If Harold never made it to a Vault... (suggestion by Ugly Kid)

[ElloinmorninJ]

[Discussion] Fallout What if: What if Harold never made it to a Vault…


Part One: The Initial Change

1. Harold, age 5 at the beginning of the war, is never taken to Vault 29. Most likely, he dies in the blast, making his life incredibly short instead of incredibly long.

1. Harold never leaves his Vault in 2090, and never starts up his own Caravan business. Due to this, he never leads an expedition to the Northwest to find the source of mutants, and Richard Grey (Moreau) never gets dropped into the F.E.V, thus, the Unity does not exist.

1. At first, not much changes: But due to Richard not being mutated, and the Unity not existing, this small change slowly cascades into a large butterfly effect (will get to that later as we go on).
   
   
2. The Children of the Cathedral, a Cult led by Morpheus in the Boneyard, is never recruited by the Master and thus they remain just an ordinary band of cultists.

Part Two: The Vault Dweller’s Quest

1. December, 2161: The Vault Dweller leaves his Vault in search of a water chip. He encounters Shady Sands, Junktown, and the Hub, I assume, in much a similar way that he did in the original timeline, perhaps with a few minor changes. The big changes start when he reaches Necropolis.

1. In Necropolis, much would change. It would likely be more populated, since there would be no initial slaughter of the Ghouls when the Super Mutants arrived. However, Set would quite likely have slaughtered Kane and his ‘pacifists’ Ghouls in the sewers, since the main reason he kept them alive in the original timeline was due to them being valuable in case Necropolis was ever sieged: A threat that does not exist in this timeline.

1. The Vault Dweller, similarly, would have a much different time in Necropolis then he would’ve in the game we saw. Set would likely have no use for the Vault Dweller in this timeline, and the VD would never have been told about the water pump situation, so he’d either have to fight his way through the Ghouls, or sneak past them.

1. Ian never dies by flamethrower. Dogmeat never dies in Mariposa.

1. If the Vault Dweller retrieves the water chip, then he returns home. I don’t know if in this timeline the Overseer would let the Vault Dweller back in, or exile them like in the original game. It’s quite likely that he could just be let back into the Vault and accepted as a hero, or maybe not.

1. In Adytum, since the Vault Dweller never had any reason to visit it, the Regulators stay in power, and possibly, eventually, slaughter the Blades. The Gun Runners are never stopped from conducting business, as the Deathclaws were never refined by the Master.

1. The Brotherhood likely have little reason in this alt-history to leave their Lost Hills bunker, since there is no threat of Super Mutants to draw them into battle.

1. Broken Hills never exists, as its founder, Marcus, stays a normal human.

1. The settlement of Gecko and Dayglow don’t exist either, since there’s never a Great Migration to send them anywhere. Necropolis remains the singular Ghoul settlement in New California.

1. The NCR is likely founded as it was originally. Tandi as president, with Shady Sands as its capital.

1. Vault City is never threatened by radiation from Gecko, and so continues on as it normally does.

1. If the Vault Dweller was never exiled, then he lives out his days in Vault 13, possibly becoming overseer. If he does get exiled, then he’s likely less traumatized and jaded then in the original timeline, and possibly just settles in Shady Sands. It is much less likely that he ever finds the settlement of Arroyo.

Part Three: The Enclave

1. The Enclave begins to resurface like in the original timeline. This time, though, their path to the FEV is much, much less challenging. After realizing that the world is so degraded, they simply fly over to the unruined, mostly intact Mariposa Military Base, and extract FEV from the unruined, mostly intact Vats.

1. In this timeline, they don’t have many test subjects. It is likely they still raid Vault 13 for test subjects, but I don’t know where they’d get their “freshly mutated” stock. Perhaps they’d go to some random tribe, or perhaps it just takes them a few more months to a year at most to perfect their FEV Curling-13 project, but I believe that by 2243 at the latest, they finish their project, and with nobody to stop them…

1. The FEV Curling-13 is released. Everyone not inoculated to its effect dies. From San Francisco, to New Reno, to Vault City, and Klamath, and the Den, and NCR, and eventually across the world, all the Wastelanders (except for the ones inside the Vaults) die. The Oil Rig, with its 1,000 people, and the remaining survivors in Vaults, are the last humans on the Earth.

