Harold

Harold is a special and important character in the Fallout story, who originated from Vault 29, which he left in 2090, and lived in the Hub's Oldtown around 2161, in Gecko around 2241, and in the Oasis around 2277, and thus met the Vault Dweller, the Chosen One and the Lone Wanderer. He is one of the few characters to appear in all 3 major Fallout installments. He is horribly mutated and looks more or less like a regular ghoul, though his presence throughout the series shows otherwise.

Early life
Harold's home, Vault 29, was initially populated by young children which were brought up by Diana, a human brain connected to a supercomputer, who posed as a goddess to its inhabitants. In cases of population unrest a test subject would be chosen to be released from the vault early. The subject would return and tell the vault dwellers the condition of the world outside and whether or not it was safe to leave the vault. Of course, the test subjects would never return and this fact would deter anyone leaving again for a while.

Harold was one such subject, selected in 2090. He was released from the vault, stunned by the security system, and picked up by a robot to be taken to the Nursery, where Diana resided. At the nursery he was given the choice of staying with Diana or exploring the outside world. However, if he chose to explore, she would have to 'condition' him so that he could not reveal anything about her or the nursery to the world.

Harold agreed to stay with Diana but managed to escape. During his travels he kept the nursery a secret because he felt it was his duty to the world to keep such a future 'gift' intact until the world was ready for it.

Merchant career
After leaving his home vault, he began a successful career as a trader and merchant, venturing across the wastes. Eventually though, as he became an important player in the Hub, he began to notice the increasing frequency of mutant animals attacking his caravans. Frustrated, he decided to deal with this.

Expedition to Mariposa
Harold and a group of other adventurers--among them a man named Richard Grey, a doctor living in the Hub who was equally perplexed by the strange mutants--tracked the mutant population and eventually found its source: an old Military Base that seemed to be spawning mutant critters.

Inside, most of them found death, killed by all the mutants that littered the base as well as its automated security systems. Harold, Richard and a few others made it fairly deep into the base, where they found immense vats filled with a strange thick, green solution that seemed to be mutating the animals. A large robotic arm knocked Grey into a vat, where Harold assumed he died. Harold himself was knocked unconscious. He awoke some time later out in the desert, already starting to mutate. A caravan eventually found him and brought him back to the Hub, where he settled into a destitute existence.

A mutant down on his luck
The Vault Dweller first met him in the Oldtown section of the Hub. Oldtown was the part of the Hub where the poor lived as well as a moderate ghoul population. Harold is one such mutant and he makes a living begging for spare change. In exchange for some money, Harold provides the Vault Dweller with a great deal of information, mostly dealing with the Mariposa Military Base and Richard Grey, as well as the deathclaw that lives near the Hub that Butch Harris, leader of the Far Go Traders, needs you to deal with.

Sometime between 2162 and 2242, a small tree (which he calls Bob, although he likes to joke that his name is Herbert) began to grow out of the side of Harold's head, showing that even the sterile mutants can be the source of some kind of life. It is an entirely new species of tree - unique and special, just like Harold.

Leader of Gecko
Many years later, the Chosen One, grandchild of the Vault Dweller, runs into Harold again in Gecko, the ghoul town not far from Vault City. After the destruction of the Hub by the fleeing mutant armies following Fallout, as well as the destruction of the Necropolis, most of the ghoul populations of those two towns migrated far north to form a settlement around an old nuclear power plant built by Poseidon Oil before the War. Anyone else would likely be killed by long term exposure to radiation, but the ghouls just find it pleasant. When Harold arrived, the plant was being run dangerously and stupidly. Harold quickly took over from the well-meaning but inept leaders of Gecko and got the reactor into some kind of working order. When the Chosen One arrives in Gecko, Harold asks him to help fix the reactor. To do so, the Chosen One must secure the aid of Vault City's officials, which is no mean feat.

You still hear mention of Harold from time to time. Apparently, the tree growing from his head has gotten larger, and if rumors are to be believed, fruit is growing from it. The seeds are said to be remarkably tough, and several of them have taken root even in the most barren stretches of the wasteland.

Back home
By the 2250s, Harold was ill. The tree in his head developed an unknown disease and was dying. Much to his surprise, Harold found himself affected as well. He didn't think he was going to die, mind you, but still... he just didn't feel right in the head.

So, he set out on a quest for a cure. Naturally, he didn't have an easy time of it either. People just didn't seem to want a mutant around any more. But, Harold didn't let that stop him. He persisted in his quest until he came upon the Twin Mothers tribe, which originated from his home, Vault 29.

Much to his surprise the tribe took him in and accepted him as he was. He explained his quest to the tribal leaders and was told that they would consult their goddess. Days later, Harold was approached by the tribal shaman and given a potion to drink. It was a foul concoction, but it worked. Bob, the tree, got better and was happy again.

