Fallout Bible 1

Fallout Bible 1 is the first installment of the Fallout Bible, a collection of documents containing background material for the first Fallout games compiled and written by Chris Avellone. This installment was released on January 15, 2002.

All information from Fallout Bible 1, Fallout Bible 2, and Fallout Bible 3 was later revised and included in Fallout Bible 0.

Disclaimers

 * 1) The information presented here is a rough draft and will need some heavy revision, but on some level, I wanted you guys to see the core information we had lying around so you can see some of the ideas that were being batted around. Ideally, the information contained in these updates will be revised in the future based on your comments and possible evidence gathered from within the game - some of the people that put this documentation together (me and others) don't have nearly as much knowledge of facts within the game as some of you fans out there. Mistakes and inconsistencies are bound to crop up. When they do, we'll do our best to correct them.
 * 2) I have gotten all the emails on the Bible, I have read them all, and even if I don't have time to respond to each one (special apologies to Jason Mical - I still have to read the PNP game fully), please keep additional questions coming. I want to know everything you want to know.
 * 3) Some of this information you'll see in the Bible is going to be incomplete. The reason for this is because if we ever do a future Fallout product, I don't want to write Black Isle into a corner - we want to leave some holes to fill in ourselves... or holes to escape out of. So forgive the sins of omission when they crop up. Just consider them extra fuel for fan fiction plotlines.
 * 4) The information contained within this documentation could ruin many of the surprises in Fallout 1 and 2, so readers should be aware that there are plenty of spoilers contained within the information below.
 * 5) The next addition will be Monday the 11th. (Monday works better for me, I've found - I get the peace and quiet of the weekend to put stuff together, since my work week tends to be pretty hectic.) I'm not sure what's going to be in that submission just yet, but right now it's ranging anywhere from more info about Tycho and Dogmeat, to organization breakdowns in F2. I'll let you guys know.
 * 6) I don't know about a PDF version yet, but I'll do my best to figure out how to make one.

Thanks for supporting Fallout,

Chris Avellone down here at Black Isle Studios

What's in this section
Anyway, so this submission is going to include the following:


 * Three huge questions from Sean McGrorey.
 * All documented known Vaults and their experiments - this list was compiled by Tim Cain, I believe. Tim, that creaky old fogey, doesn't quite remember himself.
 * The documented Fallout Timeline. This sucks for fans, but it hasn't got all the Brotherhood of Steel or ZAX stuff in it, since I've found some conflicting information on both that may have to wait for a future update.
 * A marketing blurb picture (History.jpg) compiled by Leonard Boyarsky or Jason Anderson that gives a run-down on some of the events that led up to the Great War. I had to include it grayscale because the color version was too huge and attempts to reduce it blurred the text. If you want the color version, let me know - it's many megabytes.

Answer me these questions three
Three huge questions courtesy of Sean McGrorey:

'''1.Why was it that so many ghouls left necropolis between Fallout 1 and 2 to settle in Broken Hills and Gecko? Is necropolis empty now? Also, why was it that Harold joined the ghouls? I remember him talking as if he weren't a ghoul; When you type in "ghouls" in the question box in the first Fallout he refers to the ghouls as "them".'''

Answer:


 * Ghouls still have the human need to expand and move on - and in the 80+ years between Fallout 1 and 2, the ghouls spread out from Necropolis in all directions... and some had even left before the events in Fallout 1.


 * Necropolis is not empty now; ghouls are still said to reside there, though Set is no longer their leader. It is not clear whether he is alive or dead.


 * Harold joined the ghouls in Fallout 2 because Harold is a kindly sort who likes to help people - when he sees a group of people trying to make their way in the wasteland, he tries to step in and give them a leg up, especially when it can benefit life for everyone. Wherever a key event in Fallout has occurred, Harold always seems to be right there in the middle of things, helping to push the world along and make it a better place. His wit is a little dry and raspy, but he's got a good heart.


 * Harold is not a ghoul, but he is a mutant. What happened to him inside the military base during his assault with Francine, Mark, and Richard Grey is unknown, but it is likely he was exposed to the FEV virus and changed. His last known memory after the attack was passing out then waking back up in the wasteland... changed.

'''2. Does FEV really cause sterility? In Fallout 1 it seemed like the answer was a resounding yes, and a number of reasons for this were given by Zax and Vree. But then in Fallout 2 after you take Marcus to the Cat's Paw he says "I hope she doesn't get pregnant" and says that the FEV doesn't make mutants go sterile, it just makes it take a few years "to get the juices flowing again". Moreoever, the deathclaws in Vault 13 were infected with FEV and yet they are able to reproduce. So, does the FEV cause sterility or not?'''

Answer:


 * FEV causes sterility in some creatures. FEV does cause sterility in super mutants and ghouls - Marcus' comment in New Reno was a joke only (and it was an inappropriate one, for which I apologize for). For other creatures, however, the FEV does not cause sterility - in fact, it may actually speed up their reproductive cycles (in tandem with potential drawbacks). Known species that can reproduce after being mutated with the FEV include most species of Giant rats, the mantises (who are known to have bred so fast they cover the Salt Lake City area like blankets), the radscorpions, and the deathclaws. This is only a partial list.


