(I'm particularly interested here in the original BoS' take on things, as I started with 3.)

So, the Brotherhood's general policy is to confiscate technology for everyone's good, right?

Does that only apply to old-world tech, or would they also snap up things someone worked out themselves?

I don't think their reaction to the Institute tells us much- the only tech they freaked out about them having seems to be Synths. If they, say, built SUVs instead down there, I doubt they'd care.

But of some guy in a settlement worked out, say, how to pasteurize food or refurbish a small hydro plant to generate electricity, would that go somewhere on their to-do list (no matter how low)?

(Spoilers for Lonesome Road, Fallout Tactics and briefly, the Fallout TV Show.)

TL;DR: There was a Enclave Outpost in Chicago, but New Vegas hints that it's probably been destroyed.

...You want more elaboration than that? Really? You sure? Sighs. Okay, fine, but don't say that I didn't warn you...

There has been a common misconception among the fandom lately, brought on by the Fallout TV Series' heavy implications that the Enclave is somehow still alive. And like all popular misconceptions, it's based in a nugget of truth.

"There is a Enclave presence in Chicago." A only partially wrong statement that ballooned into "The Enclave is still active in Chicago."

I've seen this claim spread around a lot, stating that New Vegas heavily implied or outright claimed the Enclave had some sorta foothold in Chicago that survived them getting blown up in F02 and 3, often in discussion relating to New Vegas' treatment of the lore when compared to the FOTV series. I think there was even a version of that "Those kids would be offended if they could read" meme from King Of The Hill featuring this fact prominently.

Ironically, despite that meme's accusation that New Vegas fans can't read, it almost never comes with a citation (regretfully normal behavior in big fandoms such as Fallout), or a mention of the source of that claim.

ED-E.

Audio logs in the vanilla game from ED-E, and later in Lonesome Road from ED-E's memory sharing clone, reveal ED-E was repurposed from an old Eyebot around the time of Fallout 3 by the East Coast Enclave scientist Dr. Whitley, who was forced to send ED-E to Navarro to avoid having the poor little robot turned into scrap metal for Hellfire Power Armor.

The vanilla game initially mentions ED-E dropping off in Chicago for repairs during a trip to Navarro, in a audio log that you can helpfully read on the Fallout Wiki.

(It should be noted for later, that Navarro by this point has been utterly destroyed by a one-two combo of the Chosen One and the NCR, despite Whitley's impression they are still around. This suggests the Enclave does not value sharing reliable information with their scientists.)

To many fans, including even the frigging Fallout wiki at times, this is seen as irrefutable fact. ED-E was repaired at one of said Enclave Outposts.

But, then Lonesome Road happened. And not only expanded the lore of ED-E, but elaborated on what happened when ED-E made it to Chicago.

He was picked up by a random kid.

The log can be heard here,, but in short, a random boy named Tommy finds a damaged ED-E, and excitedly asks his dad if they can keep them. Dad is afraid ED-E might be dangerous, or that someone dangerous will try to rob them for the bot, but Tommy insists, suggesting that they can repair him at "Mom's garage." Conversation with the Courier right after this scene stresses that this occurred in Chicago, and implies ED-E left Tommy and his parents behind to continue his mission to Navarro.

The Father's general ignorance of what ED-E actually is, mixed with the Tommy's Mom's Garage's existence's mention, suggests these probably weren't Enclave citizens. Unless the Enclave has cute little kids and Mom's running garages (admittedly not that unlikely, but the mention of "Outpost" in place of "Community" or something similar weakens this argument). While the dad shows concern over someone looking for ED-E, he could've been thinking of Bandits, or even the Brotherhood Of Steel.

If Obsidian had intended to imply Tommy's Dad's fear of the Enclave was the reason ED-E left, from a Doylist perspective, they likely would've had a more fearful or regretful reply from ED-E than "wistful beeping," or had the Courier be able to reference them in reply. They also wouldn't have specifically made a point of having Whitley think Navarro still stood, if they didn't want to throw question into the Chicago Enclave's fate.

