Lone Wanderer

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

Beginnings
The Lone Wanderer was born on July 13, 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 Wanderer and his father were allowed to enter the vault, even though many others had been rejected and left to die, under unknown circumstances. 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, two hundred years after the Great War, James disappeared 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 searching for clues. Along the way, they disarmed Megaton's atomic bomb and helped collect data for Moira Brown's Wasteland Survival Guide, among many other activities or rumors thereof.

After James is found, Project Purity can be put back on track, but the reunion is cut short when the Enclave commander, Augustus Autumn, arrives demanding control of the project. James, unwilling to allow the project to fall into the hands of the Enclave, sacrifices himself by filling the control chamber with deadly amounts of radiation, hoping to kill Colonel Autumn and the other soldiers in the process. The colonel manages to survive, however.

After fleeing from the Jefferson Memorial, the 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 the restoration of Project Purity. After retrieving this G.E.C.K., the Wanderer is captured by Colonel Autumn and taken to Raven Rock. There, John Henry 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 Wanderer refuses and escapes, sabotaging Raven Rock in the process. After finally stopping Colonel Autumn, the Wanderer and Sentinel Lyons are faced with the dilemma of who would re-enter the radiation-flooded Memorial and activate the purifier. Once this decision is made, the Wasteland is finally given the greatest gift of all: a constant source of clean water.

After Project Purity
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, using it to destroy 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 and 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 their actions had gone down as local legend. History had even forgotten their gender. Much of the documentation of their actions had however became flawed, and were riddled with conflicting reports. On the 10th of 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.