I was wondering, and this is probably the perfect question for people like Ausir. and especially fans of Fallout 1 and 2...

In a fairly unanimous fashion....Which articles of Fallout 3, should be held as "Canon", and which ones should be dismissed as "New Lore"....

Better question might be "Is there any way to reconcile the differences between the previous two games and FO3?" Namely, how do you explain the presence or absence of certain things in a manner that doesn't strain credibility?

It all depends on what you define as canon. The official canon is currently defined by Bethesda, whether we like it or not.

As for the personal canon, it differs from person to person. Even Tim Cain and Chris Taylor, two of the original creators of the series, do not agree on some parts of the Fallout lore. Chris Avellone excluded some parts of Fallout 2 from the canon, even though others might disagree with him. Bethesda devs and Chris Taylor consider Fallout Tactics to be semi-canon where it doesn't contradict previous games, but Tim Cain considers it entirely non-canon.

My own canon definitely includes Van Buren, and some of the Van Buren lore has even managed to creep into Fallout 3, but others might consider Van Buren entirely non-canon, since it wasn't published (but compare it to Blizzard, which included its Wacraft Adventure: Lord of the Clans in the canon, even though the game itself was canceled).

Personally, I think that the faction of the Enclave in Fallout 3, should be considered non-canon, as it seems to move away from being The US Government, which is attempting to restore "Pre-war America", to clownish "super-villains", led by a computer, and commanded by a man in a trench coat. Before you know it, Colonel Autumn will reference everything with the words Gestapo in it, and he'll be given a short assistant named Von Smallhausen.

But the Enclave in Fallout 3 IS canon because they are a natural progression of the Enclave we saw in Fallout 2. Of course they care less about restoring the US and being the US Government (its only Eden really who talks that way).. their true leadership was destroyed.. If anything I think the changes we see are a natural progression of their society. I dont think Id call them super-villains any more in Fallout 3 than in 2 either, if anything they are less menacing in Fallout 3 than in 2. Really they are just a bunch of raiders who inherited a high-tech legacy and whose purpose seems to be maintaining the status quo of the Enclave. In Fallout 2 they are narrow minded towards a fanatical purpose. THEY are America and all others are not. It is their duty to cleanse the wasteland to prepare it for the second coming of the United States. In Fallout 3 it seems that Eden is the only one who still believes that..

Consider that the true Enclave is gone, those who are left were not as high up the ladder authority wise, and a generation after the destruction of the rig probably care more about ruling what is left of America rather than rebuilding it, and the United States is just a shadow from history and not the future. A good example is Autumn, who despite the fanaticism of his father in following 'President' Eden to the East Coast, isnt as fanatical towards the Enclaves original purpose. Autumn was more interested in using the clean water as a method of controlling the wasteland to the authority of the Enclave.

Having a small assistant named 'Von Smallhausen' isnt as clownish to me as having a Vice President named 'Daniel Bird' or a military commander named 'Colonel Sanders'.

The Enclave in Fallout 2 was more or less a "Super Villain" too, which had no interest in actually restoring "Pre War America". So that fits with canon.

But beyond that, Bethesda owns the series now. They pretty much dictate canon for the series at this point, like it or not. You're free to consider anything you want non-canon personally. Hell, you could consider everything in Fallout 1 and 2 non canon and only go by what was in that abysmal console game as canon. But your feelings won't make the slightest bit of difference to Bethesda.

It's all Canon. Bethesda now owns the series, so they decide what is canon.

edit: what they said.

The only contradictions I know of are Vault 87 and the times the Vaults were made. Outside that I'd say Fallout 3 follows the canon set by Van Buren and the Fallout Bible quite nicely.

I consider it all canon.

The Fallout Bible is also a good reference.

I appreciate the fact that they mostly tried not to contradict Van Buren, even though it was not published, and included a few (even if minor) things from VB in FO3.

Look at it this way, at least Bethesda isn't riding roughshod all over canon elements created by others.

George Lucas destroys Star Wars canon on a regular basis. The new Clone Wars series completely disregards elements from the previous animated series and apparently even contradicts a number of elements from the films. Even the prequel trilogy contridicts the old trilogy in places or leads to things making little sense.

From what I hear, Lucas had a major hissy fit when it came to naming the city planet introduced in Phantom Menace. Author Timothy Zahn had named the world Coruscant in the Heir to the Empire trilogy after basing it on notes and sketches Lucas had himself planned on using for te originals. When he tried to name the world something else despite borrowing aspects Zahn had himself added, a heavy backlash from fans forced him to stick with Coruscant.

My reasoning? All of these whiners who say that Fallout 3 shouldn't be considered part of the main story, that it went against everything Black Isle had designed... well, their views are simply idiotic and to a degree annoying. I've seen games that have had their story screwed up by new developers before (Command and Conquer 3 is a good example), and Fallout 3 is not one of them. Everything in Fallout 3 makes sense and is perfectly logical. So the doubters who decry this game simply because it was not Black Isle's game need to grow up and accept this game as canonical.

