like the title says, i have ran into fire ants in the dry lake, and if i recall, they were created in DC by the doctor in merigold station.
explanation/answer please?

Probably added for 'cool factor'.

Either they dug a long way in the last three years, or the Doctor in Marigold Station was wrong about him being the one that caused the mutation.

Maybe fire breathing is a natural point of evolution for any ant that gets exposed to FEV, so it just happens that both the group in New Vegas and the Doctor's batch both got evolved.

Yeah but FEV is pretty much a shot in the dark, the ones in F3 werent naturally exposed to it, he induced the egg cluster with the FEV, so unless someone else did this in FNV (Never mentioned or explained) and being in the middle of the desert, and a dry lake, no signs of science on these ants I can say its most likely an oversight on the Developers part.

Or the canon ending of Those! is the LW killing the Queen, and soDr. Lesko traveled to the Mojave to continue his experiments without disruptions. Then he was killed.

Actually, it seems the canon ending would be him injecting the mutagen to shrink the ants since this helps the CW.

Erm, wouldn't this be the same as asking why Fire Geckos are present in the Mojave?
Or is this angle discarded because of the Core Region being closer?

Packs of Geckos from the NCR region, which is a few hundred miles, is alot more sense then ants scuttling all the way from D.C. to Las Vegas. :laugh:

Ah, but THAT doesn't explain the Fire Ants, my version does.
Your move.

Indeed, yet, what if the source of Fire Gecko mutation is the same as that of the Fire Ants' in the Mojave?
Is it also possible that the source of Mojave Ant mutation could be similar to that of the Nightstalker mutations in Jacobstown?

There should be thousands and thousands of giant ants and by now they should be the dominant species of earth.



I am fairly sure that fire geckos are originaly from maribosa and WHAT? are you suggesting that there is some sort of broken device in their nest that is causing them to breath fire?

Yes, the ants ate gunpowder and washed it down with flamer fuel.

Honestly Clash, it's anyones guess, and if it isnt explained, someones says 'UH.....UH....ITS OBVIOUSLY AN FEV MUTATION'

And no, the Night stalker mutation was due to stealthboy radiation

Absolutely not. But something similar. Something organic inside the Geckos, affected by the FEV perhaps, that the Ants devoured?

Also Colonel, I am fully aware of the origin of the Nightstalker mutation, what I meant, is above.

Maybe the ants ate some fire geckos and gained the fire breathing ability, and can only maintain it by a steady diet of geckos?

I think I remember Lesko saying that not all the fire ants were exterminated when you kill the Queen, and that there were thousands of baby fire ants that managed to escape through tiny cracks. My guess is that some of those baby ants grew up and spread throughout the wasteland and traveled to the Mojave. Just my two cents

Why does everything that was presented in F3 for the first time and makes an appearance in New Vegas has to automatically come from the Capital Wasteland? I'd imagine that these fire ants are of a different origin than the ones in CW. For all we know, the ants could have come from somewhere in the Four States Commonwealth. There is a LOT of populated wasteland out in the US that does not have much (if any) canon out there. It seems like you guys think they everything in New Vegas either HAD to come from the Core Region or the CW. Isn't that being a bit close minded?

Because the origin of the fire ants are explicitly stated in Fallout 3. They were created on accident by Dr. Lesko when he tried to use his mutagen on the eggs to make the ants. Thus they are from Capital Wasteland as the details of there origin is known.
So either they migrated from Capital Wasteland, an identical mutation occurred in the west. OR Obsidian didn't know the Fire Ants were supposed to have gone the way of the Wanamingo.

No grudge against Obsidian either way, only about 1/4th of the dev team was from the original Fallout games, and honestly, F3s grayditch quest isnt that hard to miss, so I can get how they missed that key importance. Is it possible that someone played God with Fire Ant DNA like Dr. Lesko did? Oh yes. But alot of people would like an explanation of these things and why they happen when a previous game explicity states it was particular to region A and you're in region B. But eh, I dont care honestly.

Well the fact there are a fair number of them in fonv and that people have figured out they make good eatin prolly means they have been here awhile.

Also correct me if im wrong but arnt the fonv fire ants a fair bit larger and nastier then the fo3 ones were? Not to mention faster moving.

You have a good point, I do seem to recall the ants in Marigold being only little hatchlings, but now that I think of it, I seem to recall something about a Poseidon Energy environmental foul up on some terminal. Maybe that's what all those trucks and construction devices near Helios One are there for?

Is it really THAT hard to believe that other fire ants were accidently FEVed?

I mean really, it happened to Harold.

But how many other Harolds do you encounter?

It's not that Fire ants are accidentaly FEV'd. It's the fact that F3 and NV directly contradict each other in terms of their Fire Ant story.

Well, the real life RIFAs are tenacious and have spread world wide, first discovered in the US (Alabama) in the 1930's. The vault wiki entry posits the theory that they migrated from the colder climate of DC to the warmer climate of the Mojave.

Now talking out of my you-know-what here, but I suppose some caravans from the east coast headed west could have been carrying fire ant eggs for food, trading them, etc. but the eggs hatched in some cases along the way and the ants spread. Also, geckos feed on insects so even though the workers and advlts are too big to eat I suppose fire ant eggs could be on the menu helping to give the fire geckos Dr. Lesko's version of "pyrosis".

But of course w/o an official canonical explanation we're all left guessing. :shrug:

This here makes the most sense to me. How did the Doc get his hands on FEV?

Maybe just like the move Them! Giant flying fire ants left the Core region and over 200 years made it to DC. The Doc just thought he was responsible.