A case of unreliable narrators and dramatic irony. Pretty simple right? Well, I thought so too.

And then that goddamn License Plate showed up, and dragged this stupid essay out longer than it needed to be.

Yes, there is a single piece of evidence that could be used to prove the theoretical Chicago Enclave as either repairing, or even creating ED-E in the first place. ED-E's Illinois License Plate. It is unlikely that such a plate, especially from 2002, would end up in Washington, DC. I originally thought this was added on by Tommy's family, but I realized it would be unlikely for them to find a license plate that overlapped with a random code name given by Whitley ahead of time. Clearly, the answer lies in the Chicago Enclave owning it originally, right?

...However, there are flaws in that theory. Firstly, there's the stated fact of the Eyebots at Adams Air Force Base being repurposed from pre-war Eyebots. Secondly, as inferred from the left side of ED-E proudly proclaiming someone's child was a honor student at Roosevelt Academy, it could be argued that this was sourced from a pre-war owner of ED-E, likely an engineer or scientist who's family traveled from Illinois to Washington, DC for education reasons (or just to get away from the mid-west), and repurposed part of an old, pre-nuclear powered car as part of a science project.

Presumably, they got an A+.

Therefore, ED-E likely earned his name, and traveled from DC to Chicago because of the License Plate, not the other way around.

However, this is mostly conjecture, and doesn't rule out the possibility of the Chicago Enclave shipping off some spare robots to the big Air Base in DC, therefore existing at least by the time of Fallout 3...until you remember Fallout Tactics.

Yes, Todd said he ignored it, but both Fallout 3 itself, other games, and even recent dev comments have suggested the game is still canon.

The game, while never allowing the player to set foot in Chicago's ruined streets, does establish it as the home-base for our not-so-good friends at the splinter faction of the Illinois Brotherhood, who then go on to fight the Reavers, a insane cult of techno-fetishists (no, I didn't mistake them for the Brotherhood Of Steel, that's their lore), a bunch of random bandits, mutants, and finally, The Calculator, the insane robotic AI overseer of Vault 0. The Brotherhood's presence in Chicago is further confirmed by Fallout 4, but little is said on their current status.

Not once, does the Enclave show up or is even referenced, likely due to Interplay initially desiring them to be a one-off villain. You would think due to the amount of "savages", Brotherhood Of Steel, crazy techcults, they would...care about this? At all? But with Fallout Tactics being, against all odds, canon, we know they didn't.

Which leaves two possibilities:

1. The Enclave still exist in Chicago, and did literally nothing, despite having every reason to do so, as evidenced by a single license plate that could've been added on by some random pre-war high school student.

2. The Enclave in Chicago have been destroyed, or perhaps never had a strong presence in the first place.

Yes, this doesn't necessarily rule out theories like "the Enclave could be hiding out somewhere", or "they fled to another state", or "they killed the kid and his parents then wiped ED-E's memory banks!"

But all of those are theories, and in order to prove something is canon, you need to have facts.

The facts are: A Scientist, who thought a Enclave outpost that was well destroyed for years was still active, sent a robot to be repaired at a outpost in a area full of different factions, where it was instead repaired by a completely random family of Wastelanders.

Until lore confirms otherwise (and perhaps it might), there is very little reason at the moment to imagine the Enclave survived the Brotherhood Of Steel, Super Mutants, Reavers, tiny children, Gangs, and presumably many other random threats hanging out in Chicago, if they weren't even able to retrieve their property from a little kid named Tommy and his scrap metal using mother.

Conclusion? Any Enclave presence remaining in Chicago are likely all gone. There was a Enclave presence in Chicago, but they were either snuffed out in-between New Vegas and 4, or before the events of 3. Or were nothing but a "Outpost" that never held much power in the first place.

Disclaimer: This isn't meant as a criticism of the FOTV series and it's decision to bring back the Enclave. Merely as a rebuttal to a overused, and misinformed argument. "New Vegas inferred that the Enclave still exist in Chicago, therefore it's okay!"

