for some reason they allow only twenty options. sorry. vote noted.



and what if FONV has an Area 51?



I though the ghost was pretty cool considering how early in the game she appears and that the character is a tribal and would believe in such things...



go to a town named after the Geico mascot populated by ghouls who play with collectible trading cards, narcolepsy and growing bonsai on their heads that has a nuclear reactor that has been melting down for two hundred years and save the day by reprogramming a robot using obscure scientifica including the order in which the planets of the solar system align and then proceed to eliminate a cult underground that worships a giant rat named The Brain who plans to "take over the world". Later you find the somnambulist ghoul who is being carted around as a Mummy from Ancient Egypt and can wake him up and send him running to his now happy home and put his 'owner' out of business...

Wouldn't you believe it, for those reasons some people hate Fallout 2 - but still think Fallout 3 and MZ are worse. ^_^
As for this really old topic, MZ doesn't have any great kind of impact on the Fallout world. Except for abducting people, the aliens don't interfere with human meddling at all. In fact, they'd sure be pretty screwed if mankind really annihilated itself completely as it turns out we were the perfect ingredient for their shrieking experiment.

I have this difficulty believing anyone spending time reading and writing on this forum actually hates any of the FO games...except that one that shall not be named becuase it only borrowed the title and had nothing whatsoever to do with FO. Some people prefer to ignore MZ and I think that is their loss. I really wanted to fly off in the Hubologist spaceship and meet the aliens that had been mentioned several times back when I was playing Fo2 for years after it was released. But then there was never going to be FO3. Imagine getting to be ten years younger not once but twice over the same game! Noone can ever take that from me!

And I am still enjoying the controversy over MZ almost as much as I enjoyed sitting in the captain's chair and ordering all power to forward weapons or that kick ass ultra sniper shooting gallery in the hanger. So for awhile yet I hope more people vote or even say what is on their mind.

I'm of the opinion that Mothership Zeta and all the DLC's are canon until bethesda says otherwise. Fan's can have their fanon, but that's just delusions. Now with mothership zeta in particular, Somehow I think the events in zeta aren't going to have an appreciable effect on sequels, but still, it's canon until Beth denounces it.

My desire for it to be non canon until declared non canon does not make it so, nor does your desire for it to be canon make it canon until it is declared non canon. It's status is unknown until it has been said one way or the other.

I don't see why it wouldn't be. Bethesda controls what is and isn't Canon with regard to Fallout at the moment, they made Zeta, and they haven't said it isn't.

They haven't said it is yet either. You think it will be canon because they made it, I think it won't be because it destroys the heart of the Fallout franchise. Only time will tell which of us is right.

Gah, this thing's still being talked about?

I still think this DLC's stuck in the box with Schroedinger's Cat. I doubt we ever are going to get "official word" on it's "canon status." (As if I were a game designer, I'd be more concerned with whether or not people were buying it than what those of us who didn't thought of it.) To me, that's the best of both worlds - if you played that DLC, then yes, your character was abducted by aliens in the Fallout Universe. Those of us who didn't buy that DLC get to say that no, our characters were never abducted by aliens. There is no paradox, here. Both of us are "right." (I mean, "canonically" who had the "correct" playthrough? The ones who blew up Megaton, or those who didn't?)

If some time down the road, you encounter an NPC or Holotape in a future Fallout game that says "Hey, wasn't it cool when the PC from Fallout 3 got abducted by aliens?" then it would be considered definitively canon. And then you'd win. And you'll get a gold star for being right all along.

Until then, it's like the rest of the things that happen in an ostensibly open-world roleplaying game - it's about what your character did or did not do during the game...

By that logic none of fallout is cannon to fallout. They gave it to us, which makes it cannon.

I'm going to resist the urge to just quote myself, wholesale, from the post directly above this one I'm responding to, so...

What's wrong with: "this is what happened to my character - it may not have happened to everyone's character, but it's specifically these differences which make my experience of the game unique and personal to me?" Isn't that the "point" of an ostensibly open-world role-playing game like Fallout 3?

Why does anyone need my approval to validate the experience they had with Mothership Zeta? If you had fun with it, and enjoyed the experience, does it matter if it fits into such a loosely-defined category as "canon" is? And by that same token - why would anyone insist that I acknowledge something that never happened to my own character?

But the fact that your character can actively interact with and influence it should make it canon, right?

I don't see the arguement that MZ was the worst DLC because it being linear FPS. Isn't that what O:A was? Except squad based?

