So what lore has Bethesda done gone fucked up?

[Someguy37]

there's no reason to assume the flytraps came from Vault 22 or Big MT. Vault 22 only studied the unmutated versions of these creatures.

So what you are implying is that the spore plants somehow got from wherever they originated, down like 4-6 floors of a vault, and just happened to grow in the same areas they were doing their plant experiments in Vault 22, but they didn't come from Vault 22?

Man, that's a whole lot of really unlikely coincidences.

The more likely answer is that, just like the the giant mantis creatures, the spore plants were effected by all the plant growth shit they were doing in Vault 22 and Big MT, and originated from there.

 

[TorontoReign]

there's no reason to assume the flytraps came from Vault 22 or Big MT. Vault 22 only studied the unmutated versions of these creatures.

So what you are implying is that the spore plants somehow got from wherever they originated, down like 4-6 floors of a vault, and just happened to grow in the same areas they were doing their plant experiments in Vault 22, but they didn't come from Vault 22?

Man, that's a whole lot of really unlikely coincidences.

The more likely answer is that, just like the the giant mantis creatures, the spore plants were effected by all the plant growth shit they were doing in Vault 22 and Big MT, and originated from there.

http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Mantis

Have at it.

 

[DVL]

That whole questline was never that clear to me. And it's a fair enough point. Or would be, if that link to the mantises didn't confuse the issue further.

I still regard the whole thing as a tangent since I was more interested in talking about where all the normal flora came from.

 

[Someguy37]

Have at it.

What specifically are you trying to point out here?

That Chris said in the non-canon Fallout Bible that mantis were the result of FEV? Whats funny about that citation is that in a later bible he admitted that ghouls and other mutant animals were the result of just radiation, and that FEv doesn't make much sense because it makes everything it mutates sterile... which the mantis creatures are not.

I still regard the whole thing as a tangent since I was more interested in talking about where all the normal flora came from.

given the large amounts of normal flora spewing from Vault 22... a lot of it likely came from there.

 

[DVL]

Even if you adjust for the controversy it's proposing that mantises have two separate origins. One seperately from Vault 22 and one from radiation and/or FEV (whatever you want it to be).
If your Pre-war scientists were interested in mantises and fly traps, for whatever agricultural reason, then it makes sense for them to be anywhere where you study them. Scientifically, it also makes sense for them to mutate in more or less in same ways and that your technology would take the shortest path to doing that.

Or it's just reuse of available game assets because you need NPC enemies and all the lore is just a handwave justification for having them.

It doesn't really matter and I stopped caring. Prickly pear cacti weren't the result of radiation or a freak science project and that there's good reason for them to be in the Mojave.

 

[TorontoReign]

Have at it.

What specifically are you trying to point out here?

That Chris said in the non-canon Fallout Bible that mantis were the result of FEV? Whats funny about that citation is that in a later bible he admitted that ghouls and other mutant animals were the result of just radiation, and that FEv doesn't make much sense because it makes everything it mutates sterile... which the mantis creatures are not.

I was giving you two the link about the stuff you were debating. Nothing more.

Some animals were created due to FEV, some radiation, some both - as you said. The Fallout Bible made things harder to understand since the new canon has changed so much.

 

[Ben Soto]

First off, just because a species is exposed to a mutagen does not always mean it'll turn out the same as before. FEV only does that because it's hard-coded to do that. Radiation, on the other hand, is a far different thing in and of itself. The odds that the same mutation will pop up twice is pretty low. Occam's Razor would imply that all giant mantises come from the same place.

Of course, Bethesda kinda screwed that up with all those returning monsters, so... Yeah.

Also, may I once again add, IIRC wasn't there, like, a great big black rain that killed off most of the plants? Who knows, maybe I'm thinking of something else.

 

[Walpknut]

Vault 22 inhabitants where already trekking the wastes when Randall Clarke was alive, so theere is a high chance that ones from FO2 couldbe linked to the Vault 22 peregrins. Altho remember that they are SPORE plants, they reproduce asexually too.

Funny how Someguy is now discrediting the Fallout Bible as non canon for the sake of his argument but he was perfectly willing to bring up early Van Buren concepts to prove one of his points on another discussion.

 

[DVL]

First off, just because a species is exposed to a mutagen does not always mean it'll turn out the same as before. FEV only does that because it's hard-coded to do that. Radiation, on the other hand, is a far different thing in and of itself. The odds that the same mutation will pop up twice is pretty low. Occam's Razor would imply that all giant mantises come from the same place.

Of course, Bethesda kinda screwed that up with all those returning monsters, so... Yeah.

Also, may I once again add, IIRC wasn't there, like, a great big black rain that killed off most of the plants? Who knows, maybe I'm thinking of something else.

1)
Mutation also doesn't meant that a creature's biology is infinitely moldable and plastic. The mutation twiddles the wrong thing and you simply die or become very ill. It's not odd to think that "getting bigger" is biologically very plausible and easy under Fallout rules of biology or that similar species would have similar "viable" mutations that wouldn't kill or sterilize it. Which seems to be the general case. Scorpions get bigger. Bighorn sheep get bigger. Mantises get bigger. You get the idea.

Also: Don't lecture me on the razor if you have no idea what the principle of parsimony actually is. "Simple" doesn't mean whatever you arbitrarily or subjectively decide is "simple." It means that you violate the fewest accepted facts and evidence and have do not use ad hoc hypothesis. It's also an informal rule of logic, not an ironclad law.

