I'm pretty sure the OP means "firearms", as in basic Small Guns. English probably isn't their first language.

Look at it this way, it's not science, it's Science!.

Remember, the mutants ae based off of what people of the 50s would have viewed them, and this is the time that bore us Godzilla, that big [censored] tarantula, and the ants from Them! Not to mention Mothra, Gamera, etc. So if you look at it like that, keeping with the Fallout universes version of physics, it's not so hard to believe that there could be 12 metre tall mutants.

I'll try my hand at answering these, lol.
(Numbered for ease of reading)

1. Flame based weapons would have been considered heavy armaments, so they would have likely been locked in armories and bunkers when the bombs fell. It's unlikely that many civilians would have had any, and probably even less likely that they would have been standard issue to the peace keeping soldiers in the US. So when the bombs fell, they were all safely locked away, then, they would have been looted years later, by raiders, or whatever.

2. They probably went in standard fallout shelters, or were far enough away from the balst that they werent incinerated. Like someone else said, the real danger to the survivors was the radiation, which is why we have Ghouls. But yeah, people can survive anything, like roaches.

3. Like my previous post said, they may not make much sense to us, but in the context of FO, they do. the FO universe is different form ours in many ways, including the basic physics. It's basically what people of the 50s viewed nuclear war and post apocalypse as, so to them, giant mutants would have been expected, so thats what we got. Personally, I think its likely just radiation mutating them further.

4. Not everyone, remember, Vault 101 is probably the last sealed vault left, and most of the other vaults were social experiments, which seemed to fail more often then not. The Vaults that were designed to open after 10 years, like normal, were the control groups in the experiment. The people in those survived, for the most part. Other vaults, like the ones in the Capital Wasteland, were grand social experiments, the majority of the people in thse died, due to the experiement failing, or getting out of hand.

5. Bottle caps were used, because they were numerous, so there was a steady supply of them, and the technology to make more was destoyed, so the numer of them stays the same, which stops inflation and what have you.

Anyway, hope I helped.

I have other questions:
Why doesnt it rain?
Where does everyone take the oxygen to survive, there are no alive trees?Or are there?

Because the Devs originally wanted it in, but couldn't get it working to the standards they wanted, and decided to scrap it for the moment.

Well, we don't see any terribly healthy trees in the DC area, but that's a very small area from a global perspective. We really don't know what other parts of the world look like. (Hey, maybe the Amazon rain forest was able to reclaim the land in the intervening years - or even greatly mutated...) Also, I think I read somewhere that a large portion of our breathable oxygen is actually generated in the Oceans.

(Though, really - it all comes down to Science! of course. )

I just assumed weather, especially as a result of nuclear armageddon, was scrapped for a more 'scorched-earth' type wasteland, but if it was a simple engine limitation then I'll go with that too.

I'd rationalise that considering 90%+ of humanity was destroyed, that there wouldn't need to be that much oxygen to go around Flora and fauna does exsist though, there's some green here and there in the originals, and FO3 gives us the makings of a greenbelt via Oasis. I considered oxygen from the ocean, but the holocaust messed that up pretty bad also:

What this means for most of the oceanic anatomy is unknown, but I'm guessing underwater is just as messed up as the surface. Although we do see fish in FO2 from Killap's RP, so maybe it can't be all that bad under the sea

But yes, if all else fails, Science! prevails.

Also remember the Amazon jungle is still probably there - Most of the worlds major jungles and forests away from major populated areas may have seen rapid growth.

Thanks!!
Another question , with all the CO2 created by the bombs wouldnt that destroy the Ozone completely?

Ozone would be depleted but not by carbon dioxide. Rather, chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) negatively react with ozone. Many models do predict a reduction in ozone because of a nuclear exchange (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_winter), however, it would happen because the particulate in the atmosphere would increase upper atmospheric temperatures, which would force 03 to 02.

Anyway, scientific and natural phenomena work differently in Fallout, which is good because if the Fallout world followed real scientific predictions, everything would be dead and there would be no purpose for a game. I prefer the "unreality" of Fallout's world anyway because it enhances the experience for me.

Thanks.I agree with that, i was just wondering if they had an explanation for that.

Many of the explanations, no matter how accurate, are still flavour at best and can't really be ultimate proof. But we can try However there are just somethings you have to let slide. The Ozone is probably one of those

I don't buy the Behemoths being eldest since Fawkes is just as old as them and he's pretty much average-sized and not, you know, dumber than a sack of doorknobs.

Also, in response to an above post--the Vault 87 mutants (or the originals at the very least) were infected via an airborn strain of F.E.V., not dipped.



I just gotta say, this made me giggle far too hard. Shopping cart mutants! :ahhh:

Maybe they are like goldfish and only grow to their environment, and with Fawkes being cooped up in that cell...

To tackle these in order...

1.) Fire Weapons either survived via military bases(Uncle Sam no doubt wants his spawning grounds of killing machines to be well-protected afterall, even from nuclear holocaust) or are manufactured. This is 200 years post- nuclear war. By Fallout 1 the Brotherhood of Steel, horders of working tech, were making their own arms. It is no doubt that others are able to do the same (See: The Pitt)

2.) Most people actually seen in all three games are probably from Vaults. Megaton, Junktown, and Brotherhood of Steel all come from various non-Vault shelters (A crater, who knows, and Mariposa Base respectively.) Vault-Tec may have had the monopoly, but considering the stage that Fallout history set, a lot of wealthies probably had safehouses built.

3.) Ahhh Behemoths, a design I actually love in concept but hate in-game because they aren't very frightening. Like previously said, FEV from Vault 87 resulted in progressive mutation than a set rapid and stable change. They're apparently the earliest of muties on the East Coast from 87, the surviving ones at least. I kind of see them like... the vampires in Soul Reaver. More monstrous over time. It's an interesting concept.

