Fallout

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"War, war never changes."

-Ron Perlman

Fallout is a post-post-apocalyptic game series that takes place in America about a century or two in the future where America had been bombed so much that it has been left as a rotting, smelly and depressing wasteland that happens to have high as fuck raiders come up to you and attempt to have anal with a flaming chainsaw or a laser weapon.

Despite the setting, most of the games are fairly noblebright, with a darkly humorous streak and a series-long theme of rebuilding.

Plot and Setting

For those wanting an in-depth analysis of the Fallout storyline, the "Fallout Storyteller" Youtube series has a large number of episodes dealing with the subject and can be viewed here.

Basically, while technology continued to advance past the 50-60'es, the culture did not, which is one of the biggest sources of hilarity in the game. Imagine a lady in a pink diner dress, high heels and curly, blonde hair run up to you with a nuke-launcher on the back and try to sell some drugs to you that could enhance you to the level of a Space Marine for hours.

Transistors were invented in 2067 rather than 1947, and humanity encountered alien technology around the time of World War 2 resulting in a society with computers that barely had 1MB of data storage and television was still black and white, but robots would clean your house and police your neighborhood while you yourself could own a disintegration ray hanging above the mantlepiece in case undesirables move into your neighborhood.

Some events still happened, such as Ronald Reagan and Nixon both becoming president. Others, such as the entire world running out of oil all at once, didn't. The US still landed on the moon in '69, but set up a moonbase and fought a war against aliens. Vietnam occurred, but the United States openly participated in combat operations rather than simply attempt to defend the South. There are other divergences that occurred much earlier as well (possibly because aliens were monitoring and abducting humans throughout Fallout history) evidenced by the altered architecture in Washington DC. Hippies and McCarthyism remained right up until the end.

The United States reorganized itself into 13 commonwealths with the states functioning as counties and the old Maryland Cowpens Flag with 13 stars replaced the 50 stars of Old Glory. The US progressed through the women's liberation and civil rights movements, so by the time of the bombs falling, racism and sexism were mostly forgotten. Religion and society's perception/treatment of it appear to have remained unchanged from the 60's; so no Catholic church scandals, no new atheism movement and no Islamophobia.

One of the biggest differences is the miniaturization of nuclear reactors in Fallout, to the point that everything from cars to ammo cartridges for laser weapons have them. The cars that still remain, mostly no longer functional, actually explode in a mushroom cloud if damaged sufficiently.

During the lead-up to the end of the world, oil became the major resource in the world as supplies dried up. The Middle East oil reserves were drained dry and the region ceased to matter on a global scale when they pooled their uranium into weapons stockpiles and gave the world a preview of what was to come. Europe had united into the "European Commonwealth" rather than the European Union, but when the Middle East blew itself away they turned inwards in petty wars over remaining resources until they had depleted themselves and ceased to matter on a global scale. The same thing happened to the Soviet Union, leaving only the United States and China as the remaining superpowers, which stood alone. Alaska became the only source of oil left on Earth, resulting in the last great war occurring between China and the United States for control of it. The US annexed Canada in its entirety, turning it into one giant mobilization center to retain the great white Northwest. The South American nations were left to fend for themselves. China, rather than deploy the expected numerical superiority, focused on small elite teams utilizing advanced stealth technology while the United States deployed atomic-powered robots and commandos in advanced powered armor.

To advance their chances of victory, the US took the greatest minds of the world and created a secret facility contained underneath a mountain which was dubbed "Big Mountain" somewhere in the deserts of the American southwest. There, scientists churned out amazing works straight out of science fiction, from technology that could keep a brain alive in a jar forever to teleportation to cracking the secrets of the Chinese stealth suits. They were given ample numbers of Chinese prisoners of war to experiment on, as well as American citizens (and hippies) who were disappeared during the paranoia of the extended Cold War. Despite the high casualties and useless horrors that came out of the Big MT, the six executives in charge of the site were given unlimited authority within.

Towards the end of the Resource War, American biologists were tasked with countering possible Chinese biological weapons, but their work took an unexpected turn. When the Army learned that test animals for the "Pan-Immunity Virion Project" gained mass and intelligence, it took over the project and renamed it the "Forced Evolutionary Virus," hoping to use tough, intelligent super-soldiers to smash the Chinese hordes. The Army soldiers tasked with protecting the project while it went through involuntary human trials mutinied a few days before the bombs fell. It would be almost a hundred years later that FEV would become a threat to the wasteland.

As nuclear paranoia grew, the United States government (or rather, the shadow government known as the Enclave) and the Vault-Tec Corporation initiated "Project Safehouse," a plan to build a number of underground bomb shelters known as Vaults across the country, each large enough to house around a thousand people until it would be safe to return to the surface and rebuild. Secretly, the Enclave designed most of the Vaults as social experiments to study how people handled long-term isolation and how suitable they would be for recolonizing Earth and potentially other planets. Those who couldn't get a place in the Vaults began coming up with alternatives, from personal fallout shelters to finding safe places for themselves and their communities to retreat to once the bombs fell.

The Enclave planned on using a false alarm nuclear attack to drive populations into the Vaults,but the actual nuclear apocalypse occurred much sooner than expected. What caused it isn't known and who fired first isn't either (a computer in an underground army base, the switchboard, shows the chinese fired first but considering its an american army base, of course they blame the chinese), but the United States and China both unleashed their nuclear arsenals at each other. The United States was devastated, with many major locations annihilated. The people in the Vaults hid away within, all suffering from the experiments needlessly with most Vaults falling to catastrophe as a result. The people who didn't get into a Vault attempted to survive as best they could. Most of those who did manage to escape annihilation had hidden in mountains, natural caves, or wilderness so far from civilization no bombs were launched at them.

The humans who didn't turn into Ghouls mostly became tribal societies with varying degrees of friendliness and/or savagery. Few tribes retained the civilized knowledge from before and were oftentimes extremely hostile to those they encounter, although many can be civilized enough to maintain friendly contact with other peoples.

Fallout 1

I'm here to kick ass and chew bubble gum. I'm all out of gum.

