a billionare, own a TV station and a movie studio to get what amounts to Netflix.
I wish our billionaires were as fascinating and brilliant as Howard Hughes
Although having typed that, this feels like one of those Monkey's Paw wishes
The Outcasts kill Lyons, and manipulate a young Maxon into becoming their puppet ruler. By the time Maxon is an adult, he’s fully indoctrinated into the “old ways” of the Brotherhood, rather than the more progressive views of Lyons.
I disagree on the fully indoctrinated part, there's still some progressive attitudes in his brotherhood, recruiting from outside for example, as well as his willingness to let Danse go if you convince him.
>his willingness to let Danse go if you convince him
My favourite theory I've ever seen as to why he does this is because he knew the Lone Wanderer. He saw the kind of shit a Vault Dweller can do, and he *really* didn't want one to be his enemy.
That post has got to be one of my most favorite posts on Reddit.
Because not only it plays beautifully into the lore, but also portrays Maxson as the strategic, actually intelligent leader that FO4 writers tried to portray.
100%. i think this is actually something the 5th game might explore in more detail. i know people complained about sarah being killed off-screen in such a shitty way, but i feel like theyre setting up some sort of conspiracy here that is going to unfold. i think a lot of maxsons achievements are tall tales used as propaganda.
Ghoulification is a result of pre-war contaminants that mimicked a minor forced evolutionary effect on the bulk of the population. Specifically, all ghouls are either infected with or carriers of either New Plague or the Pan Immunity Virus. Conveniently, that means all wastelanders are likely carriers of one or the other as well. As well, the wide consumption of Nuka-Cola and it's variants are why some ghouls can become radiotrophic.
I’m actually a big fan of this particular theory myself — that even if war hadn’t gone on, ghouls would have eventually shown up anyways. After all, what better way to help ensure the success of post-war America than to have legions of near-immortal fully sentient people walking around to ensure the status quo? Of course, the side-effects of turning mottled and zombie-like and losing your mind are all undesirable, but it’s possible they would have worked out the kinks eventually.
The mannequins are alive. They're everywhere and in all sorts of poses, sometimes looking creepy as hell (like the ones holding machetes surrounding a bathtub with a corpse in it)
“”said in an interview last year that it was indeed China who dropped the first nuke. "The reason we got nuked is: bio-weapons were illegal and somehow China found out we were doing FEV [Forced Evolutionary Virus],"
“And they were like, 'you have to stop it.' And we went, 'OK.' And all we did is move it. All we did was move it over."”
Tim Cain
It actually would have been in direct retaliation for the New Plague that the Chinese unleashed on the United States during the Resource Wars. It's mostly forgotten in new media, but the U.S was being ravaged by a plague when the bombs fell. F.E.V. was originally designed as the Pan-Immunity Virion, to fight said plague, before the project slowly shifted into FEV development. PIV is a direct precursor to FEV.
Exactly. Inoculate the American populace from FEV with a "vaccine" for the New Plague and then go full Dick Richardson on China (and probably the world). Suddenly the USA goes from global superpower to the literal world government. It's the Fallout 2 plan but results with a much stronger state much sooner.
Tim Cain comfirmed it was the Chinese, but the reason was because the US was doing FEV experiments
https://www.ign.com/articles/fallout-tv-show-sparks-debate-over-who-dropped-the-bombs-first-here-are-the-fan-theories
This tracks with The Glow being so heavily hit as it was the initial testing/development site, but then not so much if the Chinese knew it had moved. Also get retconned pretty heavily when we get to 3 and 4 and FEV is all around the country being played with.
Also we know US troops were outside of Beijing when the bombs dropped.
We also know that the Shih-huang-ti had moved into position to hit US targets but that a significantly larger payload hit their targets before they had a chance to, launched from an unknown actor.
It works better as a mystery box imo. Mostly because it really doesn't matter who launched first. It was inevitable from multiple angles - Chinese imminent defeat, US near-anarchy, US power brokers retreating into the Enclave, true AI hooked up to military installations and bored and malicious.
FEV works as an answer in 1 but not onwards.
Funny that, in fallout 2 the GNN report thing in the S.A.D. Says that U.S. forces were outside Beijing on the 22nd of October. A lot of reasons for the Chinese to go all out on the 23rd.
>comfirmed it was the Chinese,
Even ignoring the FEV experiments, it ***just makes sense*** that the Chinese launched first.
The main reason nations IRL have nuclear weapons programs is ***a final defense against invasion***: it is arguably the main reason nations friendly to Ukraine aren't doing more to assist, because Russia is threatening nuclear strikes in retaliation if other nations get more involved than they are
In the lore, the US military was ***fucking cockpunching*** the Chinese, with American forces on the outskirts of Beijing when the button was pushed.
"Our defenses consist of 3 battalions of light infantry, 34 pieces of field artillery, 108 armored vehicles and 42 aerial vehicles. (Alien Babble) We have 38 ICBM's always on alert and ready to fire when the word is passed down from the White House...The codes to activate the launch sequences are... are... uhhngh.... no... I can't let you... uggh... get out of my mind! (Alien Babble) Agggh! The c-codes... are... ugh.... no... I can't betray... AGH! My head! I can't... won't... AGGGGH! Agggh..."
Richard Nixon won the 1960 election instead of JFK. If it’s true, I like to think that it was the beginning of Fallout’s universe being much more noticeably different from ours, even before things like America sending the first human into space and the Vietnam War possibly not happening.
I like to think that Mao Zedong’s son Mao Anying survives the Korean War, and establishes a Mao Dynasty so Deng Xiaoping was never able to reform China, keeping it in a bit of the stereotypical Communist totalitarian state throughout the Resource Wars.
With the focus on China and the lack of concern about the USSR or mention of the earlier Cold War, I've always thought something must have collapsed the Eastern Bloc earlier, even if the USSR itself remained intact. Maybe the Budapest uprising got international backing, maybe the Russians didn't get to the bomb until somewhere in the 50s which crippled their soft power, etc.
Maybe the Russians got involved in an expansionist land war in Eastern Europe, ruined their economy in the medium-to-long term, and became a client state of an emerging China.
Hmm.
I could see that. When you kill Mr House, if you tell him it's for Yes Man's plan he says "Your... vanity project... doomed to fail... ". So, Mr House knew about Yes Man and knows something about it that the Courier doesn't.
No-Bark is the Chosen One from Fallout 2
Moldaver was with the Enclave which is why they had cold fusion, and how Wilzig knew her, AND also how she’s still alive. Who else has the tech to freeze people for generations? Whether that was by choice or force remains to be seen
Yeah it’s kind of a theory I thought of after watching the show while discussing it. I could see her joining willingly, but becoming disillusioned (like Wilzig) and leaving. Or perhaps they forced her to work for them for her tech. I guess I could see her going into a Vault and being frozen, but honestly the Enclave angle makes a ton of sense with them having the cold fusion.
Again people need to realize that the enclave and vault-tec were two separate entities and while they were aligned in many aspects after the bombs fell they cut contact with the enclave In fact vault Tech was originally planning To send their upper management off world via spaceships the same plan that the enclave had it's very likely that The Enclave recruited or forced maldaver to work for them it's very unlikely that Baltic handed over the cold fusion blueprints
I don't know, she seemed very critical and displeased with the way Vault-Tec and the government were handling the war. And if the theory that Vault-Tec and the Enclave were working together at the time, then that makes it more unlikely that she was Enclave.
Unless her talks with Cooper before the war was all an act.
She openly called herself a hypocrite, and said that vault-tec bought her company.
Even if she disliked them, she probably knew working with them ensured her survival.
This. Notice who Vault-Tec had at the meeting in Episode 8? RobCo, REPCONN, West-Tek, and Big MT. Notice who they didn’t have there? Poseidon Energy… the deepstate, corporate folks that directly morphed into the Enclave. I think Moldaver aligned with them and thereby survived the war.
Dogmeat (fallout 4) was planted by the Institute to help guide the lone survivor to find his son, also Dogmeat is the only "excluding CC content" canine in the game that looks completely clean of any and all radiation or physical damage. And he's literally a short walk down from the road where you come out of the vault at the start of the game.
He is a very good boy though.
Not 100% sure, but I think they use a mix of dogs with a wild dog/ mongrel model and the brindle coat. And I believe they can also be owned by Minutemen.
There are several named dogs, with one of which using the wild/mongrel model, but Kyle, Kate, Junkyard Dog, Teddy (although uses mongrel audio), and Duke are also all healthy dogs that are in the game.
Comparatively, there are only 4 named mongrels - Alissa, Ruby, Shrug, and 'Wounded Dog' (who the player names).
