Interesting. Then again, it would also be very possible that the other houses are populated by elderly families with no children.

Sometimes elderly people don't like children with their energy-filled unpredictable behaviour, preferring quiet and day-to-day lives instead. They certainly aren't going to cross the street to play with them in that case...

It's also entirely possible that other children simply haven't appeared on the block yet as well. Or they're too young to play with.

Or that their parents won't let them play with the 'bad kid' who can't seem to stay out of trouble.

It is also possible that the children across the street all have issues and feel the need to knife each other and write on walls

It's not canon since the appropriate people on teh Interwebs have decided it is not so.

Exactly!

Funnily enough some of these people know much more about the lore and have been in touch with the Fallout universe for over a decade whilst some of the FO3 developers admitted to never having played FO1 or FO2 (and some of them tried it out whilst developing FO3).

Who?

what about the numerous mentioning of aliens in fallout one and the actual presence of alien enemies, crashed spaceships, alien technology (i.e. skynet) and the corpse of a grey in fallout two? what do the 'appropriate people in the interweb' say about these? just last night I loaded up a fallout two game to check how many 'aliens' my character had in his 'kills' list. 36. there were 36 aliens I had killed.

that would discourage new friendships from forming.

There aren't any aliens. Aren't you confusing them with those "Alien-like" monsters ? They are called Wannamingos and are result of some FEV tinkering.
Also, the corpses of those "Grey's" were probably just some kind of a joke. You could even find a photo of Elvis in there !

I know you are right (in reality) but it does list the kills as aliens as well as calling them aliens in the text. Yes I know they are just wannamingos that are called aliens.
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The crashed startrek starship is a joke, however the grey is in the basemant of the Sierra Army Depot and is talked about by skynet who is made from alien technology. Even though it apparently died while reading a Cat's Paw and doing Psycho, whether its presence was meant as a joke or not is a matter of opinion seeing as how all the other jokes (with the exception of the velvet elvis portraits) are random encounters.

Bethesda owns Fallout Universe, so if MZ is Canon because they say so, then it is, get over it.

I don't see what the big deal is, personally. I'm curious enough about MZ that I'll probably buy it at some point. If I like it, great. If I don't, then I'm going to pull a Highlander 2 and just pretend it never happened. I don't care how many people will end up telling me I'm "wrong," if I don't like the DLC I'm not going to consider it a part of the Fallout game that I played.

I still don't understand what the big deal is, when we're talking about an "open-ended" game like Fallout, in the first place. If I don't buy the DLC, or ever encounter an alien in the game - who is anyone to tell me that "canon" says that it had to have taken place? It's "my" game - it's about what I decide happens to my character. What goes on in someone else's game has nothing to do with me.

I don't understand your point, here. It's just a "Ray Gun," anyway. If I watched through enough B-rate Sci-Fi movies, I'm pretty sure I could find any number of examples of something that looks just like the alien blaster.

Yes.

Exactly. My point is that the Ray Gun is a common, cliche'd peice of 1950's era sci-fi equipment that isn't unique to a single sci-fi universe, unlike the TARDIS or the Federation of Planets. Because of this, Bethesda is free to run with it however they please, unlike TARDIS or the Federation of Planets, which are iconic and tend to shout "I'M A EASTER EGG!"

Okay. I think I get what you're driving at. But I still don't see how that gives it any particular properties over anything else that would lend it more towards one or the other.

But like I said - I think all this is just over-complicating the issue. "Canon" in a (relatively) non-linear videogame, is something I feel is largely irrelevant. If we're talking Marvel comics or something, where the narrative is always the same no matter how many times you go through it; that's one thing. In a game like Fallout - as far as I'm concerned, "canon" is what happen to my character. What you did with yours is something that has no bearing on "my canon" of the game. I can play all three Fallouts to a number of different conclusions - "canon" only ever comes into play when the next game comes along to tell me if anything had to have happened.