I don't think the Enclave should have a place in Fallout Lore post-Fo3 outside of displaced remnants, but, I won't deny it if canon eventually decides that, yes, the Enclave survive in Chicago. So far, however, there has been an seemingly deliberate attempt to throw that into question, by Obsidian, Bethesda, and even arguably Interplay. If this does change in canon, then it is a retcon. If it was a good or bad retcon would be up to how it's written.

But as far as canon is regarded currently? The Enclave within Chicago...are gone.

I'm replaying Fallout 3(because I dont remember anything about it) and I'm in the Hubris Comics Publishing office. I read the first terminal and the Summer Release Schedule and Press Release and they lean heavily towards marketing the vaults to younger readers months before the bombs dropped. Would that indicate that Vault-Tec knew about what was going to happen? This is also in relation to the new show and people questioning certain things.

I’m currently writing a story that involves a past (pre-2281) courier six making a delivery to a legion officer, the problem is, I can’t for the life of me figure out what six should be carrying that a legion officer would want. Anyone got any insights here?

In the Fallout games taking place on the West Coast, the T-51 is used by the Brotherhood as standard Power Armor. However, in Fallout TV, the Brotherhood has switched to using the T-60. The T-60 has been used extensively by the Brotherhood since Fallout 4. In Fallout 3, the Brotherhood only uses the T-45.

The Brotherhood in Fallout TV appears to be from the east coast. Therefore, it is understandable that the Brotherhood in Fallout TV is equipped with the T-60. But I wonder where the West Coast Brotherhood is? Are they destroyed? The fact that the Brotherhood did not use the T-51 in Fallout TV makes me suspect that the West Coast Brotherhood may have been doomed.

Everyone pins the fact that the prywden is up and running but like the institute can westworld anything if they win. Like they can make unlimited synths. Could they not also make a synthetic or rebuilt prywden? Stock it with copies? No one on the west coast would know anything about them. How to detect them for example. Just thinking if you had taken over the institute like the nuclear family outcome would you not do that? Find out more about the brotherhood to try to destroy them? I know I’m probably paranoid but synths man, they’re everywhere….

Spoiler but not important enough to anger anyone… hopefully So I’ve always been a big fan of the fallout series, New Vegas was the first game I ever played. Anyways I’m watching the new Fallout show on prime and I got to the part where it basically shows us who the actual “Vault Boy” is. Here comes the spoiler. The vault boy didn’t get into the vault. I don’t know if he didn’t have a spot in the vault or just didn’t make it in time. So let’s say he didn’t make it in time, that got me thinking… how the hell did the vaults get so many people? I mean they didn’t fill them before the bombs fell correct? Not unless they were some sort of important official I would believe. My point is there is no way in hell that so many people just out ran the blast, and the vaults were closed before any radiation could get in

Particularly in Fallout 2. I sort of get it in NV, it was House making tribals cosplay and they adapted quickly to the lifestyle after they saw all the benefits.

But in Fallout 2?

The way I figure it:

-America in Fallout is stuck in a 50s-ish bubble, and so is crime - the Mafia is very widespread

-As civilization returns in the form of the NCR, so does crime, and it defaults to what was most common before the Great War

-Perhaps New Reno also had a big Mafia presence pre-war, which the locals discovered and adopted?

Just trying to put the wackiness of New Reno into some sort of context within the setting. Any other ideas?

I’ve always wondered this since playing New Vegas, if Caesar is so educated about Roman history and war tactics shouldn’t he know how to pronounce his name in an American accent?

If exposed to small amounts of radiation over prolonged periods causes you to become a ghoul then does radaway or rad-x prevent or effect this in any way?

Okay, so first of all, I know the game world is not 1 to 1 with how the world actually is in lore.

With that out of the way, how do settlements like Megaton survive in Fallout 3? Even though we don't see it, places like Rivet City have full blown hydroponics bays to grow food, and places like the Republic of Dave probably have mutfruit farms.

