A Brief History of the World: Fallout Style

There’s plenty of reason to look forward to the upcoming Fallout 3. For starters, it’s being handled by a company known for its “Game of the Year” awards, genre-redefining RPG games, and a sheer in-game size and depth that rivals the Grand Theft Auto series. But I’m looking forward to something much more meaningful (at least to me): the return of one of the most interesting, most detailed, most engaging post-apocalyptic gaming universes ever created. While the complete Fallout history would take at least a few days to completely learn, here’s a quick step-by-step of the important rules, regulations, history and quirks of the Fallout universe.

The first thing to note about the Fallout series is that it is not the future as envisioned by us in 2008. Rather, it is the “world of tomorrow” as envisioned by people in the post-nuclear paranoia era of the 1950s… gone horribly wrong, of course. Consider these differences: the microchip was never invented, so huge bulky super-computers filling up entire rooms are the norm. There are robots that clean your car and walk your dog. It’s an idealistic tomorrow where everyone is living free and laughing easy… until nuclear war breaks out.

In the Fallout universe, the shortage of fossil fuels sets the stage for a global war. The United States begins to drill into Alaska, desperately needing to tap their final reserve of precious oil. This ignites a world-scale debate over who should use the oil; eventually talks break down to the point where the President storms away and vows that only the U.S. will have access to the precious last drops. From there, things rapidly snowball into a global crisis: China invades Alaska, the US annexes Canada, and things deteriorate to the point where the nukes fly and the world as we know it will never be the same. While it is never revealed who dropped the first bomb, the stage is set for the universe of Fallout.

Fallout 1 and 2 are set in Southern and Northern California respectively, and revolve around a post-apocalyptic world of tragedy and triumph. There is prostitution and drugs and later (in Fallout 2) slavery, but there are also brave souls eking out a living in the wasteland, committed to protecting themselves and the ones they love, while rebuilding whatever they can and trying their best to deal with things like radiation poisoning and rapid unchecked mutation. Since, again, this is the “world of tomorrow as envisioned in 1950s,” the radiation mutates people into ghouls, zombies, etc. There are also “super-mutants,” who are products of the “Forced Evolutionary Virus” that resulted from a pre-war biological warfare arms race. In Fallout 1, they are led by “The Master,” the main villain.

The main story of Fallout 1 revolves around “Vault 13,” an expansive underground fallout shelter built before the war. As you could tell by its name, Vault 13 is only one of many Vaults. Here is where the purpose of the Vaults gets a bit confusing: they were built as large-scale sociological and psychological experiments; being able to withstand the onslaught of nukes was just a precaution. Here are a few good examples of the differences between the vaults: one of the vaults had a door that never closed. One of the vaults contained 99 men and one woman. One of them contained 99 women and one man.

A large part of Fallout 1 centers on the main character’s search for a “water chip” for his Vault. The main character, known only as the “Vault Dweller,” roams the wasteland in search for the now-ancient pre-war piece of technology, encountering all the highs and lows the wasteland of Fallout has to offer. After finally discovering the water chip and returning it to his Vault, he is instructed by “The Overseer,” the vault’s sole leader, to put a stop to the mutant menace for the good of the Vault. The Overseer is a solemn man who is rabidly against anyone from his Vault going into the wasteland; only the complete deterioration of the Vault’s water system forces The Overseer to let the Vault Dweller go. The Overseer believes that Vault 13 will never be safe so long as the super-mutants exist, so it’s up to the Vault Dweller to put an end to their menace.

While there are multiple ways to end the mutant menace, it boils down to two things: blowing up the converted military base they are using to create new mutants (by dipping normal humans into large vats of FEV), and killing The Master himself. As with all games, eventually our hero accomplishes both feats and becomes the savior of the wasteland. Unlike most games, he is greeted with abject scorn from The Overseer and forced to leave Vault 13, being deemed “too changed.” Reduced to a wanderer, Fallout 1 ends with our hero limping into the wasteland with no home and no idea what to do next. Enter Fallout 2.

Continued on page 2.

Pages: 1 2