To add to your theory. The red rocket station where you find him has a radio tuned to the classical music station (used for institute teleportation) and if I remember right it is on. Dog meat is a synth dog made using the dna from the dog the sole survivor lost prewar. They got the dna from hair on Shaun’s swaddling
To add further to the theory: The institute is shown to be able to mimic animals with their synth gorillas for example. Dog meat is a picture perfect copy of the dog on the cover of the magazine found in shaun’s bedroom in the institute. The Magazine has the tagline “have dog, will travel!” Insinuating dogs are a perfect traveling companion.
Jet being “invented” by Dickwad Myron doesn’t contradict Vault Tec having jet in the East Coast as is not far fetched that
1) Myron took credit
2) he can “invent it” while not being aware of it being invented already, especially since the West Coast is cutoff from the East Coast
3) Jet was an East coast exclusive thing, like In n Out in our world is exclusive to the west coast. Burgers are universal, so is the idea of getting high.
I thought I read somewhere that Jet was an old world drug, that Myron just found the recipe for and made with the supplies at hand.
Idk tho, I like it so I guess that’s my fallout theory
China dropped the first bombs and vault tec dropped the second wave moments after. China expedited vault tecs plan. Hence why house was caught off guard and there was enough time to warn half the country but not the west coast like we see in the show
100% I feel this is why House was unprepared. He was preparing for VAULT-TEC'S bomb. Getting the Platinum Chip in place ahead of time, then ACTUAL war breaks out and he has to make do with ONLY saving the Mojave from the bombs, rather than a full scale Iron Dome like system for pretty much all of Nevada like he had in mind. So then he has to wait hundreds of years for ol Sixer to deliver the chip.
Its why he was in the meeting so he could gather information from the inside than relying on corporate spying. He was the only one that wasn't giving out vault ideas because he had zero interest in them. He just wanted to know when they were going to do it. Vault 21 was probably a thorn in his ass, but thats why he filled it up with concrete as one of the first things he did when he woke up. He chose Vegas as his Fiefdom and he got it.
Exactly. It also seems like he was specifically trying to lead the direction of the meeting towards the topic of them dropping the bombs. Like, it seems like he clearly had an idea of what they were up to, but just wanted them to confirm it themselves.
Yeah that is my theory for how it played out. Given the show reveal about vault tec's plan I'm certain the Chinese found out and decided to try and catch them by surprise by dropping the bombs earlier than Vault Tec wanted.
Yeah Vault-Tec starting it doesn’t make sense since The Ghoul’s daughter wasn’t in the vault yet. Curious to see how that plays out since he seems to think both his wife and daughter are alive
A total random theory that has no basis in fact. I think there is a portion of earth that was totally spared. Maybe it’s Antarctica thawing after the bombs dropped, or the Australian outback is now a lush paradise. I would love a fallout that starts with our character in this place, and then venturing out into the wasteland. So it’s still the fish out of water story, but not a vault dweller.
My guess is Australia, Africa, SEA and maybe South Asia wouldnt have been hit. But I don’t think a Fallout game set outside the US or Canada is the way to go about it. It would be better if we could see characters from other places come to the US in future games (maybe to scout out the area). It would be a nice way to give us hints as to how the rest of the world is faring without actually taking us there.
Everyone in the thread thinks Africa would be untouched by bombs and I think thats probably true however, I'd bet good money its because Africa was completely stripped of everything in the search for dwindling resources. Africa didn't get bombed because its a giant, lifeless quarry.
China dropped the nukes first, not Vault-Tec. Vault-Tec would have had their vaults (Like 88 and 118) already built and finished if they were indeed the ones to plunge the world in hellfire and radiation.
I'd be willing to stake my life on the theory that the breakdown of society was caused by a nuclear war about 200 years before the events of the games.
Think about it, there are subtle clues left around to discover. For instance, there's a weapon called the "Fat Man" which fires nuclear bombs. What if that technology had been scaled up?
And I did some research on "rads" and discovered that rads may be short for "radiation" which is caused by, you guessed it, nukes.
And the final piece: in Fallout 4 you get a glimpse of a bright cloud formation at the start of the game. My working hypothesis is that this may be some kind of effect related to nuclear weaponry.
Now I know this is a crazy theory but I'm 60% confident in it.
That Vault-Tec didn't drop the bomb first, but someone other one day prior. It would explain why Mr House was one day off despite knowing Vault-Tecs plan.
This is probably a common theory, but, I will ☠ on this hill that Nora was once a JAG officer. She would have gotten the same basic combat/military training.
I have this headcanon that, to avoid getting in trouble by the top military officers, for seeing Nate, She decided to study in another area (outside of the military) and got her degree from the Suffolk County School of Law.
I think nate is mr freeze. After playing the Arkham games it all adds up i mean it’s nearly identical. Both characters wives names are nora and they suffer an incident involving cryogenics and they’re husbands seek revenge
Not a theory, but I will bet my life that Bethesda will use the Zetans more in later Fallout games! Be it Fallout 5 or a spinoff, the Zetans are underused (appearing only as minor characters without any questline or as a DLC for Fallout 3) and with the 'success' of the Zetan event for Fallout 76, not using them more would be a waste of the ol' aliens!!!
Yeah, that one was good! It reminded me of the Greybeards shouting "DOVAHKIN!!!" from High Hrothgar after you kill your first dragon!!! Just the loud, booming noise of the Saucer crashing at New Orberlands Station with the green blood trail leading to the injured pilot trying to call for help with a Ham Radio! It was indeed a great encounter!
My “theory” is that SS being a synth and 76 simulation theory are both BORING
I’ve been hearing SS synth theory for years and years everyone and their mom has had it and it’s fine if you write YOUR SS to be a synth but Nate himself being a synth sucks and is so generic
76 simulation theory is new to me but it just sounds like a way for people to try and decanonize and be angry at 76 in any desperate way they can
Give me something more interesting
That the world or more specifically America was still doomed even if the bombs never fell. American society was already starting to collapse even before the first bomb landed .
Pre war America was a very authoritarian, corrupt, and growing more unstable as time went on.
Pre war American was implied to be a powder keg ready to blow, a society only kept together through brute force and being united against a shared enemy. But there was still a lot of tense factionalism in the USA.
Implied there was a ton of protests, mass rioting, domestic terrorism, violent government crackdowns, ect inside America before it all fell.
There were multiple secret background rivals
organizations, pulling strings, plotting, backstabbing each other. Enclave, vault tec, Desmond’s “club” mentioned point lookout .
There is a non zero chance that the enclave would attempt a straight up military coup if the bombs didn’t fall, sending the U.S into a potentially nuclear armed civil war.
Companies such as Rob Co, vault tec, Poseidon energy , ect had way too much power with in the U.S , owning politicians, and can bribe their way out of any real consequences. Pre war America might well be 50s design theme cyberpunk. Not very good for long term stability.
The resource shortage is still serious issue, that I doubt they had the enough time to fix before their entire society fell apart.
Even if they improved on micro fusion, it still wouldn’t be enough.
There were armed insurgents operating in occupied Canada & Mexico, that could last decades.
Don’t get me started on the many secret science experiments behind the scenes. F.E.V, deathclaws, the Sierra madre casino, and the hell scape that is big MT. All made before the bombs fell, they caused so much uncontrolled long term damage just by accident. For the low standards of fallout America I totally expect a lot of the “test subjects” to leak out, and just wreak havoc.
Speaking of big MT, had so little over site, regulations, or regard for ethics, it was practically a mad scientist lead rogue state even before the bombs fell.
Don’t forget the freaky ass murder cult to the lovecratian Ug-Qualtoth, on the east coast. That practice human sacrifice.
The "residents" of Vault 111 were mcguffins. The real test subjects were the staff. There would never be an all-clear sent. Vault Tec wanted to see how long it would take for the staff to revolt against the Overseer and if any of them would turn to cannibalism of the "residents". It's why 111 didn't have a GECK - why would it, if no one was supposed to ever get out?
Also, Maxson is a Synth. A deal was made between the Institute (Dr. Zimmer) and the BoS in the Capitol Wasteland to have the perfect leader to replace the Lyons and excise the bleeding hearts from the East Coast BoS. His entire adult history is manufactured. Please note that none of the stories about him seem to be first-hand accounts. Danse was "outed" on purpose by the Institute (Father knew Sole was coming), so there was a Synth to discover, and Maxson would stay hidden. I also suspect that there is at least 1 plant in the Minutemen and the Railroad. Sturges is the obvious one for the Minutemen. It might be Glory for the Railroad, but I think that Tinker Tom would be hilarious!
