Humanoid vs Animal mutantions

Neon Child

Neon Child

First time out of the vault
I had a question that may have been answered in the first two fallout games that I may have over looked but I was wondering somethings about the mutations I've seen. My main question is whether or not there is some unwritten rule that mutated Humanoids can't mate. I only ask because when you look at the asexual super mutants it makes sense that they can't mate, however with ghouls there is not actual explanation that I can see. Even with abomination this is the case even though they were manufactured by humans and not by radiation or "the master". Alternatively when you look at animals such as Mirelurks and Deathclaws they all have the ability to make nests. It doesn't seem to matter whether they were mutated by radiation like the giant ants or were spliced like a Night Stalker they can still reproduce.
 
I can't lie I do not know if that was the case, but as far as I know that game is non cannon anyway. So that's why I am confused because although Ghouls and Mutants have longevity on their side, they're not very hard to kill (all the PC kill hundreds of them alone) so can't see them lasting in number.
 
Considering Yao Guai can reproduce and the Fo3 concept artist said they are ghoulified black bears (and shown to be immortal in Point Lookout), it doesn't seem impossible that ghouls can reproduce young... It may be possible that often times the...err... organsare decayed to the point of difficulty of operations, or maybe neurological degradation takes away any pleasure, but it probably isn't impossible for ghouls to mate.
 
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See I would be able to accept that as a viable reason, but so far its just been "ghouls don't have children". Even in Underworld, the city of ghouls, there are no children running around to show that there are even rare cases of birth. The thing is, ghouls are clearly not immortal even with their extended life span. Between raiders, wild beasts, and natural causes there should only be a hand full of Ghouls in any one area. However even in NV we see a whole squad of NCR Ghoul Troopers just hanging out in there own station.
 
MCA's Fallout Bible proposed a few ideas about mutant, and possibly ghoul, sterility. I think the "born ghouls" in Van Buren were produced by "Science!".

Tactics had supermutants trying to create more of themselves in a lab. The (failed) results looked a bit like some of the failed experiments in Vault 87 in FO3.

The critters mostly seem to be able to reproduce, which makes sense in the case of mutations. Otherwise it would be hard to have a population with stable features. Of course, this relies on having mutations that do not cause either sterility, or mortality so early that they don't live long enough to reproduce.

Back to ghouls, as I recall higher-order organisms are less likely to survive mutations than lower-order ones, though whether the various mammals in-game are far enough apart on the ladder to be so noticeably different might be questionable.

You shouldn't try to judge the population based on the player character's effect. If you wander around most any of the games long enough hunting for random encounters, you could kill hundreds of raiders, highwaymen, robbers, bandits, Enclave patrols, Hubologists, etc. The size of the settlements in the original games were mostly under 50 people. Compared to that "civillized" population, your raider-killing would be conducting genocide on a scale, percentage-wise, to rival the war in 2077. It's a can of worms to speculate on a canonical playthrough, but that kind of mass slaughter might not be it.

I hadn't heard the bit about yao guai being ghoulified, though if it was just the musings of the concept artist, it's hard to call it canon.
 
Most of what you're saying makes sense to me, but even if you take out the player character as a viable option there are still plenty of instances that show why there shouldn't be many. Super Mutants and such are clearly at war with the Talon company as well as the brotherhood of steel in FO3. All three sides are being torn apart and that's well before the Enclave show up. Now the Talon mercs and BOS can always recruit more humans (and the BOS are clearly shown to be doing that in small number). Once the Enclave moves in, its definitely a whole lot more shit going down between the 4. How would Super Mutants have replenished their ranks to make sure they can survive?

Then as far as the case of Ghouls. Depending on where there from, I guess they could survive better. However there's on one person that I can think of who was actively trying to become a ghoul and she died without reaching her goal. Between that, some ghouls turning feral, and any other reason a normal person would die, they don't stand much of a chance without reproduction.
 
There are Super Mutants in Fallout 3 because Bethesda read about this game called Fallout 1 and thought Super Mutants were nifty, so they put them in their own game and justified their presence on the East Coast with a contrived reason that doesn't make sense.

In Fallout 1, one of the ways to dispose of the Master revolves around the fact that Super Mutants are sterile.

In Fallout 2 however, you can take Marcus to the whorehouse in New Reno, where he says he "hopes she doesn't get pregnant". If you ask him why he'll mention that it just "takes a while for the juices to start flowing again after you've been dipped".

I guess it boils down to whether you believe Marcus or not. He doesn't strike me as the lying type.
 
Super mutants and ghouls have a definite difference though - ghouls "fall apart", their skin has open sores in it, sores that have no reason not to also exist on their genitals. Can you imagine a ghoul scrotum? All sored, and full of holes, a testicle hanging out from a string.

A super mutant has much better chance, since they are tough skinned, litterally, and don't seem to have any kind of "rotting" symptoms whatsoever.
 
Well Supermutants do have that whole bussiness with their face that they need a strap to keep in place. Also a lot of the SMs have warts and other skin conditions, still not as bad a sa Ghoul.
 
It makes sense that Ghouls may not be... all together down there, however I don't know if cannon takes that into account. I only say that because in NV for instance one of the Ghouls show sexual attraction to the other and you can get a Ghoul to become an "escort" and she doesn't seem to complain about her not being able to do anything (she commented on her appearance but not lack of ability). I'm not saying that's the best source, however its one thing I can think of off the top of my head. It was just weird to me in general that all humanoids are sterile or seem to be sterile while all irritated, mutated, or genetically spliced animals can mate just fine. Mire/Lakelurks, Deathclaws, and nightstalkers and the like seem to have nests all over the place and yet no humanoids that are altered in any way do. At least from my experience and that's why my question was brought up.
 
If I may take a note from Jurassic Park...

Maybe they were made to be asexual, but something changed in them that allowed them to mate?

I'd rather they keep the concept vague, with a "If that's what you want, then go for it." mentality, instead of giving us a concrete "Yes" or "No"

No matter what the answer is, you'd still get people saying that it's possible

I read a story where a human had sex with a ghoul and yes it was as scary as you'd imagine it to be
 
For the Wiki:
The mutation produced by the FEV in this case has some severe side effects. Chief among them is sterility. As the gametes of the reproductive system consist of 'half-cells' comprising only 23 of the normal 46 chromosomes, they are perceived as 'damaged' cells by the FEV's integrated genetic sequences, which "repairs" them by restoring the missing chromosomes, which essentially renders the mutants sterile since their gametes lose the ability to recombine with other sex cells in sexual reproduction.

So it's physically impossible for them reproduce sexually.
 
Better hope the super mutants don't find Vault 108 then
Although it is possible to encounter Super Mutant Overlords near the Vault entrance, so...
Just what we need, Super Mutant clones that become more and more hostile the more you clone them...
 
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