Shouldn't, to be canon, MZ infuence the setting in a major way (canonity proven in coming games, should it be referenced)? That's how I always understood canon, as rules/guidelines of the setting, not every little quest every game has. (Might be wrong, though, but that's how I've understood it.)

That would make all the easter egg random encounters of Fallout 1 and 2 canon and they plainly were not meant to be canon.

Canon is what must be true in the universe. It is the basis on which future games are built. If NV or F4 specifically reference MZ then it is canon, if they don't it is not canon. Until they come out and either do or do not reference the events of that DLC it's status is questionable.

O:A isn't exactly revered among Fallout Series fans either. It's held in higher regards though because it was less stupid (purely opinion) and didn't take a massive **** on canon.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canon_(fiction) is one of those very tricky terms. It really makes a difference in what context you're referring to the term in the first place. Frankly, I think it's a horrid concept in the first place, unless you keep it carefully regulated (a la Star Wars and their various levels of "canonicity.") Because otherwise it's only about separating obvious facts. If we go by the most narrow definition possible, then MZ clearly isn't fan-fiction or a mod, the only categories are "mods" and "canon," so it would have to be declared canon.

But what's the point of that? Is that really what we've been arguing for 9 pages? Is the "con" side of this debate stuck to implying that MZ is fan faction, or a mod?

Unless we take the "levels of canonical status" definition, there's nothing to talk about, here. Certainly no one is arguing that Mothership Zeta is fan fiction, after all.

If anything, we're saying that "canon" discussions in relation to an open-world RPG where each playthrough is supposed to be a different, individual, and unique experience, personal to each player is just, well... silly.

I put this to the next "Mothership Zeta needs to be considered as canon" poster - say I were to agree with you and concede my point. Without using the word "canon" in a sentence, describe to me what I would actually be accepting if I were to agree with you. (And keep in mind that I already consider Motheship Zeta to be a "real" DLC, published by Bethesda, and every bit as "valid" as any other DLC.)

You'd be saying that MZ is an accepted part of the essential history of the Fallout Universe. Which would make cry since aliens causing the war strips the entire moral/philosophical spine from the series

That's kind of why I want to hear someone from the "pro" side of this state in their own words what they consider the word "canon" to mean.

Because, sure, if they think it means their characters "actually" were abducted by aliens and everything that occurred there "happened," I don't see a problem, there. It's their game, after all. Their characters.

But if it means that, when Fallout 4 comes out and I start playing that game, that "officially" my character in Fallout 3 was also abducted by aliens, then I have an issue there. Because I never played Mothership Zeta, and that never happened to my character. (And yeah - I also am not a fan of the "aliens did it" concept where Fallout is concerned.) I don't begrudge people for wanting to believe in whatever makes their experience better for them (a single-player roleplaying game having little to do with what others think of what happened in my own game.) But I also don't think there's any reason that I, myself, have to accept what happened to their own characters.

I would be fine with there being no denouncing of the canonnicity (I like to make words up, especially when they sound funny) of MZ, no reason to rob people who liked it of the idea that it actually happened....but I too would be more than a bit disturbed if the Lone Wanderer were forced to have been abducted and the history of Fallout was retconned to "OMG u gaiz it were Aliens! OMG"

There were ghosts and time travel in Fallout 1 and 2. And aliens. And whatever Cafe or Broken Dreams was. And Star Trek. And Dr Who. etc etc. And aliens outside of special encounters in F2, too. How is this any different?

Besides, that alien scout ship was there regardless whether you have Mothership Zeta DLC or not.

Please read the thread next time, those were all Random Encounter Easter Eggs and were not in fact canon.

Read the few posts above to find a basic functional definition of canon.

Bethesda has placed has several references to aliens in the base game, as well as Mothership Zeta. The original alien crash site, the alien blaster random encounter, and data on a pentagon computer in reference to aliens. There is plenty of evidence to indicate beth intended it to be taken seriously, and Bethesda has not made a habit of denouncing its own DLC's. It is canon. Also consider the distribution of Alien power cells throughout the wastes, including the outcast base.


What Mothership Zeta being canon means is that an alien ship crashed into the capital wasteland, and was retrieved by a larger alien ship that also had a penchant for abducting human beings. Whether or not the Lone Wanderer was abducted prior to the retrieval of the Alien ship by it's mothership, is an unknown, to be decided by the individual player. Someone dealt with Mothership Zeta, just not necessarily you. It could have been joe bob has a lot of friends wanderer, or jane doe doesn't wander much at all.