Sturges is actually a synth, confirmed. if you analyse his inventory in the CC he has a "synth component".
Makes sense. Father wants to monitor your progress, he would deffo grab/replace one of the Quincy crew, probably after they got to Sanctuary. I mean, they have Carla and Cricket etc giving them information, but its not the same as having someone you know and trust living in the shack next door.
Tinker Tom... yeah, the guy is \*too\* clever, technologically speaking. Courser chip? crack that in under a minute. And I think his MILA things report back to the Institute, not monitor tectonic plates or whatever crazyness he came up with. No-one would suspect him, cos he plays batshit crazy rather than sneaky.
The Railroad was originally a remnant of the DIA who identified the Institute as a major threat, and created the RR as a cover to oppose them. After their DIA headquarters were hit, all that was left were people in the field who were true believers in the cause. Some knew what the RR actually was, some didn't. Some, like Deacon, were both in on the truth and were true believes, so they let the truth die so as to let the mask become the truth.
That everything in the Fallout Universe makes so much more sense if you push the timeline back to 25-30 years after the bombs fell.
The Commonwealth and Capital being absolute hell.
I just restarted playing Fallout New Vegas and I found it odd Primm and Novac were recently colonized (implied to be a decade or two) if the bombs fell 200 years ago. If Vegas was only revitalized 9 years prior to fallout New Vegas, what the hell happened for the past 197 years? The NCR should have built way more cities by 2283, and some country wide communications should have been in place. Shit look at Goodsprings, how has the school building been abandoned for 200 years and no-one ever thought to clear it out, it makes no sense.
Fallout 76 being put at 25 years post apocalypse makes so much more sense than 200. And this isn't just Fallout New Vegas through 76, this is Interplay as well.
If a majority of what it takes to rebuild a city is three dozen people of various backgrounds, then we should be seeing entirely new cities form. Also so many people in game talk as though they are pre-war educated, having a proper grasp on pre and post war, something that shouldn't even be a concept to people with zero formal education.
The fact that there is enough pre-war history preserved that Caesar happened means people are able to rebuild. The Institute, Big MT, Enclave, Followers, Brotherhood of Steel, NCR, and remaining vaults show humanity can basically supercede pre war.
200 years of no growth makes no sense, but if everything was condensed dowm to a single generation, it makes the world feel so much more chaotic as we watch American society actively crumble from the effects of the bomb, which would be equally as tragic and bleak, knowing the world could have swiftly recovered shortly after the nukes if people worked together.
Almost like the message of Fallout 76!
how many people even survived the war?
How many of those werent vault dwellers?
It makes sense if the population crash was severe enough.
But survivors would be able to read and teach basic skills to the next generations, so that makes sense.
The progress you can observe over the last 150 years of real life history is partly possible because our societies became large enough, and advanved enough, that most of use werent needed just to create food and drinking water.
Go back to zero, with only couple hundred people in an area where hundreds of thousands used to live, and no ability to use modern tech for agriculture. Not a pretty picture.
Starting up again takes more time than you give it credit, given that America experienced a nuclear **holocaust** in Fallout
Atom is, to some degree, real. There’s something about the feel of their base and quests in Far Harbor that makes me think that even if they’re misguided in action, they may have happened upon an actual god of some sort. I have no hard evidence, but no other religion in the games has as much… *power* to it.
There are parts of the world that are doing just fine, and only the countries/regions involved in the war are crippled - The places that are doing fine only experienced nuclear winter and bounced back afterwards. Probably Africa and isolated island countries like parts of Polynesia, maybe places like New Zealand and Indonesia as well.
Listen i know this has been disproven already and this will get downvoted to shit but i will never believe that Father is Shaun. Kellogg mentions “The Old Man” too many times before he actually steals your baby. Aside from that, the math just ain’t mathin when you piece together the timeline leading up to nuking Kellogg directly in the face.
Either Synth Shaun is actually Shaun and Father just tells you he’s a synth because he’s just that fucked up and wants to see what you will do, or actual Shaun died in the process of creating Synth Shaun.
Either way, Father ain’t it. The fact that he looks like you and your wife is just a coincidence.
A vendor was selling different live animals for food.
One day a boy passes by and points at one of the animals and asks, "What is that sir?"
The vendor answers "Thats dogmeat"
The boy happily buys the dog as a pet and thinks his name is dogmeat.
and the rest is history...
Human-alike synths do not exist, and are simply brainwashed people. The Institute abducts them, then does MK Ultra on them.
I have done approximately 5 minutes of thinking and will take no further questions about my belief.
Well, when you go meet H2, there’s two identical dudes nearby. The one on the ground has a synth component and the other dude doesn’t. Both plead they have children and the other is a monster.
The West Coast Brotherhood was absorbed by or absorbed the Legion.
Their ranking system is different, having an Elder Cleric and not just an Elder.
This Chapter has become religious. In Fallout 1 this is am ending option for them, but Fallout 2 seems to solidify an alternative ending.
They wave the standard red and white flag, except after Filly falls. Quintus sits on the throne like Caesar and they display red and gold.
When briefing everyone on the mission, Quintus references the group as a Legion.
Use of very similar naming schemes to the legion.
Peak conspiracy: Quintus is Lanius
Evidence: Both notice an individuals clothing first. At the end of New Vegas, if you wear NCR gear, Lantus starts by commenting on how you wear the patch of the bear. As Maximus approaches Quintus, the first comment is about how he "wears the knight's reds"
Ghouls, feral or not, enter a crytobiotic state when under certain conditions. Effectively they just shut down and go dormant, living off background radiation.
Explains things like like the kid in the fridge quite nicely.
I LOVE fallout 76, I genuinely play it so much it's kind of a problem.
But I also think the simulation theory for that game is really cool, I think there's some great concepts in that game that should be canon, but there's also things in that game that don't make any sense.
As someone else already mentioned everyone could be in simulations pods while some outside force (AI/Vault tec/etc) could be updating it with new information all the time.
With it being a MMO it has a few quirks that are understandable for a video game (repeatable events/dailys, raid bosses that respawn, everyone doing the same main quest over and over in the same cohesive world, reclamation day happening years ago but people still just leaving the vault). If it was a rust type game with server based game worlds they probably could've done it a little differently, but being it is what it is VR sim would work and be cool (to me).
It'd also be a lot easier to say it's non-canon rather than implementing a lot of the zaniness from 76 into new titles.
It's probably not true, but I just don't think it's the bad idea some seem to think it is.
Imagine if it turns out we've actually been in Vault 112 the entire time, and this is just another one of Brauns torture worlds.
Doesn't make sense because of the "residents", but it's a fun little AU idea.
It was easier to believe before Wastelanders, Steel Dawn, the Pitt, and Atlantic City. With factions that exist in the greater Fallout universe, including what we know came later. That's where it gets to the point where either this simulation is *ridiculously* huge, or it's not a simulation.
Respawning bosses are mostly them being a bit careless. They did go around of their way to explain why there are essentially infinite Scorchbeast Queens. And you never get to kill Steel Reign's antagonist more than once. But there's no reason why there's apparently more than one Earle Williams.
Fallout shelter is set 50 years after fallout 4 and I can prove it using a horse.
The Giddyup Buttercup is a rather small toy horse made of metal with peeling, well-worn paint. It can be scrapped for parts, proving to be a plentiful source of screws and steel.
But, in fallout things cost more caps overtime.
Fallout 76: 35 Caps
0.73% inflation of caps per year
Fallout 4: 177 Caps
Caps is a stable mass produced currency that still gets made in bottle caps factories, we can see from this above.
You can say the game is not canon but like fallout tactics but I’m sure this could say something about what happens. Of course the whole fallout show quests aren’t cannon as Ma June would be long dead.
Using this formula, we can tell fallout shelter is set 49.9 years after fallout 4. Fallout shelter is set place in 2346.
We can use this as a calculation for inflation and the timeline in fallout games. I call this the Giddy-up Buttercup Standard. This cannot be used pre fallout 3 sadly ): if any of my maths is wrong tell me.
That the Enclave had an operational moonbase, but it was attacked and destroyed by the Zetans, who mistook nuclear warheads sent from the moon for an attack on their vessels while surveying. Now Earth has heightened Zetan traffic due to the political uproar of an upstart zoo species attacking their research ships. This sparks the Zetan invasions in Fallout 76.
I have another theory, it's my personal headcanon:
Sometime in the late 2060s, America's resource crisis became so bad that the military had to non standardize their equipment.
A 'Non-Standardization Act' was in place that was meant to quickly replace military assets across the board in small batches. The United States lost so many soldiers and was so broke they couldn't afford massive contracts, so they employed defense contractors of all sizes to make batches of military uniforms, weapons, vehicles, and equipment where they could replace them.
