Bethesda's Lore Recons

[The Dutch Ghost]

Remember the Dreaded Third Option I mentioned when we were speculating about the Super Mutants?

Apparently they were made by the Institute.

https://www.reddit.com/r/falloutlore/comments/3spc0j/spoiler_fallout_4_super_mutants/

Ugh, I hate this 'everyone and their grandma has access to FEV' bullshit.
Vault-tec in FOBOS was already a stretch for having access to it and doing research on improving it. All those who actually played the game (I know, painful) might recall that FEV was not even mentioned in the game itself, rather Vault-tec was researching a cure for mutation induced sterility.

But in Fallout 3 we go a Vault that was doing FEV research, despite that FEV only existed for roughly a year, and Mariposa base was specifically re purposed for the purpose of studying FEV and its effects and use, and that the 'proto super mutants' (I think there were already human experiments before the war happened) and the actually super mutants were created by the Master here.

The idea that the MIT/CIT would get access to FEV is a real stretch as FEV was a West Tek/government research project. That they might have recruited some outside researchers/scientists to help them work on the genetics work is not a stretch but I doubt that West Tek's leadership would sent samples to the Institute, especially after all the Chinese espionage problems.

I honestly hate these retcons about Jet, Super Mutants, Power Armor (only the pre T-51b ones used energy cells that were quickly exhausted), continuous changes in what the Vaults were about.
Fallout 3 and 4 are really not the successors to Fallout 1 and 2, it is almost like the new Battlestar Galactica series and Star Trek movies; Fallout in name only 'FINO'.
Elements and names are there but that is it.

 

[Walpknut]

So they retconned things further to add yet another faction of Brutes?

 

[Vree]

Fallout 3 and 4 are really not the successors to Fallout 1 and 2, it is almost like the new Battlestar Galactica series and Star Trek movies; Fallout in name only 'FINO'.
Elements and names are there but that is it.

Really no need to say such bs when FO 1 and 2 are themselves inconsistent, thanks to being written by a committee.

Like the Vault experiments stuff that did not exist in FO1.

And they were already confusing about FEV back then, like, at least one developer thought that "radiation makes mutant animals" is a less reasonable explanation than "supervirus that can do anything the plot calls for and adapt to any species makes mutant animals" so he decided that ghouls, radscorpions, etc. should all be tied to released FEV (yes somehow there was enough of it to cover the whole US).

Personally I wish FEV just didn't exist in the first place.

 

[The Dutch Ghost]

Oh I agree that the Vault experiments might not have been such a good inclusion after all, changing the idea that a lot of the Vaults were not properly built in the first place or not very well planned regarding supplies and population.

But Fallout 4 feels very much Fallout in name only, it may have similar actors and settings but this might as well be a complete different license.

 

[Mr Fish]

Fallout 3 and 4 are really not the successors to Fallout 1 and 2, it is almost like the new Battlestar Galactica series and Star Trek movies; Fallout in name only 'FINO'.
Elements and names are there but that is it.

Really no need to say such bs when FO 1 and 2 are themselves inconsistent, thanks to being written by a committee.

Like the Vault experiments stuff that did not exist in FO1.

And they were already confusing about FEV back then, like, at least one developer thought that "radiation makes mutant animals" is a less reasonable explanation than "supervirus that can do anything the plot calls for and adapt to any species makes mutant animals" so he decided that ghouls, radscorpions, etc. should all be tied to released FEV (yes somehow there was enough of it to cover the whole US).

Personally I wish FEV just didn't exist in the first place.

It's about the amount of inconsistencies though.
In Fallout 2 there are some, sure. But hardly as many as there are in FO3/FO4.

 

[Graham2077]

Yet even more pre-war Jet..
At Taffington Boathouse you can find an item called "Margaret's note".

It details of Margeret and Russel finding a pre-war Holotape at the boat shed that hinted of a cache of chems they intended to sell. Anyway, if you bother following up on the hint yourself you'll find the cache and among the chems there is... Jet.

Clearly Bethesda writers never played Fallout 2.

I don't think that they even played the originals. I think that they just picked a bunch of stuff that was cool and iconic in the first and second game like the Bos, Enclave, Super Mutants, Vaults, ect and just added them into the game. This is what I mean when I say that Bethesda Fallout is more or less fan fiction.

Well, spoiler if you haven't gotten to this part in the game, when you access Kellogg's memories it tells you that he was from the NCR and that he later moved to San Francisco, I think it also mentions that his wife is from the Hub but i'm not too sure on that. I'm willing to bet that they did play the games, or at least read up on some of the lore. Then again, after this bullshit with Jet and the Super Mutants I doubt that as well.

