All the Talking Deathclaws were hunted down and killed by the Enclave; There are none left.

You don't know your lore.

What you speak of was simply an off the cuff comment made by someone who had no creative control over this particular story. The only valid source of information is Fallout 2, and according to that game, a few talking Deathclaws are just fine (including Goris, as you should be aware).

Furthermore, the person who was responsible for designing the talking Deathclaw, and thus the person with creative control over that storyline, has informed us that the talking Deathclaw do have a way to pass on their intelligence to other Deathclaw. So a continuation of their race would be very likely.

In fact, with the destruction of the oil rig, and the Enclave being reduced to simple remnants, the continuation of the Deathclaw race is incredibly likely. As I've detailed with reasoning in prior posts.

And as I've gone to lengths to point out: Life is an adaptive, versatile, resilient thing. Given a high enough quotient of resourcefulness, life would find a way. And Goris always struck me as a very resourceful person indeed. Especially given how he found a way to mingle among humans without them ever realising his true nature.

So please, if we're going to talk about these things, could we stick to purely canon lore? Thank you for understanding.

(Edited: Just FYI, the Fallout Bible isn't canon. It's just off-record comments made about the game, but it's not actually considered to be canon information and/or lore, it was never meant to be. The Fallout Bible is about as 'canon' as Van Buren.)

(Edit #2: If you want another example of how the Fallout Bible is non-canon, if it were correct then the NCR flag should've been updated in New Vegas to match the single-headed bear shown in the Bible. However, the NCR flag retains the two-headed bear from Fallout 2, thus showing that Bible information has been disregarded in favour of Fallout 2 information.

And likewise, if Fallout 2 says the talking Deathclaw are still alive, then until some other game says they aren't, that hasn't changed. Besides, I can't believe Avellone was so small-minded enough to actually make a comment like that. I mean, the Fallout Universe is the perfect place to explore alien perspectives, to get a new view of things. It's a great way to break from binary thinking too, where if something is pretty, it can do no harm, and if something is ugly, it can do no good. Such simple moralistic views should be eschewed in favour of telling a truly interesting story.

If you're telling a fairytale, then the notion of pretty humans being good, and ugly monsters being bad is fine, but the Fallout Universe should be better than that. Otherwise it's no different than Star Wars, and that would make Avellone another George Lucas.

Having a doombeast scholar in a story is a great way to break people out of such ways of thinking. And in my opinion, if Fallout wants to be the high brow game it should be, then it shouldn't be so cowardly, it shouldn't be afraid to do that. Fallout 2 was not afraid to do that, and since no game has yet challenged Fallout 2, I'm going to stick with that.)

(Edit #3: Just to add to that, for those that missed it. I think that the removal of talking Deathclaws would be an incredibly populist, PC, and cowardly thing to do. And very typical of today's world.

"It's a dayumm ugly critter wot speaks wit' prittee-yer wurds'n I dew, how'n Sam Hill dus thet wurk? KILL IT!"

To be honest, we need more of this sort of thing, that being the talking Deathclaws, not narrow-mindedness, these days. Especially since binary thinking is at an all time historical high. Not less. The talking Deathclaw types would be the perfect thing to bring back to Fallout, to show that the developers aren't afraid of their roots. And aren't too afraid of public opinion to tell a good story.)

Defensive much?

Talking Deathclaws served one purpose in Fallout 2, they informed the player to Vault 13 events.

Also the Enclave does exterminates the Vault 13 Deathclaws with the possible exception of Goris, the only way for that not to happen is if you destroy the Oil Rig before that event happens but that is difficult. Now that leave us with Boris and Xarn (the one in Navarro base), those are the facts.

Now the Fallout Bible did initially said that Goris and Xarn could continue the species but 4 months later reversed the position.

