Hi everyone.

I'm not very far into the game and I really loved the intro movie and the idea that the protagonist is soldier. I assumed they just used the male actor for the intro but it would be the same for the female. But after playing the holotape that hubby leaves for the wife I'm not sure. He says something like I'll enter the civilian work force and you've got your law degree.

I'm assuming she can use power armour already and if she wasn't in the army how do they explain that?

I've given my character a thumping great big scar on her face that suits a background as a soldier, plus I just think it would be cool.

Thanks everyone.

Yeah, it was a rather bad idea to make her a lawyer.

I wish they'd have made the PC the soldier and the spouse the lawyer regardless of their respective genders, but OH WELL.

Just because she was a lawyer... doesn't mean she was always a lawyer...

Yep. sixism is everywhere even in Fallout. As a RL female wanting to play an ingame female it REALLY irritated me.

But what you have to remember it is a 50's style version of the future...

Yup, it was a bad idea to differentiate the protagonist's profession based on gender.

I first assumed they had a side-by-side program that let her get military training, but then again, Sturge just assumed that you would be capable of using the power armor, and there are makeshift versions used by raiders, too. They probably redacted the concept that you need advanced training to work with power armor.

Riiiight, because having a law degree is so degrading... smh


If you pay attention to the cut scene at the beginning of the game, it never explicitly states or implied that the male protagonist used or knows how to use power armor. I know in-game lore supports the idea that one must train extensively to be able to use PA effectively, but since we find bandits running around in modified versions of PA, I'm led to believe that Bethesda must have soft retconned the training out of the equation. You obviously don't get trained in it like you did in FO3 so it is just not a factor anymore. In that regard, the female protagonist is just as qualified to use PA as the male protagonist. In other words, you are probably just thinking too hard about it.

Bethesda is out to make a good game first and if every detail doesn't line up exactly, they'll sacrifice perfect in-game lore for a more enjoyable gaming experience and I support those decisions.

What I figured is that my character was in the military and then used the GI Bill when she got out to pay for schooling and get her law degree.

Having a law degree does not define what else 'Nora' has done.

Because there is ambiguity, I started playing 'Nora' as a STR 1 brainy person.

Any other build would not contradict what is said, because the details are not spelt out.

Her Main Quest involves trying to fix the kitchen after the apocalypse. It's actually harder than the male characters MQ!

(I can get away with that cause I'm the one that does all the cooking in my house!)

I kind-of go by the thing that they were an army couple, so she has power-armour training too. Then they got married so she left the army to do the army-wife thing, and got her law degree. Tough and smart

Doesn't explain how the Minutemen knew you could use the power-armour though (whether female or male). "Hey random wastelander we just met, go climb in that tanksuit and save us please"

Not realistic to have combat experience as a female

Maybe as a sniper or something

I like that theory.

My thoughts towards the power-armour thing are that my character has used it before whilst in the military. However with the minutemen I get past it by thinking that in the days coming up to the end of the war, they didn't have time for basic training, so simplified the suits, making them easier to use. A neural interface was brought in that meant all you had to do was try to move as normal and the suit would do its thing!

makes sense, since raiders are using them and they have almost zero military/technology training. I guess the old wartime armour wasn't deployed in the mid-west, and had long been picked for parts in the Capital. Different from the later BOS/Enclave armours, which were a bit more high tech and required you to read the manual

Disregarding the fact that that's garbage, power armor is unrealistic. Laser and plasma weapons are unrealistic. The very premise of the game is unrealistic.

As far as I know there were no female soldiers serving in combat roles in the USA millitary before the war, or during the war. And it would be pretty ridiculous if there was, considering the pre-war Fallout setting where women are portrayed much like how they were in real life 1950's.

I'm sure they had women in the army in 2077, even in timewarped 50's version. Maybe not as frontline troops, but any army basic training would have required you to a) learn how to maintain and shoot a gun and learn how to maintain and wear combat gear. Even if you were a cook or nurse

I dont remember if he says it back home or on the holetape but the hubby says: Iam gona rejoin the civilian workroce and you are gona dust of your lawdegree.

So i Guess thers some years sense she was working as a layer.

makes sense, if they're fighting a war against China everyone probably got conscripted for a term at some point

She mentions (if you are a male protagonist) that she's going to "blow the dust" off her law degree, and at ArcJet Systems you can find a holotape recording of two employees who talk about being drafted.

Strikes me that both protagonists are ex-military, it just may be the male who was the "career" soldier.

In the build up to the game's release, I certainly had the idea that both protagonists were military and able to use power armour and thus save the Minutemen for that reason. I had assumed that the part wehre you save the Minutemen would go something like

"We're trapped by raiders. We've got this suit of power armour and a power core but none of us has the training to operate it. So we're buggered.

"Well that's cool I was in the US Army. I can operate the power armor."

"Erm, you were in the US Army?"

"Its a long story. Just gimme the core, I'll go get the power armour and save you."

Does it not go like that? I had assumed because of the intro movie that being in the US Army was a major character trait of the protagonist and would certainly come up at some point. I'm a tiny bit disappointed.

And oh my god... raiders wearing power armour. Really? Is there some explanation for that or is it like bandits wearing ebony and daedric armor in Oblivion?

Thanks everyone.

apparently so. I should have put *spoiler* over the raiders wearing armour bit. I've not seen any yet, but it said so on one of the loading screens (at the start of the game. Jeez, spoilers Bethesda lol)

My Nora was an army mechanic who maintained power armor during the liberation of Anchorage ( http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/American_grease-monkey). She finished her service after that, and shortly got pregnant, married, and had Shaun about 9 months later. She wasn't a career soldier like her husband, but did sign up and do her stint out of a strong sense of Good Ol' Murkan Patriotism (better dead than red!). She had gotten a law degree before that but had never actually practiced. Although charismatic and persuasive, she only pursued the degree because her father was also a lawyer and had had the same expectations of her. Her passion always lied more in science and engineering. Although she received basic combat training, she's not truly a soldier, and so relies on her skills to maintain and modify scavenged raider armor, energy weapons, and power armor in the post-apocalypse to gain the advantage in combat.

See? Nothing I've come across in game has contradicted any of that. There's a lot of leeway for you to come up with a military background. Granted, it's implied that the male protagonist is more of the multiple-tour infantry or officer career man type. I have mixed feelings about that gender disparity, but I've managed to make it serve my character.

Same here. I even reflected that in her perks to a degree. Smart, charismatic and agile, but rather physically weak and not very fit. Picked mostly non-combat related perks in the beginning and now am moving more towards combat related perks.