 * The deathclaws in V13 are a special case; as part of the Enclave experiments, they were bred as fighting packs for the government. They were not supposed to be able to reproduce, but they were attempting to do so at the time of Fallout 2. It is extremely likely that the Enclave scientists would not have wanted the deathclaws to breed on their own for fear of losing control of them, but that doesn't mean they would have made mistakes in engineering limiters or sterility in them.


 * The wannamingos are a result of FEV virus experiments, but they are sterile. They are not aliens, but word is they were designed as FEV-tailored weapons for waging war on other countries... and they got loose. They do live a long time, but they were dying out at the time of Fallout 2. They have only been sighted in the F2 area and nowhere else in the wastelands.

'''3. Are the radscorpions a product of the FEV virus? When you talk to the doctor, Razlo, in Shady Sands, he tells you that they were once American Emperor Scorpions but that he has no idea how they mutated because radiation alone couldn't have done it. For that matter, what about all of the other creatures of the wasteland? Which ones have been mutated by FEV and which ones haven't? Maybe in the bestiary each creature could have a stat that shows it's level of FEV infection.'''

Answer:


 * The radscorpions are a result of a combination of radiation and the FEV virus, and Razlo in Shady Sands is correct - they were originally Emperor Scorpions that have grown... big.


 * FEV-Infected Critters in the wasteland include almost all the ones you've seen in F1 and F2:


 * Mantises.
 * Most species of rats.
 * Gecko lizards.
 * Brahmin
 * Scorpions
 * Ants
 * Various varieties of plants, including the Venus Flytrap.
 * Rumor has it some dogs were affected, but no one's seen any, so for now that's just rumor. Of course, the centaurs are a mash of human, dog, and various other parts... but hey, who knows how that mutation came about. Grey was probably messing around in one of his labs.


 * Creatures not mutated by FEV probably did not survive the aftermath of the Great War, with the possible exception of cockroaches... and perhaps normal ants, though there are FEV-infected versions of these species.


 * No one knows where those bird noises in Vault City came from.


 * I'll try to include a chart of FEV-infected creatures in future additions as well as other critters that you may not have seen in F1 and F2. Most likely a great majority of insects were affected (they tend to breed much faster, and their mutations tend to become evident pretty quickly as the generations advance), possibly beetles, some spiders, cockroaches, and other creatures.

Glossary
Vault-Tec is used two different ways in Fallout 1 and Fallout 2. The correct version is "Vault-Tec."

Behind the scenes
In case you guys were ever curious, the man behind the spoken (voice-acted) dialogue in Fallout 1 and Fallout 2 was Mark O' Green, the former head of Interplay's Dragonplay division (our old D&D division before it became Black Isle). He's got a good way with words.

Vault System
It was intended that while the player was reading the Vault 8 records in Fallout 2, he could discover a classified file (opened with a successful Science skill roll) which explained that Vault 8 was a "control Vault," designed to hold 1000 people and to open on time. This file was intended to foreshadow the discovery of the true and sinister purpose of the Vaults.

The player was also intended to apply his Science skill to the central computer in Vault 13 to obtain a history of Vault 13, the Overseer's involvement in the Vault Dweller's expulsion, and even worse, the true purposes of the Vaults. The Overseer was conscious of the true purpose of the Vaults as social experiments on a grand scale, and he drove out the Vault Dweller because he was afraid that he would ruin the experiment... or uncover it. Of course, the Overseer himself caused problems not long after this, according to Martin Frobisher, the leader of Vault 13 in Fallout 2:

Martin did not see the Overseer executed, however... his information comes from the Vault 13 records passed down by his ancestors.

Basically, the Vaults were never intended to save the population of the United States. With a population of almost 400 million by 2077, the U.S. would need nearly 400,000 Vaults the size of Vault 13, and Vault-Tec was commissioned to build only 122 such Vaults. The real reason for these Vaults was to study pre-selected segments of the population to see how they react to the stresses of isolationism and how successfully they re-colonize after the Vault opens. Some of the experiments include:

Rumor has it there were 122 different vault experiments. For Fan Fiction purposes, a lot of these vault experiments have been left open for you to play around with.

Fallout Timeline table, first draft
The following timeline information was compiled from information I was able to dig up in Fallout 1 and Fallout 2, as well as some old Word documents lying around. Considering how much has been lost in the years since the bombs dropped, keeping an accurate timeline is difficult, so there is bound to be some inconsistencies.

This is considered a first draft, because revisions to this timeline are likely to occur based on feedback from you guys, and feedback is welcome - trying to sift through history is proving to be pretty difficult. :)

I couldn't verify certain information on ZAX, the BOS history holodisk, and various logs from the Master, because I've lost my Fallout 1 save games. If anyone has screenshots of these things they'd like to share, I'd be grateful. It'd take me a few days to play back to those spots. Once I get these, I can do another revision of the timeline, since I'm not exactly sure of the chronology for the BOS and Master.

Here is what can be recovered from the records that exist:

Marketing blurb picture
A blurb created by Leonard Boyarsky or Jason Anderson, providing a summary of Fallout background story for marketing purposes during E3 1996. It is a six-paragraph summary accompanied by three promotional images (Necropolis sewers, a still from the Cathedral destruction cinematic, and an action shot of the player character attacking a radscorpion with a flamer), while at the E3 interactive demo village. A digital copy was released again as part of Fallout Bible 1.