why does it seem like so many frankensteins are as smart as fawkes, or are west coast mutants smarter then their east coast brethren?

The FEV used to create the supermutants on the West coast doesn't always make the subject stupid. In fact, in some rare cases is even makes them smarter. Some still end up as dumb as a sack o' door knobs, though.

East Coast mutants were made with a different strain of FEV that made them less intellegent and more aggressive. Most West coast Super Mutants aren't that bright either, but that is due to them being exposed to radiation and mutated airborne strain of FEV when they were humans. Uncontaminated individuals become smarter and stronger than humans when exposed to west coast FEV.

As a rule, no. But there have been several exceptions throughout all the Fallout games.

Please don't call them Frankenstein's, it makes me cringe as much as "steel be with you".

but anyway this should answere any of your questions about them

http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Mariposa_super_mutant

+1, they are much more rare than it seems

There are some west coast mutants that are very stupid (see Harry) and some that are smart (Marcus, Lou) or as intelligent as a regular human being. They act more like people in general on the west coast though you can often find a couple of crazies and bad seeds out there like Tabitha every once in awhile much like you see crazy human raiders.

Fawkes seems to struggle with his savage nature, he comments that he can feel the primal part of him trying to push him away. Mentally speaking, I'd say any Vault 87 mutants that want to reform probably have a hard time controlling themselves as they seem to be more monster in nature than regular supermutants.

This. East Coast Mutants generally acted like primal animals, moving with a herd mentality. I don't remember Marcus ever having the same problems Fawkes had (The primal rage, blah blah). West Coast Mutants even had a strong military structure and the leaders had a seeming strong understanding of military strategy and tactics (I say this because of the Fallout 1 quest from the Hub about disappearing caravans. A disc talked about Mutants making reports to superiors, scouting the Hub, and strategically ambushing caravans to weaken the Hub and to gain supplies.) East Coast mutants just seemed to run around shooting things, with only a basically understanding of reinforcing camps or certain buildings.

East Coast mutants were almost exclusively stupid brutes (and yes, people implying that Beth just made them the stereotypical fantasy orcs are kind of right). The FEV in V87 was too different from the strain The Master had found.
West Coast mutants are actual superhuman beings - just less intelligent the more radiated they were before dipping. The less fortunate and lots radiated... Well, they probably turned out like that failed experiment you've seen in F3, anyway.

As said before V87 used a different type of FEV. The ones on the west tend to be more intellegent (and lees hostile) than the mind-less ones on the east. They also don't grow, or loose their gender like the eastern ones.

Besides The Master had a lot of failures with his mutants and he killed the stupid ones building his army out of the smart ones.

I'm surprised noone's mentioned this, but the Master specifically bred his Super Mutants to be tactically brilliant and physically perfect. His problem is that due to the effects of the wasteland, most people came out partially brain damaged. NOT necessarily bloodthirsty or even particularly violent like the East Coast batch, they simply lost much of their cognitive ability. They can follow orders, hold civil conversations, and even operate an effective military. Imagine an army of genetically engineered soldiers with the intellect and personality of Forrest Gump... childlike but still frighteningly competent. However, with unradiated vault dwellers, he could produce the highly intelligent super mutants he wanted, with the Lietenant and Marcus the two most pbvious examples.

The major difference is that East Coast super mutants revel in their mindless violence and West Coast super mutants were supposed to be as intelligent as possible.

Beatcha to the punch!

Also, its nearly impossible for the Vault 87 super mutants to create a stable leadership and effective organization since they grow bigger and stronger, but notably dumber and more beast-like as they age. Indeed, the oldest of this super mutant strain eventually develop into the monstrous Behemoths that you occasionally find in the DC wastes.


Mariposa (West Coast) super mutants do not suffer this fate although they can become senile when they grow very old.

:cryvaultboy: Yeah, but... but... MY EXPLANATION'S BETTER!!

The east coast mutants talked too, it's just they'd rather kill you and eat you than talk to you.
Their "conversations" between each other are pretty stupid though, if you've ever eavesdropped on them.

Yeah, they're pretty much orcs with guns.

Damn, you're right!

will fronkensteens work for you?

Though, aside from the Master's tinkering, the West Coast mutants have a massive advantage in terms of verbal articulation.

Lips.

Given the life span of Mutants i think we will be seeing a smart super mutant faction in games to come, i am still unclear of the rule of the Mariposa mutants in FNV.

Wonder if the two groups of super mutants will ever meet in a future game.

Well, there are actually three groups. The Master's Unity super mutants, the Enclave's less intelligent supermutants a hundred years later, and the Vault 87 mutants. The Enclave batch was really just to test the science out and aside from one infamous exception, all the super mutants buried alive or imprisoned in Mariposa once the Enclave had run all the tests they needed. Well, until the Chosen One came along and let them out. They were not too different from the original batch, except they weren't being trained or tinkered with, so they all came out mentally challenged. In New Vegas, they've actually teamed up with the first generation and have their own super mutant state.

Oh, and the one super mutant the Enclave kept around was Frank Horrigan... so yay for good ol' fashioned American values.

Well, he was... Special enough. Being half super mutant, half cyborg has its advantages.

No, Igor, no.

The so called Enclave batch of Super Mutants have nothing to do with Enclave experimenting on them. They are miners abducted from Redding that were used as a slave labor in Enclave excavation in ruins of Mariposa military base. As they were digging deeper in to the ruins and closer to FEV vats they started mutating little by little. Finally reaching the vats, Enclave scientist took a sample of FEV and fled. One Enclave squad was left to hold off the mutated miners as rest of the Enclave blowed up the entrance of Mariposa base thus dooming the left behind squad and sealing off the mutated miners to the base.

As what comes into the mutation by FEV, the intellegence of Super Mutant has nothing to do with the training. It depends on factors like previous exposure to the mutated airborne strain of FEV and from the radiation levels on your body. Humans that haven't been exposed to either of these become far more intellegent mutants than those who have been exposed. The miners were exposed to huge amounts of those things and so the second generation Super Mutants became far less intellegent than any of the first generation super mutants.

Where do you people come up with these "facts" like they were Enclave experimentation?