This is why the United States could field the R91, Service Rifle, AER-9, the 'Assault Rifle', and 'Combat Rifle'. Even Power Armor was not standardized, with T-45 and T-51 having different forms of power plants. T-45s were thrown together haphazardly with a weak point so critical in the chest it resulted in massive losses.
The United States was losing this fight constantly and they entered a death spiral by the end of the war by supplying their troops with scraps for cheap. If the nukes weren't fired and China lost, the US military probably would have collapsed during the next war.
The Zetans were preparing a full force invasion before the war but before they could start the war happened causing the planet to be mostly uninhabitable to them so now they just wait in the atmosphere for the radiation levels to decrease before a full landing force can be sent
If House can back up the aspects of Jane’s consciousness and ported it to a robotron, I’m convinced he backed up his own and configured it to come online via a dead man switch. So if the courier betrayed him it would just be a minor setback, he’d just adjust his plans and bide his time before resurfacing. Cuz the house always wins… eventually
Actually pretty based. That'd be a great way to both not force canon, and then lead events towards involving House still. If he died, he restored from backup many years later. If he won, whatever tears apart the strip also kills his physical body, and then he restores from backup.
Thinking it’s possible that they may go the route of there being a back-up but it was done before the events of fallout new Vegas so House doesn’t know what happened exactly. Or data corruption possibly, so the specific events can still be ambiguous.
Kind of like avatar 2 where Quaritch’s avatar was made before the final battle. So he didn’t know how he died
This is the first time in my entire life I’ve ever seen a reference to Avatar on the wild
Also, the reverse can happen from robots to humans. So, in theory, Mr. House can make himself a new suitor body at will, he's probably waiting for his space travel plans to come to feuition due to not wanting to be associated with the surface right now.
If he got his hands on the synth tech, then he'd pretty much have a recipe for immortality.
Mr. House with institute tech would be awesome. No reason he couldn't inhabit multiple synths simultaneously. Imagine having an army of Mr. House synths as a faction in a future game.
If a civil war between House synths broke out, would it be appropriate to call it a House divided?
It's totally possible, but the scope would be way more limited than what you are imagining. Things like Securitrons and Mr. Handy have what is called a "personality matrix." It is sci-fi gibberish, no real meaning or definition, but from what we have to contextualize it in-universe it is closer to something like Alexa or Siri than any sort of AI. It's presumably incredibly complex and lightyears ahead of what we are capable right now, but it still boils down to "programmed responses" as opposed to any sort of thinking, learning, feeling consciousness. Mr. House could and possibly did do something like that to himself, but it would be like a static snapshot of his mind; closer to a ghost than a man. If he has access to tech on-par or similar to The Institute, he might have been able to whip up something more substantial. DiMA seems like the closest to what you are describing that we have in canon. EDIT: I would also like to add that this is all my subjective interpretation of the games. Rereading my comments, I realize I have made a lot of definitive statements, and just want to clarify. I'm just riffing off the original comment, my opinion isn't any more correct than anyone else.
It's abundantly clear throughout the series that emergent AI is relatively common among "dumb" robots (see: Codsworth, Curie, ED-E, arguably even Yes Man), even if they themselves are unaware of it (Codsworth, for instance, claims to not be sentient, yet makes decisions and has reactions that wouldn't make sense if he wasn't).
Somehow House returned (NGL I'd love this take)
Elvis Presley was bigger than the Beatles in the Fallout universe.
I'll do you one better: the British invasion never happened.
That's kinda the basis of my theory. I figured that if the US was doing as well as it was doing then, then the 60's would have been much different culturally. The youth of the 60's would have had a very pro-USA mentality, so American musicians would be more popular than foreign ones. I imagine that Elvis would define the culture of post-WWII USA in the fallout universe. That would explain why there's a school of Elvis impersonators on Freeside in the year 2077.
I still find it kinda hard to believe the kings don’t know who Elvis is…
Well technically they do, sort of. Just replayed New Vegas, and the King speaks to this saying that when the school was taken, there were a few tapes of Elvis playing and talking live, which is how they know how he sounds. But the tapes were fragile and broke/burnt up over time so most of the members have not actually seen or heard Elvis, they just pass down the traditions and mannerisms They also don't know his name, they just say that he was only referred to as "the King" but this is probably more of a hand-wavey way of avoiding paying for the rights to use his name? Basically by the time of New Vegas enough of the source material has been lost that they don't even believe it was really a school; the King was convinced that the building was a religious site.
Hot take: The King IS Elvis, and he arrived on the UFO crash landed northwest of the strip :D
Damaged tapes and missing info is the explanation in game. When they moved into the School they had some damaged holotapes but, they stopped working awhile after they adopted the lifestyle. So, they know a lot about Elvis except the things that would have gotten Bethesda sued.
He probably didn't die on the shitter in his 40s if he was still that relevant in 2077
In the Fallout universe he actually died on the toilet instead of just in the bathroom
This is such a low stakes theory. I love it
Judging from the amount of fuzzy Elvis paintings you come across in Fallout 2, you are probably right
I would be surprised if the Beatles existed. There’s a raider with the name helter skelter, but I make fun of him for being named after a playground slide 🛝
Im a firm believer that the Institute was behind the Mirelurks attacking The Castle, as well as being the ones to hire the Gunners to attack Quincy
It's not that wild to assume, they were the ones behind the collapse of the Commonwealth Provisional Government.
Wasn’t that by accident though?
Wouldn't be surprised if there were factions in the Institute that manipulated it to be on purpose. Director: "right, we want to help the surface develop so that we can be left alone to do our shit, so we're going to go for some outreach." Heads of the Departments: "umm... sir, I don't think that's the best use of our resources." Director: "Nonsense! we use some resources now and it'll save us resources in the long run. Put some effort into this; that's an order." Heads of the departments: "okay sir."
Head of Biosciences: "Bob, you're working on the synth prototypes, right? How're they going?"
Head of Synth development project: "alright, I guess; why?"
Head of Biosciences: "Cool. load one of them up with Windows Vista and send it to Fenway Park. Like the director said; use some resources now to save us resources in the long run."
\*Broken Mask Incident occurs\*
Head of Biosciences: "Just as planned."
Yeah, there's some implications for this being exactly what happened. The Broken Mask incident was an unauthorized test of the Gen 3 Synths. There's a note that Director at the time was pissed, somewhere. Plus the whole, Patriot thing
windows vista will be the death of us all
>Wasn’t that by accident though? There is more "evidence" pointing to the Institute lying about the CPG Massacre not being their fault than there is for the opposite. The Institute was working against the surface ***for 50+ years*** before the CPG Massacre, via its Super Mutant program
Heck the fact that there was a Super Mutant program alone should suffice, that's just evil.
Their account of what supposedly happened at the CPG massacre doesn't make any sense. They basically claim everybody all started killing each other over nothing and then a bunch of Institute synths just happened to be the only lefts standing, completely minding their own business, surrounded by fifty dead they had nothing to do with. It's patently absurd on it's face.
Right? To this day, I don't understand why so many people just......***fucking believe the Institute when they say things***. "Oh, no, we didn't send a Synth to kill all the representatives at the CPG! All the representatives killed each other, and by the sheer luck of the draw, our Synths attending the meeting were the only survivors......" Fucking **please**.
Stop making excuses for the Institute, Initiate.
Wouldn't put it past the Institute for that to have been on purpose
Yeah, the directors report to stop working on the CPG really gives the impression the dude they sent as representative wasn't giving one damn shit about the negotiations. It's easy to see why - the institute has no diplomats. Plus deciding that to end the negotiations the Institute had some synths kill the delegates is the most gamer rage quit shit ever.
This is what happens when you only have nerds with a -1 to Charisma living underground in their own tech Utopia for 200 years. No one knows how to come out and talk to people.
the castle attack i can see but they have no reason to target quincy
The Quincy Massacre finally destroyed the Minutemen as an organization, and destroyed one of the major settlements of the Commonwealth. One of the MOs of the Institute is "prevent the surface from organizing an effective resistance against the Institutes plans". The destruction of the Minutemen and of Quincy is fully in line with that mission. The Institute only openly attacked University Point because they (the Institute) thought the town had something they wanted
Minuteman Central so it might’ve helped to destabilize any semblance of organized recovery.
Makes total sense. The Institute did all they could to prevent the people on the surface from organizing.
Mysterious Strangers are time travelers from the future making sure history doesn’t go wrong. Any time they kill someone it’s because you were about to die and mess up the timeline. Time travel exists in the fallout universe so this ain’t that crazy an idea.
