To be fair, the fan was being a little pushy and took a rather "Holier than thou" tone when pointing that out.

Someone on the writing staff just made a small mistake, and Pete's just the PR director. Not a very good one by the way, personally, but its not like he is head of writing or something. Its a fairly forgivable mistake too considering that, as is mentioned above, Fallout 2 made a similar error.

And by his own admission Pete he doesn't care for dialogue in games anyway. So he's not the guy to look to for keeping canon consistent.

I don't think it is ever stated where in FOT the ghouls came from. There is even one named Harold, with yep, a tree growing out of his head...

The games have not "shown" that creatures have mutated only by radiation. It has shown no such thing. We have the same critters that were in FO 1 and FO 2, and in the later games just having the creatures "shown" doesn't prove HOW they became what they are. It still does not disprove Wild FEV, and until someone performs an autopsy on them and we see a detailed report explaining their mutation, then we won't know for a certainty.

Fallout 3 also had ghoulification that took place over a long period of time. This, again, can be explained by the time it took for Wild FEV to spread, and now instant ghoulification is possible because people are carriers of Wild FEV. The game still contradicts itself in this regard, as there are plenty of people who simply die when exposed to radiation and do not become ghouls.

Also, if npcs are misinformed then why can't you just accept that Mrs Bishop was wrong and misinformed, especially seeing how a mountain of evidence in the games prove she was wrong. So, ya know, maybe you don't want to classify things as a mistake, like I do, but you just want people to be "misinformed", so then just accept Mrs Bishop was "misinformed" and it wasn't Jet because Jet was created by Myron.

Also:

At no point in my post did I say the bible was canon or that it was a "canon" explanation. I merely give a history on this mistake and point out what was said about it before, and give the original purpose of the FOBs, which was to expand and clarify stuff from the games. MCA simply recognized the error, which when we played the games if you paid attention and talked to Mrs. Bishop, you would notice it too and say "whoops, they made a mistake", and you don't need the FOBs to see it and realize it. It won't be the last mistake in the series, either, as pointed out with the above. But again, if you want to make mistakes misinformation, whatever floats your boat, but the one who was "misinformed" in this scenario was Mrs. Bishop. The ONLY way Mrs Bishop would not be the "misinformed" one is if she said something like "I know a lot of people think Jet is new, but I got hooked on it years ago when I met Mr. Bishop" or something to that effect, THUS, countering what every other NPC said about it, making all the others "misinformed".

"Not a stretch" as you use it is just another way of saying "I made some crap up but I want it to be treated as accurate"

Super mutants didn't make it to the Capital Wasteland or the Commonwealth. http://fallout.gamepedia.com/Super_mutant#Variants

Just wanted to let you know, that article is slightly wrong, The Institute began its FEV experiments in 2178, not the 2220's.

Don't worry, he isn't wrong, just highly "misinformed".

Awesome, where is it stated? I've been combing the files for a couple of days now looking for a reference pinning the date.

Its stated in a holotape found in The Institute

http://i.imgur.com/pzetUeD.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/9dCvijO.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/y8WIkBV.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/5iJOlCL.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/QpUEEEp.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/wt92twK.jpg

Its also said in a loading screen that "The Minutemen first rose to prominence in 2180, when they defended Diamond City against a horde of super mutants". Which makes sense given that it would have taken a year or two for The Institute to make enough super mutants for them to be able to attack Diamond City in force.

So apparently the Institute is even more hilariously evil than I initially assumed. So they just casually discarded super-mutants into the Commonwealth, and that's what created the massive super-mutant problem? I found the FEV Lab but I don't remember the lines saying they were "discarded", I'll have to recheck those terminals later. I thought it said they had all been terminated.

What possible scientific value could that provide? When in fact it probably does so much more harm to their scaving operations.

Still though, wow. Why is Fallout 4 morally ambiguous again? The Institute is more ridiculously evil than the Enclave.

Mostly because The Institute really is well-intentioned, but their ethics are warped to the point they seem randomly, unnecessarily evil.

Nothing is more evil than the Enclave, though. Total global genocide of every human being in existence save for themselves? The Institute looks like a bunch of stupid good paladins by comparison.

At least the Enclave believed they were doing something good.

I can't imagine how the Institute scientists dipping people and then intentionally releasing them to create one of the single greatest threats in the Commonwealth justified that ludicrously evil action.

"Wonder what will happen when we release these man-eating mutants lol. Lets watch, should be fun."

Its just cartoonishly evil.

So does The Institute.


As I said, warped morality. To them, it's an acceptable sacrifice, as they don't experience the fallout from their decisions directly.

well the game needed FEV and Super Mutants again. Sigh.

@Tag and what is the Institute's reasoning for releasing SM on the commonwealth, if they believe they were doing something "good"? What good did they expect to come from this?

they do not care about the commonwealths people, they believe them to be "damaged goods" basically. They believe it is THERE people that will make humanity great again.