Eighty four years after the bombs fell, a resident of Vault 13 in California is chosen to leave the Vault to find a replacement unit for the Vault's damaged water chip, which controls the water recycling system. So begins the story of Fallout 1. This Vault Dweller, in his search for his prize, discovers that the world is (sort of) safe to return to, as many others had. He also discovers a major threat to the nascent human rebuilding: the Master's Army. This army of Super Mutants is the tool of the Master, who intends to turn the entire human race into Super Mutants. The Vault Dweller manages to stop the Master, though it is not known if he talked him down or blew him up, and return to the Vault with his prize, only to be exiled for being "contaminated" by contact with the outside world. Many other inhabitants of Vault 13 choose to leave with him, traveling north and founding the village of Arroyo.

Fallout 2

You get to visit New Reno, the scummiest of all pits in Fallout games.

The Vault Dweller's grandchild comes of age, passes a series of trials, and is then selected to find an artifact from Vault 13: a Garden of Eden Creation Kit, which will rebuild the wasteland into a paradise. So begins the story of Fallout 2. This Chosen One, in his search for his prize, discovers that the United States government is (sort of) still around and had abducted the people of Vault 13. He later learns that they are called the Enclave and had also abducted his tribe in his absence. The Chosen One travels to the Enclave's base of operations, a Poseidon Energy oil rig, to free the captives, find the GECK, and destroy the Enclave.

Fallout Tactics

"Fuck em"...*pukes*

In Fallout Tactics, the Brotherhood of Steel began inducting tribes into its ranks in small numbers while defending the Wasteland against threats such as an army of renegade robots. The main group of the Brotherhood is separated from this group, which takes over Vault 0 and continues pushing eastwards. Although the bulk of Fallout Tactics is non-canon, the basic story remained.

Fallout 3

"Scenic overlook". Gotta love them 4th wall breaches!

Two hundred years after the Great War, a civil war breaks out in Vault 101 after its head physician, James, leaves. His child then escapes the chaos in search of him. So begins the story of Fallout 3. This Lone Wanderer, in his search for his prize- I mean father, discovers that he was not born in Vault 101 as he had been led to believe, but in Rivet City, and his father had been working on "Project Purity" to purge the radiation from the Potomac River. Following his father's trail finds the Lone Wanderer trapped in the Tranquility Lane VR simulation in Vault 112 and having to endure Stanislaus Braun's sadism to escape. When they return to the Jefferson Memorial, they find that the Enclave has decided to take over the project. James floods the Purity station with radiation to keep it out of the Enclave's hands. The Lone Wanderer and Dr. Madison Li flee to the Pentagon, which the Brotherhood of Steel has converted to their base of operations in the Capital Wasteland. Elder Lyons puts the Lone Wanderer on the trail to find a GECK in Vault 87. Upon finding it (with the help of a friendly super mutant named Fawkes), the Enclave captures him and the GECK. The Wanderer kills the President Eden during his escape and brings the GECK back to the Jefferson Memorial behind the Brotherhood's assault and the awesome, anti-Communist super robot Liberty Prime. After dealing with Colonel Autumn, the Lone Wanderer is supposed to sacrifice himself in the radiation-filled control room to activate Project Purity. But that's bullshit, so the Broken Steel DLC allowed the Wanderer to survive or order a radiation-resistant companion to activate it instead and continued the plot to eliminate the Enclave's presence in the Capital Wasteland.

The Pitt, a.k.a. Pittsburg, a.k.a. the industrial shithole of this universe.

• The DLC campaigns for Fallout 3 were Operation: Anchorage, a simulation of the Battle of Anchorage from the Sino-American War; The Pitt, a trip to the ruins of Pittsburgh to resolve a crisis between slaves and raiders, Broken Steel, where you mop up the Enclave and open up post-game adventure; Point Lookout, a trip to the swamps of Maryland for open-ended adventure; and Mothership Zeta, where the Lone Wanderer is abducted by aliens, teams up with captives from across time, and takes over the ship.

Fallout: New Vegas

The cold, cold road to hookers, drugs, street violence and rock 'n roll.

In 2281, the New California Republic and Caesar's Legion are staring at each other across the Colorado River, having fought over Hoover Dam once before. Against this backdrop, a courier is shot for his charge, a poker chip made of platinum, and buried in a shallow grave. He's dug out by a Securitron robot and taken to Dr. Mitchell of Goodsprings, who saves his life. So begins the plot of Fallout: New Vegas. This Courier, in his search for his prize, travels around the Mojave Wasteland in pursuit of his attempted murderer, Benny, the head of the Chairmen, who runs the Tops casino in New Vegas. Eventually, all three major players in the Mojave (the NCR, the Legion, and Mr. House) want the Courier to do their dirty work to gain control over the Mojave, but there is a fourth option: Benny's plan was to use a subverted Securitron named Yes Man to take over House's network and use the platinum chip (actually a data disc containing a firmware upgrade for the Securitrons) to secure control over New Vegas. Whatever the Courier chose, the Second Battle of Hoover Dam is inevitable and only one faction can win.

Jokes aside, this is one of the most atmospheric settings in all of games out there.

• The DLC campaigns for Fallout: New Vegas were Dead Money, where the Courier is kidnapped by a mad Brotherhood of Steel elder to pillage the Sierra Madre Casino's vault and is forced to work with a ghoul lounge singer, a Nightkin super mutant with a split personality, and a mutilated, mute Brotherhood of Steel scribe to achieve the goal; Honest Hearts, where a trip to New Canaan goes wrong and the Courier has to help Joshua Graham, Caesar's former legate, save the tribals of Zion Canyon; Old World Blues, where the Courier is abducted to the Big Empty and forced to help the Think Tank, a team of deranged brains in jars, fight a former member of their team; and Lonesome Road, where the Courier goes to the ruins of the Divide to confront his past.

