Lone Wanderer



The Lone Wanderer is the player character and main protagonist in Fallout 3.

Beginnings
The Lone Wanderer was born on July 11, 2258 to James and Catherine at the Jefferson Memorial, where they worked on Project Purity. Catherine died shortly after giving birth, due to cardiac arrest of an unknown cause. James suspended the project and traveled to Vault 101 via Megaton (with the help of Star Paladin Cross). The Lone Wanderer's origin was kept a secret in order to shelter the child from the outside world, and to keep up the pretense of the Vault-Tec Corporation's social experiment.

Escape
The Lone Wanderer lived in Vault 101 without incident for nineteen years, but in 2277, 200 years after the Great War, James disappears without any explanation. The young Lone Wanderer, with the help of Amata Almodovar, leaves the safety of the Vault to look for James in the ruins of Washington, D.C. In order to find him, the Lone Wanderer travels across the wasteland following James's trail, searching for clues and speaking to the people he encountered to find out where he went. Along the way, he disarmed Megaton's atomic bomb, and helped create Moira Brown's Wasteland Survival Guide. After finding James, Project Purity is put back on track, but the reunion is cut short when the Enclave commander, Augustus Autumn, arrives and demands ownership of the Project. James, unwilling to allow the project to fall into the hands of the Enclave, sacrifices himself by filling the control chamber of Project Purity with deadly amounts of radiation, in hopes of killing Colonel Autumn and the other soldiers. Colonel Autumn, however, survives. The Enclave take control of the project, but are unable to operate it.

After fleeing from the Jefferson Memorial building with the remainder of Project Purity staff, The Lone Wanderer takes refuge within the Citadel and enlists the help of the Brotherhood of Steel to retrieve a G.E.C.K. from Vault 87 for use in a soon-to-be-recaptured Project Purity. Because the G.E.C.K. is in a highly irradiated chamber, they must then choose whether to enlist the help of Fawkes, a friendly super mutant, or face the deadly amounts of radiation alone. Once the G.E.C.K. is retrieved, the Lone Wanderer is captured by Colonel Autumn and taken to Raven Rock. There, President Eden presents the Wanderer with a canister of modified FEV for insertion into Project Purity, which would poison any mutated creature drinking the purified water. The Lone Wanderer refused, and blew up the entire facility. There, after finally stopping Colonel Autumn, the Lone Wanderer and Sentinel Lyons are faced with the dilemma of who would enter the radiation-flooded chamber and activate the project. Once the purifier is activated the wasteland is finally given the greatest gift of all: fresh, clean drinking water.

Aftermath
The Lone Wanderer awakens two weeks later to face the consequences of their decisions so far and joins the Brotherhood as a knight, in their mission to distribute the newly-purified water and to hunt the Enclave remnants. This hunt would eventually put the Wanderer in control of an orbital strike. The Lone Wanderer either uses it to destroy the Citadel or the Enclave mobile base crawler. During or after the events of Fallout 3, the Lone Wanderer travels to various places such as The Pitt, Point Lookout, Mothership Zeta and participates in a simulation of the Anchorage Reclamation.

Legacy
By 2297, the Lone Wanderer had disappeared from the Capital Wasteland, and their fate was unknown. Most citizens of the wasteland had a story about the Wanderer, and many of his or her actions had gone down as local legend. History had even forgotten whether they were a man or a woman. Much of the documentation of their actions had however became flawed, and were riddled with conflicting reports. On the 10th September, Moira Brown began work on a biography of the Lone Wanderer.

Appearances
The Lone Wanderer appears in Fallout 3 and all of its add-ons.

Behind the scenes
The Lone Wanderer as a baby was voiced by Jake Howard, the son of Todd Howard, on his first birthday.