Hey all, Has any one else wondered why there are fire ants in New Vegas seeing as they where made in Fallout 3 and where exterminated. So how did they manage to get to the Mojave wasteland....????

Never wondered actually... Good question.

Perhaps these ones just evolved this way.

But wernt the ones In fallout 3 genetically altered? I may be wrong.

They were genetically altered using FEV by the scientist in Greyditch, but I don't think its explained how they got to Nevada. It could have something to do with the Fire Geckos.

That's a good point....Some weird cross breeding....eugh I don't want to think about that

One of the few unfortunate lore inconsistencies in New Vegas.

It's [censored] how much thought some people put into this. They're there, who gives a [censored] how they got there.

I do lol it really bugs me I love the lore and story line that fallout has and that just brakes it

My guess would be that they evolved in a similar way that Fire Geckos evolved. Perhaps Fire Geckos gained the ability to breath fire by starting as regular Geckos and running into some pre-war facility that was leaking a variant of FEV, and over time they gained the ability to breath fire. Perhaps fire ants were formed in that same facility. That's all speculation though, I'm really not sure.

We care about lore.

I care, and its dumb.

Do you not care about continuity?

and you don't even have to put thought into it, its glaring inconsistency.

Well i would imagine fire ants would be in Nevada :3

Maybe they simply are fire ants that evolved/mutated into literal fire ants?
Fallout 3's lore. I really don't consider it too important.
If anything New Vegas fixes Fallout 3's lore as it is superior.
So genetically altered or mutated on their own...
I'll take mutated on their own.

"But it breaks lore."
What lore? Fallout 3 lore? Pfft, yeah I care about that.

(Seriously though, take a look at each game, on the one hand we have... Fallout... Three.... And on the other hand we have New Vegas! Consider this inconsistency a retcon.)

That still doesn't explain why they breath fire though.

Also, I asked JE Sawyer this question on his Formspring, so check for an answer there as well. I'm guessing it'll be along the lines of "mysteries" though

It would make more sense to see Fire Ants in Nevada, and elsewhere in the Southwestern area, than in Washington D.C. where they would have to be genetically altered/modified.

How about people who have mutated into rabid zombie looking things that store so much radiation that they can use it as a weapon? (Glowing One's)
Or how about people that turned into a race of moll people with florescent lights eluminating from their bodies? (Tunnelers)
Or how about lizards that became bipedal and runs like penguins, some of which can also breathe fire? (Fire Gecko's)

There isn't always an explanation for how things come to mutate the way it did.

It's bittersweet.
On one hand, why should we find out how they came to mutate the way they did? Some things in life remains a mystery, mysteries that can't be solved without the proper equipment, knowledge and area of origin. Maybe they were created by someone? But why should that person's lab be in New Vegas? It's too much of a comfortable storytelling when everything is explained as being right next to you.
On the other hand, it leaves questions which we want answers to, and not having the source of the mutation on record there is no way of knowing just how far this breed of ants could have spread.

But some things doesn't get explanations.
It's understandable, it kinda svcks.
But that's just the way the world works.

Fire Ants, along with Glowing One's, Fire Gecko's and Tunnelers could very well be mutants that mutated under special conditions with no additional science involved.
No one had to create them, some things just mutate 'naturally'.

its not enitrely impossible that the ants breed ya know, look at how big the colonys are.. its highly possible they breed and spread all over, look at cazadores.. made in big empty and they ended up in utah..

It has come up before and there are some possible ways to explain it.

1) They could be two different types, one natural and one made.

2) The guy in DC didn't really make them, he just thinks he did.

3) A queen from DC flew all the way to the Mojave.

The third I feel is the most likely. Ever watch the Movie "Them!" Great movie if you haven't watched it, you should check it out. Anyways, that quest in Fallout 3 was inspired by "Them!"

Now in the movie the scientists explain to the military that if just one giant queen gets away and builds a nest, within a very short time she will produce thousands of giant ants. The Scientist explain that the Queen can fly hundreds if not thousands of miles to form a new colony.

So isn't it possible that one of the altered Queens from DC made it to the Mojave region and formed a Colony? They are bugs and bugs reproduce pretty fast, so maybe there are now gaint fire ant colonies acorss North America now.

Isn't it possible the guy in Fallout 3 wasn't telling us the whole truth about the number of Queens he was working on?

Actually, while traveling across the Mojave, I came across a crazy-looking man, who told me this riveting tale:

Once, long ago, months after the Great War, Geckos snuck into a military base that leaked FEV, like you said. Before discovering the FEV vats, however, the geckos came across a colony of ants. Having no place to stay, the geckos took up residence with the ants. Things heated up quickly, and war was quickly declared once a gecko was caught eating Arnold, one of the head ants. This war was long and hard, and many on both sides died, fighting valiantly for their race. Eventually, they both found the FEV vats. For a time, they ignored them, but once one of the ants crawled in and evolved surprisingly quickly into a giant, fire-breathing ant, the geckos were quick to take hold of the vats and use them to their advantage. The ants managed to take hold of one, and soon they were both giant, fire-breathing variants of the original race.

The end.

Ah the Great Gecko Ant War of 2153. So many needless deaths. Why couldn't they learn to live in peace?

I'm sure if Arnold weren't eaten, they could've made peace with eachother.

Was this from No-bark? Because he's a pretty reliable source of information.

I wish it was actually in the game. I just made that up.

While all of those creatures also go relatively unexplained, the point here is that fire ants were creatures (supposedly) created in the DC area that are now well established in the Mojave. It's fine that some mutated creatures go unexplained, but in this specific case of fire ants it's not the "unexplained" part that's the problem; it's the explanation that was given in Fallout 3 that makes Mojave fire ants potentially lore breaking.

Notice I said "potentially" as I am not saying that they actually are lore breaking.


With that same argument I could say that it would have been too far into the comfort zone for the writers in Fallout 3 to have included an explanation as to how the vault 87 mutants manage to get fresh humans into Vault 87 in order to make more mutants.

I think that the argument is a little bit too comfortable. (not trying to be hostile) My point is that just saying, "well, since New Vegas was written by people who know what there talking about with the series and Fallout 3 was written by other people, we should just ignore things that go against Fallout 3's lore" is not really answering anything or attempting to find a logical explanation. While I do agree with you that Fallout 3 was bad at explaining things, I don't think ignoring things that Fallout 3 did explain is good either since it is still a canon game.


This could be true as well. I also like what Styles said about the species spreading, since it relates to the movie the quest was based off of.

A natural mutation would, however, make the ants in New Vegas a different species than the ants in Fallout 3, even though in game they are identical. Though that could have been because of time restraints.