Also, can I just mention how I FUCKING hate the way they made Super Mutants in this game? They're so goddamn dumb! I haven't had any mission related to the Super Mutants yet other than rescuing Rex and Strong so I don't know if they even really elaborate why they're here yet but they just suck. They're no better than the FO3 mutants in my book, it's a straightforward copy and paste.

 

[5545Trey]

Fallout 3 and 4 are really not the successors to Fallout 1 and 2, it is almost like the new Battlestar Galactica series and Star Trek movies; Fallout in name only 'FINO'.
Elements and names are there but that is it.

Really no need to say such bs when FO 1 and 2 are themselves inconsistent, thanks to being written by a committee.

Like the Vault experiments stuff that did not exist in FO1.

And they were already confusing about FEV back then, like, at least one developer thought that "radiation makes mutant animals" is a less reasonable explanation than "supervirus that can do anything the plot calls for and adapt to any species makes mutant animals" so he decided that ghouls, radscorpions, etc. should all be tied to released FEV (yes somehow there was enough of it to cover the whole US).

Personally I wish FEV just didn't exist in the first place.

Nonsense. Fallout 1 and 2 were waaaay more consistent with their lore and writing than Fallout 3 ever was, and that also applies to Fallout 4. When was the last time yo actually play these games, or at least look up the Fallout lore on wikipedia? Yes, each Fallout installment was inconsistent when it came to the FEV, but labeling 3 and 4 as successors of the first two games when even the world-building in those games are inconsistent as all hell is ridiculous.

 

[Ilosar]

what about power armor training? now we don't need it? anybody can hop in? seriously? what about previous games?

I don't remember needing power armour training in Fallout 1 or 2. They had to add the perk in Fallout 3 because every BoS dude and Enclave soldier dropped a set, and it was common as fuck.

The weird thing is how they kept it in New Vegas, given that the only PAs in that game were in the hands of either the BoS or the Enclave remnants anyway, and those were very rare NPCs.

I'm glad that PA training is gone. Never made much sense. You get in and it protects you, don't need a Phd to understand that.

And the new BoS is fine too. The white knights of the Wasteland got old fast. This one is more akin to the Midwestern chapter, which was my favorite.

 

[Crni Vuk]

I always liked the idea that the PA would require not really much knowledge in use, but a lot of knowledge to keep it runing. So a characater with high repair and science skill could do something here to keep it in shape - not so much building a new one though. Or, you would have to find someone who can repair it for you, for a lot of caps though.

 

[5545Trey]

what about power armor training? now we don't need it? anybody can hop in? seriously? what about previous games?

I don't remember needing power armour training in Fallout 1 or 2. They had to add the perk in Fallout 3 because every BoS dude and Enclave soldier dropped a set, and it was common as fuck.

The weird thing is how they kept it in New Vegas, given that the only PAs in that game were in the hands of either the BoS or the Enclave remnants anyway, and those were very rare NPCs.

I'm glad that PA training is gone. Never made much sense. You get in and it protects you, don't need a Phd to understand that.

And the new BoS is fine too. The white knights of the Wasteland got old fast. This one is more akin to the Midwestern chapter, which was my favorite.

You forgot to mention that there were NCR troops at Hoover Dam sporting their iteration of Power Armor.

The only reason I can see for PA training being implemented in the first place is because for pacing/balancing reasons, which are not very valid reasons to begin with.

 

[Vree]

When was the last time yo actually play these games, or at least look up the Fallout lore on wikipedia?

(sigh)...Get out.

Just saying (having played those games a good deal) that the first games (esp. FO2) have so many random things made up on the fly and thrown in, I can't really draw a line between them and 3/Vegas on this basis. Do I really need to list all the weirdness added in FO2?
- GECKs
-reFEVed smart deathclaws (speak Oxford english and look human in a cloak)
- you're suddenly in a gangster movie town
- Chinatown
- poor mining town but a prof has intelligent radscorps in the corner
- only 1 car survived the war (cuz cars are the 1st thing that is destroyed by radiation)
and on and on and on.

Anyway let's please go back to discussing 4.
Didn't mean to interrupt.

 

[5545Trey]

When was the last time yo actually play these games, or at least look up the Fallout lore on wikipedia?

(sigh)...Get out.

