So ive read some of the wiki's and searched the forum's but if i missed something feel free to point me in the right direction.

So the game is taking place 200yrs after the bombs dropped..... how is it people have survived 200+ yrs?? do stimpaks add to life expectancy?

the ghoul your sopposed to kill for the tenpenny tower quest says something like he used to vacation there before the war.....and the guy with the shotgun whom you get the key for the basemant from says something along the lines of being around during the war i believe.

The normal human beings you encounter in the game are the 3rd (or in some cases 2nd) generation of post-war survivors. The war only lasted a few hours (according to data found in FO1/2). Ghouls, however, can live forever, and super mutants have extra long life expectancy, yet can not reproduce (both male and female Super Mutants are sterile), which makes it all the more odd to have such a large number of remaining SMs in the game. The only human beings that you encounter that are alive from pre-war times are in Tranquility Lane. I assume that the tranquility pods are some kind of statis chamber that keeps the mind alive, and the body in suspended animation. There are a lot of crazy people out there in the wasteland, however, that would like to believe that everything is just fine and dandy like the world was before the bombs fell. These people should be considered dangerous, and exterminated immediately.

The super mutants are taking humans somewhere and infecting them with FEV, turning them into mutants as well.

I think you have it backwards. Ghouls live incredibly long lives and the Supemutants are immortal.

There is one exception though: ghouls that are exposed to FEV do not become mutants but do become immortal.

Mmm, nope super mutants aren't immortal, they just have long life expectancy, same with ghouls, both have increased life expectancy thanks to their mutation.

as for capital wasteland Super mutants they're coming from vault 87, I think they either inject FEV or make use of some sort of aerosol sustem that sort of fills the air like a steam bath and thus simlates being dipped in the Vats....

Not enough time has passed to determine whether ghouls and supermutants are immortal or just long-lived. F3 takes place merely two centuries after the war, after all. So how can anybody knows whether a ghoul can live forever, or has a life expectancy of 300 years, or 500, or 1000, or 12000000?

Remember, kids, everyone is potentially immortal as long as they don't die.

Actualy there a three kinds of Ghouls,

1 - Those ghouls who get a VERY LONG life expectancy from the mutation they suffer, this is wy there are still some Pre-War Ghouls arround.
2 - Those with a short, or "human like" lifespan.
3 - FEV "ghouls", they are actualy a "diferent breed" of Super Mutants, you see the FEV work diferently on people depending on MANY factors like already existant mutations in the DNA, time of exposure, MEANS of exposure (injected, diped in a VAT or just partialy dipped, ingested) to it, TIME exposed to it and so on. a SM is usualy made by "droping" someone inside a VAT for a good amount of time.

Ok, so there is only two tipes of Ghouls after all, the "third type" is actualy more like a "fail SM" then a Ghoul (except on theyr apearence0. There is only TWO known FEV Ghouls, Harold and the other guy i forgot.

Now to SM, there are MANY diferent kind of mutants produced by the FEV, but i will only take in account the "traditional" SM, they cen be classivied has 2 types.

1 - The Dumb SM, preaty much all those you can see around the FO3. They are extremely dumb, but they got some sort of "genetic programing" that makes them search for new humans to be turned into SMs.
1 - The smart ones, See Marcus in FO2, or Fawkes in FO3. They are actualy preaty wellminded, maybe even smarter then most wastlanders...

What makes diferent SMs is theyr exposure, or not, to background radiation BEFORE they are turned in. ALL "Standart" FEV mutants (includind SMs) are VIRTUALY immortal if you only take in account age, however they may be killed by high radiation levels (they are preaty resistance to radiation, but not immune to it), any normal accident that can occur in your daily life and a good piece of lead in theyr head.


Now about both groups, SMs and Ghouls... They are both sterily and so they can't reproduce, what explain theyr existance is that SMs, has said before, is that they are "programed" to kidnap people not only to get some food, but also to turn them into new SMs. The inteligent breed os the SMs dopnt seem to be affected by this programming, or the fact that they remain inteligent after the transformation makes them preaty much like any humam being, and they suppres theys instincs just like we do to ours. The constant Ghoul population in the wastes just represents a portion of the population that eventualy "contracted" a "serious radiation sickness" due to the background exposure and turned into Ghouls.

The Super Mutants have a Biological Immortality, their bodies automatically fix themselves back up (one of the qualitys of the FEV, removing all impuritys, both genetically and physically, however this also affects their gametes as the FEV doesn't allow for the 'half-cells' seeing them as impuritys, and so makes them sterile), however they can succomb to some things (e.g. decapitation, lethal wounds, extreme radiation), they can't however get sick, they will never be affected by viruses or bacteria (the FEV destroying them).