Fallout 4

In Boston at the zero hour of the war, new parents are admitted to Vault 111 and placed in cryogenic suspension. One of them is murdered, their infant child Shaun stolen, and the other refrozen. When the cryo systems fail, the only survivor of Vault 111 heads to the surface in pursuit of the man who ruined a family. So begins the plot of Fallout 4. This Sole Survivor, in pursuit of his (or her) prize- I mean child, discovers that two hundred years have passed. As he travels, he encounters the last of the Minutemen and goes to Diamond City (built on the ruins of Fenway Park) following a lead. He finds the people paranoid about an organization called "The Institute" replacing anybody they know with near-perfect replicas called synths, and further investigation points to the Institute having abducted Shaun. He can work with the Minutemen, the Brotherhood of Steel, or the synth emancipation group known as the Railroad to fight the Institute, or choose to join it instead.

Like Fallout Tactics, Fallout 4 contains several continuity errors. But unlike Fallout Tactics, these are considered canon. Thanks Bethesda.

• The DLC campaigns for Fallout 4 are Automatron, where the Mechanist comes to the Commonwealth with an army of robots and allows you to create your own custom mix-and-match robots to use as companions or settlers; Far Harbor, where a case from the Valentine Detective Agency takes the Sole Survivor to an island off the coast of Maine, where the locals struggle with the Children of Atom and a mysterious fog that blankets the island while runaway synths live in a refuge built inside an old astronomical observatory, and is the largest DLC campaign Bethesda has released yet, being even bigger than the Shivering Isles from Oblivion; and Nuka World, which goes to a pre-War Nuka Cola-themed amusement park for shenanigans.
  • There is also a series of "Workshop" packs that add new settlement items. Wasteland Workshop adds more settlement items and allows you to tame and train wasteland creatures; Contraption Workshop adds weapon and armor racks and stuff with moving parts; and Vault-Tec Workshop allows you to build your own Vault and perform experiments on its inhabitants.

Factions

• New California Republic: The self-styled successor to the United States of America, the New California Republic started as an alliance of small settlements in northern California that now flies the former state/commonwealth flag of the two-headed bear. Through diplomacy and vigorous expansion, NCR controls most of old California and is currently (as of 2281) expanding into Nevada, intent on acquiring Hoover Dam to provide electricity to its citizens. NCR believes in liberty and justice for all, but staggers under its own bureaucracy, the corruption that comes with it, and high taxes to the point that its unpleasantly similar to the pre-war government, albeit without the Enclave (yet). It is, by all means, the nicest of the larger nations, providing support to their citizens in return for relatively heavy taxes and following strict laws; it's also the closest the post-apocalyptic wastelands of America have to a functioning Old World-style country. The NCR grew out of an alliance of settlements including Shady Sands (which later became the capital city), Vault City, the Hub, Redding, and Klamath. The west is largely a safe place to live because of them, but many individual towns aren't too happy about their desire to take everything for themselves. The economy of the NCR is primarily built on "Brahmin Barons," who are the owners of large-scale brahmin ranching operations that have considerable economic and political power, as well as powerful mercantile and scavenger caravan companies. Their military is based on the pre-War US military but with a more tribal feel; normal troops are volunteers and conscripts from around the west, while the Rangers are the Special Ops units primarily recruited from whatever region they specialize in and take on any tasks too delicate, tough, or convoluted to be resolved with raw power. The Rangers of Nevada wear the bad ass Ranger Combat Armour from the front of the Fallout: NV box which is scavenged police riot control gear while the California Rangers resemble park rangers of the pre-War wearing combat armor. The Nevada branch also took to using Heavy Troopers with big guns and salvaged power armor from their war with the Brotherhood, which, while cool, isn't as protective as the real deal and is loads heavier due to the fact that all of the robotic parts have been taken out leaving only the metal strapped directly to the body of the wearer.
  • As far as inclusiveness goes, the NCR is the most welcoming militarized faction in the west. Although Ghouls suffer discrimination from citizens and officials, there is no actual legalized repression and a ghoul can still have NCR citizenship. The NCR has no peaceful experience with super mutants, and out of pure ignorance they can potentially come into conflict with Jacobstown in Fallout: New Vegas with the only peaceful solutions being keeping the two apart. NCR military is slow to forgive and it takes a great deal of finesse on the part of the player in New Vegas to get the two into an alliance (their commander in the area simply prefers outright genocide against them to be done with any potential threat forever), although once the alliance is forged the Brotherhood of the West and the NCR form a permanent partnership based on the Brotherhood keeping the roads of Nevada safe for NCR citizens and receiving all the techno-goodies that comes to the NCR in exchange. AI beings have absolutely no rights in the NCR, although the NCR has not yet encountered synthetic lifeforms and their attitudes towards them remains unknown. NCR citizens have a manifest destiny attitude, and are quick to settle new areas and come into conflict with local tribes; this ranges from the Freeside section of New Vegas where out of luck NCR citizens and the longtime residents hoard the few resources of the area to the NCR military becoming involved with wars against literally every desert tribe they encounter. Although willing to work through issues using diplomatic channels, it takes extraordinary individuals (read: player characters) to give enough of a fuck to resort to something that isn't calling on NCR military police or a ranger attack to solve a given problem.
  • The NCR, compared to many other factions of the wasteland, also has the benefit of being able to mass-produce their own weapons and ammo rather than forced to scavenge ruins from centuries-old firearms held together by duct tape and prayers. This also something to do with having the Gun Runners as the NCR's arms supplier; originally a gang of post-apocalyptic mechanics in Fallout 1 who got lucky and found a functional factory with intact gun schematics, they quickly became the post-apocalyptic equivalent of Pre-War military contractors.