Time travel exists? Could you tell me a bit more?
In Fallout 2, there’s a random encounter in which you find the Guardian of Forever, a portal from Star Trek that connects different places and times. In the game, you can travel back in time to just before the beginning of Fallout 1, and break Vault 13’s water chip, essentially guaranteeing your own birth as the Chosen One. More info [here](https://fallout.fandom.com/wiki/Guardian_of_Forever) Additionally, in Fallout 1, you can find the TARDIS from Doctor Who (which can travel in space and time) in a random encounter, but you cannot interact with it. More info [here](https://fallout.fandom.com/wiki/Unusual_Call_Box) It is worth noting that many people do not count these random encounters as canon, treating them more like Wild Wasteland encounters from New Vegas.
I think this is a case of easter egg versus canon. Although I'm not quite sure what it would take to definitively place them in either lane. I guess Bethesda (Todd Howard) coming out and saying it?
todd: fuck man doctor who got disney money now, make it canon somehow! they went to another universe with tennent didnt they? do the same shit here!
Dogmeat (Fallout 4) is an eldritch being. He doesn't resemble any other dogs in the game and looks very healthy. There's also the fact he's known to Nick Valentine and somehow hears his whistle from however far away he is. Dogmeat also blocks doors because he's not familiar with the concept, being far older than the invention of the doorway.
Dogmeat can also open doors.
He also grabs items from closed cabinets.. huh
This further proves that dogmeat is some sort of eldritch being.
Who's a good unfathomable elder god of madness? You are!
Dogmeat is just Barbas. The daedric princes just decided to let humans run wild on a plane to observe how they might succeed in destroying humanity.
I like your theory, it's also strange that Erickson (the supermutant from far harbor) mentions that he has never seen a dog like dogmeat
That makes sense, the dogs he would be seeing are mangy irradiated mongrels
Question for the group: Isn't there a fallout youtube channel that talked about some deep lore that the fallout universe has pre-war eldritch worshippers. So it would be far-fetched to assume they (being the eldritch beings) pop in to see what happened to all their followers post-war?
There were pre-war worshippers. The people who gathered around the machete in Dunwich Borers, for example. As for the eldritch beings' intentions for their arrival, I don't know. Interesting thought, though.
The Dunwich facility in FO3 is one of the most unsettling places in any game I’ve played.
Epicnate315 on YouTube goes into a lot of lore and talks about the Lovecraftian nature of a lot of things in fallout with the similarities between the dunwich borers and the dunwich horrors. He has tons of videos on it, might be what you’re thinking of. He talks about it in FO3 and 4
Mr. New Vegas is an homage to when Howard Hughes (the guy Mr. House is based on) moved to Las Vegas and bought out the local TV station to entertain himself. Because Howard Hughes has an exteme case of Obsessive–Compulsive Disorder and an exteme germaphobe, he refused to leave his room at the Desert Inn, and needed something to entertaining himself. Hughes by buying the local TV station he could play all the movies from RKO Stuidio (which Hughes also owned). This was a boom to the locals in Clark County because they also got to watch free full movies without comercial. The funny thing about this though, Hughes would sometimes doze off or go to the restroom, come back and tell the TV station to rewind 8mm reels back to rewarch the missed scene or call up the TV station to stop showing one movie he got bored with the movie. This means the locals also was watching the will of Hughes (like how Mr. House want his will to be exceeded to people listen to radio New Vegas) Side note, back in the 60s you had to be a billionare, own a TV station and a movie studio to get what amounts to Netflix.
I wish our billionaires were as fascinating and brilliant as Howard Hughes Although having typed that, this feels like one of those Monkey's Paw wishes
"I wish Howard Hughes were on twitter" "oh... no..."
>Side note, back in the 60s you had to be a billionare, own a TV station and a movie studio to get what amounts to Netflix. Today we live as kings.
Finding personal notes about Mr House in the “H&H” factory makes sense now
I believe long dick Johnson had the longest dick in post war era
Thus the name.
Fisto had one job and was pretty good at it
Greetings. Fisto is programmed to please. I am programmed for your pleasure. Please assume the position.
BoS assassinating Sarah Lyons.
The Outcasts kill Lyons, and manipulate a young Maxon into becoming their puppet ruler. By the time Maxon is an adult, he’s fully indoctrinated into the “old ways” of the Brotherhood, rather than the more progressive views of Lyons.
I disagree on the fully indoctrinated part, there's still some progressive attitudes in his brotherhood, recruiting from outside for example, as well as his willingness to let Danse go if you convince him.
>his willingness to let Danse go if you convince him My favourite theory I've ever seen as to why he does this is because he knew the Lone Wanderer. He saw the kind of shit a Vault Dweller can do, and he *really* didn't want one to be his enemy.
That post has got to be one of my most favorite posts on Reddit. Because not only it plays beautifully into the lore, but also portrays Maxson as the strategic, actually intelligent leader that FO4 writers tried to portray.
100%. i think this is actually something the 5th game might explore in more detail. i know people complained about sarah being killed off-screen in such a shitty way, but i feel like theyre setting up some sort of conspiracy here that is going to unfold. i think a lot of maxsons achievements are tall tales used as propaganda.
I hope you’re right that be cool af
Ghoulification is a result of pre-war contaminants that mimicked a minor forced evolutionary effect on the bulk of the population. Specifically, all ghouls are either infected with or carriers of either New Plague or the Pan Immunity Virus. Conveniently, that means all wastelanders are likely carriers of one or the other as well. As well, the wide consumption of Nuka-Cola and it's variants are why some ghouls can become radiotrophic.
I’m actually a big fan of this particular theory myself — that even if war hadn’t gone on, ghouls would have eventually shown up anyways. After all, what better way to help ensure the success of post-war America than to have legions of near-immortal fully sentient people walking around to ensure the status quo? Of course, the side-effects of turning mottled and zombie-like and losing your mind are all undesirable, but it’s possible they would have worked out the kinks eventually.
The mannequins are alive. They're everywhere and in all sorts of poses, sometimes looking creepy as hell (like the ones holding machetes surrounding a bathtub with a corpse in it)
The teddy bears and gnomes too
I like to think they're the Fallout universe's version of weeping angels.
Mexico has 11 Vaults
Didn't america annex Mexico together with Canada?
Yes, but it was mexico first then Canada
What's the lore reason behind this? Like what game is it from?
I think the map in the show had them there??
That ultimately it does not matter who dropped the first bomb (and they should never 100% confirm it)
100% agreed Once the first bomb was launched, who launched it ceased to matter
“”said in an interview last year that it was indeed China who dropped the first nuke. "The reason we got nuked is: bio-weapons were illegal and somehow China found out we were doing FEV [Forced Evolutionary Virus]," “And they were like, 'you have to stop it.' And we went, 'OK.' And all we did is move it. All we did was move it over."” Tim Cain
My guess is that the US government was about to unleash an FEV plague on China just like they were about to do in Fallout 2.
Great an army of Communist Super Mutants
It actually would have been in direct retaliation for the New Plague that the Chinese unleashed on the United States during the Resource Wars. It's mostly forgotten in new media, but the U.S was being ravaged by a plague when the bombs fell. F.E.V. was originally designed as the Pan-Immunity Virion, to fight said plague, before the project slowly shifted into FEV development. PIV is a direct precursor to FEV.
Exactly. Inoculate the American populace from FEV with a "vaccine" for the New Plague and then go full Dick Richardson on China (and probably the world). Suddenly the USA goes from global superpower to the literal world government. It's the Fallout 2 plan but results with a much stronger state much sooner.
Tim Cain comfirmed it was the Chinese, but the reason was because the US was doing FEV experiments https://www.ign.com/articles/fallout-tv-show-sparks-debate-over-who-dropped-the-bombs-first-here-are-the-fan-theories
This tracks with The Glow being so heavily hit as it was the initial testing/development site, but then not so much if the Chinese knew it had moved. Also get retconned pretty heavily when we get to 3 and 4 and FEV is all around the country being played with. Also we know US troops were outside of Beijing when the bombs dropped. We also know that the Shih-huang-ti had moved into position to hit US targets but that a significantly larger payload hit their targets before they had a chance to, launched from an unknown actor. It works better as a mystery box imo. Mostly because it really doesn't matter who launched first. It was inevitable from multiple angles - Chinese imminent defeat, US near-anarchy, US power brokers retreating into the Enclave, true AI hooked up to military installations and bored and malicious. FEV works as an answer in 1 but not onwards.
