Fallout Setting

The Fallout world exists in an alternate timeline that split away from the history of the real world following World War II. Up until the Great War in 2077, the Fallout world was dominated by the distinctively American culture of the 1950s, though with a far more advanced technological progression. The Fallout world's setting is heavily influenced by the science fiction anthology Worlds of Tomorrow, which was released during the Golden Age of Science Fiction in the 1950s.

Overview
The Great War is the single most important event that has shaped the Fallout world into its current form. On October 23, 2077, the United States, China, and other nuclear-armed countries bombarded each other with a rapid exchange of nuclear missiles and bombs, lasting for only two hours. The destruction caused by the brief nuclear war was staggering; more energy was released in the early moments of the war than in all previous global conflicts combined.

The Fallout games take place 90 years to more than two centuries after the Great War as humanity struggles to survive and rebuild its civilizations. Some groups have barely managed to survive above ground, either scavenging the scorched ruins of cities or surviving and adapting to the new irradiated environment through mass mutation. Communities that were sealed in underground Vaults during the war are now emerging to re-populate the blasted landscape. Striving to organize and sustain the human race, these tattered remnants of civilization are threatened by psychotic mutants, rogue machines, vicious raiders, and all manner of hostile mutant creatures.

The first two games (FO1-FO2) take place in the area known as the Core Region on the West Coast of the post-apocalyptic United States, where the main threats so far have been the Master and the Enclave. The third game (FOT) takes place in the Midwest near Chicago until the Cheyenne Mountain in Colorado. The fourth game (FOBOS) takes place in northern Texas in the town of Carbon and the ghoul city of Los. The fifth game (FO3) takes place on the East Coast of the United States, in the Capital Wasteland of Washington D.C. and surrounding Virginia, as well as Pittsburgh and parts of Maryland. The sixth game (FNV) takes place in some parts of California, Utah, Arizona,  and Nevada in the surrounding areas of the Mojave Wasteland.

Before the Great War
In the Fallout universe, twenty-first century America descended into an era of political paranoia and mania similar to the 1950s. The United States government became more and more militant and aggressive against its real and imagined enemies. As the world's fossil fuel supplies started to dry up and conversions of the existing fossil-fuel infrastructure to the recently-invented nuclear fusion power lagged, people in the United States and across the globe became desperate.

The United Nations disbanded as an organization in 2052 as the planet's natural resources dried up, causing many smaller nations to go financially bankrupt and fail. The European Commonwealth and the oil-producing states of the Middle East were cast into a long, drawn-out war over the few remaining productive oil fields.

In late 2053, the United States closed its borders when a new super plague was discovered to be running rampant through its population, and a terrorist nuclear weapon destroyed the city of Tel Aviv in Israel. In early 2054, the U.S. responded to the increasing likelihood of a nuclear war by creating Project Safehouse. This project, financed by the sale of nearly worthless Treasury bonds from an increasingly broke American government (inflation had become rampant as the economy worsened), was responsible for creating large underground survival shelters designed to withstand nuclear fallout or a viral pandemic, commonly known as Vaults.

In 2060, the Middle Eastern oil fields finally ran dry, ending the European war. The European Commonwealth soon dissolved back into quarreling, bickering nation-states that resembled Europe after the fall of the Roman Empire and were bent on controlling the last remaining fossil-fuel resources on Earth.

In the winter of 2066, China attacked Alaska over what were most likely the last drops of oil in the world. The U.S. responded with force, but it would be eleven years before the conflict would end. In a desperate maneuver, both superpowers invaded neighboring countries in an effort to bolster their dwindling resources. The United States' annexation of Canada was concluded by 2076. Canadian timber and petroleum provided raw material for American military needs, and Alaska was reclaimed from the Chinese in January 2077.

In the early morning hours of Saturday, October 23, 2077, the sky over the United States was filled with nuclear missiles and Chinese bombers carrying hundreds of nuclear bombs. No one knows who started the Great War by firing their weapons first, but for two long hours, nuclear devastation ravaged the planet as the European states and the Soviet Union also unleashed their nuclear weapons. Dick Richardson states that the US was marching in the streets of Beijing when China panicked and released their nuclear weapons, the US responded by launching all of their nuclear weapons; Dick also states that China was reduced to a black smudge.

Because of frequent false alarms in the months before the actual nuclear assault, few Americans made it to the Vaults when the final alarm sounded, particularly on the West Coast where the bombs and missiles first hit. Most people were trapped outside by the closing Vault doors. The Enclave, the name assumed by the remnants of the United States' federal government and its close corporate allies, retreated safely to an oil rig once owned by Poseidon Oil on the Pacific Ocean off the coast of California.