Part Four: Hypothetical Enclave victory

1. The Enclave likely uses Navarro, if they build it in this timeline, as a starting point for their eventual recolonization of the United States. Along with people, equipment and technology for rebuilding the irradiated wasteland is brought here. Navarro essentially goes from Military Base to the Enclave’s first mainland settlement.

And from now on, this is the Enclave’s story. They rebuild America however they see fit. But it’s interesting, from a lore perspective, how the death of one 5 year old child in the Great War led to a complete shift of the timeline. Of course, I couldn’t predict everything, and this is just hypothetical. Tell me what you guys think!

 

[ElloinmorninJ]

@Ugly Kid Thanks for the suggestion

 

[naossano]

I was under the impression that Vault city would still have radiation issues even if the ghouls didn't live in gecko, but i might be mistaken. (the fact that the poseidon oil station exist and isn't maintained for centuries would certainly lead to radiation leaks.)
Beside, without the ghouls, the Enclave might take over the place.


I doubt that if Harold wasn't involved, NOBODY would seek for the mutant's source. This mission was organized because the mutants were already disrupting trades. At some point, someone would try to fix the problem.

Set would likely be a bigger threat in this timeline, but the vault dweller wouldn't be stronger. This could lead to the vault dweller simply dying at Necropolis.

It would be kind of a non event in the grand scheme of things, but if the dates match, i could imagine Marcus and Jacob becoming friends anyway, albeit on different circumstances.

 

[Yamu]

Stuff like this is the quintessence of why this subforum exists. Very nice work. "For want of a nail" exercises are always great, and you seem to have a real knack for them.

(This one is actually sparking my brain in all kinds of directions though. I'm not going to hijack the thread with this, but I'm quite taken with the idea of a timeline where Maxson's mutiny never occurred and the Mariposa scientists and personnel hunkered down and just survived the war doing what they'd been doing.)

I'm afraid I've got an essay deadline looming in a few hours and I'm just here for a minute on a no-go-crazy break, but one thing that sticks out at me, in all my rustiness with the lore, is that I'm not sure about the deathclaw bit. Was it canon that The Master refined the species, and if so was there ever any explanation for why they still breed true? He and the mutant patrols both seemed to be completely unaware of them and the threat they posed.

 

[ElloinmorninJ]

I was under the impression that Vault city would still have radiation issues even if the ghouls didn't live in gecko, but i might be mistaken. (the fact that the poseidon oil station exist and isn't maintained for centuries would certainly lead to radiation leaks.)
Beside, without the ghouls, the Enclave might take over the place.


I doubt that if Harold wasn't involved, NOBODY would seek for the mutant's source. This mission was organized because the mutants were already disrupting trades. At some point, someone would try to fix the problem.

Set would likely be a bigger threat in this timeline, but the vault dweller wouldn't be stronger. This could lead to the vault dweller simply dying at Necropolis.

It would be kind of a non event in the grand scheme of things, but if the dates match, i could imagine Marcus and Jacob becoming friends anyway, albeit on different circumstances.

This was just my best guess. I thought the Master was a really, really unique mutation. So, if anyone else did the same thing Harold and Richard did, they’d just get killed.

 

[Yamu]

I think you're probably right about that, although I think there's a much better chance of someone becoming a Harold than a Master-- in Talius we've seen at least one other example. Then again, come to think of it, he, Harold, and Grey all came from vaults.

There WOULD probably be other people that sought the source of the mutation though, but given that none of the humans to stumble on it would likely be pure-strain, to them it would just be death goo, so they'd likely still seek to just remove it as a danger to the trade routes. Unless they could get past the security at Mariposa and they had someone smart enough to hack into the self-destruct or a ton of military hardware, any attempts to seal off the base might succeed against local wildlife and maybe treasure hunters, but wouldn't really affect your projections at all as far as the Enclave was concerned. Hell, even the demolition of the base didn't stop them in the core timeline.

 

[naossano]

It depends on what kind of other person would try to find the source.
Richard Grey becoming the master is kind of what rended that purpose moot.
For a while, he absorbed any new mutants, so they wouldn't be a threat elsewhere. And when he stopped absorbing them, he start organizing them, making them more sneaky and unlikely to be detected.
If he wasn't there, the new mutated creatures would keep being disorganized and easily spotted, putting a giant target mark on mariposa, making it easier for other expeditions.