• The Brotherhood of Steel: A group of US Army personnel stationed in the Mariposa Military Base in California announced their desertion when they discovered they were guarding horrible experiments on POWs and American political dissidents. The survivors left the base after the bombs fell and trekked to the Lost Hills bunker, where they became the Brotherhood of Steel. Since then, the Brotherhood has evolved (or devolved) into a neo-chivalric order devoted to acquiring and maintaining the technology of the Old World while keeping it out of the hands of the undeserving (read: everyone else). The Brotherhood is divided into three major orders: the Scribes analyze and manufacture technology, and the Paladins and Knights form the core of the Brotherhood's military strength (the equivalent of officers and enlistees). Elders are those in positions of authority within their caste and the High Elder is the overall leader of the entire Brotherhood. Although they have the second-highest technology level of any faction in North America, the Brotherhood is slowly dying thanks to a combination of attrition, an unwillingness to recruit from the outside world, and generally being complete assholes to outsiders. Basically, they're Elves with short lifespans. The Brotherhood of Steel has a VERY tight chain of command and many rules and traditions directly related to it, although out of necessity it is largely being forgotten already.
  • After the Master's defeat, the Brotherhood sent a contingent east in pursuit of remnants of the Master's Army. This contingent consisted of Brotherhood members who wanted to reintegrate with the outside world and was conceived as a way to remove their dissenting opinions. While conducting operations in and around Chicago, this Midwestern Brotherhood, under the leadership of General Simon Barnaky, opened its ranks to tribals, ghouls, some super mutants, robots, and even sapient deathclaws. The Midwestern Brotherhood later comes into conflict with Caesar's Legion during operations in Colorado.
  • Another group was sent east to reestablish contact with the Midwest chapter. The expedition never found them, making its way to Pittsburgh. Upon seeing the East's condition, the expedition's leader, Owyn Lyons, made it his mission to help the natives. He led an operation to eradicate the slavers that called "the Pitt" home and then marched to the capital of the old United States. They pushed the super mutants back into the city ruins, earning the gratitude of the human survivors, and converted the ruined Pentagon into their base of operations, the Citadel. After Elder Lyons's death, his daughter Sarah succeeded him, though she was killed in action soon after. Leadership of the East Coast Brotherhood eventually fell to Arthur Maxson, who became Elder before he was old enough to drink.
    • Elder Lyons's deviation from his mission cost him his support from back west and a number of his subordinates sided with Protector Henry Casdin against him, leaving the Brotherhood to continue their primary mission to secure lost technology. Known as the Brotherhood Outcasts, they changed their emblem to only signify the strength and knowledge values (as well as paint their armor black with red iconography on it, the little rebellious edgelords) and supplemented their small forces with a large supply of robotic soldiers. After predictably failing to do anything more than survive against the Enclave, super mutants, and ghouls, and losing every engagement against the East Coast Brotherhood, they rejoined their kin under Arthur Maxson around 2283.
  • In the Mojave Wasteland, the Brotherhood established their base of operations at the HELIOS One solar power station. When the NCR entered the area, they came into conflict. Though the Brotherhood has superior equipment and training, NCR has more bodies. Operation: Sunburst saw the Mojave Brotherhood devastated and forced to retreat back to the Hidden Valley bunker. Elder Elijah disappeared during the withdrawal and leadership fell to Nolan McNamara; nobody would know that Elijah had discovered HELIOS's connection to Archimedes II, an orbiting solar cannon. Elder McNamara instituted a complete lockdown and for a generation kept the Brotherhood completely contained within the bunker, exiling or making scavengers of those who disagreed. He prioritized repopulation and training, while breaking the chain of command to directly send out agents to monitor the activities of the NCR and Caesar's Legion. The bitterness at the NCR as well as their longterm seclusion made them even more bitter towards outsiders, viewing them as subhuman invaders. At the end of New Vegas, they either get wiped out completely via a neglected self-destruct sequence in the bunker (as all of the factions view the Brotherhood as a potential threat), flee their bunker into the Wasteland for parts unknown, or enter into a permanent alliance with the NCR as the local peacekeepers of Nevada after the Legion is wiped out or driven back.

• 

  The Brotherhood of Steel logo. The circle represents unity, the sword their strength, the gears their knowledge, and the wings the hope that enables the above.

• 

  The Brotherhood of Steel Outcast logo.

• 

  The flag of the East Coast Brotherhood of Steel.

• Caesar's Legion: Caesar (pronounced internally according to the Latin pronunciation "Kai-sar", and otherwise in the Western manner "Sea-ser"), the self-styled son of Mars and formerly a Follower of the Apocalypse, the God of War, united eighty-six tribes under his banner (the bull) in the midwest, with undisputed territorial claims stretching as far west as the Colorado River. The Legion does not engage in diplomacy beyond "Join us or die." The Legion completely assimilates the people it conquers, destroying their old ways of life. To become citizens of the Legion means to throw away your heritage and traditions for security, prosperity, and continued existence. The Legion's army is a slave army composed solely of able-bodied men, owned entirely by Caesar. Women are confined to domestic roles and sexual slavery. Non-humans are killed without exception, and technology in general is shunned unless useful as a weapon. The discovery of Hoover Dam brought the Legion into direct conflict with the NCR, which drives the story of New Vegas.

• Followers of the Apocalypse: Despite the ominous name, the Followers are the most chill faction in the wasteland. They are devoted to understanding the mistakes of the past, helping people survive the harsh present, and building toward a noblebright future. While the Followers were instrumental in the formation of the New California Republic, they split over disagreements about the state's future and NCR poached many of the Followers' top people to staff their new Office of Science and Industry. Without NCR's backing, the Followers are chronically under-funded and over-worked, but hold on to their ideals in the face of harsh realities. Usually. There's one notable exception, a guy named Edward Sallow. His entry is right above this one.
  • A tribe in Utah managed to survive the war in New Jerusalem before moving to Mount Zion National Park, and are the only remaining Christians known in the post-war world. Known as New Canaanites, after their town of New Canaan, they accepted refugees of all kinds, particularly from both the Brotherhood of Steel and the NCR during their war in Nevada. Edward Sallow had come to them in his journey as a Follower, taking one of their own known as Joshua Graham as a companion. Eventually the men returned to the area years later as the leaders of Caesar's Legion. Graham was lit on fire and throw into the Grand Canyon after being defeated by the NCR, and after learning he had survived and taken refuge in New Canaan again the Legion had a local tribe that wanted into their ranks, the White Legs, destroy the New Canaanites. Two survivors, one being Graham, took refuge with the other local tribes. Caesar tasked the White Legs with destroying all other tribes in the area to gain admission to the Legion, causing the other tribes to unite against them. By the time the player of Fallout: New Vegas becomes involved, only the Dead Horse and Sorrows tribes remain in opposition.

