I remember hacking a terminal somewhere, ( I believe it was Fort Banister) that clearly stated that the US Army knew about Aliens visiting Earth. It didn't say anything more but consider the following:

1. Alien Crash Site & the coming expansion Mothership Zeta (The Most Obvious)
2. The Forced Evolutionary Virus (http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/FEV): No one really knows who developed or where it came from, given that the predecessor Virus PVP also came from the same company.
3. Advanced Weaponry and Power Armor: Again from the same company West - Tec.
4. The Enclave's original intention to leave planet Earth. (Where would they go? How Would they get there? It seems reasonable to assume that they had some means of travel and information on other habitable worlds)
5. Brainwashing techniques by U.S Military (Again ingame record from a terminal)
6. Vault-tec technology: In effect your living inside a spaceship. A self contained vault will have precisely the same life support systems as a spaceship after all.

Now consider the following theory:

1. Aliens visit earth shortly after WWII (Roswell anyone?) and make contact with the U.S Government, probably a cabal of high ranking officers and government personnel with ties to major U.S corporations, forming a cabal.
2. The cabal makes some sort of agreement with the Aliens in exchange for advanced technology, albeit the most basic by the alien's standards, and only the fundamental principles, not any actual working tech.
3. Cabal begins researching the technology via West-Tec and other companies, spurring breakthroughs in powered armor, robotics, viral agents, weaponry, medical systems etc.
4. Advances also achieved in Fusion Tech and associated technologies, probably resulting in "cleaner" nuclear weapons which would explain in the fact that Earth is actually still habitable after a global nuclear war. - other countries may have got their hands on the tech in due course via espionage or even the aliens themselves making deals with other nations.
5. Dependence on the Aliens' results in different Research paradigms that causes technologies present in today's world from never being developed i.e microwave cellular communications (the internet?), LCD Tvs, Personal PCs etc.
6. Despite use of Fusion technology, demand for natural resources does not decrease, but actually increase, spurred on by greater demand for various goods that still need large inputs example: Need for oil for plastics production.
7. Resource wars begin, with nations now armed with Energy weapons, robots, and the like, escalation in tensions.
8. Global Conflagration in 2077, major population centers destroyed, irradiated, but due to the nature of nuclear weapons based of the Alien technology, resulting destruction caused is not as deadly to life as expected, also causes unforeseen consequences such as various mutations - rad scorpions, ghouls, etc.

Now we can also perhaps come to a scenario where the aliens themselves by manipulating world governments and / or causing destabilization by providing above technologies. It seems every government by then had become pretty totalitarian - talk of democracy notwithstanding. After all the U.S government with the help of Corporations brainwashes its own people, add to this their seeming disregard for human life when corporations test their various products - see Nuka Cola quantum for example, as well as aggressive actions such as annexation of Canada and violent suppression of population, executions, interrogations etc.

Possible Motivations for aliens can be various, but probably destroying human civilization as we know it so they can begin colonization in due course, or maybe some sort of experimentation etc.

I ask this because I kind off neatly ties things together and provides a credible theory as to why things went down as they did. It does seem a little too X-files cliched, but that also fits into the 50s appeal given shows like the Twilight Zone: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Monsters_Are_Due_on_Maple_Street

Thinking about making a quest mod based on the above after Zeta Releases so any comments appreciated.

Er, we know who developed it and how pretty damn well. See:

http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/FEV_Experiment_Disk
http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Alpha_Experiment_Disk
http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Delta_Experiment_Disk
http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/FEV_Research

True, but it still could mean that the underlying fundamental principles that develop the PVP and then FEV strains could be from Alien Tec. The means to alter the DNA (The original goal) to create bio-/ rad resistant humans i.e the technology and science needed to carry out such research could be due to Alien design. They provided the intellectual tools and the concept, and then West-Tec et al. did the rest.

Even if you remove the FEV, it still doesn't disprove this interesting hypothesis. You need not even go about aliens making a deal but of a ship crashing and the US Government getting its hands on it. It would go a long way in explaining the divergence of our history and the FO one after WW2, plus why the FO Earth had a different technological bent than ours.

Although your idea of Aliens having nefarious plans is interesting, it is not a necessary component of your theory. The aforementioned crash is one way, but it could be that the Aliens simply were amoral or well meaning but naive. In that, here's the technology, if you blow yourselves up with it, it isn't our fault. There are several Science Fiction stories (Star Trek being an obvious example) where advanced societies unintentionally messed up more primitive ones (Prime Directive violations etc.)