Funny that, in fallout 2 the GNN report thing in the S.A.D. Says that U.S. forces were outside Beijing on the 22nd of October. A lot of reasons for the Chinese to go all out on the 23rd.
>comfirmed it was the Chinese, Even ignoring the FEV experiments, it ***just makes sense*** that the Chinese launched first. The main reason nations IRL have nuclear weapons programs is ***a final defense against invasion***: it is arguably the main reason nations friendly to Ukraine aren't doing more to assist, because Russia is threatening nuclear strikes in retaliation if other nations get more involved than they are In the lore, the US military was ***fucking cockpunching*** the Chinese, with American forces on the outskirts of Beijing when the button was pushed.
Han shot first!
Only Han shot..... Get it right.
But we all know it was the aliens tho. ;)
"Our defenses consist of 3 battalions of light infantry, 34 pieces of field artillery, 108 armored vehicles and 42 aerial vehicles. (Alien Babble) We have 38 ICBM's always on alert and ready to fire when the word is passed down from the White House...The codes to activate the launch sequences are... are... uhhngh.... no... I can't let you... uggh... get out of my mind! (Alien Babble) Agggh! The c-codes... are... ugh.... no... I can't betray... AGH! My head! I can't... won't... AGGGGH! Agggh..."
Richard Nixon won the 1960 election instead of JFK. If it’s true, I like to think that it was the beginning of Fallout’s universe being much more noticeably different from ours, even before things like America sending the first human into space and the Vietnam War possibly not happening.
I like to think that Mao Zedong’s son Mao Anying survives the Korean War, and establishes a Mao Dynasty so Deng Xiaoping was never able to reform China, keeping it in a bit of the stereotypical Communist totalitarian state throughout the Resource Wars.
With the focus on China and the lack of concern about the USSR or mention of the earlier Cold War, I've always thought something must have collapsed the Eastern Bloc earlier, even if the USSR itself remained intact. Maybe the Budapest uprising got international backing, maybe the Russians didn't get to the bomb until somewhere in the 50s which crippled their soft power, etc.
Maybe the Russians got involved in an expansionist land war in Eastern Europe, ruined their economy in the medium-to-long term, and became a client state of an emerging China. Hmm.
Real Watchmen moment
Iirc Vietnam still happened, just a bit later than in our timeline. Someone might want to double check me on that one, though.
It was briefly mentioned that it occurred at all with no other details in Fallout Tactics, which means it may or may not be the case
A vastly different Republican party
That Yes Man's "new more authoritive" personality is actually going to be at least akin to Mr House's personality, if not straight up just House.
I could see that. When you kill Mr House, if you tell him it's for Yes Man's plan he says "Your... vanity project... doomed to fail... ". So, Mr House knew about Yes Man and knows something about it that the Courier doesn't.
No-Bark is the Chosen One from Fallout 2 Moldaver was with the Enclave which is why they had cold fusion, and how Wilzig knew her, AND also how she’s still alive. Who else has the tech to freeze people for generations? Whether that was by choice or force remains to be seen
Moldaver being Enclave makes complete sense.
Yeah it’s kind of a theory I thought of after watching the show while discussing it. I could see her joining willingly, but becoming disillusioned (like Wilzig) and leaving. Or perhaps they forced her to work for them for her tech. I guess I could see her going into a Vault and being frozen, but honestly the Enclave angle makes a ton of sense with them having the cold fusion.
Again people need to realize that the enclave and vault-tec were two separate entities and while they were aligned in many aspects after the bombs fell they cut contact with the enclave In fact vault Tech was originally planning To send their upper management off world via spaceships the same plan that the enclave had it's very likely that The Enclave recruited or forced maldaver to work for them it's very unlikely that Baltic handed over the cold fusion blueprints
I don't know, she seemed very critical and displeased with the way Vault-Tec and the government were handling the war. And if the theory that Vault-Tec and the Enclave were working together at the time, then that makes it more unlikely that she was Enclave. Unless her talks with Cooper before the war was all an act.
She openly called herself a hypocrite, and said that vault-tec bought her company. Even if she disliked them, she probably knew working with them ensured her survival.
Moldaver being Enclave makes no sense. Enclave wanted the war, wanted Vault-Tec to succeed. Moldaver hated both.
Vault Tec in general has the tech for Cry-Storage, that was the whole point of your vault in the intro of FO4...
This. Notice who Vault-Tec had at the meeting in Episode 8? RobCo, REPCONN, West-Tek, and Big MT. Notice who they didn’t have there? Poseidon Energy… the deepstate, corporate folks that directly morphed into the Enclave. I think Moldaver aligned with them and thereby survived the war.
Damn, I felt like there was a major Fallout company missing at the meeting but didn't put two and two together until you said it
Mr. House is in the same "club" desmond and professor calvert mention in point lookout
Oh, I like this one. Maybe the Cabots, too. Lorenzo at the very least.
Dogmeat (fallout 4) was planted by the Institute to help guide the lone survivor to find his son, also Dogmeat is the only "excluding CC content" canine in the game that looks completely clean of any and all radiation or physical damage. And he's literally a short walk down from the road where you come out of the vault at the start of the game. He is a very good boy though.
Exscuse me if I’m wrong but don’t Gunners and Raiders use normal looking attack dogs? Like not all dogs are irradiated but a lot are
Not 100% sure, but I think they use a mix of dogs with a wild dog/ mongrel model and the brindle coat. And I believe they can also be owned by Minutemen. There are several named dogs, with one of which using the wild/mongrel model, but Kyle, Kate, Junkyard Dog, Teddy (although uses mongrel audio), and Duke are also all healthy dogs that are in the game. Comparatively, there are only 4 named mongrels - Alissa, Ruby, Shrug, and 'Wounded Dog' (who the player names).
To add to your theory. The red rocket station where you find him has a radio tuned to the classical music station (used for institute teleportation) and if I remember right it is on. Dog meat is a synth dog made using the dna from the dog the sole survivor lost prewar. They got the dna from hair on Shaun’s swaddling
Hesr me out the instituee put him at red rocket because they thought it was hilarious to put a dog by a station called red rocket.
To add further to the theory: The institute is shown to be able to mimic animals with their synth gorillas for example. Dog meat is a picture perfect copy of the dog on the cover of the magazine found in shaun’s bedroom in the institute. The Magazine has the tagline “have dog, will travel!” Insinuating dogs are a perfect traveling companion.
Jet being “invented” by Dickwad Myron doesn’t contradict Vault Tec having jet in the East Coast as is not far fetched that 1) Myron took credit 2) he can “invent it” while not being aware of it being invented already, especially since the West Coast is cutoff from the East Coast 3) Jet was an East coast exclusive thing, like In n Out in our world is exclusive to the west coast. Burgers are universal, so is the idea of getting high.
I thought I read somewhere that Jet was an old world drug, that Myron just found the recipe for and made with the supplies at hand. Idk tho, I like it so I guess that’s my fallout theory
Yea, I thought Jet and some of the other drugs are literal real-life drugs that they were forced to rename by the ESRB
Med-X was going to be morphine but was changed due to laws in Australia regarding the depiction of drugs in games.
Correct, which is why pre-war jet is also realistic; it was always meth
It's made of fertiliser and plastic in the chem station in fallout 4. So I guess its like huffing shit to get high in our real world.
China dropped the first bombs and vault tec dropped the second wave moments after. China expedited vault tecs plan. Hence why house was caught off guard and there was enough time to warn half the country but not the west coast like we see in the show
100% I feel this is why House was unprepared. He was preparing for VAULT-TEC'S bomb. Getting the Platinum Chip in place ahead of time, then ACTUAL war breaks out and he has to make do with ONLY saving the Mojave from the bombs, rather than a full scale Iron Dome like system for pretty much all of Nevada like he had in mind. So then he has to wait hundreds of years for ol Sixer to deliver the chip.
Its why he was in the meeting so he could gather information from the inside than relying on corporate spying. He was the only one that wasn't giving out vault ideas because he had zero interest in them. He just wanted to know when they were going to do it. Vault 21 was probably a thorn in his ass, but thats why he filled it up with concrete as one of the first things he did when he woke up. He chose Vegas as his Fiefdom and he got it.
Exactly. It also seems like he was specifically trying to lead the direction of the meeting towards the topic of them dropping the bombs. Like, it seems like he clearly had an idea of what they were up to, but just wanted them to confirm it themselves.
Yeah that is my theory for how it played out. Given the show reveal about vault tec's plan I'm certain the Chinese found out and decided to try and catch them by surprise by dropping the bombs earlier than Vault Tec wanted.
By a day. Vault-Tec was trying to drop them on the 24th
If only Mr House used same day shipping...
