If only some, how much?

Is Van Buren considered Fallout canon? If semi - canon, what parts?

None of it is canon... yet. Some parts of VB's plot are going to be included in NV, so when NV comes out, THOSE PARTS can indeed be considered canon.

For the fans of the Original Fallout's "Fallout 3: Van Buren" is canon!

By who?


From my understanding Bethesda doesn't consider it canon, although it doesn't really conflict with what's been set down in Fallout, Fallout 2, and Fallout 3.

Bethesda considered Fallout Tactics semi-canon, so anything that doesn't conflict with those games is fine. Van Buren is problem a step under that since it was never published, but its canonical status doesn't really matter that much until a game is published in that area. Given that New Vegas will cover some of that territory, and will contain some things planned for Van Buren, it looks like elements of Van Buren will start to enter the canon as Bethesda defines it.

Of course individuals can define the canon however they want. It may not exactly be "the" canon but does that really matter?

good point Van Buren does not conflict with any canon. It was not published so that is the down side. The good things is obsidian has alot of fallout people that made the first 2 games as well as tactics and van buren. I don't think they have forgot van buren, it seems like they are using it. Caesers Legion for one.
We can't complain if they change things that were to be in van buren but end up in New vegas. Van Buren was not made, but it was also not forgotten.

I see it as being in Canon "Limbo" only now ideas form Van Buren are seeing the light of day in New Vegas and can be called canon at last.

Maybe it doesn't explicitly conflict with canon but I have a hard time squaring the Brotherhood sending a major military expedition across the Continental United States with a time of decline and increasing tensions with the NCR. Which is a shame because the BOS-NCR War was one of the things I liked most about Van Buren.

are you talking about the BoS sending people east for Tactics or fallout 3? because tactics they did that to get ride of the people with in the brotherhood that wanted to share technology and let outsiders join.

That was before the van buren war with NCR.

Fallout 3. I never liked Tactics Eastern Brotherhood too much either though.

I can see them sending people to DC that is the Capital of America after all. In away they were really being exiled for their views. If anything the Midwestern Brotherhood from tactics was the first attempt to send the brotherhood to DC and the East Coast, but they went by using zeppelins in the great air convoy and were brought down in a storm.

The Midwestern brotherhood ended up like Lyons brotherhood they did to many thing that upset the west coast brotherhood and were exiled/ignored by the west. Maybe the Western Elders knew all along that something like a storm would happen and kill them all. Like fighting a civil war without firing a shot.

I know I am off topic but the midwestern brotherhood is often over looked Tactics as a whole is. Really it is a good game canon wise. The Midwestern brotherhood, vault zero the calculator, all canon. It's the furry deathclaws and the amount of real world weapons that upset people, that and it was not really a free style RPG like the 1/2.

Sorry I just wanted to say all that.

With reference to Vault 0, in theory that was to be "The Crater":

By 2253, a huge section of the mountains became a great radioactive smoking crater, giving birth to a large population of glowing ghouls. Coupled with attacks on Denver and the Rocky Mountain Arsenal, Boulder became the center of a triangle of hellish death.

Its best not trying to view these things like black and white.

The games in the main story line are the most authoriative canon. Anything in them goes. Thats FO1, 2 and 3.

FO Tactics, Van Buren and the fallout bibles are typically considered a step below this. Either parts of them are canon without the specifics being true (Tactics), or in the case of bibles/VB are typically considered canon by hardcoe fans, material in these is contradicted at the developers peril, but the developers are able to do so without specifically contradicting themselves.

That said, key parts of Van Buren are mentioned in FO3, and seem to be the inspiration for F:NV.

The Console game, and the other unreleased games aren't considered canon at all. I dont think there was enough known about tactics 2, BOS is completely unloved and contradicted canon so much its ridiculous, and Fallout Extreme has only been revealed so recently I think that it hasn't had time to settle in.

Its good that some elements of Van Buren will become canon now. (Ceasar's Legion, Hoover Dam etc.)

But remember that there may be changes. Just because they include Ceasar's Legion, this does not mean that it will be exactly as described in the VB design documents.
There may be changes to their historic timeline ,setup, motivations and characters etc. to accomodate the storyline ideas for New Vegas.

The content of Van Buren is just a draft and only what of it will end up in future installments of Fallout will be set in stone Fallout Bible canon from that point on.

However it seems to me that Obsidian and especially Josh Sawyer and Chris Avellone understand the respect the Fallout fans have for Van Buren and the Fallout Bible.

While saluaging some interesting elements of Van Buren and keeping them as much as intended to be in Van Buren, they will make sure that nothing of what they put into New Vegas will really contradict anything from the timeline and the locations of Van Buren.

If you ask me for my personal view on things, The Cheyenne Mountains Facilities are that nuke overkilled area of huge radioactive craters described in the Van Buren design documents and not that Vault 0 from Fallout Tactics.

Weird, where's Ausir to answer these questions ?

When it comes to questions of canon it's worth also explaining why it matters if something is or is not canon.

If it's a question about what Bethesda considers official lore then I'm pretty sure they don't consider Van Buren to be "canon." However they do consider the Van Buren design document a resource so we may see ideas taken from it. We can already see this a bit with Fallout 3 and more with New Vegas. As an idea mine it means that some things may be altered or moved - perhaps they like http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Dr._Sebastian and the Reservation but decide to put it in the Commonwealth instead (with or without the names changed).

What Bethesda considers canon will certainly affect future games but as long as they don't have something official set in Van Buren areas I think this information, while non-canonical, does have some weight to it.


If it's not a question of what Bethesda considers canonical, but one's own personal view of the Fallout universe . . . well its your personal view so its really up to you to decide what you consider canon. OK, it isn't really "canon" if we're going with the strict definition of that word, but from this perspective it doesn't really matter.

I hope they use Ceasar's Legions and the Hanged Man in NV. That looked bad ass when I read about it in VB.

QFT.

As far as I'm concerned, the only way in which the word "canon" has any relevence as it pertains to what has always been (and continues to be) an ostensibly "open world" RPG where the idea is that the player is largely free to decide their own experience within the game world, are in regard to those events which must happen within the "official" narrative. (ie, "canonically" your PC in Fallout 1 had to have been at least a half-way decent guy, because it has to leave room for Tandi to still be alive in Fallout 2, and for Arroyo to have grown into what would become the NCR.)

Everything else that doesn't run the risk of specifically contradicting in-game events from the games that were actually published, I think can safely be left up to each player's own interpretation. The whole point, after all, is to have fun - so if you experience is enriched by the idea that specific elements are "canon," (or vice versa as the case may be,) then I don't think there's really any problem.

banned, funny enough.