From what I've played of FO1 and heard/read about FO2, it seems a bit absurd to speak of Fallout "canon". The entire Fallout universe is over-the-top, campy humour, almost like the Flintstones. It doesn't seem that it was intended to be taken so seriously as to speak of "canon", no matter what somebody wrote up after the games were released.

Ok, here is my view on the issue.

"noble" brotherhood of steel: the brotherhood in fallout 2 gave me the impression of having transformed into something more noble than what we see in fallout 1 (or even the "western brotherhood" in fallout tactics). Nonetheless, the "outcasts vs Lyons" concept is a canon friendly explanation to what we see in fallout 3. I believe that Bethesda wanted to use the enclave and tried to avoid contradictions with fallout 2. The result is a not very "original" story, but it is canon friendly.

enclave: Eden's enclave doesn't contradict what we see in fallout 2. Again, i believe that Bethesda wanted to use the enclave and tried to avoid contradictions with fallout 2. The result is a not very "original" story, but it is canon friendly.

"fast" ghouls: strangely, i have not yet read any comment on this issue. In Fallout 1 & 2, ghouls were slow moving beings. In Fallout 2, the PC meets a ghoul doctor (in Gecko) who had actually seen the hero from fallout 1. The ghoul says that he noticed the hero, because he (or she) was running while ghouls could only walk. I guess that bethesda wanted fast-moving zombies, so they had to make this change. Personally, i would have chosen to make them slow and hard to kill, something similar to the "night of the living dead" concept (and at the same time more lore-friendly).

"daring dashwood": How could he have met Argoyle (his ghoul manservant) before the war, if the war took place 200 years ago? Ghouls can live that long, but humans can't. This is not a canon-thingy, but it is strange nonetheless.

super mutants: they really don't look like the talking heads form fallout 1 & 2 (don't get me started on the behemoths) but that is not necessarily a problem. They were created from a somewhat different strain of FEV... In the old days of this forum, when flame wars raged between "purists" and "beth-boys", a lot of people blamed bethesda for turning super-mutants into "ogres". I played Fallout 1, 2 and tactics, and 90% of the super mutants i found were hostile and not eager to talk. The only exceptions were:
fallout 1: Harry (i wouldn't call him smart, though...) and the lieutenant (my favourite fallout 1 NPC)
fallout 2: Marcus and the other super mutants inhabiting broken hills.
tactics: i remember a mutant scientist screaming something in the lines of "we are the only ones who can defeat the calculator, so we must find a way to reverse our sterility", then attacking me.


General Fallout feel: Fallout 3 is well made, but there is something missing... I advise all of you to download the "classic fallout music" mod from fallout nexus, which made me feel a sweet nostalgia.

He didn't. Argyle was born before the Great War, but Dashwood met him in 2241.

fallout 3 didnt have enough crazy poeple or drug addics thats whats wrong with the atmosphere
aperently with the new supermutants they dont stop growing, the older they get the bigger

Legally? Yes.

As a person who played and loved both F1 and 2? I don't mind.

It doesn't actually do anything that conflicts with the first two games, unlike Fallout Tactics and BoS.

But it does.

As far as I can tell, the only REAL lore-conflicts with FO3 is the FEV in Vault 81 (last it was heard, all samples were taken to Maropisa) and the existance of Pre-War Jet (as evidinced by their popping up in first aid containers. Of course, this could be due to bad spawning lists.) Everything else, not so much.

For example, the way the GECK works is totally inconsistent with FO1 and 2.

Actually, I think there was a rather heated thread on just that issue a while back.

Personally, I know there's that dialogue you have with Harold where he talks about Ghouls being a little on the sluggish side. But the actual combat you have with the Ghouls in Fallouts 1 and 2, they can actually move pretty fast. I don't know how many AP they had, but I remember thinking it almost seemed like they had some extra movement AP or something (because they couldn't make too many attacks per turn, but they sure could cover a lot of distance, actually.)

I kind of see that as sloppy writing more than anything. It's been awhile since I finished up Fallout 3, so I can't remember exactly how it works. But I'm doing another run-through right now, and I'm getting to the point where I'm looking for the GECK.