Just saying (having played those games a good deal) that the first games (esp. FO2) have so many random things made up on the fly and thrown in, I can't really draw a line between them and 3/Vegas on this basis. Do I really need to list all the weirdness added in FO2?
- GECKs
-reFEVed smart deathclaws (speak Oxford english and look human in a cloak)
- you're suddenly in a gangster movie town
- Chinatown
- poor mining town but a prof has intelligent radscorps in the corner
- only 1 car survived the war (cuz cars are the 1st thing that is destroyed by radiation)
and on and on and on.

Anyway let's please go back to discussing 4.
Didn't mean to interrupt.

First of all, some of this "weirdness" can easily be glossed over because they are either irrevelant to the plot or lore of the game, is an easter egg/reference to a certain part of media (i.e. the intelligent radscopion), or are just not random in the slightest. Secondly, the game never implies that only one car survived after the Great War. Third, why the hell is New Reno added into the list? The game takes place 164 years after the war, a "gangster movie town" was bound to happen somewhere in the States. Chinatown is debatable. The GECK was not some random idea thrown into the plot without any thought, though you could consider The Chosen One's tribe's understanding of the GECK as weird. Intelligent deathclaws is the only argument I cannot counter. Again, all you doing is over exaggerating how random and inconsistent the first two games are. Fallout 2 was inconsistent in the sense that it retconned certain aspects of Fallout 1's plot, but it is nowhere as bad as it was in Fallout 3 (at least, not in terms of inconsistency and randomness of writing). Fallout 1 had almost nothing inconsistent or weird about it at all; the tone of the game was much more serious, felt the most post-apocalyptic, and had the best writing out of the entire series.

 

[Oppen]

I kind of like the fact a complex beast like a PA requires a basic training. In Fallout 1, since you can (almost?) only obtain it from the BoS, I simply thought it would be a kind of ommision of the fact you received it at the time you were given one, with Fallout 2's being the only one unavoidable inconsistency. Now, once they decided it required training to put yourself an armor, it is completely unintuitive that when they make it a friggin' tank you don't. Then, people who aren't smart enough to establish an economy that doesn't depend on them going out there, risking their own lives to raid villages are somehow smart enough to scavenge and fix power armors (who actually took quite a bit of work from the BoS, nonetheless) is just irritating. The whole "raider power armor" has nothing to do in a Fallout game.

 

[Crni Vuk]

You can say what ever you want, but even the whacky stuff - like New Reno - had pretty good writing, and tons of quests with consequences. I mean the mafia families alone, are better than ANYTHING I have seen in F3, when it comes to characters, quests, and complexity.

 

[Oppen]

PS: particularly on the vaults experiments, it is a reasonable retcon. In Fallout 1 your opinion on the vaults is mostly based on you living in one and meeting Shady Sands, both groups being under the same belief as you, with the exception of the overseer (who's there to lie to you, actually). It might not be a good addition, but it is well done. It doesn't change something that was already written as being the opposite, but just against the opinion of the first PC. You never read documents from the vaults' creators in Fallout 1 stating they were actually made to protect.

 

[Crni Vuk]

I still loath this idea. A lot. I am not sure at which point they became experiments - was that already mentioned in Fallout 2? I am not sure right now. BUt who ever came up with that idea ... probably had a really bad moment or something.

 

[Oppen]

I still loath this idea. A lot. I am not sure at which point they became experiments - was that already mentioned in Fallout 2? I am not sure right now. BUt who ever came up with that idea ... probably had a really bad moment or something.

I'm not 100% sure if they were actually mentioned to be experiments or if it was planned to be that way and wasn't (what I know for sure is that a terminal mentions it in the RP, and the RP is pretty much loyal to design documents for the original game), but my point was that this particular retcon, while as with any plot device one can like it or dislike it, was well executed. I personally don't care that much about that part, but I think it was smart in the sense that it added the possibility to explore more stories. It devolved into a theme park too soon, though.

 

[Dr Fallout]

Fallout 1 has the best atmosphere and interconnects really well, but come on Fallout 2 absolutely spoils you for choice.

 

[Stanislao Moulinsky]

Is the Laser Pistol a retcon or is supposed to be a new model?

Like the Vault experiments stuff that did not exist in FO1.

In which way the retcon/revelation that the Vaults were experiments contradicts what we see in the first game?

 

[Mr Fish]

Wasn't it in Van Buren that it was explained that the vaults were experiments to test humans under various conditions because some part of the government planned to take a space-trip to another planet that ain't fucked up and start anew but wanted to make sure that they knew of every possible scenario that could play out on this spacetrip? It's been a while since I read 'em. I might be misremembering.