• The Enclave: The Enclave's leadership is comprised of the descendants of US government officials from the Great War. They are the most technologically-advanced faction in the wasteland and take pride in being the only uncontaminated, mutation-free strain of humanity left outside the Vault experiments. Like the Brotherhood of Steel, the Enclave arms its soldiers with energy weapons and advanced armor systems and are generally jerks to the world at large. Unlike the Brotherhood, the Enclave are willing to innovate and work with outsiders. Unfortunately for those outsiders, "work with" generally means "enslave and work to death." They got properly curbstomped in Fallout 2 and 3, and are as of 2188 almost eradicated from the wasteland, save a few stubborn survivors (who can be recruited for the Second Battle of Hoover Dam, depending on your decision).

• New Vegas: Thanks to billionaire industrialist Robert House, Las Vegas had a missile defense grid so it and the surrounding area survived the Great War mostly unscathed. Drawing power from the Hoover Dam and fresh water from Lake Mead, New Vegas is a small but successful community built primarily on providing entertainment to NCR citizens. As of 2281, House is still in control of Vegas. He maintains his iron grip on the three "rehabilitated" tribes that run the three major casinos with his Securitron robots. The people of New Vegas are secure from outside threats, but House demands absolute obedience and does not seem to care about the state of Freeside, the crime-ridden neighborhood built up outside the Strip.
  • The Chairmen: Real cool gigs, baby, real cool. Rules the Tops Casino, they are the most cool and suave motherfuckers in Vegas. They mostly just play the rules and foster leaders who want to take over Vegas, all cool. They ain't no finks, dig?
  • The Omertas: The leaders of the Gommorah Casino and Brothel, they ain't no damn low time criminals, see? They respect only their family and them Securitron of House's, 'cause you don't wanna mess with the coppers. Sleazy bastards who are civilized only in appearance and even then it's a thin fascade.
  • The White Glove Society: The gentlemen and ladies of the Ultra-Luxe, they give only the most luxurious performance in whatever they do, be it their dresses (creepy porcelain-masks and pompous suits) or their cuisine, which is human meatdefinitely isn't human meat and never has been.
  • Freeside: House controls the Vegas Strip. This is all the other stuff, like how no one cares about the actual city of Las Vegas.
    • The Kings: An exception to the 50s theme. Two guys found a place called 'The King's School of Impersonation', filled to the brim with Elvis impersonation stuff. They wore out the only tape of Elvis's voice they found so only Pacer and the newly-named The King talk like him. So on the outskirts of post-WW3 Las Vegas you have a gang based on Elvis impersonators. Actually decent; they were shoved out of Vegas proper but keep a little bit of order in Freeside.

• Shi: The Shi are focused around San Francisco. The Shi are led by the Emperor, though his chief adviser is the de facto head of the organization. The Emperor is actually the computer mainframe of the Chinese submarine Shi huang ti, which washed up on shore after the Great War. Although the Shi prefer to remain apart from wasteland politics, they come into conflict with the Hubologists of San Francisco. They probably got conquered by the NCR.

• Hubologists: Scientologists with armor, guns, a spaceship, and porn stars instead of Tom Cruise. WHAT THE HELL HAVE YOU BEEN THINKING INTERPLAY!?!?

• Tribals: Small independent tribes still persist in the wasteland. Some are peaceful, while others take to raiding and pillaging to survive or simply for lulz.
  • Assorted Towns: Take some less-than-usually-ruined buildings, a bunch of people looking for a peaceful place to carve out a living, and a few guns, and you've got a city. Most towns have everything from ten to hundreds of citizens, and each one is often ruled by an unofficial leader of sorts (people rarely live long enough that it makes sense to elect some idiot). Notable cities are Megaton in Washington DC (a town build around an atom bomb that hasn't detonated yet), Shady Sands, Rivet City, Primm, Novac, and many others.
  • New Caananites: A Mormon tribe centered around the city of New Caanan in Utah, these bible-reading badasses kept Christianity alive with Tommy guns, .45s, and pure stubbornness until the White Legs razed the city to the ground and salted the earth. Now destroyed, their only surviving members are two guys of very different beliefs arguing over whether to save or to save a bunch of underdeveloped tribes in Zion. That is not a typo.
  • Zion Tribes: The Dead Horses and the Sorrows are a bunch of real tribals who had reverted to something resembling Native American tribes. They are the tribes the aforementioned New Caananites are arguing over.
  • White Legs: A tribe based near Salt Lake City, the White Legs are trying to join Caesar's Legion. The price for joining the Legion is the destruction of New Canaan and all of its inhabitants. They succeeded at the first task, but two escaped their genocide and they followed them to Zion Canyon to finish the job. What they don't know is that Caesar will simply annihilate their culture and he's just using them to kill Joshua Graham. Dealing with them is the main plot of the New Vegas DLC campaign Honest Hearts.
  • The Great Khans: Formed by a cool guy named Papa Khan after the Chosen One murdered the New Khans (who were dicks), the Great Khans are one of the oldest raider groups in Fallout still active, about the same age as NCR as they both came from the same Vault. Unlike most raiders in the game, they're fairly friendly and figure it's better to just sell drugs and run protection rackets to villages than raiding. When they followed the old ways, the New Khans were led by the paranoid 90-year-old son of the leader of the Khans, who were the original group who came out of the Vault. They were also dicks who got stomped by the Vault Dweller. Their new leader Papa Khan was cool enough to stop all that dickery and replace it with drugs (although the Fiends, who get high on Khan drugs, make up for the lack of violence tenfold). The NCR still hates them, though, and the feeling is mutual due to a massacre at a Great Khan settlement that nobody wants to talk about.
• The Institute: MIT turned evil. This is what happens when you don't play Big Mountain for laughs. For the past few decades, they have been flooding the Commonwealth with advanced robots known as Synths, which can be so indistinguishable from humans it's possible for these synths to think they are entirely human. Widely feared and despised throughout the Commonwealth, wastelanders have been known to gun down family members out of paranoia that they've been replaced by Institute synths, but next to nothing is known about exactly what's inside the Institute or how it operates, as nobody is even really sure where the place is - it must be in some inaccessible location, guarded by the Institute's weird technology.
• The Minutemen: Based on the historical group of the same name who protected townships in the Boston region in the opening days of the American Revolution, the Minutemen were a defence force made up of civilian volunteers, able to respond to crises at a minute's notice. They came very close to actually forming a sort-of proto-NCR in the Commonwealth, but after a series of disasters (including infighting within the top of their command structure, being betrayed and massacred by one of the brass who were sympathetic to the Gunners, and losing their base of operations to... something), they've been reduced to about three members by the time the Sole Survivor emerges. Easily identifiable by their mock-up colonial dress and their iconic weapon, the Laser Musket.
• The Railroad: An organization opposing the Institute and seeking to free all Synths, no matter the cost. They have very little in the way of direct military might beyond a handful of "heavies", being only a loose collection of free synths, scientists and other idealists operating in underground safehouses, constantly trying to avoid discovery by the Institute.
• Raiders: A bunch of drugged out sadistic Mad Max backup dancers with no ambitions besides getting high and attacking settlements and people wandering the wastelands. Good for target practice and as a source of ammo for small guns.

