I have some doudts about the history of FO, FO3 was the first game that i played so i didnt understand some stuff, i hope someone answers them:
How so many fireweapons survived the nuclear bombs?Wouldnt they blow up?
how did the other people that werent on vaults survive?
Where do the Super Mutant Behemoths come from?
Did everyone on the other vaults die?
Why are bottle caps the current money in the game?

Pardon my ignorance...

Hello Ice Cold, I'll try to satisfy your queries to the best of my abilities, as I'm sure some others will aswell

Fireweapons, flamers etc, could have been preserved along with many other weapons, in FO3 there are quite a few armouries and caches dedicated to the safehousing of weaponry of all kinds. Naturally, all the weapons of the world weren't laid out on the turf waiting for the bombs to be dropped. Most of the weapons you will see ingame will have been looted some way or another. Some flame units may have been damaged beyond repair, and stripped to be used in other weapons of the same type.

Some people could have used any makeshift shelter to survive. The most harmful aspect of the bombings would have been the radiation in the first few years after, the bombs themselves wouldn't have caused alot of damage, the aftermath would have been the real testament to survival, hence the ghouls you see. Also none of the games are set directly after the bombings, so the civilisation you see out in the wastes would be a second generation. Vaults kept people uncontaminated and safe, but there was always a chance people outside would make their own go at survival.

Behemoths are an unknown. Personally I don't agree with this deicision by Bethesda, Mutants know enough to dip people in F.E.V to mutate them. The closest thing to a Behemoth in previous games would be Frank Horrigan from FO2, and he was the result of many experiements by the Enclave's science team. Mutants wouldn't possess the intelligence or the means to provide the necessary experimentation involved in creating these gargantuans. Maybe they were enclave experiments, but it wouldn't add up. Personally I just think Bethesda wanted a big bad monster, and logic didn't come into it.

There are 122 Vault-Tec Vaults. Only 17 of them were designed to work to public expectation. Vault 8 in FO2 is the result of such a working Vault. The rest were experimental Vaults. The outcome of most are still unknown, it would be safe to put most of them down to fan speculation until developers decide to include them in-game.

Nuka-Cola was a very big distributor before the great war, and bottle caps were just the answer to currency due to their abundance, there is no 'real' reason for it, it just gives you a good impression that civilisation has been destabilised. It's more an aesthetic than anything, bottlecaps were the currency in FO1, in FO2 it was coins (civilisation began to pick itself up after 80 years it seems), and Bethesda decided to bring bottlecaps back for FO3 200+ years after the bombings, so you draw your own conclusions.

Maybe someone else would be able to provide a little more flavour, but I'll try to be as subjective as I can

Thanks man, that answers them all

They aren't an unknown. The Vault 87 super mutants, unlike the Mariposa ones, grow bigger and dumber as they grow older. The behemoths are the only surviving original Vault 87 dwellers.

Not a problem ^_^ As I said some of them don't have any official answers, so sometimes you have to provide them yourself. Other people probably have their own theories, but I'm happy enough with my own


I apologise for not having this information at hand, I wasn't aware there was any information on this ingame, unless the devs have spoken up about it. But coming from you Ausir, I'd believe anything

Edit/Update: Hmmm, I've read the wiki and it provides some insight at least. Apparently the Behemoth's were never designed to be that big originally, which would have made alot more sense. The scaling doesn't match, the size of the behemoth's compared to the rest of the D.C mutant population is too wide. I just don't believe their immense size can be deduced to age development, they would need to have reached some form of critical mass along the way and destabilised or died from the strain, I understand it's a slow process but their size beyond intense genetic tweaking (Frank Horrigan) doesn't make sense, even for Fallout

Supermutants have shown the cabaibility to conduct scientific research in Fallout tactics, and the Lieutennant in FO was very intelligent, not to mention Richard Grey himself.

Whilst FEV usually makes humans "Stupid", it does have an chance at increasing their inteligence, and in some animals does consistently. This in my mind suggests it may be possible to breed a strain, given enough research, that preserves or even enhances human inteligence

Tactics is arguably non-canon, which is no surprise as it wasn't directly influenced by Interplay. There are too many inconcsistencies in Tactics to consider it canon, and this is more than just my personal opinion.