But how in the hell does a city in a crater survive? There's nowhere to grow food or raise a herd of Brahmin. Same thing with Arefu. They're a bunch of metal shacks on an overpass, there is no way they're growing food.

Should this just be taken as a case of Bethesda creating something cool without factoring in how it would actually function? Is there an actual lore reason for how they sustain themselves? Or is it just a case of we don't get to see it but they do have a way of surviving?

​

I’ve had this belief for a very long time and now after an argument am i only realizing that i’ve somehow deluded myself into a head cannon that Arthur Maxson recruited the outcasts post fallout 3 to march on the citadel and retake the brotherhood name by force. Seizing technology back in the aid of the brotherhood rather than the capital wasteland, killing any BOS who stood in their way including the lyons pride. I assumed that some of the BOS of the citadel would sympathize with his devotion to the core values of the west coast BOS and the outcasts would revere the descenant of Maxson a hero and the true elder of their chapter leaving Owen Lyons to either be killed or tried for treason against the other chapters. Project purity would be seized and contact would be reestablished with the other BOS chapters, leaving a dark end to the citadel. But after doing some research it seems that it’s all an unknown. We don’t know what happened to the lyons pride other than a report that they “died in combat”. We don’t know how Maxsons brotherhood got the tech from the fallen basecrawler to build the prydwyn. I always liked to believe that it may even have been danse who pulled the trigger on the lyons pride alone from the statement “Maxson never liked to do the dirty work himself” in fallout 4. But what i once thought was established lore in now realizing was a just a head cannon unfortunately. Does anyone have any theories or beliefs about the seizure of the capital wastelands brotherhood that’s any similar to what i’ve described?

https://ibb.co/Cs17HHJ

The crater we see is the one from the last nuke we have in the post war flashback. The observatory is literally right there.

Okay so I just got done with the series on Amazon. When Hank activates the cold fusion thing, it looks like a lot of the city lights up again. Does this mean Shady Sands is bring brought back to life or something? I wasn't sure exactly what was happening?

Something that always confused me about fallout was the, to a degree, lack of devastation and detonations. In real life, if something like the Cuban Missile Crisis had gone into all out nuclear war it would have been every single US city hit multiple times over. For instance Boston during the cold war had a minimum of three nuclear missiles pointing towards it, with all the salvos within them as well, as seen by the Soviet Nuclear target map. That would've been at least 9 targeting the city alone, yet only one, small yield bomb hits it in 4. Further more while I understand that the bombs in the games weren't fusion ones like we use today instead the older fission bombs I'm mainly talking about the lack of quantity, or at least not many that hit.

Now as explained by House in New Vegas, 77 targeted the Mohave Desert alone, so it shows there was scale. However, considering the fact that the ones shot down were thanks to the effort of House alone it would be reasonable to assume that the US anti-air defence against these nukes is almost non existent so what stopped these nukes? I find it difficult to think that 77 targeted the Mohave and what, 50 more was all that was left for the rest of the United States, it'd put the reasonable number into the thousands considering just what total nuclear war would entail paired with the number of nukes hitting Nevada, spreading this across the map and taking into account all the important areas that a nation like China would target in these strikes. So where are the rest of these bombs?

I don't believe the idea that China was aiming for limited and tactical strikes either, they clearly already targetted every major US city which would do nothing but warrant a full US respond as what happened anyway. The Chinese Government while rash and in a critical state weren't idiots, and I'm sure that if this idea were true, once they saw the thousands of bombs headed their way from the US response they'd fire the rest of their bombs.

So yeah, The war was clearly an all out war. Considering our timeline and just how many bombs had been stockpiled it's valid to assume there were thousands (possibly tens of thousands) of bombs. It's valid to assume the incapability of the US air defence judging by how House dealt with 77 nukes himself, so there'd be thousands of bombs that got through to everywhere else. And it's also correct to assume that the Chinese strike was it's entire arsenal, as we see through the games that the US strike was certainly that too.

So I ask you, where are the other bombs? Why did so few detonations happen. While the world of fallout is well and truly a devastated landscape, it seriously isn't anywhere near what the reality of destruction would be.

