What of Fallout 3 is considered "true" canon/fanon

D

Dukeanumberone

It Wandered In From the Wastes
I realize the other canon thread was locked and don't intend to start a flame/troll war but have an honest question of the long-term fans.

What if anything do you consider canon from FO3 ?

Please stick only to what is you consider to be cannon, and why, and not what isn't, as that topic is beaten to death 100 ways.

I hope this can be a discussion and not a bash 3 fest that most 3 posts turn into. I get why the community has issues with it and its publisher, so no need to elaborate there. I am simply curious as to what if anything the community believes 3 might have contributed to the canon.
 
I consider everything canon, as much as I dislike a lot of it. I'm not one to deny it's effect on the series. Without Fallout 3, there is no New Vegas (I loved it), and I don't pick and choose what is canon or not. I do ignore things that are pointless and have no real lasting consequences on the storyline though. Kinda like a brain dump, so that I can attempt to forget what I hate. It doesn't always work but I find the longer I go without playing Fallout 3 again, the more stuff I forget. I honestly liked Fallout 3 for a short time, so I do appreciate some of it. I think my main complaint of the game isn't the canon though.
 
I have just a handful of things I would walk away from Fallout 3 as points salient to the overall Fallout thematics and lore. Anything not listed I would feel free to change, specific details included.

1.) The Eastern Brotherhood changes its mission when they arrive in the East Coast to be one more of benevolence.

2.) Pittsburgh is an irradiated hellhole ruled by an oppressive regime of slavers who are working to overcome a malady unique to their location and situation.

3.) Those events that tie-in directly to New Vegas, primarily relating to the Enclave. That ED-E was a prototype from Adams AFB and sent West to avoid being dismantled by orders from Col. Autumn, preventing the materials from being used in the Hellfire armor. That the Q-35 Matter Modulator served as a prototype for plasma weapons found in Fallout 3.
 
I "consider" EVERYTHING Fanon... because it is, in every sense of the definition.

When something is Fanon, it's just material made up by fans of the existing canon, who may THINK they're doing the story justice, but they may be easily right, or very, very wrong. Like any fan-fiction, some of the ideas are actually quite great, but many of which are just bad, ridiculous, or simply impossible. We choose to pretend that the good bits are indeed real canon, and weed out the bad bits as if they needn't exist to validate the good. Sometimes even the original minds will acknowledge what they like about their fan-made content and include it in the official material. For example, the anime DragonBall GT is non-canon (it was developed by the studio AFTER the creator ended the story, just so they could make more money off of the name) yet series creator Akira Toriyama admitted that he did like a couple things about it, and even said, "I really liked the idea of SSJ4, I wish I came up with that!" Yet the series is still not canon.

Such is the case with FO3; a FEW of the ideas were acknowledged by the creative minds behind the originals, and incorporated into the true sequel, FONV, but the rest was left in the dust, to be forgotten like it should be.

Examples of what made much of the game better or worse Fanon:
-The Setting: Inspired by the originals, and admittedly quite cool, but absolutely ridiculous and lacking in any credibility to fit inside its own timeline.
-The Super Mutants: Pure, unadulterated fanon; the developers themselves admitted they just "wanted to have them there", so they made up the most convenient excuse for their presence.
-East Coast BOS: Just like above, these were here JUST because the developers wanted to put them there. Zero inspiration.
-East Coast Vaults: Unlike the above 2, the PRESENCE of Vaults isn't absurd, but their depiction is.* 106 may have been canon, but it's depiction in FO3 isn't necessarily.
-Zeta: Raw, self-serving, irresponsibly ridiculous FAN FICTION.

I can ACCEPT a couple of the details from the game, though. DevilTakeMe's list is a fine example of such details. I LIKED the idea of The Pitt... until I actually went there, and once more the execution was just completely off. The Pitt that's in my head makes more sense than the one you can travel to in the game (it's not a "black or white" scenario where siding with the slaves to grant them their freedom, yet condemn them to regress backwards from the progress towards a cure is truly a "good" decision). I can ACCEPT the idea that the Brotherhood might've sent yet more expeditions Eastward, even if the idea behind it was just ripping off FOT, but the way they come off in the game is still all wrong. I can BELIEVE that there are places in the Wasteland so devastated by whatever that there are only a couple thriving settlements, and the few you find are a town built within a crater out of salvaged airplane parts or a beached aircraft carrier, but naturally these places still suffer from the overall setting's lack of credibility. But liking any of this still doesn't change the fact that it IS still just fanon.

