Fallout Setting

The Fallout world exists in an alternate timeline that diverged from the real world timeline after World War II. From this split until the Great War in 2077, a stylized representation of 1950s American culture (with more advanced technology) dominated the Fallout world. The science fiction anthology Worlds of Tomorrow, released during the Golden Age of Science Fiction in the 1950s, heavily influenced this representation.

Overview
The Fallout world was established by a single, pivotal event: the Great War. On October 23, 2077, the United States, China, and other nuclear-armed countries commenced a brief but rapid exchange of nuclear weapons. Although the conflict lasted only two hours, the destruction it wrought was staggering and complete: more energy was released in the early moments of the war than in all previous global conflicts combined. The world that remained was harsh and unforgiving. 90 years after the Great War, humanity survived but struggled to do so. Above ground, small bands fought over the crumbling remains of once great cities while mutants prowled the irradiated wastes. Underground, a fortunate few enjoyed the relative safety and comfort of the Vaults. Some fought to keep the world out, others to connect with and re-populate it. Wherever humanity survived it was under constant threat by psychotic mutants, rogue machines, vicious raiders, and all manner of hostile mutant creatures.

Most of the events of the series took place in the United States. The first two games - Fallout (FO1), Fallout 2 (FO2) - were set in the Core Region: the remains of the West Coast. The Master and the Enclave are the region's main threats. The third game, Fallout Tactics (FOT), took place in the Midwest- between the city of Chicago and Cheyenne Mountain in Colorado. The fourth game, Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel (FOBOS), took place in northern Texas in the town of Carbon and the ghoul city of Los. The fifth game, Fallout 3 (FO3), was set on the East Coast of the United States in an area called the Capital Wasteland; this included the remains of Washington D.C., parts of Virginia, Pittsburgh and Maryland. The sixth game, Fallout:New Vegas (FNV), took place in the Mojave Wasteland which included parts of California, Utah, Arizona, and Nevada.

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 increasingly militant and aggressive against its enemies, real and imagined. Energy resources were a growing cause for concern. Although nuclear fusion power was available, the existing infrastructure was based on fossil fuels and conversion from one to another was slow. People in the United States and across the globe became desperate as the world's fossil fuel supply was exhausted.

In 2052 many of the planet's natural resources were exhausted, causing many smaller nations to go bankrupt and fail. The United Nations disbanded as an organization and, perhaps without its mediating influence, the European Commonwealth and the oil-producing states of the Middle East fell into a long, drawn-out war over the few remaining productive oil fields.

In late 2053 a terrorist nuclear weapon destroyed the city of Tel Aviv in Israel. When a new super plague ravaged its population, the United States closed its borders and, in response to the increasing likelihood of nuclear war, engaged Project Safehouse the following year. Although a worsening economy and rampant inflation had nearly bankrupted the US Government, the sale of (almost worthless) Treasury bonds was sufficient to fund Project Safehouse. Large, underground survival shelters designed to withstand nuclear fallout or a viral pandemic were constructed. They would become known as the Vaults.

In 2060, the European war ended when the Middle Eastern oil fields were completely exhausted. The European Commonwealth dissolved, leaving Europe as it was when the Roman Empire fell: a divided group of quarreling, bickering nation-states fighting for control of the last remaining fossil-fuel resources on Earth.

In the winter of 2066, China attacked Alaska for oil - likely the last drops left in the world. The U.S. responded with force, but it would take them eleven years to end the conflict. Desperate to bolster their dwindling resources, both superpowers invaded neighboring countries. By 2076 the United States' had annexed Canada. With Canadian timber and petroleum fueling their war machine, the Americans reclaimed Alaska in January 2077.

On Saturday, October 23, 2077, nuclear devastation ravaged the planet for two long hours. No one knows who started the Great War or who fired their weapons first. According to Dick Richardson, the US was marching in the streets of Beijing causing China to panic and release their nuclear weapons. In any case, China filled the sky over the United States with nuclear missiles and bomber aircraft carrying hundreds of nuclear bombs. The US launched all of her nuclear weapons, reducing China, according to Richarson, to a black smudge. The European states and the Soviet Union also unleashed their weapons.

In the months before the bombs fell, the Americans were exposed to frequent false alarms. When the real alarm sounded, few made it inside the Vaults and most perished outside. This was particularly true on the West Coast where the first bombs struck. Among the few who survived were the remnants of the United States' federal government and its close corporate allies. Naming themselves the Enclave, they 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 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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