Either way, I believe I expressed that I don't really care anymore how the mantises got big because it's a handwave to allow mantises in Vault 22, although I don't think it's clear what the scientists there actually did. It wouldn't be odd if they irradiated the dang things for whatever reason in addition to working on a fungal pesticide. Mutation breeding with radiation is a thing in the real world. If it's a common practice among Pre-War scientists, then it probably isn't surprising if even enlarging the species is just a side product of whatever else they wanted to actually study.

2)
There are Clarke entries that mentions that stuff survived in Zion in spite of radioactive precipitation, albeit either with harmless but nonfunctional mutations or by being drastically altered by it. And he specifically names the exact species that you find surviving in the game.
Basic survival of the fittest. What's to get. The radiation dropped off in a couple months and while that did kill a lot of things, a number of other species survived for whatever reason, whether by pure blind luck or some other adaptable trait they possessed.
Personally, ravens I can well believe. The damn things are fucking intelligent and are pervasive enough to be pests.

 

[Mr Fish]

[EDIT]

Nevermind.

 

[farchettiensis]

That the world doesn't evolve, ever? It's just an incoherent, implausible world. They can't do ''scenarios'' - what would happen if. What would make us earn more money or attract more fanboys, they ask instead.

 

[Juza The Cloud]

Now a quick question, this Big MT and Vault 22 was the cause of some/many of the diverse flora and fauna of the Mojave and some of the core region, right ? In that scenario is the EPA considered canon or not? I ask this because some of the spitting plants and insects can be encountered there as well. Also one of the hologram directors gives you a quest to clear the surface of plants etc. Are the plants found in Arroyo originally from Big MT or Vault 22 or the kind found at the EPA

 

[Ben Soto]

I don't think the EPA was ever canon. It was cut content.

 

[Walpknut]

Yeah the EPA doesn't exist, it was repurposed into Vault 22 and the Big MT.

 

[Dr Fallout]

Yeah the EPA doesn't exist, it was repurposed into Vault 22 and the Big MT.

I had a look at it. It seemed really cool and interesting.

 

[peadar87]

When a nuclear weapon goes off, it creates fallout by fission products, and neutron activation of anything in the shine path. Anywhere not subject to a direct hit won't be irradiated immediately. What will happen is that all the activated dust and crap that was sucked up in the fireball will eventually rain out (which is what a "black rain" is. It is literally black, due to the amounts of radioactive soot and muck in it).

If it doesn't rain where you are for a few weeks, and you weren't directly hit by a nuclear weapon, the levels of fallout will actually be quite low, being mainly down to things like blowing dust.

It's perfectly plausible that due to the prevailing weather conditions, it rained radioactivity on Zion, and no animals would have survived. Other places without rain until an appreciable amount of the most radioactive isotopes had either decayed or washed out, flora and fauna could have survived without too much of a problem.

 

[Dr Fallout]

When a nuclear weapon goes off, it creates fallout by fission products, and neutron activation of anything in the shine path. Anywhere not subject to a direct hit won't be irradiated immediately. What will happen is that all the activated dust and crap that was sucked up in the fireball will eventually rain out (which is what a "black rain" is. It is literally black, due to the amounts of radioactive soot and muck in it).

If it doesn't rain where you are for a few weeks, and you weren't directly hit by a nuclear weapon, the levels of fallout will actually be quite low, being mainly down to things like blowing dust.

It's perfectly plausible that due to the prevailing weather conditions, it rained radioactivity on Zion, and no animals would have survived. Other places without rain until an appreciable amount of the most radioactive isotopes had either decayed or washed out, flora and fauna could have survived without too much of a problem.

Umm thanks... we needed to know that...

 

[peadar87]

When a nuclear weapon goes off, it creates fallout by fission products, and neutron activation of anything in the shine path. Anywhere not subject to a direct hit won't be irradiated immediately. What will happen is that all the activated dust and crap that was sucked up in the fireball will eventually rain out (which is what a "black rain" is. It is literally black, due to the amounts of radioactive soot and muck in it).

If it doesn't rain where you are for a few weeks, and you weren't directly hit by a nuclear weapon, the levels of fallout will actually be quite low, being mainly down to things like blowing dust.

It's perfectly plausible that due to the prevailing weather conditions, it rained radioactivity on Zion, and no animals would have survived. Other places without rain until an appreciable amount of the most radioactive isotopes had either decayed or washed out, flora and fauna could have survived without too much of a problem.

Umm thanks... we needed to know that...

It's relevant to the discussion going on about Vault 22, all the plants dying in Zion, how Tribals survived outside of vaults. Scroll up 4 posts, it's been going on for several pages.

 

[Dr Fallout]

When a nuclear weapon goes off, it creates fallout by fission products, and neutron activation of anything in the shine path. Anywhere not subject to a direct hit won't be irradiated immediately. What will happen is that all the activated dust and crap that was sucked up in the fireball will eventually rain out (which is what a "black rain" is. It is literally black, due to the amounts of radioactive soot and muck in it).

If it doesn't rain where you are for a few weeks, and you weren't directly hit by a nuclear weapon, the levels of fallout will actually be quite low, being mainly down to things like blowing dust.

It's perfectly plausible that due to the prevailing weather conditions, it rained radioactivity on Zion, and no animals would have survived. Other places without rain until an appreciable amount of the most radioactive isotopes had either decayed or washed out, flora and fauna could have survived without too much of a problem.

Umm thanks... we needed to know that...

It's relevant to the discussion going on about Vault 22, all the plants dying in Zion, how Tribals survived outside of vaults. Scroll up 4 posts, it's been going on for several pages.

Ah fair enough. Lazy me!

 

[Ben Soto]

Apparently, the black rain was global due to the massive amount of nukes going off. This troubles me. I can assume that this black rain doesn't affect everything, but does impact many plants like trees, which is why there are so many dead ones and very few live ones.