I haven't been playing the game too long and I never played any of the others, so I might have missed an explanation somewhere. Although I have tried to read up on some of the lore on the wiki so I have a better understanding of the world. I have played all of the main quest and some side quests and DLCs, though certainly not all yet (this game is huge). Anyway it never really made sense to me why the Enclave soldiers would attack me and other non-hostile wastelanders on sight. I understand how later on in the story the player character would be on their hit list, but they are hostile from the very start. How does killing everyone in the Capital Wasteland further their goals? Is it just because they consider everyone in the wasteland tainted? To me it seems like giving away RadX and RadAway would be the better solution, but maybe answers like that are constricted by the storyline.

The Enclave are an elitist organization, said to be the remnant of the original American government. The only people worthy living are the ones living in the Vaults and their people.

Bethesda needed an elite Human mob for the player to kill.

Yeah, pretty much. There isn't much story behind the Fo3 Enclave.

I dont know why they didnt let you join them...

Occasionally you will find a friendly Enclave soldier.

(sadly, while it would be interesting, i agree with some of the Enclave players, that this is Bethesda's first attempt at a fallout, and joining the Enclave was not in the cards. Which is too bad, i like the armor in a way, except the hellfire, such a dorky helmet to say the least.....)

Joining the Enclave would have made the whole reason for them wanting shooting wastelanders on sight redundant, the Lone Wanderer is not a human being and one of the Enclave genetic compliancy tests would have shown this; on that topic, the genetic compliancy tests were conducted on wastelanders at Enclave checkpoints in return for free water (it was a scam I assume as all would have failed) meaning that the Enclave didn't infact shoot everyone on sight, in addition we can see that the wastelanders at the checkpoints have always been forced into an enclosed area such as the fallen grain silo, a caravan and the cargo wagon of a lorry, this was to save resources according to the terminal entries but also shows that the Enclave were not in fact hostile to them but allowed them into the camps, their water prizes even next to their bodies.

The Enclave's actual objective in the Capital Wasteland is suspect and can be endlessly debated, Eden is following the parameters set by his predecessor dike Richardson, he intends to introduce a toxin into the massive water supply which will kill all of the wastelanders who would theorically rush to the purifier before word of mouth informed everyone that the water was toxic.

Autumn however was something of a seditionist and wanted to establish an Enclave military dictatorship over the Capital Wasteland by using the mass water purifier as leverage to the masses.

Colonel Autumn turned the Enclave against Eden however (by simply saying, "Disobey the President's last order," <_< ) during the Lone Wanderers trip to the President's Office for undeterminable reasons; Autumn didn't know that the FEV Virus plan was still being considered, he believed that he had convinced Eden and was so firm in his conviction that he at first thought that the FEV vial in the LW's possetion was stolen; before this he also bizarely says "The chain-of-command must be obeyed."

anolysing the Enclave's motivations Enclave in general in F3 is an uphill struggle with no clear ending, I am of the opinion that the whole poorly thought "Civil unrest" within the Enclave was a cheap way of Bethesda having it's cake and eating it, a huge firefight with the most powerful faction in the game and offering the allusion of choice that you can help them by following Eden and in the process making some extreme MORAL CHOICES!

@Jedi, it's not about "worthiness" as in heritage or any such nonsense, a combination of mutated genes caused by the initial radiation from the war which have been passed down through the generations along with subtle mutations caused by exposure to FEV from West Tek have rendered the population technically different from humans internally as can been gleaned also from some of the Enclave's experiments in Fallout 2.

@JW1, Tesla Armour and a Missile Launcher right?

Since FO3 was the first Fallout to hit consoles, I t would be my understanding that Beth was just trying to keep it kinda linear conflict-wise to kinda give newcomers a better understanding of the Fallout universe. And what better antagonists than the Enclave, as misunderstood and unexplained in the game?

No it wasn't...

(At least he is not referring to the....Ugh.......Burned Game.)

BoS was A MAJOR PITA and i bouht a copy and played maybe 10 minutes before realizing that it wasn't fallout

SHHHHHH! SHHHHHHHH! You of all people should know better that to even imply about that game! :nono:

That's not true, the virus would only have killed anything that wasn't a pure human, like Super Mutants and Ghouls etc. Any creature that had been subjected to genetic mutation because of radiation would have been affected, but not those people who still retained the intact human genetic code. In other words, the Enclave was acting very much like the Nazi regime did in WW2, and if you want to understand their motivations for shooting innocent people, you can gain some insight by looking at that period of history. They were convinced of the notion of their own genetic superiority, and anything other than themselves were little more than animals that didn't deserve any mercy.