* If 101's mission was different than 13's, why was it conducted the same? If 101 was to remain PERMANENTLY isolated, why wasn't the Vault door rigged like 12's, only instead of never closing that it would never open? What part of secret super-soldier experimentation was a social experiment that would gather relevant data?
 
In my head canon the Capital Wasteland looks like shit because of some Fallout science chemical weapons and the water is undrinkable because they dropped radiation bombs in there. Vault 87 was not originally meant for the airborne FEV, but a completely different virus, and Little Lamplight is populated by adults whose mutations make them look like children and the ones who don't have the mutation can only stay until 16. Mothership Zeta and Oasis never happened. I have to say, though, the origin story for Harold that would have been put into Van Buren in some ways is actually worse than Oasis.
To be honest with Bethesda having the franchise there is still hope for good or partially good Fallout games like NV or some of the FO3 DLCs, but imagine if Bioware had the franchise. Hepler writing Arcade Gannon... best not even think about it.
 
I take FO3 as canon in broad strokes, better forget the details. I'll never aknowledge MS Zeta, though, and I doubt (hope) that Bethesda will forget that POS DLC and the stupidity it contains.
 
It doesn't matter fo3 is cannon because they don't care about the world. Does anyone who enjoy the fo3 cares about the world of fallout? just don't involve core region in future beth "fallout"
 
I consider it canon, most of it, anyway.
The only difference is that in my head some details are little different - less black-and-white, the Capital Wasteland is far more populated, more trade routes etc.
The main thing I disliked about the game - and most of its bigger problems stem from this too - is the setting, when compared to other games.
Let me explain.

Essentially, the game is set 200 years after the war, right?
Most of it seems like it is set 20 years after it - compare it to Fallout which is some 80 years or so after the global thermonuclear conflict, and New Vegas, set in the same time period as Fallout 3.

Fallout 3's wasteland seems like a more brutal, savage, dark place, a bit too much for the game set 200 years post-war. Compare it with New Vegas - granted, New Vegas and Mojave had a far less share of nukes, less mindless kidnapping mutants roaming around blah blah - but the contrast is still pretty big. One is post-apocalyptic, extremely dark, if I can say that, and the other is more post-post-apocalyptic where the focus is on growing and already established societies, their interaction etc. The period of two games is the same.

On the other hand, original Fallout, set 80 years after the war is also far less "dark" as the Fallout 3 - societies growing from the ashes of war, formed trade routes, various organizations - most of it isn't present in Fallout 3. Furthermore, there is hardly even a notion of it - everyone seems super-cool that the biggest "city" miles around is counting around 30 people (regardless of it essentially being a scrapyard built around a undetonated nuclear bomb), and the most advanced community is living in a centuries old, rusty, decaying ship ( it is questionable if it would still be on water by that time).

One more thing that isn't negligible. It is DC. It may be USA's center of administration, the capital city, but it is on East Coast. Most of the nuclear bombardment came from the west, across the Pacific, so it is logical that West Coast would have a far greater treatment in the war. Looking at it, it seems the situation was a bit different.

In essence, the game is, when it comes to timeline, poorly placed. I wouldn't agree completely with SnapSlav, but as he points out, a lot of the material is Fanon. I believe that a little more tweaking with details and better writing team could have made this game into a far better title.

That all being said, in my head, Fallout 3 is a bit different. Somewhere between the present setting and a more "advanced" wasteland, where lot more (stable) societies grow. You could say I imagine it to a point of it being fan-fiction.







Mothership Zeta is still dumb, though.
 
Atomkilla said:
In essence, the game is, when it comes to timeline, poorly placed. I wouldn't agree completely with SnapSlav, but as he points out, a lot of the material is Fanon. I believe that a little more tweaking with details and better writing team could have made this game into a far better title.
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But what you've said IS precisely what I express, funnily enough.

I often think about "different factions" when I look at FO3 (and its problems/unoriginality). I thought about how MANY there were in FO1, but that for reasons unknown, most seem to forget about them entirely, or simply don't acknowledge them as full-fledged "factions". That's probably because they were so small-time, in the game. The Blades were a faction, but they were JUST a gang in one of many settlements you would visit. The Regulators were a faction, and their presence was somewhat larger than the Blades, but they were just a different side to the same coin as them; one small "gang" inhabiting a single town. Basically, FO1 had believability in its groups, because they were just... groups! They didn't ALL have to be Super Mutants or Brotherhood.