4.) No, probably not. Most Vaults opened much earlier then Vault 101, probably around the time West Coast Vaults openned. I sorta believe most Raiders in the East Coast are decendents from Vault 106 survivors. There was at least one control Vault mentioned being near the DC area (Vault 76) that also probably opened. I'd assume a lot of locals are decendents from there.

5.) Bottlecaps are used probably because they were used in Fallout 1. Fallout 1 had them used because it was apparently an abbundantly-found and easily collected item that was hard to replicate. Probably was used in Fallout 3 to set in the fact that they're behind in comparison to Fallout 2's West Coast, which apparenlty has a mint now.

Also, flamethrowers are relatively simple, mechanically speaking. Honestly, I'm surprised there isn't a schematic for building one; pilot light, fuel tank, some scrap metal, and ... hum, base it off an old Soviet design, and say "a handful of shotgun ammunition" (one of the older Soviet models used a single shotgun blank to pressurise the fuel tank).


Actually ... the entire surface of the earth cannot have been blanketed by nuclear fire, or there wouldn't even be Brahmin. Also, not everyone is from the vaults - the voiceover for F1 or F2, I forget which, mentions survivors "climbing out of the ruins" (or maybe it's the rubble they climb out of?).


They're used because the population of the wasteland lacked the ability to manufacture more of them. You might get the metal shape right, but the metal-bonding inks, in those particular colors and with such high-quality printing (in terms of the tiny lettering possible). Thus, they become a useful medium of exchange due to their limited supply. Sure, sure, you can go and dig up handfuls fo them in the right parts of the ruins ... the irradiated or creature-infested ruins.

i belive that since the Capital Super mutants gets stronger as they age svck a the brutes and master. I think the Behomoths are old mutants from before the war. If you blow off their head you see that their brains are large. They could be the leaders of the mutants.

Super Mutant food is humans who die.

It's probably a combination of age and further FEV exposure... that's what I assumed anyway... the more FEV, the larger the mutant.

There were other locations where people holed up during the war. Remember, the founders of the Brotherhood of Steel were holed up in the Mariposa Military Base when the bombs fell. Fallout 2 also has the Sierra Army Depot, and I think Navarro always existed as a military base.

Of course, that's not to say that all these humans were/weren't protected from the radiation. The Master discovered that introducing the FEV to "prime normals" such as those in the Vaults, led to the creation of stronger and smarter Supermutants - such as Lou the Lieutenant. Those who had already spent their lives on the surface would lead to people like Harry. :ahhh:

A behemoth is assumed to be a very old Super Mutant, as the common belief is that they never stop growing and so as they get older they get bigger and stronger, but also dumber to compensate.

They dip them into tons of 100% pure FEV goo? How much more exposure do you need?

To the guy pointing out that Fawkes should be as big as a behemoth, I disagree. Fawkes is not as old as the behemoths. Many people got confused and thought Fawkes was female because a terminal described a female occupant of his cell, however, Fawkes perhaps was not the original inhabitant of the cell. He might have been a vault 87 dweller, yes, but it is unknown at what time the super mutants completely took the vault over, so it is still possible that human vault dwellers existed in the vault well after the war. This would make him not as old as some of the earliest experiments. He might have been created by the scientists there, or thrown in the vats by the mutants themselves after they took over.

Still, it's foolish to assume that Fawkes would grow and mutate like the other mutants, after all, the reason they imprisoned him is because he was different.

Even if all Oxygen production was cut off, it would take millions of years before people would asphyxiate. Remember; before life started on Earth, the atmosphere was mostly Carbon Dioxide. It took several million years before we got the trace amounts of Carbon Dioxide and 23% Oxygen in the atmosphere (BTW, our atmosphere is mostly Nitrogen.)

As for the whole Fawkes issue- it's generally assumed that Vault 87 was overrun with Supermutants within a few years after the experiments started; there are holotapes and terminals in Vault 87 that are presumed to be dated to close to the vault's closing; experements with FEV more-or-less started when the Vault was sealed. Once the Super Mutants got loose, the remaing population was more-or-less immedately converted into Super Mutants or Centaurs; then they had to escape into the wasteland.

It's quite possible, however, that the gene/genes that control size also control intelligence; this would explain why Fawkes isn't approaching Behemoth size; since he's smart, he can't grow big.

Myself I always assumed the Super mutant masters were the more intellegent of the mutants, since the trend being the smarter ones were usually stronger in proportion, hence earning themselves the status of leaders, or the elite anyways, kindof like the Nightkin of Fallout. They were smarter, stronger, and more resilliant, and as such gifted with complext technology and weaponry (Stealthboys to give them a ghostly appearance in and around the cathedral.).

As for behemoths being mutants before the war, there were no mutants before the war on the east coast. The mutant experiments with FEV were in vault 87, using FEV from West-tec that they had modified themselves during and after the war for experimentation. If there were other experimentation faculities, its unlikely that the ten years or so before the war when FEV was created, and the 3-4 years after the war to when Fawxe became one, would have such a major difference in size. The problem with them having large brains is that they began as human brains. A human brain, becoming that, would never work, FEV simply improved upon what it is inefecting, not cause cellular divisions in cells not meant to devide the many many times they would need to become that large. In fact, why would FEV cause that insane of a reaction on its own, while in others keeping a pretty straightforward template with everyone else? Maybe if you Infected someone who was that size to begin with, they would come out that big, which though extremely unlikely, lets say they did manage to hunt down Paul Bunyeon, how in the hell would they get him into Vault 87?

All Vault 87 dwellers, except perhaps the Overseer and his security were made into super mutants as part of the experiment in 2078.