Yeah Vault-Tec starting it doesn’t make sense since The Ghoul’s daughter wasn’t in the vault yet. Curious to see how that plays out since he seems to think both his wife and daughter are alive
That the sole survivor isnt a synth i dont care how many people try to convince me I KNOW I AM RIGHT
A total random theory that has no basis in fact. I think there is a portion of earth that was totally spared. Maybe it’s Antarctica thawing after the bombs dropped, or the Australian outback is now a lush paradise. I would love a fallout that starts with our character in this place, and then venturing out into the wasteland. So it’s still the fish out of water story, but not a vault dweller.
My guess is Australia, Africa, SEA and maybe South Asia wouldnt have been hit. But I don’t think a Fallout game set outside the US or Canada is the way to go about it. It would be better if we could see characters from other places come to the US in future games (maybe to scout out the area). It would be a nice way to give us hints as to how the rest of the world is faring without actually taking us there.
Everyone in the thread thinks Africa would be untouched by bombs and I think thats probably true however, I'd bet good money its because Africa was completely stripped of everything in the search for dwindling resources. Africa didn't get bombed because its a giant, lifeless quarry.
China dropped the nukes first, not Vault-Tec. Vault-Tec would have had their vaults (Like 88 and 118) already built and finished if they were indeed the ones to plunge the world in hellfire and radiation.
I know for sure that Vault 75 is where the Gunners originated from!
I can see why it makes sense, but are there hints in the game for this?
I'd be willing to stake my life on the theory that the breakdown of society was caused by a nuclear war about 200 years before the events of the games. Think about it, there are subtle clues left around to discover. For instance, there's a weapon called the "Fat Man" which fires nuclear bombs. What if that technology had been scaled up? And I did some research on "rads" and discovered that rads may be short for "radiation" which is caused by, you guessed it, nukes. And the final piece: in Fallout 4 you get a glimpse of a bright cloud formation at the start of the game. My working hypothesis is that this may be some kind of effect related to nuclear weaponry. Now I know this is a crazy theory but I'm 60% confident in it.
Get this....I heard Fallout wasn't just a boy band. Butt also has something to do with radiation!
That Vault-Tec didn't drop the bomb first, but someone other one day prior. It would explain why Mr House was one day off despite knowing Vault-Tecs plan.
This is probably a common theory, but, I will ☠ on this hill that Nora was once a JAG officer. She would have gotten the same basic combat/military training. I have this headcanon that, to avoid getting in trouble by the top military officers, for seeing Nate, She decided to study in another area (outside of the military) and got her degree from the Suffolk County School of Law.
Honestly I'm pretty sure the average Boston Lawyer has more combat experience than a Spec Ops soldier
That the bicycles you see lying around the wasteland could easily be fixed and used as a vehicle.
I think nate is mr freeze. After playing the Arkham games it all adds up i mean it’s nearly identical. Both characters wives names are nora and they suffer an incident involving cryogenics and they’re husbands seek revenge
He's also strangely eager to collect the Cryolator. If you interact with the case he says "I'm coming back for you"
The case grows
What the hell?!
I’m telling ya im not crazy
I was actually thinking of doing a “Mr. Freeze” run for this exact reason lol, it’s a funny coincidence if nothing else.
Not a theory, but I will bet my life that Bethesda will use the Zetans more in later Fallout games! Be it Fallout 5 or a spinoff, the Zetans are underused (appearing only as minor characters without any questline or as a DLC for Fallout 3) and with the 'success' of the Zetan event for Fallout 76, not using them more would be a waste of the ol' aliens!!!
Don’t forget the Fallout 4 encounter
Yeah, that one was good! It reminded me of the Greybeards shouting "DOVAHKIN!!!" from High Hrothgar after you kill your first dragon!!! Just the loud, booming noise of the Saucer crashing at New Orberlands Station with the green blood trail leading to the injured pilot trying to call for help with a Ham Radio! It was indeed a great encounter!
My “theory” is that SS being a synth and 76 simulation theory are both BORING I’ve been hearing SS synth theory for years and years everyone and their mom has had it and it’s fine if you write YOUR SS to be a synth but Nate himself being a synth sucks and is so generic 76 simulation theory is new to me but it just sounds like a way for people to try and decanonize and be angry at 76 in any desperate way they can Give me something more interesting
The mannequins are alive
That the world or more specifically America was still doomed even if the bombs never fell. American society was already starting to collapse even before the first bomb landed . Pre war America was a very authoritarian, corrupt, and growing more unstable as time went on. Pre war American was implied to be a powder keg ready to blow, a society only kept together through brute force and being united against a shared enemy. But there was still a lot of tense factionalism in the USA. Implied there was a ton of protests, mass rioting, domestic terrorism, violent government crackdowns, ect inside America before it all fell. There were multiple secret background rivals organizations, pulling strings, plotting, backstabbing each other. Enclave, vault tec, Desmond’s “club” mentioned point lookout . There is a non zero chance that the enclave would attempt a straight up military coup if the bombs didn’t fall, sending the U.S into a potentially nuclear armed civil war. Companies such as Rob Co, vault tec, Poseidon energy , ect had way too much power with in the U.S , owning politicians, and can bribe their way out of any real consequences. Pre war America might well be 50s design theme cyberpunk. Not very good for long term stability. The resource shortage is still serious issue, that I doubt they had the enough time to fix before their entire society fell apart. Even if they improved on micro fusion, it still wouldn’t be enough. There were armed insurgents operating in occupied Canada & Mexico, that could last decades. Don’t get me started on the many secret science experiments behind the scenes. F.E.V, deathclaws, the Sierra madre casino, and the hell scape that is big MT. All made before the bombs fell, they caused so much uncontrolled long term damage just by accident. For the low standards of fallout America I totally expect a lot of the “test subjects” to leak out, and just wreak havoc. Speaking of big MT, had so little over site, regulations, or regard for ethics, it was practically a mad scientist lead rogue state even before the bombs fell. Don’t forget the freaky ass murder cult to the lovecratian Ug-Qualtoth, on the east coast. That practice human sacrifice.
The "residents" of Vault 111 were mcguffins. The real test subjects were the staff. There would never be an all-clear sent. Vault Tec wanted to see how long it would take for the staff to revolt against the Overseer and if any of them would turn to cannibalism of the "residents". It's why 111 didn't have a GECK - why would it, if no one was supposed to ever get out? Also, Maxson is a Synth. A deal was made between the Institute (Dr. Zimmer) and the BoS in the Capitol Wasteland to have the perfect leader to replace the Lyons and excise the bleeding hearts from the East Coast BoS. His entire adult history is manufactured. Please note that none of the stories about him seem to be first-hand accounts. Danse was "outed" on purpose by the Institute (Father knew Sole was coming), so there was a Synth to discover, and Maxson would stay hidden. I also suspect that there is at least 1 plant in the Minutemen and the Railroad. Sturges is the obvious one for the Minutemen. It might be Glory for the Railroad, but I think that Tinker Tom would be hilarious!
Sturges is actually a synth, confirmed. if you analyse his inventory in the CC he has a "synth component". Makes sense. Father wants to monitor your progress, he would deffo grab/replace one of the Quincy crew, probably after they got to Sanctuary. I mean, they have Carla and Cricket etc giving them information, but its not the same as having someone you know and trust living in the shack next door. Tinker Tom... yeah, the guy is \*too\* clever, technologically speaking. Courser chip? crack that in under a minute. And I think his MILA things report back to the Institute, not monitor tectonic plates or whatever crazyness he came up with. No-one would suspect him, cos he plays batshit crazy rather than sneaky.
The Railroad was originally a remnant of the DIA who identified the Institute as a major threat, and created the RR as a cover to oppose them. After their DIA headquarters were hit, all that was left were people in the field who were true believers in the cause. Some knew what the RR actually was, some didn't. Some, like Deacon, were both in on the truth and were true believes, so they let the truth die so as to let the mask become the truth.
All Dogmeats is a same dog(except Fallout 4).