Harold couldn't let such a good deed go unrewarded so he offered to help the tribe in any way that he could. They smiled at him, thanked him, but declined his help. "The goddess will provide," they always said. Harold, nice mutant that he is, said that he would like to pay his respects to the goddess. He was taken to the tribal shrine and granted a private audience. He wasn't really surprised when the projected image of a woman appeared before him, but he was taken aback when she told him where he could find her. His return to the nursery was a moment of joy for Diana and a 'new experience' to him, as much of his early memories faded with age.

Harold traveled to the Nursery and spent considerable time there, He even considered settling down and spending the remainder of his day in the tranquility of the gardens. However, eventually he left and traveled even further East.

If the Prisoner gave her the information on FEV and New Plague from the Boulder ZAX, Diana would be able to create a cure to the New Plague virus in the form of a small fruit, by genetically engineering it from Harold's tree.

Oasis
Harold eventually found himself overwhelmed by Bob, and became rooted to the ground during his travels in the Capital Wasteland region. Here he was discovered by several people who began to worship him as a god, and a small and exclusive cult known as the Treeminders began to form in secrecy. Bob began to blossom and many plants grew in this area, which became green with life, a stark contrast to the outer wasteland. During this period, Harold developed an alarmingly powerful mutation which enabled him to "see" the area around Oasis, through the very trees that came from Herbert/Bob's seeds.

He would go on to use this ability to bring in wanderers, all the while hoping one of them would put an end to his troubles- unfortunately, the Treeminders strange ways and insistence on using an intoxicating, potentially poisonous "sap" (as a "purification" ceremony) drove off most of them, many in worse mental shape than they were prior. His persistence would pay off when the Lone Wanderer came into view- on his orders, the Treeminders allowed the wanderer safe passage into Oasis.

Harold revealed his true identity to the Wanderer, and begged for mercy; after being stuck in the same position for decades he was eager for death. The other dwellers of "Oasis" either ignored or, in their religious fanaticism, interpreted Harold's wishes as a moral and spiritual test, much to Harold's chagrin- thus his only recourse was to ask the Lone Wanderer to take his life. However, two members of the Treeminders (namely, the leader and his wife) are found arguing about Harold. The husband wishes for Harold's gift of plant life to be kept safe and confined to Oasis, while his wife wishes for Harold's gift to be shared and spread throughout the wasteland.

They each ask the Lone Wanderer to accomplish their own wishes, and the Lone Wanderer must decide if he will carry out Harold's wish of death, the husband's wish of keeping Harold to just the Oasis, or the wife's wish and spreading his glory to the wasteland. A fourth, more negative option of setting him on fire also exists- this will draw hostility from all the Treeminders. Through granting Harold's wish, the Lone Wanderer's skin will be as hard as Harold's. If granting the optional wishes, Harold will be spoken to through a variety of dialogue, one of them being that he has been given a gift and must stay alive to save the lives of others. Harold replies that he was selfish to want to kill himself, and then asks Herbert/Bob if he agrees.

Nature of Harold


To the untrained eye, Harold appears to be an ordinary ghoul. This is not so, however. Ghouls are the result of massive radiation damage to a human body: Harold is a product of the Forced Evolutionary Virus. Unlike most people who are exposed to FEV, he does not become a super mutant, but the result of a unique combination of radiation damage from constant low-level exposure, indirect exposure to FEV (It is unclear how Harold was infected with FEV as he blacked out for a while) and a fair amount of random chance. He's not a ghoul, and he's certainly not a super mutant. To quote Tim Cain, "Harold is special."

Furthermore, Tim Cain has this to say on the subject: "As for contact [with FEV], any contact at all will infect the subject, but the amount of contact determines the result. For example, I imagine Harold had some contact with the virus, but he was not fully immersed in it, so he became a different mutant than the Master's subjects. Full immersion, of course, is the preferred method of infection, as it provides the virus a large surface area for infection."

Another similar FEV-created, ghoul-like mutant is Talius.

It is interesting to note Harold's unusual behavior in treating Herbert/Bob as if the plant were actually sentient. Although at no point does the plant indicate that it can convey feelings, Harold certainly is not stupid, and perhaps only crazy in the humorous sense- yet he still insists on hearing out the plant's opinions on certain matters that he might otherwise take seriously. Given Harold's newfound ability to "see" through the trees that are descended from Herbert/Bob through the use of extreme concentration, it may not be much of a stretch to suggest that both are deeply linked in some unknown way, almost certainly a result from FEV exposure.

Appearances in games
Harold appeared in Fallout 1, Fallout 2, Fallout 3 and in Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel. He was voiced in the first two games by Charlie Adler and Alan Oppenheimer in Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel. He was to appear in Van Buren, the cancelled Fallout 3 project by Black Isle. He is voiced by Stephen Russell in Fallout 3.

Quotes
Harold: Didn't. Got killed. Harold: ''Jealous? His name's Herbert. I talk to him when I get lonely. Heh heh just kiddin', his name's Bob!''
 * Vault Dweller: How did you survive?
 * I'm looking pretty good for being dead.
 * Chosen One: Is that a tree growing outta your head?

YouTube Video
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