To answer OP: The BoS didn't leave Lost Hills until after the Vault Dweller showed up. I can't remember whether or not it was right after the game or a couple years later, but it definitely was not 60 years prior in West Virginia of all places. And the lore of the BoS is a little bad honestly, they make up for it by being awesome. If I remember correctly, Maxson just made the entire hierarchy, aesthetic, and goal, in just a couple of months or less, then invited his military friends to join him, and then they were inbred losers for 60 years, then the Vault Dweller showed up. He finished making it not too long before the nukes dropped, so there is no chance that some guy in West Virginia decided he would steal everything Maxson came up with, and invite all of HIS military friends to join the BoS.
To everyone talking about ghouls: I don't have a head cannon for this, but I think we could just combine many other head cannons. Mainly the recessive gene, and airborne FEV, then make it so even if you are infected and have the gene, there's only a 50/50 chance you will become a ghoul. Vault Tek rounds up as many people with this recessive gene into vault 12 as they can, then make the door not seal correctly. The direct hit to the Glow causes airborne FEV to go flying all over the place, and since vault 12 is so close to the Glow, the FEV got everyone in the vault. Then half of the vault's residents died of the radiation poisoning, and the other half became ghouls.
Although, I don't think all of the ghouls we see in the other games need to be ghouls. Mainly Raul and Dean Domino. I think Dean Domino could just be mutated from the pink clouds, but he's a one-in-a-million type guy, so even though he wasn't wearing a hazmat suit, and the people IN hazmat suits became monsters, Dean just became more of an asshole. Raul could be a mutant that's mostly exclusive to Mexico. Lenny says ghouls can't run, but Raul can run pretty fast. Maybe after his sister dies he tries to commit suicide by sending electric volts in his heart or something. 50's sci-fi logic makes Raul a unique mutant that looks similar to ghouls because the electricity burnt all of his skin, and some of his skin melts or flakes off. Raul is a handyman so I'm sure he would be able to find a battery and some jumper cables and know what to do with them.
I don't know, tell me if these are bad ideas.