I think about these when I pretend that FO3 is canon. I think that the Enclave are actually just a group that came out to try and restore order to the East Coast roughly 20-30 years after the bombs dropped, whose origin story is somewhere between what happened with the Regulators and some kind of polar opposite as what created the BOS. I like to think the "Super Mutants" are something different, but like REAL Super Mutants they are the creation of a chemical, and unable to reproduce by themselves, so they kidnap people all the time. I like to think the reason EVERY raider is an unreasoning, bloodthirsty, cannibalistic savage, with no semblance of structure or organization, is because (like the Reavers of Serenity) they're the unfortunate result of one of the Vaults attempting to pacify people, but tragically resulting in creating mindless, violent psychos.

The issue with that, of course, is that it's just more fanon. Much of it makes more sense, like it only being a few decades rather than a few centuries later, but unfortunately it's no truer than the "canonical" story, itself.
 
SnapSlav said:
The issue with that, of course, is that it's just more fanon. Much of it makes more sense, like it only being a few decades rather than a few centuries later, but unfortunately it's no truer than the "canonical" story, itself.
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Well, that's the whole problem of it. It's more fanon.
I understand what you mean, absolutely. But I personally don't have a big issue with it if it's fanon (in my pretty, little head). If it's an improvement, even imaginary one, it's better for me. Hell, I have my own fanon for some parts of Fallout 2.
To be perfectly honest, I have a fanon for almost every game I've ever played - some little details I don't like, feel out of place, are poorly executed, technically limited etc. Thing is, the better the game, the lesser the fanon needed.

Fallout 3, unfortunately, is by my measures, a wasted potential. It's not a bad game, as I usually say, but a poor Fallout game - thus, I believe many people who care have their own fanon. I care. It's the game that reintroduced me to the series. I played quite a lot of it before I developed a certain criteria for games. I don't play it anymore, but I'm happy I did. Because of that, I have my own fanon of it.

It could've been worse, too.

In the end, there's nothing I can really do about it. None of us can. Fanon or not.
 
What I wonder a lot is what were the canon endings of Fallout 3? Was your guy good or bad? Did he save Megaton? Did he wipe out the Paradise Falls Slavers? Did he help Big Town? You know, things like that.
 
Well considering you couldn't fuck a prosti, amada was a prude and even cherry wont give you more than a hello after you set her free of dukov,and Lyons was prob a dyke, there will be no lone wanderer babies goin on, thus no need to really tie it up one way or another. Id say considering the overall theme of help the BOS, PP was saved with no FEV, Slavers were left alone, Megaton was spared, etc...

Now that I think of It being truly evil has few perks that truly affect gameplay, basically if your super-evil, 3 dog talks shit, wastelanders / citizens of towns think your an asshat, and the BOS don't give a shit, despite the fact that they are trying to save the CW.

SNap- as usual I agree with the majority of your POV's, I had exact same thought about the raiders of CW/ reavers but one of the raiders of the PITT states that the CW raiders are basically all just cannibal junkies.


I finally got around to MZ and it left a bad taste in my mouth, voice acting and cut scenes were a little better than the majority of the Vanilla, but i though the "greys" were too buffed for whay they were, played at LVL 30 on VERY HARD and it shows( My CHAR is a Perfect/GOD build with all the overkill perks and I had a hard time VATSing and covering in many of the ambush locations.) the SM overlords went down quicker than the SUPER GREY's(shielded toughest). VERY LIGHT ON STORY

Loved the PITT, PL is different, OP Anchorage should have been a training sim that the overseer puts you through to get used to game world.

I like the BROAD STROKES of Fallout 3 because they are the rehashed themes of the first two in a SANDBOX /1st person setting.
Albeit far less nuanced, poorly written and with a very "on rails MQ". I haven't finished my 1st play on 1 yet but I think I am starting to understand more of the gripes on 3 better.
 
Oh yeah, the Pitt was great. It actually presented a hard morale choice - Help the slaves and doom everyone to sickness, or help the raiders and cure the sickness.
It was actually difficult as well.
 
Most veteran fallout players wouldn't consider this canon. Have you guys even noticed that almost nobody that has been on this forum since 2006-07 or before even comes to the Fallout 3 section?