The post-War world
The Great War's outcome changed most of the planet into a radioactive wasteland. Those who did not die in the initial nuclear weapon exchanges (likely less than half the world's population) lived in darkness or radioactive misery for decades as much of the Earth's plant and animal life died off from lack of food, sunlight and the persistently high levels of radiation. Yet, living in subterranean vaults or frozen in cryogenic chambers, humanity (at least in the United States) was preserved. Most people outside the vaults were killed by the nuclear blasts or the radiation, and many of those who were lucky (or unlucky) enough to survive began to mutate. The first effects of radiation were seen in the survivors around 2080. Widespread mutations occurred in animals, plants and humans alike. Those that survived the effects of the mutations were permanently changed. New species were created almost overnight. Among them were the hideous human ghouls.

Two decades after the bombs dropped, the first Vaults started to open, and their inhabitants emerged to rebuild the destroyed civilization. The Core Region, corresponding to the American West Coast and Southwest, was one of the first areas of the post-atomic world in which significant interaction between different people emerged, about eighty years after the war in the mid-twenty-second century. Though many regions of the formerly-civilized world are slowly climbing back up towards civilization, humanity has a long way to go if it is to restore a sense of normality, even in the late twenty-third century.

Technically, the Resource Wars were never declared over, but given that the United States as a nation (and presumably China too) effectively ceased to exist in the war's final hours, the people of the Earth's wastelands now have much bigger problems and concerns.

Taking a look at the Earth from Mothership Zeta, it is easy to see what has become of the world. The Atlantic ocean appears to have turned into a nuclear waste of an ocean, as well as the Indian, Arctic and Pacific oceans. Scandinavia and parts of western Europe appear to have been bombed. The USSR also seems to have been bombed, despite being allies with China, or could have been secretly nuked by United States due to post-Cold War distrust. Greenland looks icy and appears to be unscathed. All of Asia and the Middle East looks icy, possibly due to nuclear climate problems or the global cooling theory, and Antarctica looks jet black, due to toxic waste in the oceans intoxicating the ice. The rest of the world's status is unknown as it can't all be seen.

Creatures


The various types of mutant creatures that inhabit the wastelands were mostly caused by exposure to nuclear radiation. This is where mantises, geckos, spore plants, radscorpions, brahmin and the various mutant rodent species come from. Also, this is how ghouls, decrepit, ragged, almost rotting, zombie-like victims of massive radiation poisoning, are made. Generally, in the Fallout universe, massive exposure to radiation causes humans to either die or transform into ghouls.

The other source of mutations in the Fallout world is FEV: the Forced Evolutionary Virus. The super mutants, floaters, centaurs and possibly wanamingos were products of FEV infection. It was initially called the Pan-Immunity Virion Project and was created to fight a disease called the New Plague. However, abnormal side effects were observed in test subjects: the test animals began to grow dramatically and their brain activity decreased. The project was renamed FEV: Forced Evolutionary Virus and was tested by the Army on humans.

After a man known as Richard Grey discovered the base and was accidentally dipped in the FEV vats, he slowly mutated into an unrecognizable mass of living flesh. He developed psychic powers, which were enhanced by consuming living creatures and absorbing their minds to expand his own. Slowly, he started doing his own experiments with FEV, at first on animals and later turning other humans into his super mutant army. He decided that he would have to force humanity to evolve, and even continued injecting his own twisted body with more of the virus to continue his own evolution. Those who could not evolve would die. Eventually, the mutants turned out to be sterile and the Master himself was killed by the Vault Dweller.

Core Region


The basic Core Region stretches from Baja in the south to Klamath in the north. It covers most of the West Coast of the United States, including California and parts of Oregon and Nevada. It is a largely inhospitable region, which is why most people have chosen to seek refuge in the ruins of the old cities, where they have found (relative) safety in numbers. However, as resources grew more and more scarce, people and creatures came to consolidate into groups of their own kind, so locations are far more homogeneous than one might expect from a world ravaged by mutation.

The ghoul population of the Core Region Wasteland was mostly clustered around old Bakersfield (Necropolis), but were scattered after an attack by the master's army. Most of the surviving ghouls eventually found a home in Gecko or Broken Hills along with humans and super mutants, both far to the north-east of their former home.

Super mutants were plentiful in the Mariposa area from 2102 to 2162, and they sent patrols as far as to Los Angeles. After the master's defeat, however, most of them retreated to the east.

Humans are the dominant species of the wasteland, and their main cities in the Core Region are The Hub, Los Angeles Boneyard, NCR, Vault City, New Reno and San Francisco.