I don't see any clue of the unity involvement with deathclaws. On the contrary, they don't seem to know what they are dealing with, when a super-mutant patrol encounter a deathclaw near the hub. On the other hand, i can see the Master having a «hand» in the creation of centaurs and floaters.

 

[Ugly Kid]

@Ugly Kid Thanks for the suggestion

Very cool, thanks for doing my idea

Also, the Calculator would still exist, and I believe that since the Enclave wiped out all non-bunker dwellers, there would be too few people for the Enclave to survive an attack from the Calculator unless they can win just by their superior tech.

 

[ElloinmorninJ]

Very cool, thanks for doing my idea

Also, the Calculator would still exist, and I believe that since the Enclave wiped out all non-bunker dwellers, there would be too few people for the Enclave to survive an attack from the Calculator unless they can win just by their superior tech.

True, true

 

[Yamu]

The issue there becomes one of canon compatibility between Tactics and the core games. The Enclave were basically the originators of the Vault-Tec project and they seem to have full access to and external control of the vaults. It's entirely possible that, in a canon that fully incorporates Tactics, The Enclave wouldn't have any problem at all with The Calculator. As a matter of fact, it would take next to no effort to retcon things so that the events of Tactics were part of the Enclave's mainland effort.

 

[Slaughter Manslaught]

I like your what-if threads.

The only problem here in my opinion is that nobody does nothing about the mutant issue.

I think one possible solution is that it eventually gets so bad, the Brotherhood gets involved when their trade routes get disrupted. They go there, kill all mutants, download all the info, salvage all the tech and either take it as a military outpost after getting rid of the FEV (except perhaps a few samples to study it and counter-act its effects), or just explode it all using the self-destruct.

I think we would also generally see a lot more vaults and settlements from those popping up in the West, because the Master ins't nabbing all these people. AFAIK the Master attacked at least two vaults that we know of - the Los Angeles Test Vault and the vault where Lilly comes from, and likely more. The Master also ins't nabbing caravans and taking over towns for decades. There is also no attack in Necropolis nor the second attack.

Overall, I think the West Coast would be even more developed and advanced, especially Southern California.

We also have no events of FOT. No Gammorin's army going east, no Midwestern Brotherhood. Then again, there's still the big disagreements in the Brotherhood, because the Vault Dweller still joined. Possibly they get exiled to the Southwest instead, assigned to Senator Peterson's Bunker/Maxson Bunker. Another possibility is that they get sent to check up on the East Coast, either Virginia or D.C. Or anywhere else entirely - Texas? Washington State?

The Brotherhood will probably tend to be more isolationist than canon. In canon, they protected the human settlements from the roaming remnants of the Unity with minimal loss of life in both sides and then they slowly disseminated technology within New California. They might just sit in their bunkers instead.

I'm not sure if the Enclave enacts their "Exterminate all humans" plan. AFAIK they had a debate about it for a while, and possibly the rampages of the Super Mutants may have convinced them of the dangers of mutations. Perhaps the Enclave tries to cure Mutations instead of destroying them all? Think Dr. Henry's Mutant Cure, but with way less fatalities. Now that would make the Enclave morally ambiguous.

No Edward Sallows, the PoD likely butterflies his existence altogether. I suspect that almost human born outside of a vault or the Oil Rig post-Fallout 1 will never exist. No Eddie Sallows, no Joshua Graham, no Sulik, no Cassidy, etc etc. Sorry bros, then are Alternate History rules.

So no Caesar's Legion. We may get another tribe in their place - maybe the Khans or the Vipers make it big in the Southwest? Personally I bet my money on the Twisted Hairs becoming TTL's Caesar Legion, in Van Buren it seems like they were kind of the big cheese until the Legion beat them.

Calculator: Don't forget, the Calculator happened because mutant forces were out searching and scavenging and they found a vault, which they opened. Cue Behemoth bots. Calculator might never happen in the first place, or it may happen later - maybe the Brotherhood opens Vault 0, or NCR expeditions to the Southwest (like in Van Buren).

I'm not sure if the Vault Dweller will just get the Water Chip and go home. I think there's three good candidates for alternate villains: The Union of Atomic Workers, the Hub Underground and maybe an alternate Cult made by Morpheus, who might get up to some shenanigans - perhaps something involving that pre-war nuke the Master had?

 

[ElloinmorninJ]

I like your what-if threads.

The only problem here in my opinion is that nobody does nothing about the mutant issue.

