I was thinking on this...

Does anyone think the Hubologists have an important role in Fallout lore?

They're a eye-rollingly bad parody of Scientology (is it breaking forum rules to say it's difficult to parody Scientology given it starts with the premise alien warlords are sending us evil psychic messages?) but the 1950s were when Scientology was started and the whole "UFO cult" phenomenon thing began with it. Given the role of aliens in Fallout, it seems to me that they could be brought back to the game world without them being a gigantic pot shot at Tom Cruise.

Some thoughts I had on the subject:

* Is it possible the Hubologists are Vault survivors? Filling a Vault with nothing but Scientologists (presumably other Vaults had other religions) would explain how they had access to such advanced technology as they did in Fallout 2.

* Is Jason Bright a Hubologist? While a thoroughly pleasant man, his outfit reminds me strongly of the one used by AHS-7. Likewise, his brotherhood wears the same robes as the initiates. They may be called the Bright Brotherhood but it seems likely they're an offshoot of the Hubologists given the similarity of the doctrines.

It's just Jason Bright is (unlike many RL leaders of certain religions) apparently sincere in his faith.

* Is it possible the Shuttle that the Hubologists have is the Enclave's spacecraft? I think it's very Fallout-esque that the Enclave had fully prepared to take off into Space from San Fransisco only to find that the fuel hadn't arrived on time (and never would). They probably just abandoned it and the Hubologists took it for their own use.

This, of course, assuming the Enclave really intended to abandon the planet.

* It'd be interesting to see how a potentially dangerous UFO cult might be influencing NCR in the aftermath of the Apocalypse, assuming there's any survivors after the events of Fallout 2. They might even be agents of the Greys.

I doubt it; I don't think Bethesda are willing to something that Risky.

Fallout's popularity has since exploded vs the niche audience it had before and I think the Scientologists would come a knocking.

They are dead. Not really important to canon. They could have come from a vault. Advanced tech comes from the Shi. They can buy it because people give them all their money.

Enclave and space travel is not canon.

In Fallout 2 they were kind of funny.

Putting them in another game would be controversial, and would be pretty stupid. Parody factions shouldn't be major players in fallout universe.

If I remember the various endings for them, they always end up dead. They try to launch their spaceship and something always goes wrong. That, or they were all killed by the Chosen One after the Shi wanted the Hubologist leader killed.

So, Spaceship malfunction
or
Chosen One attacks Ft. Point. (That's what the real fort under the Golden Gate Bridge is called)

IIRC the Emperor has information on there first contact with the sub survivors. I think they found them in the cults underground base or something like that no vault.

Jason Bright might just as well be an ex-hubologist. Right before when the hubologists finally flew away in their shuttle (and exploded seconds after take-off), they didn't allow Jason in because he's a ghoul. All the human hubologists went into the shuttle without the only ghoul member and took off. They thanked him for his time and all the things he's done for them that they wouldn't be able to do (maybe getting something from an irradiated place). So Jason, still having faith in the hubologist belief, but disgruntled and also pondering over why he couldn't go and why the shuttle blew up, decided to start a new cult with the same goal. He picked up ghouls with his teachings as he wandered towards the rocket factory outside Vegas. There he ran into a problem, a problem which only a single human could help all these ghouls with. And when the ghouls were to take off in their rockets, he gave the same thank you speech to the single human as he took all his ghouls into the rockets and flew away, and either they blew up or they made it (depending on you).

I like that story.

:)