I think if aliens did influence the technology Earth has created, it was probably due to crashsites such as Roswell and other sites. I dont think the aliens would want a technologically inferior species fighting them if the aliens attempted a takeover.

The Alien crash site was considered more of a "humourous" encounter until Mothership Zeta

There's nothing alien about brainwashing

With a few minor exceptions, a vault is really just a fallout shelter on steriods, very popular in the cold war, and since that "us VS them, the WW3 is coming" thinking didnt go away, I'd expect major developments to cover those in the private sector. Nothing really too remarkable.

But at the end of the day, like all conspiracy theories, its relying on saying "Disprove this" not "here is some real evdience beyond speculation"

Aliens had no real bearing on anything in Fallout with the possible (emphasis on possible) exception of Skynet in Fallout 2. Aliens weren't even a big deal in the setting until Fallout 3.

Whether or not Aliens are "canon" or not, I'm pretty sure they were also never intended to play a big role (or really much of any role at all,) in the Fallout series. Frak, in the design docs for Van Buren, weren't you supposed to end up in a space station, or on the moon or something, towards the end of the game? Perfect place to throw in all sorts of Alien tie-ins, but I don't believe anything like that was ever mentioned...

Expected idea, still pretty bad all the same. The next worst theory is the Aliens caused the Great War.

Possibly, although it may be that they have given us advanced technology by our standards, not theirs. A kind of a "muskets vs machine guns" approach. Again still trying to create the framework which ties it in with the Enclave and the events leading up to the great war, but consider that it would be easier to take over a world after it has reduced itself to rubble as compared to one that is still fully functioning. For one thing it would be (if we consider the aliens to be malevolent) more "cost effective" to have humans kill each other and then enslave / wipe out the survivors.

Well at the end of the day, its more a matter of plausibility than fact. The rough idea for the quest mod is that the player begins to come across evidence of a conspiracy that began more than 250 years ago but is actually continuing to today. Whether or not the aliens being directly involved or even part of the conspiracy would actually be left open to some speculation at the end.

About Vaults: Well Fallout shelters were not 100% self contained systems. They didn't have any recycling systems for food or water, and power sources would be limited by the amount of fuel you can store within the shelter. Along with this you would have such issues as air filtration and radiation shielding, not to mention an entire infrastructure dedicated to raising humans within its walls for hundreds of years. A Far cry from what was effectively a hole in the ground.

About Brainswashing: Well yes and no. Its was a pretty common sci-fi shtick way back in the 50s or so (Coupled with the usual cold war paranoia) about aliens or governments - or aliens and governments brainwashing the population through subliminal messaging etc. Invasion of the Body Snatchers is a parallel idea and "They Live" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/They_Live) is a more contemporary version of this idea. Reason I threw in the OP is because I plan on using it as a plot device. "Who do you trust?" is one of the questions you would have to answer in the Mod.

About Nefarious Aliens: True, its not a necessary component, I am just trying to flesh out the possible motivations for aliens doing what they plausibly could do. Assuming the aliens are malevolent the FEV dimension would make sense, with the Aliens "guiding" the research towards specific goals from anything to creating their own slave race to a quick and clean means to wipe out the Human race. One of the possible ideas I am working on a possible motivation is that the aliens despite having advanced technology do not have the numbers (possibly because they are a colony ship with a small compliment of crew) to take over the earth, so they attempt to manipulate humans into to doing their dirty work for them.

(My apologies, I'd missed the part where you were saying you were working on a mod...)

If you're trying to make a lore friendly mod then none of this would really work. The aims of Interplay/Black Isle when they created the setting were to create one where humanity nearly wiped itself out. Making alien technology the basis of a lot of humanity's tech leading up to the Great War cheapens the achievements made by humanity itself prior to the war. Making aliens partially responsible for the Great War cheapens one of the meanings of the series, as well. Aliens never were, nor should they ever be a major factor in any aspect of the Fallout series.

Don't let this discourage you from making a mod; I like seeing what modders come up with. I'm just responding to the implication that you're looking for ways to incorporate these theories into a canon friendly mod; this wouldn't work as it goes against many of the fundamental ideas of the series' back story.

No...please, no. The alien DLC is enough.

