Having played all the Fallout games to date, it may seem like a stupid question, but i'm a little unclear on it. Can someone tell me if i'm right?

Humans: all humans in the wasteland came from a vault at one point or another, or are the offspring of vault dwellers

Ghouls: humans who survived the Fallout (no pun intended) and where not in a vault. The substantial radiation changed them, and most ghouls are actually 200 or more years old.

West Coast Super Mutants: Enclave experiment late taken over by Richard Grey, aka "the master" and ripe individuals were plucked from the wasteland and dipped in FEV

East Coast Super Mutants: Pretty much same as above...only on the east coast.

I guess what confuses me are little inconsistencies, like Shady Sands in F1. Those folks came from Vault 15 right? So how come Tony Shalhoub is skeptical when you tell him you came from a different vault?

I hope these questions make sense. Thanks for any replies!

I'm also not sure about the human population. With only 122 vaults, and only about 1,000 people per each, it would seem like the vault dwellers would be outnumbered by the people who simply survived the nuclear war. Even if only half a percent of the United States' population outside of a vault survived, that would still still leave about 2,000,000 people left in the country (out of 400 million).

Humans: Some of them came from the vaults, but I think majority of them are descended from people who were outside when the bombs fell.

Ghouls: Yup, pretty much. Except all ghouls were supposed to be remnants of the Great War.

West Coast Super Mutants: First generation super mutants and the nightkin were created by the Master himself. Many of them were vault dwellers or other relatively pure people, hence their intelligence. Dumb-dumbs were slaves who Enclave brought to dig through Mariposa. As they were just average wastelanders, most of them became just stupid brutes. They were created by accident.

East Coast Super Mutants: They were created from a different strain of FEV, which turned everybody into stupid brutes, vault dweller or not.

edit. And about that Shady Sand incident, they didn't know about the Vault 13, they were only aware of their own vault. It's understandable if they don't believe you at first.

While the entire world was nuked, not every inch of the planet was irradiated or bombed. As long as someone was safe from the blast radius and knew where the least radiation was they'd be safe so not -all- the humans were in vaults before. Aradesh was likely skeptical not out of actual disbelief that you came from a vault, but because there was only ONE of you. Vault 15 broke into several groups before leaving en masse, while Vault 13 just sent out one guy. You just freakin' waltzed out of yours without anyone else. As far as he knew you just stabbed a guy and took his suit.

Many humans survived without being in Vaults. There were only 122 Vault and out of that only 17 were to save people. People survived in bunkers and other shelters or basemants and so on. Brotherhood of Steel came from Mariposa.

Ghouls were people exposed to to much Radiation and changed over time. Some Ghouls did come from a Vault as part of the Vault experiments: Vault 12, Bakersfield aka Necropolis.

West Coast Super Mutants came from Mariposa after Richard Grey, Harold and others came across it. Richard and Harold made it into the Vats area. Richard fell into one and Harold was exposed but blacked out. He does not know how he made it out. The others were killed by the base robots. Richard Grey started to trick wastelanders into being mutated. Overtime he left Mariposa and went to the Boneyard and set up shop in a Test Vault. Starting the Children of the Cathedral. Enclave may have had something to do with the original FEV exparaments but officially it was the military/ West-Tek.

East Coast Super Mutants would have something to do with the Enclave. The FEV in Vault 87 was not the same as in the West and there was alot less of it.

People of Shady Sands did come from Vault 15. I guess Aradesh gets upset because he does not like being lied to. Vault 13 is something of a wasteland legend.

Wasn't it only like that because of the legendary nature of the Vault Dweller?

Aradesh is one of the first talking heads you will come across in Fallout. That early into the game the Vault Dweller had not become legendary but Vault 13 is.

I'm saying, didn't Vault 13 BECOME legendary only after VD's exploits?

By Fallout 2 yes Vault Dweller made it Legendary. Still people could have known about it or heard about it in the time of FO1. That or Aradesh thought only Vault 15 was around.

I think Vault 13 was canonized after the Vault Dweller's exploits.

You see, when a boy likes a girl...

And they love each other very very much...

Then the stork brings them a baby.


Edit: Trying to keep it G rated here

Wet blanket.

Well if the boy and girl are overweight they might need a few ropes and pulleys...

Maybe a forklift, that is if they have the technology... (No offense if you are overweight.)

Ok cool, so it's not just me in confusion then. Based on the debate here, it is clear that this is not an easy answer, and the no one really seems to know.

We know for certain not all people come from Vault-Tec vaults - The ghost farm proves that.

hmmmm a farm that grows ghosts interesting