My initial knee-jerk reaction was, "no, that's better, but I still can't concede to that opinion." But on further thought, I might be okay with that. If that's what "canon" means to you then I don't have much issue with that. A couple of qualifications, however:

It's still not content that ever existed in my game. You can look all through the code of Fallout 3 sitting in my computer - there's no Mothership Zeta in there, at all. That spaceship, itself, as a "thing," never existed in my play-through. And let's be clear about this - "your story" and "my story," in regard to Fallout 3, are different, unique, and separate entities. "My story" does not have to match "your story," for "your story" to remain valid. If entire places, people, and predicaments never existed in "my story," that took place in "yours," then all the better. I find that's one of the great things about Western RPGs as a whole. They don't have to match up, or contain all of the same thing. In fact, the really great thing is that they don't.

So I still don't see why they can't just be different? Why do you feel you have to inject your content into my game? (And even if we go "okay, your character had nothing to do with Mothership Zeta, but John Doe experienced everything that took place in that DLC," then that's still exactly what you're trying to do. And not just you, specifically, but everyone else who is pushing this agenda at myself and others.)

Really, in regards to it's particular status, this doesn't have to be about Mothership Zeta. It's not about like and dislike. I haven't yet played through Point Lookout, yet, either. I would also have the same objections to someone trying to tell me that, even if I never played PL, that "someone" in my game, still did all of those things (behind my back, apparently, and without my knowledge or permission.) RPGs like Fallout, I find, are all about choice, and I don't particularly like the idea of someone trying to take that choice away by insisting on all of this "canon" stuff.

Now, personally, I have my own ideas and opinions about aliens, what I'd prefer their role to be within the context of the Fallout franchise, etc. (And it's not even all that extreme - I even enjoyed the crashed spaceship as a fun little winky-wink sort of thing.) But this isn't about my feelings on that subject. (That's a whole other thread.) And it's not even the source of my stubbornness on this issue. I have a suspicion that maybe this thread was started as a means to push a "pro alien agenda" by more oblique means, but my agenda (in this thread, at least) isn't to push an "anti alien" agenda. I'm just trying to maintain "control" over the content of a game that's ostensibly supposed to be about me writing my own story. :celebration:

Consider for a moment, that the fallout 3 base game has a crashed alien space ship already in it, and that mothership zeta re-uses that crash site. If you found the crash site in your game, all that means is that Mothership Zeta wasn't there yet to abduct you (because you haven't bought it yet). It's not a part of your story, but the plot was resolved, one way or another. gamesas usually never specifies much about what the heroes did, except that they definitely completed the MQ, and major plot threads (like Zeta) got resolved.

As for injecting my content into your game, I'm not. I'm injecting Bethesda's content into your game. gamesas, like I said earlier, has not renounced it's own DLC's, we have no reason to believe that Zeta isn't canon in the sense that there is a mothership, it abducted people, and the aliens got slaughtered.

But there already being a crashed alien spaceship isn't relevant.

Let's say I chose not to blow up Megaton. This is like telling me "well, Megaton's already there in Fallout 3. If you didn't blow it up, it only means that no has yet." And then telling me that, even though I saved that city, that "canon" tells me that it still blows up anyway.

Sure, when Fallout 4 comes out, they may end up ret-conning some situations like that. (That's what Fallout 2 did to Fallout 1, for example, in certain areas.) And if, in Fallout 4, it makes mention of "that time Mothership Zeta came around an abducted all those people," then that makes it canon. Now, I'm not a fan of that approach. It's certainly very difficult to avoid things like that when you want to have a continuous narrative in an open-ended roleplaying game (without just avoiding any reference at all to previous games,) but I don't think it's necessarily an impossible task.

Besides, what Bethesda may or may not do in the future is besides the point - as well is their supposed stance on this stuff (assuming they even have a stated one.) The topic isn't "should this be canon," or "will it be at some point in the future," but is it now?

Megaton is part of a quest line with mutually exclusive endings. The bomb being disarmed prevents later detonation, blowing up prevents saving. Good way to completely twist my words. My statement deals specifically with a plotline you specifically chose to never follow in your character's narrative, not plotlines you completed. The spaceship is relevant, in that it's your link to mothership zeta, right in your base-game.

Beth's treatment of DLC's is relevant, in that we can use it to determine how they treat Zeta. Zeta is canon, but not likely to ever be relevant ever again.

And here we bumb a wall again. Whether or not Zeta is canon is up to the next games. It might be partly part of the the lore bit, but not canon until proven otherwise. That's my view on it.