In my personal opinion, I would consider it canon. The legal rights were all worked out between interplay and bethesda, AND most the original fallout creators gave Fallout 3 their blessing (it may have taken them a minute, but they did), so I would consider Fallout 3 canon. I though I was going to hate fallout 3. I went around telling everybody what a horrible piece of shit it was going to be. However a veteran fallout player's curiosity got the best of him, and I picked it up to try it. The moment I picked up the PS3 controller and started playing it when I bought the game, I couldn't put it down.

So:

1) Legally, it is canon.
2) Fallout 3 (not Van Buren F3) was given its blessing by the original fallout creators.

And finally;

3) Its a great game.

So you have three good reasons there to say that its canon.

EDIT: On a side note, I am not sure that the DLC is canon. I would say that the basic story surrounding it MAY be canon, but overall I am not sure if I would call the DLC for Fallout 3 OR New Vegas canon. I think these are just add-ons to expand the game. But then again, Broken Steel was considered for the sole purpose of adding on to the story, so I think in all matters, the creators of the game left the decision up to the players to decide whether the DLC was canon or not.
 
All of it is canon except Mothership Zeta.

The general fanon is that Fallout 3 is more or less canon, however some of the details are not.
 
BigBoss said:
1) Legally, it is canon.
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That is more of a technicality than something all fans would agree upon.
It may have the same name but that does not make it the same


BigBoss said:
2)
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BigBoss said:
Fallout 3 (not Van Buren F3) was given its blessing by the original fallout creators.
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They did?

I think this is more because the original creators could say little otherwise as they don't have influence anymore, plus in the gaming industry it's sort of a 'no no' to bad mouth rivals.
It's rather undiplomatic and people never know if they get to work for the very company they called a 'rotten fish' months or years ago.
Some people do remember such things.


BigBoss said:
And finally;

3) Its a great game.
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That is a matter of taste man, the difference between an opinion and a fact is always that one always depends on the person and the other can be proven.

I can give you plenty of reasons why Fallout 3 is not a good game and why it should be de-canonized as it's a stain on the Fallout brand along with Fallout Brotherhood of Steel. (in fact I consider FOBOS at some points far superior to Fallout 3, for one it had at least an original story)
 
The Dutch Ghost said:
BigBoss said:
2)[/b] Fallout 3 (not Van Buren F3) was given its blessing by the original fallout creators.
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They did?
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I seem to recall that not only DIDN'T they, but they even cursed about it, and swore openly about how they detested its very creation. To paraphrase what they said about it (since I can't remember the actual quote, word for word): "It feels like watching your kid taken away from you after a bitter divorce and seeing them taken from their bitch of a mother by some guy you don't even know. Maybe they're okay, and you've heard of them, but you just don't feel like it's right to let a child grow up under someone other than its real, loving parent."

They hated it. They didn't endorse it.

But as was already exceedingly pointed out, fanon is fanon, no matter what you think. The game was made by fans (allegedly), not by its original creators, so that in and of itself made it fanon. But to top it off, it was shit, and much of its content (no, NOT just MZ) spat in the face of the established canon. So whether you "think" it is or isn't, or whether you "like it" or not, it doesn't really matter; the shit's fanon. If you like it, then you like fanon; it doesn't magically change that it isn't canon.
 
SNAPSLAV incorrectly wrote and the opined

I seem to recall that not only DIDN'T they, but they even cursed about it, and swore openly about how they detested its very creation. To paraphrase what they said about it (since I can't remember the actual quote, word for word): "It feels like watching your kid taken away from you after a bitter divorce and seeing them taken from their bitch of a mother by some guy you don't even know. Maybe they're okay, and you've heard of them, but you just don't feel like it's right to let a child grow up under someone other than its real, loving parent."

They hated it. They didn't endorse it.

But as was already exceedingly pointed out, fanon is fanon, no matter what you think. The game was made by fans (allegedly), not by its original creators, so that in and of itself made it fanon. But to top it off, it was shit, and much of its content (no, NOT just MZ) spat in the face of the established canon. So whether you "think" it is or isn't, or whether you "like it" or not, it doesn't really matter; the shit's fanon. If you like it, then you like fanon; it doesn't magically change that it isn't canon.
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now to separate reality from opinion
----------------------------------------
Tim cain Before Playing

http://www.edge-online.com/news/what-tim-cain-thinks-fallout-3/


Tim cain after Playing

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=endscreen&v=m4XVW6qcuzM&NR=1
"I actually enjoyed playing it, and I know some of my fans were dissapointed
when I said I enjoyed playing it."