In Fallout TV, Vault-tec has acquired or sabotaged many energy companies. The energy company Moldaver worked for was one of them. Vault-tec's purpose is to prevent humanity from finding new energy sources to replace fossil energy. Because when new energy sources are discovered, there is a high possibility that the Sino-US war will end because the US and China will no longer dispute resources.

Poseidon Energy is one of the largest corporations in America. This corporation has a close connection to the Enclave. Because Poseidon Energy is an energy corporation, it has many achievements in its efforts to research and produce new energy sources. Poseidon Energy has built many power generation plants in the US. Poseidon Energy tried to buy Mass Fusion but failed because nuclear war broke out. Mass Fusion is one of America's leading energy corporations. Although Mass Fusion is not as large as Poseidon Energy, this corporation has created many revolutionary inventions in the energy field. Beryllium agitator and Fusion Core are typical inventions that Mass Fusion has created.

Vault-tec views energy companies as potential enemies, so it makes sense for Vault-tec not to invite Poseidon Energy to the meeting. Poseidon Energy and Mass Fusion could prevent nuclear war if they sold their technology to China. If China buys energy technology from Poseidon Energy and Mass Fusion, China no longer needs oil. Therefore, the main cause of the China-US conflict will be eliminated.

So I have seen the series and I am not quite sure why Fusion was the big deal for Moldaver as well as the antagonist VaultTec. Having payed FO4 again recently and seeing that the Institute uses Fusion as well as all those small Fusion Cells ... why was this "discovery" so controversial and could've somehow stopped VaultTecs income by using the resource war as money maker if its has already been achieved? I get that the US didnt share this tech but IMO it really doesnt add up in my mind. anyone got a different insight into this?

I recently finished the Fallout TV series and after seeing that the habitants of Vault 4 Eem to have a cult, calling her "Flame Mother". My questions would be:

1: Did Vault 4 use cryogenic pods similar to the Vault 111 and 31?

2:How the inhabitants of Vault 4 know about Moldaver?

3:How did Moldaver survive for 200+ years?

All answers welcome, thank you all for your time.

Bit of a nitpick but during the scene (Episode 1) where the BOS Officer is being relayed the drawing/picture coordinates for Wilzig, NATO Phonetic Alphabet wasn’t used over the radio. NATO Phonetic has been confirmed to exist as the NCR Ranger Stations in FNV and the Appalachian Silos in F76 are clearly named on NATO Phonetic Letters. It irks me that the fact that one of the reason NATO Phonetic exists is to ensure there’s no miscommunication over radio. Hence, I was wondering if there’s a possible lore reason for why it’s not used.

So the current understanding is that there are 4 subspecies of super mutants, right? Like the mariposa ones, capital wasteland vault ones, ones made by the institute, and the huntersville west-tek ones.

This is a truly half baked theory, but what if the institute formulated their FEV batch based on the huntersville mutants? As opposed to generating their own formula and making a truly new and fourth species, what if there is only three?

PS: is the subspecies thing even confirmed? Like is the difference in how they look canon to the games or is that just engine and model changes. I hear people talk on subspecies often but I’m not sure the level of true canon that is

Like, baseball stadiums aren’t that big right? Isn’t the in-game size 1:1 with an actual baseball stadium? or is my ignorance of sports making me look like a fool. I just feel like it couldn’t really be a city yk? It feels too small

Hi fellow vault dwellers! Its another glorious day in our vault and ive had plenty of time for thinking… well in between trying to keep my residential mr handy functioning properly!!

I want to have us all give input, lore, theories, and ideas about the “3 interconnected vaults - 31,32,33”

HERES SOME OF MY QUESTIONS I HAVE….

SO WAS IT 3 FULL SIZE CONTROL VAULTS THAT WERE ALL INTERCONNECTED WITH GIANT ROLLING GEAR DOORS SEPARATING THEM IN BETWEEN? OR WAS IT JUST ONE GIANT VAULT WITH 3 INTERCONNECTED SECTIONS??

