Oh man, this made me think how sweet it would be to loot my PC, lol. Thousands of rounds of everything, 10k caps, and 5-6 legendary fully modded weapons. Every Raiders wet dream loot!

Because the game has very few things to shoot.

I have a few theories

One is the obvious, mercenary group formed after the Great War by former US soldiers
Two, the inhabitants of the Vault under the Malden School.
Three, just a group someone who read to much on military structure in the pre-war created.

I guess you're right about the CotA and Triggermen. As for scavengers, you can ally with them.

It's not karma and it's not a mystery who the "someone" is. You can have extremely bad karma and the moment you refuse to blow up Megaton, Moriarty puts a price on your head that Talon Company tries to collect. It's the same for the reverse in that you can have angelic karma and as soon as you blow up Megaton, The Regulators are after your head.

Edit: should be noted however that it's not exactly clear who sicks The Regulators on us.

Be cool if you had to give them a reason to hate you.

Like there at war with another faction, you could chose to help them. Or something

Most scavengers just want you to go away, they'll usually threaten you to not get closer whereas Triggermen, COTA and gunners will shoot first.

Agreed on the scavvers. You can't go around a largely dangerous setting, looting and in some cases robbing, without being apprehensive of strangers. you can also temporarily ally with them.

I can't stand those punks I go outta my way to shoot them in the face.

They could simply make an conflict quest where you would become enemy with them on first contact.

As other say they are an higher level enemies than raiders, much like the hostile mages in TES, they also don't make much sense.

The children of the atom I first run into in them in the glowing sea so I assumed the others was friendly too, BoS sometimes shows up as red in pipboy even then friendly, reload and kill them all

Same issue with the combat zone, green in VAT and it looked like some sort of quest hub so I went into the trap.

Yeah, I think that too.. if they looted my character, they'd get 237 caps, 2 legendary weapons, 13 rounds of 5.56, 70 rounds of 10mm, 200 rounds of .38, and 80 or so .308. Wow! What a hoard!

...and about gunners, I find I don't usually have issues with them. I don't enter their territory, they don't shoot me. I've even often found myself allied with them, as gunners acting as guards join into combat on my side if I'm fighting an enemy of whoever they are protecting.

Actually, if you have evil karma in Fallout 3, you get Regulators hunting you with wanted posters instead of Talon Company with contracts. "Wanted Dead. If the Lone Wanderer is found anywhere in the Capitol Wasteland, Kill him and take his finger. No questions will be asked."

There is a theory/rumor that many/most of the Gunners are the descendants of the children that rebelled and killed the science team in Vault 75. This might be possible since the training and eugenics program in the vault would have a tendency to push them in this direction, and Vault 75 is one of their bases. So far I haven't found any hard evidence that the Gunners did originate in Vault 75, but it is plausible.

Moriarty? You mean Mister Burke. I just http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Talon_Company what prompts the Talon Company to come after the Lone Wanderer and it can be either disarming Megaton's bomb or simply have good karma. So I guess there is a specific someone (Burke) or they can come after you because of your karma.

Regardless of your actions or karma, Talon Company can still be found throughout the wasteland that are as hostile as raiders no matter what.

No i didn't mean Mr. Burke. He is not contracting anyone to do anything with his brains all over the floor. I have saved Megaton and THEN gone completely evil and STILL had Talon Company hunting me NOT The Regulators.

I see them more as a way to make raiders fight each other.

One thing that fallout nailed was that different faction are constantly interacting with each other, and you can usually hear gunfire in the distance long before you actually reach enemies.

Gunners and raiders fighting each other is a great way to create a human vs human fight that the pc always has to kill the side that wins for the loot, if it's the bos then the pc can wait for them to win and go in for no real effort and loot, if it's super mutants then it's human vs monster, same for ghouls.

Just a reason would be cool as to why they always try and kill you.

Also it would of been cool to trade with them, as they have all the cool stuff.

The encounters from the http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Hitman after defusing the Megaton bomb is said to be from Mr. Burke according to the http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Contract_for_extermination they have on you. It just so happens these hitmen are Talon Company, under the name "hitman" in-game.

The Talon Company that come after you based on your karma are actually named Talon Company mercs.

So the contract is still made out by Burke (even if he is dead, because Fallout 3 logic), only that the killers coming after you are named hitmen. The Talon Company still go after you based on karma. And honestly, why would Moriarty be the one to put a hit on the LW for SAVING Megaton? That makes no sense.

With a contract out on you?
If you come across any of their bases/where they are scripted to fight SM's and the like, they will indeed attack no matter your karmic standing.
But in all my years of F3, I've never had them show up at the usual spawn points (Dukovs, Anacostia, Georgetown, Seneca, etc) with a contract to kill me when I have bad karma. hmmm

Again, that's because the Talon Company that went after Worm weren't the actual Talon Company mercs that go after you based on your karma, they were the hitmen that just so happen to be made up of Talon Company mercs that go after the LW because you defused the bomb. Who were sent by Burke, may he be dead or not.

Whether that negates Regulators coming after you or not even with evil karma, is up to Worm's memory.

EDIT: Actually, after looking into this more, the hitmen encounter is a unique encounter that can only happen once on a playthrough, not repeatable. So it doesn't stop Regulators from coming after you with evil karma. So overall, the actual Talon Company mercs never come after you with evil karma. The hitmen (made up of Talon Company) only come after you for defusing the bomb, and only once.

I wish the Gunners had been fleshed out a bit more in this game...and possible even been a joinable faction. The Gunners obviously wouldn't have been an option for ending the game with, because I don't think they have any kind of motivation for taking out the Institute or anything like that, but there could have been some cool quests involving the Gunners. Mercenary work is always a good way to keep a game fresh after finishing it.

I suppose I'll just have to continue killing all of them and looting them of that sweet, sweet Combat Armor.

Excuse me, my memory IS askew because it's tenpenny not moriarty. And yes talon company mercs have hunted me for the entire game with evil karma after killing burke and saving megaton.

Friendly word of advice to all...

If you are level 15, and you stumble across some Gunners and Forged fighting for control of a bridge. Don't take sides like I did, just back away and when asked about it later claim you were never there.

I dunno, I always blow them away without giving them a chance to prove that they are not hostile.

The toy factory at Quincy has an good chance for an BoS-Supermutants-Gunners fight. BoS lost for me but that might be level dependent, think BoS don't level scale so well as the other two factons and is caught in the middle.

Still dont beat my imperials-> dragon-> vampires -> stormcloaks in Skyrim even if that also was an 3 way fight as the dragon was dead then the stormcloaks arrived but they was hurt so the dragon might have done some airstrikes against them while circling.