MOAR QUOTZ


-----"there were a lot of suprises , SOME of them pleasant"
-----"I thought they did a GOOD job of understood what the universe was like and then setting a different kind of game to it"
-----"they understood special and they adapted that well to um a first person style rpg and a real time rpg"
-----"I think they did a good job understanding the LORE of the game, I think they did a lot of that well"
-----"the tricky part of FO is the humor and i find im a little critical about...but, humor is very personal and subjective..you honestly cant slight someone for not having the exact same sense of humor you have "
-----" I think it fits with oblivion in their product line... I don't think FO 1/2 fit with their product line well"
-----"FEV was supposed to be localized to CA, I would have done something completely different."
------" I think FO3 they should have taken it off in a different direction more"

So obviously he would have done it different and this is far from a shinning endorsement
but it vastly different from the NMA PARTY LINE of his opinion ,
which is grossly inaccurate.


****
Brian Fargo After
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hp2FsFgd9Uo

watch the vid or be lazy here with quotes when asked of F3
---"I dont have a problem with it"
---"I think they did a respectable job"
---"I think they did an excellent job"
---"They did a nice job with it"'
---"I would have probably done an edgier product"
---"I think we can all nitpick for what it is"

Obviously not hate, and if wondering what Fargo contributed how about source material (something constantly griped about here) aka WASTELAND,
how about naming it FALLOUT
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xa5IzHhAdi4&list=PLPzB8ZYVQNKUMNZ6FWXFBisQCkB_2AUvX
26:15 LAZY PEOPLE
or PERKS(yes thats right taylor designed it after FARGO played and wanted more from leveling)
43:16 same link LAZY PEOPLE

So obviously he would have done it different and this is far from a shinning endorsement
but it vastly different from the NMA PARTY LINE of his opinion ,
which is grossly inaccurate.

******
Chris Taylor

You've probably been asked this before, but what are your thoughts on Fallout 3?

I once said I'd only comment on Fallout 3 if I had nice things to say about it.

I really liked Fallout New Vegas. I thought it was a very good game.
They had a good story, the interactivity was much improved and the Fallout humor was there
in the right amount. Obsidian did a great job on New Vegas.
I'm biased, of course, and think that FO1 was the best of the series.
New Vegas is very good and comes closer to FO1 for me than any of the other games.

So pretty much on par with NMA PARTY LINE. 1/3 so far lets keep going
...................
Leonard Boyarski

so often misquoted as "To paraphrase what they said about it
(since I can't remember the actual quote, word for word):
"It feels like watching your kid taken away from you after a
bitter divorce and seeing them taken from their bitch of a
mother by some guy you don't even know."

I know its hard to be objective when your filled with hate SNAP but that is no excuse for being LAZY,
see GOOGLE: https://www.google.com/#hl=en&safe=...b747fe93862d6b&bpcl=40096503&biw=1888&bih=809

WHEN IN ACTUALITY IT IS>>>
http://www.duckandcover.cx/content.php?id=63


On the subject of Fallout 3, how do you feel about Bethesda getting the license, and what direction do you see them taking the series?

""To be perfectly honest, I was extremely disappointed that we did not get the chance to make the next Fallout game.
((((((((This has nothing to do with Bethesda ))))(((((OOOH LOOK WHAT I FOUND , AN OFTEN MISREPRESENTED QUOTE)))), it's just that we've always felt that Fallout was ours and it was just a
technicality that Interplay happened to own it. It sort of felt as if our child had been sold to the highest bidder,
and we had to just sit by and watch. As far as where they will take it, you'd have to ask them that.
Since I have absolutely no idea what their plans are,
I can't comment on whether I think they're going in the right direction with it or not. ""

that was before , here is after
http://www.nma-fallout.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=59467

"LB: I don't like to comment on other people's games. I liked the Fallout 3 stuff that was done. One of the most interesting aspects of it... I started as an art director on Fallout 3 [the cancelled version known as "Project Van Buren" at Interplay], and I did a little art on it, so it was interesting seeing a lot of art that I had done recreated in this different space by different artists, but, you know, they obviously bought this license, and they had a love for it.

They put their heart and soul into it. It's not easy making games. [laughs] You know, I'm not going to come along and second-guess what other people have done. The people who made Diablo before me could say the same thing about what we're doing with Diablo III, so I wish them all the best of luck with what they're doing with it.


---ohh noes damning evidence, wait wuht?, not damning of F3?


RAAWRRRRRR , I CALL HAXORS, LIES , LYES, EVERYONE MUST HATE FALLOUT 3!!!!!!!!!!
 
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