I think one possible solution is that it eventually gets so bad, the Brotherhood gets involved when their trade routes get disrupted. They go there, kill all mutants, download all the info, salvage all the tech and either take it as a military outpost after getting rid of the FEV (except perhaps a few samples to study it and counter-act its effects), or just explode it all using the self-destruct.

I think we would also generally see a lot more vaults and settlements from those popping up in the West, because the Master ins't nabbing all these people. AFAIK the Master attacked at least two vaults that we know of - the Los Angeles Test Vault and the vault where Lilly comes from, and likely more. The Master also ins't nabbing caravans and taking over towns for decades. There is also no attack in Necropolis nor the second attack.

Overall, I think the West Coast would be even more developed and advanced, especially Southern California.

We also have no events of FOT. No Gammorin's army going east, no Midwestern Brotherhood. Then again, there's still the big disagreements in the Brotherhood, because the Vault Dweller still joined. Possibly they get exiled to the Southwest instead, assigned to Senator Peterson's Bunker/Maxson Bunker. Another possibility is that they get sent to check up on the East Coast, either Virginia or D.C. Or anywhere else entirely - Texas? Washington State?

The Brotherhood will probably tend to be more isolationist than canon. In canon, they protected the human settlements from the roaming remnants of the Unity with minimal loss of life in both sides and then they slowly disseminated technology within New California. They might just sit in their bunkers instead.

I'm not sure if the Enclave enacts their "Exterminate all humans" plan. AFAIK they had a debate about it for a while, and possibly the rampages of the Super Mutants may have convinced them of the dangers of mutations. Perhaps the Enclave tries to cure Mutations instead of destroying them all? Think Dr. Henry's Mutant Cure, but with way less fatalities. Now that would make the Enclave morally ambiguous.

No Edward Sallows, the PoD likely butterflies his existence altogether. I suspect that almost human born outside of a vault or the Oil Rig post-Fallout 1 will never exist. No Eddie Sallows, no Joshua Graham, no Sulik, no Cassidy, etc etc. Sorry bros, then are Alternate History rules.

So no Caesar's Legion. We may get another tribe in their place - maybe the Khans or the Vipers make it big in the Southwest? Personally I bet my money on the Twisted Hairs becoming TTL's Caesar Legion, in Van Buren it seems like they were kind of the big cheese until the Legion beat them.

Calculator: Don't forget, the Calculator happened because mutant forces were out searching and scavenging and they found a vault, which they opened. Cue Behemoth bots. Calculator might never happen in the first place, or it may happen later - maybe the Brotherhood opens Vault 0, or NCR expeditions to the Southwest (like in Van Buren).

I'm not sure if the Vault Dweller will just get the Water Chip and go home. I think there's three good candidates for alternate villains: The Union of Atomic Workers, the Hub Underground and maybe an alternate Cult made by Morpheus, who might get up to some shenanigans - perhaps something involving that pre-war nuke the Master had?

If the Bortherhood found Mariposa, IMO, they wouldn’t have done too much significant with it

 

[Yamu]

I suppose some other high-tech faction like the aforementioned Union of Atomic Workers-- not them but someone like them, I think the timeline works out so that it was random mutants that wiped them out and not the Master's supers-- could have decided to do something with it, it being vacant in this timeline. Without pure-strains or Grey's genius (and neural computer uplinks) it necessarily wouldn't be just an alternate Unity scenario, but as we've seen, there's a lot you can do with FEV.

 

[naossano]

If the Bortherhood found Mariposa, IMO, they wouldn’t have done too much significant with it

If they find Maxson's logs, the location would be very significant for them.

 

[Slaughter Manslaught]

If they find Maxson's logs, the location would be very significant for them.

Yup, a lot. They held a lot of reverence for The Glow because it was "The Ancient Order", imagine if they found the origin of their own group? Place would become like a hallowed temple.

Not to mention, Mariposa is a pre-war base. With the obligatory pre-war tech (whatever the proto-Brotherhood could't take with them, I guess). All they need is to fix the whole FEV issue, work out the kinks and bam! A new base for the Brotherhood.

I wonder if FEV could be used somehow for something good. At the very least, to cure it?

With Mariposa on their hands, they could start operating further north, such as the Bay Area. Make nice with the Shi and Vault City and whatnot.

And the Enclave might find the possibility of a Brotherhood-occupied Mariposa.