Species

• Ghouls: A few people who get hit with a crapload of radiation don't die (despite appearances), but mutate into ghouls. Corpse looking dudes and dudettes, ghouls don't age and thrive in radioactive environments but are sterile. A lot of wastelanders hate ghouls because many of them "go feral," losing their minds either as part of the transformation or afterwards and becoming little better than your standard brain-eating zombies. Even intelligent ghouls aren't necessarily nice guys/gals, and Fallout 4 emphasizes this with ghoul raiders, basically like non radblasted people. Lore tucked away in Fallout 1 implies that ghouldom actually is a combination of radiation damage and exposure to FEV.
• Super Mutants: FEV enhances humans with incredible strength and durability, causes them to grow to about nine feet tall, and turns their skin green. The tradeoff is that FEV also damages the subject's intelligence (most super mutants have the mental capacity of children) and makes them sterile. There are three known sources of super mutants in America: the Mariposa strain (created by the Master from the FEV vats in the Mariposa Military Base), the Vault 87 strain (created by Vault-Tec from the FEV stored in Vault 87), and the Commonwealth strain (created by the Institute and dumped on the surface for disposal).
  • Nightkin: The Master's stealth specialists, Nightkin use Stealth Boy modules to turn invisible. The exotic radiation from the Stealth Boys damages parts of the brain with prolonged exposure and Nightkin invariably end up going insane in one way or another, usually some sort of schizophrenia. A human and a ghoul live in Jacobstown to research the disorder and find a way to treat it.
  • Friendly Super Mutants: After the fall of the Master, some super mutants figured out how to interact with humanity peacefully. One notable example is Marcus, who founded the town of Broken Hills with his friend, Paladin Jacob, and later named the Mount Charleston Ski Lodge "Jacobstown" in his honor. Another is Mean Son-of-a-Bitch, who protects Westside New Vegas from raiders, though the loss of his tongue makes communication difficult.
• Centaurs: These are what you get out of an FEV vat when you throw a bunch of different creatures in at the same time. Hideous blobs of living fuckno meat, they show about as much intelligence as a dog. In New Vegas, they are found with super mutants as their watchdogs, while Fallout 4 introduced mutant hounds (likely because the origin of Commonwealth super mutants precluded centaurs' existence). They are also attracted to most forms or radiation and (depending on the location) can have multiple heads.
• Deathclaws are not casually named. They will fuck up your shit. They were an FEV experiment from before the bombs dropped, an experiment to turn Jackson's chameleons into bioweapons. Guess what? It went fucking horribly right. In Fallout 3, the Enclave got their hands on some and implanted mind control devices in their brains. New Vegas introduced deathclaw variants in the form of matriarchs, infants, and alpha males. Fallout 4 added a bunch of new variants, including albino deathclaws, radiation-emitting glowing deathclaws, and the paranoia-inducing chameleon deathclaws, which can turn fucking invisible at will. Fallout 2 had an intelligent talking deathclaw named Goris as a companion.
• Robots: America had a variety of atom-punk themed robots running around before the bombs fell and many are still kicking around in the wasteland. These range from civilian droids like Eyebots, Protectrons, and Mr. Handys to more deadly combat models, like Securitrons, Mr. Gutsys, Sentry Bots, and Assaultrons.
• Synths: Developed by the Institute over the centuries since the bombs dropped, synths are true androids, machines made in the image of men. The Institute has developed three generations of synth: the endoskeletal first generation; the artificial flesh-covered second generation, and the all-but-indistinguishable-from-born-humans third generation. It is this third generation that has the Commonwealth gripped with the paranoia that anybody they know could be replaced without their knowledge. The Railroad considers them a slave race and wants to bring down the Institute and emancipate them.
• Aliens: Grey/Little Green Men types with space blasters. They first appeared in random encounters in Fallout and Fallout 2, where you had a chance each game of stumbling across a crashed saucer and recovering a unique, powerful energy weapon from the corpse of the former occupant. This tradition continued in the 3D games; Fallout 3 even had an entire DLC campaign, Mothership Zeta, dedicated to being abducted by the little bastards and having to kill your way off their ship. This DLC is the primary source of info about aliens in Falloutverse and is highly contentious because of it, as fans are split on whether or not aliens should be taken as canon, similarly to the random encounter where you see the Doctor's TARDIS. This DLC implies that the aliens may have actually triggered the nuclear exchange that blew the planet apart.