In fact, I wonder, if Black Isle made this game exactly the same a Bethesda did, whether it would have garnered as much criticism.

I wouldn't go as far as that. There definitely are at least some inconsistencies (although there also are some between FO1 and 2).

I think this is where bethesda going to the east coast is shown to be a good idea (and going back to the west coast is a bad one) - Simply because by moving so far away from the key people and places, there is less to contradict, or have to fear about contradicting, by accident or choice.

As for the Timothy Zahn stories - they were better than Lucas' return to the series. TBH I think lucas should do the series and stay away from it.

Too bad they decided to carry over the Brotherhood of Steel and the Enclave as major players (I wouldn't mind Enclave remnants and some Brotherhood scouts as minor ones, but I'd prefer the game to focus on new factions, originating from the East Coast.

I didn't personally come across any serious contradictions with Fallout 3. Sure, there's likely some more minor inconsistencies but there were few things I ran into that jumped out at me as odd.

Personally, I consider anything that happened in Fallout 3 as "canon" - I mean they did buy the rights for the game, the ball's in Bethesda's hands now. I might not agree with some of the things they did, but that's a different matter. Things like the Enclave and Brotherhood coming over the East Coast at least was explained in-game as to why they're there. (It makes sense to me at least that two major - or at least resourceful - would be somewhat interested in seeing what's going on in what used to be the central power base of Pre-War civilization...) Lyons' Brotherhood is quite a divergence from previous games, but they're not really Brotherhood anyway - those would be the "Outcasts" so personally I think they handled it fairly well. Some would say it's an unlikely sequence of events but that doesn't mean it's not possible. Maybe it's a little odd for the Enclave to be around, but if we accept they are then certainly a group that views itself as a direct successor to the US Government I think it'd make less sense if they weren't going to try and set up a seat of power in DC.

The only thing I thought was wierd was Vault 87 and the FEV, and the whole Supermutant thing. I'm willing to leave a window open to see if they give any real explanation of that, but I do think it's odd that they didn't really give us much explanation as to why this is going on - as that does seem to contradict some of the canon from the previous games.

Not to mention that the concept of "canon" gets a little tricky when you're dealing with a series of games - each of which can have a number of different endings (okay less so in F3, but still...) Yeah, Fallout 2 sort of operates on the premise that certain things happened a certain way in Fallout 1, and that's the accepted canon. But that's not necessarily the way I completed the game at all. (NCR seems a little odd if in the playthrough I consider as canon I had decided to slaughter all the residents in Shady Sands...)

Except for the Hei Gui armor in the upcoming DLC, where there anything else?

So far, the Enclave symbol and the T-45d power armor designation being mentioned in the Museum of Technology.

To be fair, as noted already in this thread - FO3's Enclave is different from FO2's Enclave. And the Capital Wasteland BoS is as close to a "splinter" group of BoS as a group still calling itself BoS can be.

Doesn't it kinda makes sense that the BoS would send a group to investigate the Capital for lost tech? Or that said group, based in the remains of the Pentagon no less, would be a major player on at least the regional scale?

I'll agree that totally new factions would have been nice - we get a small hint of it with Zimmer, but isn't it also reasonable that FO3's factions would have their roots in other pre-existing ones?

Well, I think it's not that reasonable that there is so much vacuum of power on the East Coast that the only major factions in that region originate from the West Coast. Some BoS scouts or Enclave remnants would be nice, but I'd still prefer the area to be controlled by regional factions.

With so many US Army units all around the United States before the War, it doesn't make sense that there are only two power-armored factions in the whole of the US descended from US military. There should be lots of them, mostly local, in various places.

That's certainly an interesting point. There are a couple of other sizeable factions in FO3: Paradise Falls, Talon Company, Evergreen Mills - I guess the group gathered in Rivet City as well (there's a group descended from US Armed forces - kind of). But there's no serious large control group - the closest are indeed the BoS, which wants to be distanced from the Wasteland - sort of detached guardians, and the Enclave - which is essentially invading.

What of Zimmer's Commonwealth? Why hasn't the Institute mounted any expeditions to the National Guard Depot or The Museum of Technology? Perhaps it's Elder Lyons' boy scouts keeping them at bay. Or perhaps they have their own troubles at home that prevent them from much venturing out of their home turf.

My take on it is tied to the central storyline of FO3. The Capital Wasteland is an irradiated mess. With all groundwater contaminated, there's no reason to try and exert any influence over the region (except to scavenge tech - and then you'd be up against the Citadel guys). At least until a method for purifying the water on a mass scale is developed. Hence the timing of the Enclave operations.

Good point. I think that's another case of missed opportunities. In that it there could be a very good reason for such a power vacuum, but they didn't seem to really make much of an attempt to give a reasonable explanation (unless I missed one, of course.)

I sort of rationalize it that no major power factions have risen in the area as it's a highly contested area, where no one group with any potential to gain a foot-hold in the area was able to do so due to fierce competition. Lots of smaller bands fighting for dominance, with no one faction being able to come out on top and form itself into a larger power. But that's only my own rationalization for the situation in DC, as again - they made no real attempt to explain why this would be true.