No it wouldn't, assuming that it's just a modification of Fallout 2's virus then only humanoid life is affected; as far as I'm concerned it's not exactly clear cut that it isn't the exact same virus, Eden could have just been lying to the Lone Wanderer about it only affecting pure humans because, believe it or not, I don't believe that the LW could just instantly be brought into the Enclave and be given the same position as Autumn. And even if he could, do you think that anyone in the Enclave would follow the LW's orders after he spent most of the game widowing, orphaning and killing most of them?

Eden's motivations and goals are suspect also, as far as I am concerned the people in the Enclave are little more than his tools to purify his beloved Capital as opposed to repopulating it with people.

As for convinced of their own superiority, whatever, little more than propaganda to keep the Enclave united; go read President Richardson's quotes if you want to know what the Enclave actually thinks, believe it or not blind racism simply for it's own sake does not a long term goal make.

Now your name and Picture all make since lol :blink: , but anyways, I'm not really sure why the Enclave are the Protagonist's and I don't know why you cant join them, I mean as far as I concerned it's no different than siding with Caesars Legion in NV.

If Eden tells you that it will only affect humanoid characters, then you have to presume that's what the virus does. It's pointless to second guess something in Fallout 3 simply because it was different in a previous game. After all, Fallout 3 takes place long after the previous versions, so there's no reason to believe that they may have perfected the virus since then. It's a game people, stop looking for motivations that don't actually exist.

Because that's how Bethesda designed the game.

Agreed, personally I don't see that it can be improved. Unlike the ENCLAVE, Raven Rock was an official government location, I don't think that it would have the kind of equipment to do anything more than manufacture the chemical and incubate the FEV; definately not advanced microbiological engineering.

cuz there the bad guys lol.

I think you misread his statement Enclave. He was saying that there is no reason not to assume that the virus was perfected. Personally I agree as well. Sure its true that Eden was using the foundation of the Curling FEV-13, but that doesn't mean the Enclave in Raven Rock were in capable of making so that it specifically targets mutations (it is a virus after all).

Also I think you are underestimating Raven Rock's abilities. It may not be an official Enclave location, but that fact that it is supposed to fuction as the Pentagon: ie. the headquarters of the United States military when a nuclear war strikes, I believe that it had the ability to modifiy the virus. After all, it has production capacities to make new armor and weapons. The Oil rig also lacked a highly advanced ZAX supercomputer (aka John Henry Eden).

In other words, we have no hard evidence to suggest that Eden was lying. I can't prove he wasn't, and I really wouldn't mind either way (as far as i'm concerned Eden was manipulating the LW anyway) but at the moment, until it is proved otherwise, we must assume that the virus only targeted mutations.

Still, I really don't see Raven Rock having germ warfare manufacturing capabilities; not knocking Eden or anything . Besides, who's to say the the Oil Rig didn't have a ZAX? Seems like a logical thing to have doesn't it, they just didn't have a sentient one.

Don't worry, my "defend Eden" complex hasn't kicked in yet.

On the contrary. I think that by arguing that he manipluated the LW with promises of promotion and protection from a virus that he had no chance of surving, it would show Eden to be a cunning and shrewed leader, who wraps up all loose ends, which is why I say that I really wouldn't mind it either way (besides, in any case they both end up with the same result).



I suppose it could have, I was just saying though that Eden (as both a supercomputer and the "brain" of Raven Rock) would have had access to alot of military and research records, since any important information that the Pentagon would have had, it would have been located and backed-up in Raven Rock as well. Therefore Eden may have had access to information on FEV research that could have been lost to the Rig (its almost certain that Raven Rock would have info on FEV reasearch in any case since Vault 87 is only a few miles away, and surely the goverment would have kept records of its experiments before the war).

Actually I wonder if the different FEV virus strain that was located in Vault 87 had something to do with it. That might also explain why they didn't deploy the virus by air.

Like someone said before, Bethesda wanted to give you a moral choice whether or not you wanted to save the wastes; but they also wanted to have a late game bad guy which high leveled players could get the best gear off of.

*vertibird noises* Lt.Andronicus and "The Enclave" here to save the day once again...

So basically, nobody actually knows why. It`s all `I think`.

Perhaps the makers of FO3 will deign to tell us one day.