Lone Wanderer

"...that crazy kid from Vault 101..."

- Three Dog

The Lone Wanderer is the player character in Fallout 3.

Background
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. James abandoned the project and traveled to Vault 101 via Megaton (with the help of then-Paladin Cross). The Lone Wanderer's childhood is kept a secret in order to shelter the child from the outside world, and to keep up the pretense of the social experiment for which the Vault was constructed.

For 19 years, the Lone Wanderer lived in Vault 101 without incident, 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, DC. In order to find him, the Lone Wanderer must travel across the wasteland following James' trail. The Lone Wanderer visits all of the locations that James had visited and either search for clues or speak to the people he encountered to find out where he went next. After finding him, 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 is unwilling to allow the project to fall into the hands of the Enclave and sacrifices himself by filling the control chamber of Project Purity with deadly amounts of radiation, in hope to kill Colonel Autumn and the other soldiers. Colonel Autumn, however, survives. The Enclave takes 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 where The Lone Wanderer 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. The G.E.C.K. is in a highly irradiated chamber. The Lone wanderer must then choose whether to enlist the help of Fawkes, a friendly super mutant, or face the deadly amounts of radiation. 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. It is unknown whether the Wanderer will obey this instruction, but it is known that Raven Rock is destroyed and Project Purity is recaptured with the aid of Liberty Prime. There, after finally stopping Colonel Autumn, the 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.

The Lone Wanderer awakes two weeks later to face the consequences of their decisions so far and joins the Brotherhood 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 may either use it to destroy the Citadel or the Enclave Mobile Base Crawler.

Appearances
The Lone Wanderer appears only in Fallout 3 and its add-ons: Operation: Anchorage, The Pitt, Broken Steel, Point Lookout and Mothership Zeta.

Behind the scenes

 * The Lone Wanderer's birth date, 07/13/2258, is a Biblical reference to Micah 7:13: "Notwithstanding the land shall be desolate because of them that dwell therein, for the fruit of their doings."
 * The Lone Wanderer as a baby was voiced by Jake Howard, the son of Todd Howard, on his 1st birthday.

Gallery
Protagonist (Fallout 3) Trotamundos Solitario Przybysz z Krypty 101 Одинокий странник Lone Wanderer