STILL not has cartoonishly evil as the Legion though.

Uh, no, they don't.


The Legion wasn't more evil than, say, Ancient Rome.

And apparently they needed to do it by sacrificing any kind of moral ambivalence towards one of the main factions.

An acceptable sacrifice to what end though? That's the main question.

I could understand if they were keeping the mutants contained and if the operation of dipping was small-time in order to create a cure (which is what I initially assumed). But releasing them back to the wild for them to become the greatest threat in the Commonwealth? What purpose does that serve? What sacrifice is being made there?

There's no objective there, no goal. Just pure and utter evil stupidity.

Would have been a lot cooler to have no FEV and no SM(rare SM from CW maybe) and to make their own unique monsters. I've created a bunch of Fallout monsters in the suggestions threads, my favorites being the constructs of robotics + humans and other messed up mutated freaks.

Uhhhh, one would assume the exact same justification the Enclave had. Wipe out threats in the area, then either wait for the last surviving threat to die out or head out there and have only one enemy rather than several. Particularly if those enemies are just the dumb dumb Super Mutants we see.

Also, I agree that the Legion wasn't precisely evil. Immoral certainly, but not evil. I don't think any faction in Fallout has ever really been evil. Unless you interpret evil as just a synonym for bad or mean...in which case every faction is evil.

Maybe in Fallout 2, but in Fallout 3 the Enclave had two different ideologies. Augustus Autumn wanted to do basically the same thing that King Arthur ended up doing, whereas Eden wanted to do the equivalent of dropping the Atomic bomb on Hiroshima: a quick, brutal, but decisive end to all conflict in the Capital Wasteland that would leave the Enclave as the sole power. Brutal, perhaps, but it did make sense logically speaking. Eden's plan was a localized strike: a quick one-two knockout punch to the raiders, slavers, mutants, and Brotherhood. The Enclave didn't release a horde of violent, crazed, flesh-eating, enemies that they would later have to fight.

The Institute is actively harming their operations by releasing the mutants. Especially later on when they start to have a surface presence and establish checkpoints. I see mutants and synths locked in combat all the time. The raiders were doing a bang-up job of keeping the Commonwealth unstable enough really. Releasing the mutants is just lulzworthy levels of evilness.

Just my opinion, but I would have much rathered the mutants just be wanders from the Capital Wasteland. Perhaps driven out by the Brotherhood. Something like Gammorin's army. I'm not sure why we needed it said narrative wise that the Institute is responsible for the mutants. Capturing wastealanders for FEV experimentation was bad enough, but tagging and releasing them for no reason is just a step above.

I would have preferred that to, in regard to super mutants. An Enclave victory meant poisoning the water supply though, which is probably about as close to evil as the series has gotten.

Haven't really gotten into the Institute and SMs yet, not sure if any motive is explained or not, but I think sending SMs could be a logical way of seeding chaos and keeping the locals from developing any further. Perhaps the raiders are only doing as well as they are because the SMs and synths are out there as well. Perhaps the Institute is hoping the Brotherhood will be distracted by an old enemy and give them some breathing room.

Yeah, but when you consider the fact that its a localized strike, minimized to just the Capital Wasteland. Not really. I mean that has to go to Richardson surely? Who planned worldwide devastation.

The US killed far more people than Eden would have by dropping a single atomic bomb, or in a single night of firebombing. Eden was going to wipe out the raiders, the mutants, the animal abominations, the slavers, everything. At the cost of wastelander collateral damage. Unfortunate, but acceptable losses in his eyes.

The Institute just seems to be about using the Commonwealth as their waste dump. Which I guess is about as far as their motivations go.

Meh.

Quick, for the most part, death from an atomic weapon with most people dying at about the same time...or slowly being poisoned to death by tampered with water. Seeing your friends and family slowly fall apart knowing your headed the same way. You've also got to look at intent. Hiroshima and Nagasaki were to end a war that likely would have cost hundreds of thousands of lives over the years to come. Enclave just wanted everyone dead so they could takeover and raise their pure blood kids.

Again, haven't hit that point, but I imagine the Institute isn't doing it purely for giggles. Any of it. SMs let loose surely had some purpose, however hateful, synths running around kidnapping and replacing people, perhaps just practice at espionage.

I don't think for a second that "waste dump" is as far as their intention or ambition stretch.

What doesn't make sense if that as LT pointed out, SM would be an interference to their plans with Synths. It isn't like the Institute can have unlimited resources, and Super Mutants destroying their Synths is going to get costly to replace. I don't get the point of it.

Yeah that is a bit weird, but ultimately that's the problem with any kind of destabilizing plan. We've seen that in history too when supporting rebel factions. The weeds you sew you will eventually have to reap. I'm still just guessing at their intentions, but if part of why they sent them out into the wastes was to destabilize the area, eventually they'll have to deal with the SMs if they want the area stable.