In the Cthulhu universe aliens are responsible not only for the creation of humans, but also for all human technology... but in Fallout universe? Naah, aliens are just the silly grey men from the X-Files, not the majestic Great Race of Yith or Elder Things.

Well, I would not think so much X-Files, that's too 90s. 50's aliens are like "It Came From Outer Space" using their rayguns to destroy the earth or some other plot. : :angel:

Dont get me wrong, I very much intend to keep the 50s flavour, and make it something of a black comedy with some X-files undertones.

I already have the starting chapter of it somewhat figured out:

1. Player comes across radio signal full of paranoid rantings about "we are not alone" ;"they walk among us" ; "they live" etc.
2. After brief investigation player tracks down source to a ghoul called Vos Miller =P a conspiracy theory nut who has been around since before the great war and basically enlists the player into tracking down evidence of alien involvement.
3. Player revisits various old locations initially - the Citadel, the Capitol building, A office near the white house etc. gathering clues.
4. Is hunted by a group of shadowy figures who suspiciously seem impervious to the player's weaponry.

I am thinking like three chapters in total, starting at level 10 and then moving up to level 30 by the end. All of this would tie in with the current DLCs so there is no canon conflicts, hence the whole discussion.

Any further comments and ideas welcome.

P.S

Anyone got any ideas on whether the whole Dunwich Building and the Book you either destroy there or hand over to the Blackhall guy is considered cannon?

Again not looking to make it "cannon" merely to make it not conflict with the back story and even then to make it a mere matter of plausibility than actual fact. The idea is to retain the flavour of 50s paranoia with a theme of X-files-ish conspiracy. Its not a matter of whether it is "Fact" more like a matter of "plausibility" as most conspiracies are based on the latter not the former.

What I want to do is incorporate the events and locations the player experiences during the main quest and the "official" side quests and DLCs so that the as the player investigates - or even stumbles across - the sense of conspiracy and paranoia builds through the quest. So conflict has to be kept to a minimum at best, as the player will be initially visiting previous locations and interacting with Main game NPCs while searching for info - the National Archives and Brother Rothschild for example.

Well i could imagine that the Enclave made use of some alien technology which they may have retrieved from a crashed UFO before the war.
This might explain why they are so much ahead of the Brotherhood. Maybe the new DLC will confirm that idea.

Those strange blue rods that look like fluorescent lamps which you can find on almost all Enclave equipment look a bit like the energy cells for the alien blaster. Maybe the Enclave harnessed or at least partially harnessed a alien method of energy production ?

There is also another strange thing which made me thinking.

In Operation Anchorage , i believe it was that female scribe,... she tells you that she read old logs about that virtual reality simulator and that it seemed to her that the people who built it did not fully understood the technology it utilizes themselves. :blink:


This sounds like they may have succesfully tried to replicate some alien technology which enabled them to built that simulator in the first place.

Nice point on the simulator, may be a good plot device. Also no matter where you go in the wasteland you always run into the same theme: technology that no one quite understands being put to use and generally involving a lot of industrial deaths and injuries.

Actually, earth would always be habitable after a nuclear war; you can't really make a "cleaner" nuclear bomb than what we have already (the radioactive particles released are the result of the fission explosion, not raw peices of the nuclear payload like what are in dirty bombs.) Either way, with our current understanding, a global cloud cover of dust would (in theory, at least) block out the sun for several years, causing mass extinction of plant and animal life (and stressing humanity to the point of breaking, most likely, since we require animals and plants as a food source.)

But it would not render earth uninhabitable- things are capable of living in radioactive zones; the area around Chernobyl is effectively a russian state park because nobody wants to live there; animals and plantlife are thriving there (granted, with side-effects of radiation exposure,) well, they're thriving better than if they had to face humanity on a daily basis like in some other areas...

Furthermore, earth hase recovered from a nuclear-winter-like phenomenon- the Chicxulub crater that formed about 65 million years ago kicked up enough dust to block out the sun for years; and life's still kicking (not so much the Dinosaurs... but that's another story.) More recently, there was an ice-age, with the ice caps covering a good portion of the earth, and Humanity (as well as life in general) survived that. My point is that it would take a lot more than humanity's primitve weaponry to completely render earth unihabitable. That's not to say, however, that we can't make it difficult.

No, of course not. Not in real life either.

Actually, when you think about it Van Buren's plot has a similar theme to that of "Moonraker"(the film, not the novel).