As of 2281, all of the Core Region is part of the NCR.

Mojave Wasteland


The Mojave Desert is now known as the Mojave Wasteland. The Mojave Wasteland is the second largest desert in North America, and serves as the primary setting of Fallout: New Vegas.

The Mojave occupies a significant portion of southern California, Nevada, and parts of Utah and Arizona.

Before the Great War, Las Vegas was the largest oasis of civilization in the Mojave, and New Vegas seems to maintain that reputation. 77 atomic warheads were launched at the city and surrounding areas, but due to an intricate system set in place by Mr. House, 59 were force disarmed, 9 were blasted out of the sky by a laser guided missile defense system atop the Lucky 38, and only 9 hit the the surrounding desert, resulting in the local climate and wildlife being much less radioactive, if not radiation-free, than in other places in the post-atomic United States.

Most denizens attribute the region's survival to the Chinese betting against the House - and the House always wins.

The NCR is the most powerful faction in the area, with New Vegas being on the edge of the Republic's southern borders. Other significant powers are Caesar's Legion, the Great Khans, who before the NCR came, had a strong grip on the region and a surviving pocket of Mariposa super mutants, called the State of Utobitha, and the Three Families that run casinos in New Vegas. The Brotherhood of Steel also have a small secret base in the area.

East Coast


The city of Washington, DC and the surrounding area is now referred to as the Capital Wasteland. As of 2277, large numbers of Vault 87 super mutants are in a constant battle to push the remaining humans out of the Capital Wasteland and produce more of their own kind by exposing their human captives to the Forced Evolutionary Virus that first created them. The embattled eastern faction of the Brotherhood of Steel have deviated from their techno-religious goals, at the cost of troops and support from the west, and taken it upon themselves to halt the super mutant tide for the good of the wasteland people. They are, for the most part, the only reason the entire area has not been overrun, though it has cost them dearly along the way.

Rivet City, the central hub of civilization and the largest human settlement in the Capital Wasteland, is based in and around a beached aircraft carrier on the Potomac River. Other settlements across the region include Megaton, Tenpenny Tower, Paradise Falls, Underworld, Big Town, and Little Lamplight. The Brotherhood of Steel reside in the Citadel, the remains of the Pentagon.The Enclave first reside in the governmental bunker known as Raven Rock, however this location is destroyed and during the events of Broken Steel they relocate to the Adams Air Force Base. The D.C. Metro system, while partially destroyed, still provides an alternative travel route and makeshift residence, and they are often the only plausible (if not dangerous) means of traveling between the ruined sections of the city. The Jefferson Memorial houses the Project Purity Water Purifier.

Other significant regions of the East Coast include the Commonwealth, Pittsburgh PA (The Pitt), Ronto, Point Lookout Maryland and the area surrounding the ruins of Adams Air Force Base.

Factions in the Core Region
There are very few factions in the Core Region that aren't limited to one or two towns. After the defeat of the Master's super mutant army which was a major military force in 2161, the New California Republic became the most influential organization that unites several major towns, including Shady Sands (its capital, now known mostly simply as NCR), the Hub, Junktown, Maxson, and Dayglow. The NCR is actively trying to unite California under a single government.

In contrast, the Brotherhood of Steel is a mysterious techno-religious organization, with roots in the US military. While few in number, they make up for this with their arsenal of pre-war and post-war technology: They have laser weapons, power armor, surgical enhancements and combat implants. Unlike the NCR, the Brotherhood is not interested in conquests nor in saving humanity, but instead in keeping their secrecy and preserving and developing technology.

The Enclave, the descendants of the United States government that considers everyone other than themselves worthy of eradication, used to operate from an oil rig off the coast of California, but seems to have left the area after the destruction of its headquarters. It seems to have moved its base of operations from the west coast to the northwestern edge of The Capital Wasteland, inside of a sprawling underground maze known as "Raven Rock".

Factions on the East Coast
Downtown DC and the surrounding area of Capital Wasteland are overrun with an army of super mutants. Separate from the Master's army, they originate from Vault 87 on the eastern border of the wasteland.

Three other factions in the Capital Wasteland are not native to the area - the Brotherhood of Steel, led by Owyn Lyons and trying to defend the human inhabitants of the Wasteland from mutants; the Brotherhood Outcasts, who left the Capital Wasteland Brotherhood in disagreement over Lyons' change of priorities; and lastly, the remnants of the Enclave who survived the destruction of their Western headquarters.

Other known factions include slavers at Paradise Falls, the Regulators and the Talon Company mercenaries, and the residents of Tenpenny Tower, Megaton, Rivet City, Big Town, Reilly's Rangers, and Little Lamplight.

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