The Lieutenant is the result of the Mariposa strain. The Mariposa strain has the ability to enhance or at least leave inherent intelligence intact, though a damaging impact on intelligence was always a possibility, the talking head in the Necropolis watershed was evidence of this, though that mutant could have been just as dumb before dipping, though I have my doubts. There is also no evidence to suggest the Lieutenant was any less intelligent before being dipped.

We're talking about two different strains of F.E.V here. Otherwise we wouldn't be able to talk about Behemoth's in the first place, irronically. The D.C strain doesn't seem contain the same enhancements to wisdom. The impression seems to be that this strain is far more agressive, creating a universal template and enhancing strength over a period of time (behemoth evidently). The Mariposa strain had its similarities, but it had somewhat of a focus on mental development, and also retained sixual preference. This was afterall the Master's strain, and was more accustomed to evolution on a scale beyond simple agression and muscle enhancements. Bad choices in selection were made though, and so the result was not so different accross the board in relation to Intelligence.

I doubt the Mutants of D.C were actively experimenting. Even the mariposa mutants wouldn't have been so fortunate without the Master's initiative driving them. But this is probably where our opinions differ.

Tactics is semi-canon, some of it is referenced as canon in Fallout 3. And some super mutants were certainly smart enough to conduct research.

However, the Vault 87 mutants are generally dumber than their Mariposa counterparts, even Harry is a genius compared to these.

Yes well, Fallout 3 canon is rather selective, so it's endorsemant of anything Tactics related can be argued at the very least.

It was the vault 87 mutants I was refering to in regards to research and experimentation, and the fact that Behemoth's as a result of such a procedure would be unlikely. But as we know that's not the case, it's not much of an issue

Behemoths are biologically impossible. Brains of such size, human brains especially, are unable to support such a complicated system of muscles, and the Behemoths have to eat tons of food every day.
Vault 87 computer reveals that even some normal Mutants died due to brains being unable to support larger body systems.

IIRC it's not the muscles that is the problem but the degredation of the inteligence in the subject that degenerates to the point where it can no longer sustain basic functions. IE breathing, blinking, heartbeating etc.

Quite sure this was mentioned in one of the computers.

Not sure about that. The first thing that sprung to my mind were gorillas. They have massive muscular structure. Smaller brains than humans and are vegetarians! Behemoths would not (pure opinion this) have any more complicated sytsem of muscles than humans, basically Behemoths are biologically identical to humans, just bigger. Look in the guiness book of records and you will get an idea of the diversity of human biology (tallest man in the world etc). Sure Behemoths are impossible but not that far fetched in a biological sense. A Rad Scopion or fire ant is actually much less plausible. Legs would not be able to support the body weight.

Gorilla's brains have evolved into supporting a large mass of functions.
A normal human brain in 200 years is not likely to.
And as SoundWav3 said, the brains would have to sacrifice many other vital functions to support organs and such, thus making life impossible.

True, but a supermutant does not have a normal human brain, it has a mutated one.

I don't think we should be debating whether a Behemoth is biologically possible or not, because they're here whether we think they make sense or not As I picked up in the wiki Behemoth's were designes to be alot smaller, only slightly taller than Fawkes, which would have made alot more sense. Then the devs seemed to think it was a good idea to enlarge them by a significant degree, I'm guessing for a shock factor. So it would be safe to assume that their size ingame could be disregarded if the Behemoth's are something you refuse to comprehend

As for me, I'd think it was a possibility, but an extremely rare one and not without regular and intensive research and experimentation. Frank Horrigan was one-of-a-kind. To see 5 behemoth's around D.C seems nothing more than an awe factor.

I agree with this totally. But they are still fun to kill.

What?
No I didn't!
What I meant was that the inteligence degrades in the subject. Not that it diverts it's attention to muscles and such (which I don't realy think needs that much brain power anyway but I'm no biologist).
The impression I got was that the brain basicaly got smaller or well degraded to that point that it lost capability to keep the subject alive.