Timeline

• 1945: Someone forgot to make the transistor and ultimately screwed it up for everyone.
• 2077: Humanity screwed up this year.
• 2161: The plot of Fallout 1, back when there were only about 3 deathclaws and lasers actually CUT. Vault 13's water chip breaks, someone has to fix the problem.
• 2241: The Plot of Fallout 2, mega badassery and improvement off Fallout 1. Arroyo needs a GECK and sends out the Chosen One to find it. Enclave shows up, gets its HQ blown the fuck up.
• 2277: The Plot of Fallout 3, the beginning of full 3D FPS, slow as fuck plasma weaponry and mega debuff power armor, also tried to turn up the Grimdark but failed. Enclave shows up on the other side of the continent for no apparent reason. Everyone's thirsty. Terrible story.
• 2281: The plot of Fallout New Vegas, what Fallout 3 should have been. Made by Obsidian. Get shot in the head, wake up, set out for vengeance, take over Hoover Dam for the faction (or lack thereof) of your choice. Factions, raiders, and tribals actually have history, backstory, and character.
• 2287: The plot of Fallout 4, a more Call of Duty-style combat system with a voiced main protagonist, base building, as well as a dialogue wheel, gutting the dialogue choices to no more than four choices, with barely an indication of what the character will actually say. It's a Fallout game by Bethesda, which means it's mechanically superior to the previous games but with overall worse writing and a forced role like in Fallout 3. Barely even an RPG.

Technology

Now, the weapons tech used in this can be explained in many, many ways, but the easiest way is to think of all the WH40K tech, but more convenient with the added bonus of not blowing up in your face once in a while but with the downside of guns jamming every 3 seconds and guns that rot before your eyes. Still, the weapons tech can be badass in an alternate universe (if you accept the 37,933 year difference between the universes) so the Fallout tech is still considered cool. The Fallout universe also incorporates REAL LIFE GUNS into the series (and a whole bunch of them) such as the Skorpion, MP5, MG60, M9, etc. This then changes in the later games (and in the 1st, but that was the 1st) to 'Hunting Rifles', '10mm Sub-Machine Guns' and 'Miniguns'. Oh well. It's easier to just say the tech in Fallout swings between Mad Max weapons, to real weapons, to 50's ray guns, to crazy shit like an infinite ammo shotgun fist and a weapon that fires eight mini nukes (a shotgun of nukes if you will). Also one of the deadliest weapons in the 2D games was a BB gun. No, really. Aim for the eyes.

As for armor, well...
The majority of the wasteland has rags as 'armor' and a baseball glove as a 'pauldron', although some people have done better (and some creatures too). Let's go over the basics:

• NCR has your mass produced, easily recognizable uniform that has a desert color (no, not dessert, but I wish it did. That is, if the dessert wasn't so IRRADIATED!). The most technologically advanced armor they have is the other 'mass-produced-but-not-produced-as-much' NCR veteran combat amour, which is basically riot armour with a trench coat over the top and a riot helmet with glowy eyes, though they also have T-45d power amour with the tech ripped out of it so untrained users can wear it without killing themselves, leaving an empty and sad metal shell behind. Though they do put an AC in it. Feels like you're wearing a truck, though, since "tech" includes "internal motors".
• BoS has power armour (don't get your hopes up, this is Fallout power armour we're talking about), lasers, miniguns and laser miniguns.
• The Master armies have super-human toughness instead of hi-tech armour, miniguns and rocket launchers flying out of their asses, stealth technology, utilized by their spec-ops "nightkin" super-mutants, and of course a whole bunch of horribly mutated beasts they use like attack dogs. Oh, and let's not forget psykers.
• Legion has football gear since its the closest thing to roman armor they can find. Higher ups do have better armor, mostly just scrap-metal plates but a few like the Legate have sweet forged armor.
• Raiders have stuff stolen from: women they've raped, people they've slaughtered, houses they've raided, prospectors they've held up then slaughtered etc.
  • Khans you get biker gear you bought with the drug money you make.
• The Enclave have power armor far superior to that of the brotherhood (still Fallout power armor), plasma guns that turn you into a goo and sweet gauss rifles that can blow your brains out from ten miles away through a power armour.
• Various mercenaries have 'combat armour'. Supposedly the stuff average troops wore in actual military things. Usually mid-level gear for you in the games, and pretty decent when it comes to letting you not get killed.
• Minutemen, going with a colonial American Revolution appearance/theme, have made laslocks laser muskets to help recreate the ensemble. You crank the firing mechanism up to build up a charge to make its single shot more powerful, but each crank will consume more ammo than the last when fired, and requires prior upgrade to allow more cranks. Nevertheless as the damage builds up it surpases even nuke launchers in terms of single-target damage, unless you miss your super-mega-overcharged tank-killing shot.

