One thing I did noticed is that dead scientist you "borrow" the Pipboy from seems to be on the Vault evaluator but if he managed to get down why didn't he go into the Vault with everyone else?

Actually it appears you're still inside the Vault then you get the Pip-Boy, you'll notice when you exit the Vault it's already on the player's hand. It looks like the Vault's inner door in the background when you put in on in the E3 demo.

If the skeleton of a Vault Dweller/scientist is inside, that could mean whatever killed off everyone in Vault 111 but you happened a long time ago.

The dead scientist actually confirms another part of my previous theory. It looks like you're on some kind of walkway when you find the skeleton and the Pip-Boy, probably leading up to the lift you use to get back up to surface level. This suggest, as I had stated, that ONLY you and the scientist made it down to the vault, and that he was most likely very badly injured. But rather than managing to get into the vault he clearly died outside.

It could also be that everyone made it in, as planned, then afterwards something happened to kill everyone but you in the Vault.

Perhaps several others did make it inside (but I still believe that you're spouse and child were not amongst them). It becomes clear that you do not have enough food to survive, and so the only option is to use the cryochambers in the hope that by the time you awaken the vault door can be re-opened. Rather than the relatively short time-frame you were expecting, you remain in stasis for, as we discover, around 200 years. During this time, because the tech was relatively new and untested, all of the pods failed except for one. There is then a system failure which activated your own pod to bring you out of stasis, and you find yourself alone. If the system failure were not to have occurred, you would have either died due to the pod failing or remained in stasis indefinitely.

still sounds stupid. although you may be on to something im afraid.

Whatever happens, I hope we're not forced into helping the androids/Railroad/Minutemen.

I want to side with the Institute.

You're not the only one who thought of this . I was actually fairly spot on. My mishap was with the "Making it into the vault."

No offense to your predications but I hope this is not the plot....

Offspring is unconscious

Re ghoul pirate: I don't think it sounds stupid at all, as long as it's framed in the right context. At the start of the tutorial, your spouse says "You're gonna knock em dead at the veteran's hall tonight hun". This could mean that you perhaps trained in the navy. This would also tie in with all of the pictures in the player house which are almost all related to the sea. Whether you choose the mother or the father, as your son grows up, he learns of this and develops a fascination with the idea of "sailing the seven seas". Whether the mother or the father is left outside the vault and then eventually dies, the child still blames his father for not getting him into the vault, and for taking his mother away from him. And he still maintains a fascination with the idea of sailing, but is equally fascinated with the concept of pirates as told in stories as he grew up. He sees the pirate as being the anti-hero, the opposite of what his father had been when serving for his country as a naval officer. And so, bitter and twisted after 200 years roaming the wastelands he becomes the only thing that still connects him to the old world, at the same time allowing him to rebel against everything his father stood for.

I just don't see how a baby could survive those levels of radiation to become a ghoul.....

I am curious to see how exactly you made it alive into the vault when your significant other and child did not. I mean, you are standing beside them when the explosion went off

Given the expected quality of writing of Bethesda, the game will actually be a crude re-hash of the entire Pirates of the Caribbean franchise, set in the post-apocalypse.

Do ghouls age?

I vaguely remember one of the underworld ghouls talking about being a young girl during the war.

I'm sure they do age, though, just much, much slower. Or perhaps once they become ghouls, they stop aging altogether, like those weird jellyfish in the ocean who haven't been observed to age.

The winds from the blast wave of a nuclear explosion can reach up to 300m/s, which is close to the speed of sound. The winds that immediately follow, although not as powerful, are still enough to have kept the protagonist pinned to the ground (given the elevated position of the vault). If the rest of his family had been perhaps knocked some distance away, he would not have been in a position to have reached them, or for them to reach him. Also add to this the fact that he could have been badly injured from the blast wave. If he had in fact remained above the vault lift when it had become active, he quite literally would not have been able to move from his current position without being swept away by the winds. I believe that the scientist who's skeleton we see in the scene with the Pip-Boy was actually trying to save himself after activating the lift, but that our protagonist was the only one who ended up inside. Bare in mind that the elevator shaft could be 100ft deep for all we know.

As for the baby, the transition process for becoming a ghoul, as far as the lore suggests, would likely have taken quite some time, perhaps even years depending on the level of exposure to fallout in the surrounding areas after the blast.

I lean towards them getting unfrozen earlier than the player and leaving the vault for some reason, this would allow for the baby to at the very least become a indestructable annoying kid.

My question was more, does a child that is ghoulified grow into a full grown ghoul.....I don't think we have every seen or heard of a child ghoul.

Ehhh, "surprisingly accurate" must be an example of the famed British understatement. You pretty much split the arrow.

Pirate, maybe. When I saw that image, the first thing that popped into my mind was a Revolutionary War reenactment.

I just figured the not-a-pirate ghoul would be a companion. I also think it's more likely that you wind up being an android or something, that would explain the animosity towards the Institute. Maybe with your son having somehow grown up to be your nemesis for added Shyamalan wangst.

rewatched the e3 presentation and judging from the picture we have of the 'pirate' he could just as well be a bloodthirsty raider king i dont see much ghoul in that face tbh.

I actually don't think that we'll be seeing companions in the conventional sense, certainly not as we've seen then before. Rather than the usual "mercs for hire" approach, I believe we will be forging more meaningful alliances with a whole array of NPCs. A support network of sorts. For example, consider the ghoul pirate, assuming still that he is the protagonists son. Once they have been brought into the picture, and have gotten over their resentment and abandonment issues, rather than constantly follow us around as a bullet sponge, they could perhaps be put to task in a far more useful way. Lets assume that some of the time, they would accompany you to complete certain objectives, perhaps with others who are under their leadership. At other times, they could be completing entirely separate objectives, possibly also involving communication between the two of you. They could also be a little more competent as individuals whenever left to their own devices, which would add a little unpredictability in terms of where they are and what they are doing at any given time. This concept could even work with multiple individuals, each with their own sphere of influence as well as a like for some and a dislike for others. It could even tie in with the base-building idea of having multiple bases throughout the wastelands.

Todd Howard clearly stated that you are the Sole Survivor of Vault 111. This means that your family either died in the blast, or shortly after, died in their stasis pods, or... were removed from the vault at some point whilst still in their pods by persons unknown.

From the concept art, I would say that the Ghoul "Pirate" is likely a possible companion.

As for who's fighting who? I can see the Brotherhood lead by "King" Arthur Maxson looking to take advantage of the Commonwealths' problems with an Android Rebellion and attempt to increase his territory, and of course, secure the Institutes' tech. That would give players three distinct joinable factions, which should be enough.

Here's your cookie now go outside and play...*shakes head*

Todd said that you are the sole survivor of vault 111, not the sole survivor from the nuclear blast.

The ghoul pirate could well be a possible companion (see my previous post), but evidence suggests that he could also be something more.

As for factions, I think that there will be many and varied factions in the game that will all play a part in a full-scale war. Obviously some will be bigger players than others, but I do think they will all be involved in some way.