I have other questions:
Where did so many super mutants come from?Can they reproduce them selves?I mean they are all over the place, and if they do reproduce, how come if in vault 87 on a computer that talks about the FEV subjects they say that they lost their male/female traces.
What do super mutants feed on?Because the ones at little lamplight dont have nothing to feed on, unless they feed on each other.
How do ghouls become ferals?
How do ghouls become glowing ones?
Where do centaurs come from?

Ah nevermind.



GUIDE ON HOW TO MAKE A MUTANT:
You need:
One big vat
A good dose of FEV virus
A test subject.

Dip the subject into FEV. Stirr and wait for some time. Enjoy!
Mutants are, sadly, sterile which drove the bad guy of Fallout 1 into committing suicide (if you told him that)

Mutants feed on anything. They have pretty much same diet as normal humans. Although normally they consume people.

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Human + Radiation = Ghoul
Human/Ghoul + Even More Radiation = Feral Ghoul

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Glowing ones are THE most irradiated ghouls. Since ghouls cannot die of radiation, they become Glowing Ones when consuming enough radiation.

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Centaurs are made in same way as mutants, but instead of just humans you dip cats, brahmin and maybe shopping carts into the vat. Tah-da, you got everyone's worst nightmare!

But the muties at Little Lamplight dont have food.
I know how they make super mutants but how are there so many out there?

A few tweaks are in order Any human wont do, if a human is contaminated upon being dipped they will ghoulify, or turn into "brutish soldiers". Also people out in the wastes wont have the best education, and as Mutants are dumb enough already, it makes sense that they'll prioratise the most intelligent/potential catalyst. Mutants refer to these humans as 'Prime Normals' and are commonly associated with Vault dwellers.

Ghouls don't go Feral because of larger doses of radiation, the ghouls in Gecko lived in and around a leaking nuclear reactor, and they seemed pretty intact (for a ghoul anyway). Ferals are most likely the result of brain decay. Ghouls possess an unnatural longevity, and it makes sense that their brains will fry before they expire.

I'm not entirely sure about glowing ones, but it couldn't be deduced to a great exposure to radiation, otherwise there would be alot more glowing ones in heavily radiated areas. I think this is just a freak genetic mutation that can occur in any ghoul. But this is just my opinion.

I think centaurs are primarily dogs, secondarily humans, and tertiary who the hell knows


Do you mean the muties in Murder Pass? They have access to Vault 87 and there's plenty of food there.

Well it's safe to say that Fallout 3 is too heavily populated for what it represents. So I personally wouldn't take the numbers I encounter into consideration.

well ghouls and trogs are mutated from radiation maybe even though muties are somewhat rad resistant they still get mutated...

P.S. i havnt played 1or2 so i tend to draw up answers that i cnt quickly find on the vault(fallout wiki)

A mutated mutant, huh

Well, mutants are pretty much immune to most things, including radiation. I mean a super mutant is a post-mutated human, that has been forced to 'evolve', this shock to the system makes any other advancement extremely unlikely until the genes have a chance to tame themselves by advancing a few generations at least. The main problem here is that mutants can't procreate, so there will never be another generation, humans will still be able to mutate, but it wont be any advanced generation beyond any necessary tweaks to the F.E.V. And who's to say mutants would give birth to mutants if it was possible? Orange tigers can carry the white gene necessary for giving birth to white tigers. Mutants could give birth to normal humans, or something else altogether, or the genetic code could revert over a period of generations. But as it stands mutants can't procreate so all these outcomes are just wild speculation But it makes sense that a mutant would become immune to all further mutations, the genes are probably so twisted that any further attempt at mutation would probably trigger some form of celluar destabilisation, but that too is unknown.

The size and strength of some dinosaurs and how their genetic make up worked could shed some light on how Behemoths work. Its unlikely, but they do come the closest in size. It's just an idea though, as I have no knowledge on that subject.

In order...

1. Who knows? Two of the "fireweapons" are homemade, one is from outer space, and the other two are pre-war. Because the only person I can think of who would have a Flamer pre-war would be the military, probably a lot of them were stored inside well-fortified bases that protected them, and then were scavenged by people looking for food.

2. Fallout shelters and by being in places that weren't nuked.

3. Super Mutants get bigger as they age, at the cost of senility.

4. In a word? Yes.

5. Because most pre-war money was destroyed and bottlecaps are easy to find.