My understanding is that there were some components in the kit that could be used to cleaning the radiation out of the water. For one, that's actually not even all that far-fetched, really. And for another, I think it makes perfect sense that one thing you're going to want the GECK to be able to do is make sure your Vault City is going to have clean drinking water. I can't imagine they wouldn't have prepared for that contingency when designing the GECK, along with all the seedstock and building plans, etc.

If the "fix" to Project Purity was simply "dump the magical GECK into the water and watch how wonderful everything is," then there's a problem. But I always saw it more as it containing some technology that would be useful for the Project, and using the technology found there to reverse engineer something more useful to the grandiose goals of the Project. In that aspect, I think it makes perfect sense. (As in, one of many components of the GECK was something you could use to make clean water - which should be a given - and they were able to build on that to come up with something that would work.)

The FO3 GECK actually recombines all matter within a given radius, killing its user in the process, which is completely different from how the original GECK works.

storywise , i think bethesda did an admirable job on f3. i see no reason why it shouldn't be considered canon, it's every bit as well thought out and written as anything interplay could do

Fallout 2 sure, but the original Fallout wasn't any campier than Fallout 3. The original was actually pretty serious aside from a couple special encounters. Fallout 2 is the game that takes everything over the top, and that's one of the aspects about Fallout 2 I hate.

I have recently gone through earlier Fallout Games and have done Fallout 3 before that and I find it hard to work out just what canon is and how it is consistent.

Other than wondering what it would have been like if Bethesda had just started all over again with Vault #1, I find myself simply enjoying the game.

I do wish there were more explanations though and some were clearer. For example in the Overseers Office in Vault 101 there is terminal data that speaks of three scouts leaving the vault before dad showed up and only one returning. Yet many people do not seem to have picked this up.

Old Lady Palmer was one of these scouts. Note how she joins the 'rebels' later on.

She wasn't, her daughter (and the mother of Jonas) was.

:blink:

http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Lucy_Palmer
http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Anne_Palmer

What's the source of that wiki information? GECK?

Official guide.

I have to wonder though, if another company buys out the rights to Fallout, which will probably happen one day(as it does with any other franchise), and for a minute, let us assume that they decide to re-imagine the Classic Fallout's(similarly to what happened with James Bond, and many other franchises), then Fallout 3, or any of the originals no longer become canon. So in my mind, I believe that there are 3 current interpretations of Fallout Canon:

1) Interpretation 1: Fans of the Classic Fallout's would tell you that...Fallout 1&2 are canon, Van Buren is Canon and parts of Tactics are canon.

2) Interpretation 2: Fans of the New Fallout would tell you that...Fallout 3 is canon, Fallout's 1 and 2 are canon so long as they don't contradict what Bethesda says, and furthermore any other things which Bethesda chooses to publish or write, are now canon regardless.

3) Interpretation 3: Whoever owns or gets the rights to write a portion of the Fallout series, that is now a part of the canon.

Strategy guides are hardly a reliable source for canon backstory, Ausir. In the actual Fallout 3 game no one actually says that's how the GECK works, and the reason it kills you is likely because Bethesda didn't want you using the GECK outside of the main quest. Plus they didn't want to render the results of using the GECK. Don't know why they just didn't make it unusable like Black Isle did in Fallout 2, but I guess that wouldn't have been "immersive" enough.

First, the official guide info I'm referring to is about Anne Palmer being the daughter of Old Lady Palmer and the mother of Jonas Palmer, not to the GECK.

Second, the guide was co-written by some of the game's designers and therefore I treat any additional backstory there as supplemental canon.

Third, IIRC, it actually is stated in the game that the GECK recombines all matter within a given radius.

Whoops, I assumed ab was referring to where you got the info for the wiki concerning the GECK.



That doesn't really mean anything though, strategy guides are rarely (if ever) considered canon sources in any video game franchise. Even if there's designers involved a lot of the information often ends up being incorrect.



Where? I don't remember Braun or James' Journals saying anything about how the GECK works.

I doubt we'll ever get e.g. any other information on how exactly the Vault 101 characters are related to each other, so information from the guide is as good as any. So because the devs were involved in its creation, for the purposes of The Vault I consider such additional background from the guide as canon, unless contradicted by the game itself.

James in FO3 about GECK:



The GECK as presented in FO1 and 2 was nothing like that.

Well maybe Braun had worked on a new version of the GECK right before the Vaults were sealed but only the ones on the East Coast because the were closer to Brauns vault?