For example, in my "official" playthrough of Fallout 1, during the endgame wrap-up Shady Sands pretty much died out; and I never did come across a crashed flyin saucer (just never happened to roll that particular random encounter.) For Fallout 2, the opening setup is that Shady Sands turned into NCR. So that over-rode my canon of the events that took place in Fallout 1. So that the game makes sense. Since there's no mention of any alien spaceship my character came across in Fallout 2, that continues to be my own canon of the game - that there was no alien ship in Fallout 1.

Why should it matter if there's aliens in the game or not? My character never ran into any until Fallout 3 (at least the ones that I consider my own "official" playthroughs.) What does it matter what's "canon" when it never happened to my character?

If there's a part in Fallout 4 where a main character goes "remember that time that kid from Vault 101 got abducted by aliens?" then it'll be official canon. But otherwise, the only thing that matters is what my own character did in that game. If "canon" is about what "officially" happened in the game - then it's only relevant to what happened to my character in the game. In Fallout 3, you can save Megaton or blow it up? Which one is canon? The answer is going to be - whichever way they set it up in Fallout 4. If it even comes into play. Otherwise, "canon" is going to be: "whatever my character did."

In other words - canon is only relevant as far as what specific things had to have taken place for the setup of the next game to make sense. MZ being canon is about as relevant as whether or not I blew up Megaton, or what I did with Gecko in Fallout 2, etc. If the next game doesn't mention it, or make a big deal about it - then it's up to what happened in each person's game. That's the "point" of an RPG, isn't it? That I'm telling my own story? Isn't the "point" for my narrative to be different from yours? So in short - "canon" is what happened in my own game (with the exception of events that have to have taken place for the setup of the next game.)

If Fallout 4 opens with a flashback of your character being abducted by aliens; or if the opening cinema is a bunch of aliens talking about that time they abducted you - then sure, it'll be canon. Otherwise, though, it's about what happened to "your" character. If you end up playing MZ and like it, then great - that's your canon for your playthrough. If you didn't play it, then it won't be. I don't see what's so hard about that. I really don't think there's some sort of blanket answer we need to nail this thing to.

Thank you for your opinionated essay. I found it to be the very heart and soul of nuetral alignment. I'm sure everyone will agree with you regardless of their own opinion as to whether MZ is canon or not.
:clap:

Ok, gonna start over (this is what I get for trying to type stuff late at night :slap:.) What I'm driving at is why the Alien Blaster can be canon, and the TARDIS (or anything similar) can't be. Simply put; TARDIS is the iconic ship of Dr. Who, and the presence of the TARDIS is an obvious easter egg or tribute to that show. Furthermore, the presence of the TARDIS can be immedeately considered to be non-canon, since the least of the legal issues would be the concern on how to mix the two vastly seperate universes in a way that would please fans of both. The Alien Blaster is also an Iconic weapon, but unlike the TARDIS, it is not specific to any kind of fictional universe, but is instead a common style of laser/ray weaponry dating to the supposed same time period of FO (as in, 1950's.) While it's presence can be an Easter Egg, it's also undefined enough to be expanded upon without running into legal issues and be considered canon, which is exactly what happened in FO3.

No, I understand you. (Or, at least think I do... )

But that only speaks to why it could be canon - it doesn't provide any evidence that it is. There might be life on Mars - we have enough evidence that it might be hypothetically possible. But that's still a long way from proof that there is life on Mars.

Also, an Easter Egg doesn't have to be a pop culture reference, or copyright-specific. Like Pariah Dog, or the Lucky Shades, for example.

I agree, there's enough breathing room for why aliens (and therefore MZ) could be "official" Fallout lore. But that's still not proof that it "should" be.

Glad to see we're on the same page, finally.

My post was never meant to convey why MZ SHOULD be canon. It was actually in reply to the guy who said that if Aliens were Canon, so is the TARDIS and the Federation of Planets.

I think what he meant by that was that aliens were sopposed to be a joke like the references to Dr. Who, TARDIS and Star Trek.
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Not that I agree but I think that was the point he was trying to make.

Still don't know what...

It's technically canon because Bethesda owns the physical rights to the franchise.

Now whether or not people accept it as canon, is an entirely different matter. ^^

Take me to your leader.

lol I voted no.