Notable People

• Protagonists
  • The Vault Dweller: From Fallout 1. Sent out of Vault 13 to fix the 'water chip', ends up saving humanity (or at least the bits of it in that part of California).
  • The Chosen One: From Fallout 2, grandkid of the Vault Dweller. Foretold to do cool stuff, and does. Breaks the water chip in Fallout 1 during a random encounter with a time portal.
  • The Warrior: The Fallout Tactics main character. The player can create their own character like in the other games, but can also go with the presets called "Mick", "Snake", "Peter", "Wilma", or "Betty". All were Tribals recruited by the Brotherhood of Steel army that moved east, and by the end of their career was appointed General of the pacified Chicago.
  • The Lone Wanderer: From Fallout 3. East coast, lived in Vault 101. No-one ever enters, no-one ever leaves. (Yeah, right. Plot kicks off when your dad bails on the place, and you follow him.) Until the Broken Steel DLC, it was possible to actually not survive the 'good' ending at the end.
  • The Courier: From Fallout: New Vegas. Not from a Vault at all, just some Courier who gets shot in the head by some hip creep in a checkered suit during the opening cutscene. You get better, then get to decide who controls Hoover Dam.
  • The Sole Survivor: From Fallout 4. Boston area, Vault 111. A pre-War American citizen, either a US Army veteran or a law-school-grad-turned-housewife (depending on your choice between male or female), and got thrown in cryo with most of the Vault members when they got in, oldest living person in the Fallout universe who isn't a mutant or a robot (Or alien abductee). Woken up by a couple of douchebags who shot their spouse and kidnapped their son, starting the plot who then knocked him out for a bit again, until he woke up and left, starting the plot CORRECTLY this time.
• Allies:
  • Companions: The player character of each game can befriend certain characters who will then join the quest. Just like regular NPCs, companions are mortal and will die if you don't take care of them (until New Vegas made them essential by default). Generally, you can only have one companion at a time, though Fallout 2 allowed you to have more based on your Charisma and New Vegas let you take one humanoid and either Rex or ED-E at the same time.
  • Mysterious Stranger: In Fallout 1 & 2, a male or female character (depending on player gender) with a randomized inventory. After that, some guy in a trenchcoat and fedora (not a trilby mind you). He appears when protagonists who are extremely lucky (and have the prerequisite perk) need him to take a few shots at their foes then disappear again. In Fallout: New Vegas, a guitar-playing man is hinted to be the Mysterious Stranger's son and carries his special pistol that he can give to the player. In Fallout 4, the Mysterious Stranger sticks around a bit longer and can actually be interacted with for a short time. Currently under investigation by a robotic detective.
  • Miss Fortune: Only appears in New Vegas. Shows up the same way as the Mysterious Stranger, except as a woman wearing an elaborate showgirl costume. Despite using the same model of gun as the Mysterious Stranger, hers doesn't directly cause much damage; instead, she has a bunch of (very fun) randomized effects based on percentage chance, ranging from knocking the gun out of their hands to detonating all the explosives in their inventory. Also, she'll probably empty all six shots (assuming they survive) with each one going through the random effect roll.
• Antagonists/Villains:
  • The Master: formerly known as Richard Moreau/Richard Grey. He is some kind of bizarre mutant that somehow got itself hooked up to computers after being infected by FEV. Believing in the idea of unifying the wasteland, he created the super mutants using the contained FEV that he had found on humans he had abducted. He is fun to talk to since he speaks in multiple recorded voices (even a feminine tone). Sadly, he was defeated by the Vault Dweller, either in a straight fight or by convincing him his plan to repopulate with super mutants will fail.
  • Dick Richardson: President of the United States and head of the Enclave in Fallout 2. He plans to wipe out the wasteland and repopulate it with genetically pure humans.
    • Frank Horrigan: Richardson's enforcer. Formerly a Secret Service agent, he was exposed to FEV and gradually became an "ultra super mutant in power armor." Twelve feet tall fused to a customized suit of power armor, and even more violent than he was before the accident, the Enclave considered him the nuclear option for operations in the wasteland. Defeated by the Chosen One, but Horrigan tanked a shit ton of damage in the process, including being cut in half at the waist.
  • The Calculator: The overseer of Vault 0. Actually a gestalt of eight human brains hooked together into a neural network. Damage to Vault 0 and its brains ruined the Calculator's intended purpose of reuniting all the Vaults with the surface world. Instead, it started building robots to purge the surface of all life.
  • Attis: A survivor from the Master's army. He built his own army and went east in search of the Secret Vault, which supposedly had stores of FEV modified to prevent sterility in its subjects. Though the Brotherhood of Steel pursued him, he managed to find and open the Secret Vault, access its FEV, and use it on himself. Rather than making him fertile again, it turned him into a fuckhueg mass of flesh.
  • John Henry Eden: Richardson's successor in the Capital Wasteland. Same plan. Voiced by Malcom McDowell. Broadcast his speeches throughout the Capital Wasteland over the radio and via roaming eyebots. Turns out he's actually a ZAX supercomputer that gained sapience, so the Lone Wanderer can logic bomb him in their encounter.
  • Caesar: Formerly a Follower of the Apocalyse known as Edward Sallow, Caesar drew on his somewhat limited knowledge of the Roman Empire to unite a number of tribes by force. Seeing his work, he kept on conquering until he had assimilated eighty-six tribes with former Mormon missionary Joshua Graham as his legate. When the NCR pushed them out of the Mojave at the Battle of Hoover Dam, Caesar had Graham executed (it didn't stick) and promoted Lanius to his position.
  • Father: The director of the Institute. Genuinely believes that he's going to improve humanity's lot in the wasteland, even if that includes creating a slave race (synths) and crippling every attempt by the Commonwealth to create a viable government on their own.
  • Desdemona: The leader of the Railroad. She doesn't reveal any personal details in order to protect herself and the Railroad from Institute spies and collaborators. She becomes your ally if you join the Railroad and your enemy if you side with the Institute or the Brotherhood.
  • Arthur Maxson: The Eastern Brotherhood of Steel's leader. He ascended to leadership after a series of ill-equipped Elders that succeeded Elder Lyons. He brought the Brotherhood to the Commonwealth to fight the Institute and keep their technology out of the hands of those who would abuse it. His uncompromising attitude toward his mission will put him at odds with you if you align yourself with the Railroad or the Institute.

On the Tabletop

There are a few systems for Nuka-Cola addicts to get their fill on the tabletop. The first is Exodus, licensed under the d20 System, which was originally going to be an official Fallout RPG until the license-holders saw how shitty the final product was copyright disputes with Bethesda and Interplay prompted the publishers to file off the serial numbers and call it a "spiritual successor". It departs heavily from the canonical setting, and is mechanically weak, but a flexible GM will find it otherwise serviceable.

For purists, there is also J.E. Sawyer's Fallout Role-Playing Game, an original system that uses d100 rules, much like Dark Heresy only a thousand times more complicated. It is still in development and will probably never be finished, but all material can be found for free on its official wiki.

Originally, Fallout was going to be mechanically based on GURPS but due to Steve Jackson's signature controlling nature (the GURPS licence was pulled because SJ didn't like the vault boy icons) the GURPS licence was dropped and the series went with the SPECIAL system that is in use today. GURPS fans have created a Fallout suppliment that can be found here.

In addition, some cool anons have created a scenario book for Fallout that focuses on the Louisiana wastes. Check it out here. It's pretty good.

Gallery

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  A Vault Girl pinup, wearing common Vault Tec clothing

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  A powerfist-toting wastelander with an eyebot in the background.

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  A common Mr Handy domestic robot

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  T-45 version of Power Armour

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  X-01 version of Power Armour

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  Power Armour modified by raiders

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See Also

Brother Vinni for not-Fallout miniatures.