WHAT EXACTLY WERE IN EACH VAULT 31,32,33 THAT WAS PROVIDED BY VAULT TECH?

I know they had mentioned something about projectors that showed the plains for Nebraska and corn fields. And vault 33 looked IDENTICAL to how fallout 76 starts by having vault apartments with mailboxes outside each one. And the one commercial said something about having the hallways named with street names like “park street” or whatever.

WERE THE 3 VAULTS SEALED OFF FROM EACH OTHER? LIKE WITH ONE GIANT ROLLING GEAR DOOR TO THE OUTSIDE LIKE NORMAL, BUT ALSO 2 VAULTS HAD ANOTHER GIANT ROLLING GEAR DOOR BETWEEN THE VAULT NEXT TO IT AND WITH ONE VAULT THAT WAS IN THE MIDDLE WITH 2 GIANT ROLLING GEAR DOORS ON EACH SIDE OF IT AND 1 GIANT ROLLING GEAR DOOR TO THE OUTSIDE LIKE NORMAL??

WAS THE 3 VAULTS OF 31,32,33 SUPPOSED TO BE OPENED WITH THEIR CONNECTING VAULT ROLLING GEAR DOORS OPEN TO MAKE ONE SUPER SIZED GIANT VAULT TO MAKE A VAULT TECH HEADQUARTERS WHERE THEY WOULD CONTROL ALL THE OTHER VAULTS FROM THEIR GIANT SUPER SIZED 3 INTERCONNECTED VAULTS FROM?

WHAT EXACTLY HAPPENED TO EACH OF THE VAULTS INDIVIDUALLY? THE LORE OF EACH VAULT, PURPOSE, AMENITIES, GOAL, AND STUFF LIKE THAT.

ANY OTHER DETAILS, IDEAS, AND QUESTIONS WOULD BE GREATLY APPRECIATED!! You rock!!

And remember guys, VAULT TEC - A BRIGHTER FUTURE UNDERGROUND!

I saw a post mentioning little lamplight in it earlier and that brought me to my next thought. How are they still populated? I have 3 chains of thought but I'm sure there is a in universe explanation.

1: Girls who are of age have children with the boys of age (worst thought)

2: Children are abandoned there or run off and go there

3:Older kids kidnap wastelanders and I'm sure you can guess where I'm going with this

Tdlr: Am I correct with my thoughts that I made in 3 seconds or is there a better in universe explanation?

I mean most towns have less than 10 people in game so where are they coming from?

We never meet Saperstein in game, yet we follow his exact orders and defeat the Zetan Attack. How does he know this much about the Zetans and how to defeat them?

Are there any hints that explain the source of immunity to radiation some of the atomites seem to possess? Is it a happy accident of radiation exposure, a random effect from mutated FEV exposure, or the descendents of a group of survivors exposed to an experimental "perfected" FEV prewar as a way to test its actual success under real world conditions?

I know it must have been a decade or 2 before 2296. But why did he do it, just because his wife took the kids there?

I had always assumed Vault-Tec was created in the 2050s specifically to carry out Project Safehouse, but Fallout 76 has them existing as early as the 2030s and already having the capital to buy a university. That prompts several questions:

Why would they be called Vault-Tec before the concept of Vaults was a thing (at least publicly)? Wouldn’t the public find that strange?

And what would they have even taught before Project Safehouse?

How did they make their money before being able to sell applications to Vaults and associated technology?

When do you think the military equipment (uniforms, camo patterns, etc) started to diverge from real world to what Fallout has? There are canonically weapons and attachments from the 90s and early 2000s, and Fallout show introduced FAST helmets. This begs the question of when did the real world equipment start to give way for whatever Fallout has to offer. I saw someone suggest it to be the 90s, but with the helmets, this gives more food for thought. Would the military gear develop like the real world one (except, maybe, digital patterns?) until 90s-2000s, or is the cutoff point somewhere earlier before the Fallout stuff is in?