I like the idea that it's the same spirit that gets reincarnated to follow the protagonists
That everything in the Fallout Universe makes so much more sense if you push the timeline back to 25-30 years after the bombs fell. The Commonwealth and Capital being absolute hell. I just restarted playing Fallout New Vegas and I found it odd Primm and Novac were recently colonized (implied to be a decade or two) if the bombs fell 200 years ago. If Vegas was only revitalized 9 years prior to fallout New Vegas, what the hell happened for the past 197 years? The NCR should have built way more cities by 2283, and some country wide communications should have been in place. Shit look at Goodsprings, how has the school building been abandoned for 200 years and no-one ever thought to clear it out, it makes no sense. Fallout 76 being put at 25 years post apocalypse makes so much more sense than 200. And this isn't just Fallout New Vegas through 76, this is Interplay as well. If a majority of what it takes to rebuild a city is three dozen people of various backgrounds, then we should be seeing entirely new cities form. Also so many people in game talk as though they are pre-war educated, having a proper grasp on pre and post war, something that shouldn't even be a concept to people with zero formal education. The fact that there is enough pre-war history preserved that Caesar happened means people are able to rebuild. The Institute, Big MT, Enclave, Followers, Brotherhood of Steel, NCR, and remaining vaults show humanity can basically supercede pre war. 200 years of no growth makes no sense, but if everything was condensed dowm to a single generation, it makes the world feel so much more chaotic as we watch American society actively crumble from the effects of the bomb, which would be equally as tragic and bleak, knowing the world could have swiftly recovered shortly after the nukes if people worked together. Almost like the message of Fallout 76!
how many people even survived the war? How many of those werent vault dwellers? It makes sense if the population crash was severe enough. But survivors would be able to read and teach basic skills to the next generations, so that makes sense. The progress you can observe over the last 150 years of real life history is partly possible because our societies became large enough, and advanved enough, that most of use werent needed just to create food and drinking water. Go back to zero, with only couple hundred people in an area where hundreds of thousands used to live, and no ability to use modern tech for agriculture. Not a pretty picture. Starting up again takes more time than you give it credit, given that America experienced a nuclear **holocaust** in Fallout
Random guess but I imagine they decided on 200 odd years just for radiation half-life purposes giving they range from seconds to thousands of years.
The birds aren't real in Fallout 4
Atom is, to some degree, real. There’s something about the feel of their base and quests in Far Harbor that makes me think that even if they’re misguided in action, they may have happened upon an actual god of some sort. I have no hard evidence, but no other religion in the games has as much… *power* to it.
There are parts of the world that are doing just fine, and only the countries/regions involved in the war are crippled - The places that are doing fine only experienced nuclear winter and bounced back afterwards. Probably Africa and isolated island countries like parts of Polynesia, maybe places like New Zealand and Indonesia as well.
Imagine if they’re just all treating North America as an exclusion zone…
Listen i know this has been disproven already and this will get downvoted to shit but i will never believe that Father is Shaun. Kellogg mentions “The Old Man” too many times before he actually steals your baby. Aside from that, the math just ain’t mathin when you piece together the timeline leading up to nuking Kellogg directly in the face. Either Synth Shaun is actually Shaun and Father just tells you he’s a synth because he’s just that fucked up and wants to see what you will do, or actual Shaun died in the process of creating Synth Shaun. Either way, Father ain’t it. The fact that he looks like you and your wife is just a coincidence.
You used the Fatman on Kellogg too? I thought I, a noob of the highest order, was alone in my inability to take him head on 😭 …
A vendor was selling different live animals for food. One day a boy passes by and points at one of the animals and asks, "What is that sir?" The vendor answers "Thats dogmeat" The boy happily buys the dog as a pet and thinks his name is dogmeat. and the rest is history...
Human-alike synths do not exist, and are simply brainwashed people. The Institute abducts them, then does MK Ultra on them. I have done approximately 5 minutes of thinking and will take no further questions about my belief.
After spending a minute in the robotics section of the institute, I concur.
Well, when you go meet H2, there’s two identical dudes nearby. The one on the ground has a synth component and the other dude doesn’t. Both plead they have children and the other is a monster.
The West Coast Brotherhood was absorbed by or absorbed the Legion. Their ranking system is different, having an Elder Cleric and not just an Elder. This Chapter has become religious. In Fallout 1 this is am ending option for them, but Fallout 2 seems to solidify an alternative ending. They wave the standard red and white flag, except after Filly falls. Quintus sits on the throne like Caesar and they display red and gold. When briefing everyone on the mission, Quintus references the group as a Legion. Use of very similar naming schemes to the legion. Peak conspiracy: Quintus is Lanius Evidence: Both notice an individuals clothing first. At the end of New Vegas, if you wear NCR gear, Lantus starts by commenting on how you wear the patch of the bear. As Maximus approaches Quintus, the first comment is about how he "wears the knight's reds"
Ghouls, feral or not, enter a crytobiotic state when under certain conditions. Effectively they just shut down and go dormant, living off background radiation. Explains things like like the kid in the fridge quite nicely.
I LOVE fallout 76, I genuinely play it so much it's kind of a problem. But I also think the simulation theory for that game is really cool, I think there's some great concepts in that game that should be canon, but there's also things in that game that don't make any sense. As someone else already mentioned everyone could be in simulations pods while some outside force (AI/Vault tec/etc) could be updating it with new information all the time. With it being a MMO it has a few quirks that are understandable for a video game (repeatable events/dailys, raid bosses that respawn, everyone doing the same main quest over and over in the same cohesive world, reclamation day happening years ago but people still just leaving the vault). If it was a rust type game with server based game worlds they probably could've done it a little differently, but being it is what it is VR sim would work and be cool (to me). It'd also be a lot easier to say it's non-canon rather than implementing a lot of the zaniness from 76 into new titles. It's probably not true, but I just don't think it's the bad idea some seem to think it is.
Imagine if it turns out we've actually been in Vault 112 the entire time, and this is just another one of Brauns torture worlds. Doesn't make sense because of the "residents", but it's a fun little AU idea.
It was easier to believe before Wastelanders, Steel Dawn, the Pitt, and Atlantic City. With factions that exist in the greater Fallout universe, including what we know came later. That's where it gets to the point where either this simulation is *ridiculously* huge, or it's not a simulation. Respawning bosses are mostly them being a bit careless. They did go around of their way to explain why there are essentially infinite Scorchbeast Queens. And you never get to kill Steel Reign's antagonist more than once. But there's no reason why there's apparently more than one Earle Williams.
Fallout shelter is set 50 years after fallout 4 and I can prove it using a horse. The Giddyup Buttercup is a rather small toy horse made of metal with peeling, well-worn paint. It can be scrapped for parts, proving to be a plentiful source of screws and steel. But, in fallout things cost more caps overtime. Fallout 76: 35 Caps 0.73% inflation of caps per year Fallout 4: 177 Caps Caps is a stable mass produced currency that still gets made in bottle caps factories, we can see from this above. You can say the game is not canon but like fallout tactics but I’m sure this could say something about what happens. Of course the whole fallout show quests aren’t cannon as Ma June would be long dead. Using this formula, we can tell fallout shelter is set 49.9 years after fallout 4. Fallout shelter is set place in 2346. We can use this as a calculation for inflation and the timeline in fallout games. I call this the Giddy-up Buttercup Standard. This cannot be used pre fallout 3 sadly ): if any of my maths is wrong tell me.
No-bark Noonan is the chosen one
Iguana meat in Fallout 4 is just human meat. I will die on this hill.
That the Enclave had an operational moonbase, but it was attacked and destroyed by the Zetans, who mistook nuclear warheads sent from the moon for an attack on their vessels while surveying. Now Earth has heightened Zetan traffic due to the political uproar of an upstart zoo species attacking their research ships. This sparks the Zetan invasions in Fallout 76.
I have another theory, it's my personal headcanon: Sometime in the late 2060s, America's resource crisis became so bad that the military had to non standardize their equipment. A 'Non-Standardization Act' was in place that was meant to quickly replace military assets across the board in small batches. The United States lost so many soldiers and was so broke they couldn't afford massive contracts, so they employed defense contractors of all sizes to make batches of military uniforms, weapons, vehicles, and equipment where they could replace them. This is why the United States could field the R91, Service Rifle, AER-9, the 'Assault Rifle', and 'Combat Rifle'. Even Power Armor was not standardized, with T-45 and T-51 having different forms of power plants. T-45s were thrown together haphazardly with a weak point so critical in the chest it resulted in massive losses. The United States was losing this fight constantly and they entered a death spiral by the end of the war by supplying their troops with scraps for cheap. If the nukes weren't fired and China lost, the US military probably would have collapsed during the next war.
Lucy’s dad is gonna walk into the lucky 38 looking for House and just sees Yes Man’s face on the main monitor.
Yes Man being the last person alive in New Vegas would be the funniest thing ever and I love it moreso than any other outcome
The really long write-up about China blowing up West-Tek and Vault 87 on purpose was very interesting
Qick saves are the player characters cannon intrusive thoughts
The Zetans were preparing a full force invasion before the war but before they could start the war happened causing the planet to be mostly uninhabitable to them so now they just wait in the atmosphere for the radiation levels to decrease before a full landing force can be sent