Fallout Bible

"Bottom line: Bethesda is able to write whatever they want, and they are not bound by the Bible. They are usually bound by stuff that has appeared in F3 and FNV, I believe.

Ultimately, we’re not the holders of the franchise, so it’s up to them. When we were at Interplay, that was different because we held the franchise then."

- Chris Avellone to Tagaziel, our bureaucrat; see here

The Fallout Bible is a collection of documents containing background material for the first Fallout games. They were compiled, written and released by Chris Avellone in 2002 on a semi-regular basis, petering out after three installments. Chris Avellone refers to it as non-canon, i.e. not binding for Bethesda Game Studios. The studio has used the Bible as a source in Fallout 3 production, and many parts of it have been used in games released since by both Bethesda and Obsidian Entertainment.

Background
The idea, initially elaborated by community veteran Dan Wood, was to create a document that would serve as a total guide to Fallout: the history of the setting, the elements that compose it, the things that define it and the rules that guide it. It would also serve to tie off loose ends left by the games and to generally do some clearing up of things. It was certainly a good idea, especially as the prospect of someone who wasn't Black Isle making Fallout games grew ever more real.

However, instead of being a definitive, unambiguous guide to Fallout, Avellone's Fallout Bible became a sort of long question and answer session with fans emailing reams of queries to him and getting answers. Avellone would also usually toss in interesting bits of information about the games and original design documents, including the official Fallout timeline. Avellone made some mistakes here and there, many of which were corrected in later issues of the Bible thanks to fan feedback. The whole project was cut short when Avellone had to leave Black Isle.

Installments
There were 9 main installments of the Fallout Bible and Fallout Bible 0, a compilation of the first 3 with various corrections.


 * Fallout Bible 0 (released March 8, 2002)
 * Fallout Bible 1 (released January 15, 2002)
 * Fallout Bible 2 (released February 2, 2002)
 * Fallout Bible 3 (released February 11, 2002)
 * Fallout Bible 4 (released February 25, 2002)
 * Fallout Bible 5 (released March 11, 2002)
 * Fallout Bible 6 (released July 10, 2002)
 * Fallout Bible 7 (released July 29, 2002)
 * Fallout Bible 8 (released October 2, 2002)
 * Fallout Bible 9 (released November 7, 2002)