Speculation is speculation, as authority goes the Fallout Bible is very clear as Fallout 2 did intended for the Vault 13 Deathclaws to die leaving exactly 2 specimens that might survived and might also reproduced but consider this, Kerith was the Matriarch and also intelligent, considering how Deathclaws reproduction works I would say its VERY unlikely the "intelligent" strain survived Fallout 2.

And for what? so we can have talking lizards ... I am with Avellone on this and I know that since we had the GECK in Fallout 3 that worked by MAGIC! pretty much everything can go.

(Also this is a [REQ/IDEA] and I know how those end up, expecially ones that require rigging a new head mesh to support lip sync and voice acting)

Killap's RP has an alternative ending where the pack expands peacefully into the neighboring territories if the player kills Dr. Schreber at Navarro before he authorizes the Deathclaw extermination, and since no one plays FO2 without the RP I think it's safe to say it's been retconned I'm all with the OP on this idea, tell me if there's any scripting involved!

sounds puuuuuuuurty cool,wish this could port to xbox... :sighs:

Hey I've just quoted your pitch under a thread in Nexus, it's under your name and everything, just giving you more readers. If you do not want it posted there I wil remove it if you request it.

Here is the link to the post so you can see for yourself
http://www.thenexusforums.com/index.php?/topic/271808-post-your-ideas-for-quest-mods/page__st__10__gopid__2455284

I dont see how it matters if the extermination happened or not, there are other ways of telling the storyI think it is entirely possible some of the aliens from mother ship zeta captured a talking alien before the extermination and it later killed the aliens crashed the ship and escaped, going on to use the alien tech it found to continue the species. Or maybe the aliens isolated the gene responsible for the Deathclaw intelligence and it somehow slipped out of their hands maybe an escaped enclave officer? There are a million ways in the fallout universe that talking deathclaws could have survived, it could even happen through evolution, since they have been exposed to the FEV virus or some other type of mutagen that could decrease the amount of time it would take for genetic changes such as that to happen. Maybe they communicate via another piece of enclave tech such as a universal translator

The talking deathclaws are dead, they were supposed to symbolise the cruelty of the Enclave. They created a species of animal that achieved near sentiency only to to kill them off. As fun as a mod like this sounds, it is still off-cannon.

Just an idea but if you wanted to simplify the "native" to talking Deathclaw process, the quest could be reconstructed like so

some where in the Mojave the courier can find a lone talking Deathclaw,

following a conversation with said death claw its reviled he's one of a many "ambassadors/missionary's" for the fallout2 Deathclaws sent out to convert native Deathclaws.

you find out that a more potent version of the FEV which converted the original subjects is present in there blood, so they can convert other Deathclaws by infecting them with said blood, however it takes a number of days so they devised a special mixture that is a combination of a powerful sedative and there blood.

The death claw gives a few viles of his blood to the Currier along with the recipe to create the sedative+blood mixture [something like 1 Med-X + 1 Blood Vile] this can then be applied like a poison to a melee weapon [to add some challenge], which when used on a death claw will do nothing for 10seconds [to add challenge and freak the unsuspecting player out] then knock it unconscious.

if the player returns in under ~1 week they will find that the area is still filled with hostile Deathclaws just that they are called "infected [mother/baby/alpha] Deathclaw"

if the player returns after 1 week they will find neutral versions of the above which they can instruct to go to the missionary.

after the player has gathered say 5 Deathclaws from each of the main deathclaw locations [slone etc] quest complete

Seems to me like people are acting like Deathclaws never talked anyway.

one idea for a story...what if all the talking deathclaws save Goris did die...but a clutch of eggs survived.They didn't hatch because they have a survival mechanism...abit like eragon where the dragon is concious of everything going on around it,but chooses when to hatch.You discover this clutch,and train them and stuff.Once this is done,they are sent to breed with the "dumb" deathclaws and start the new sentient colony after a few in game weeks or so.And luck could influence how many of the eggs hatch,therefore how long to train them and how long for the non-sentient deathclaws take to become sentient(it could be like an STD and a gene,so all deathclaws that come into contact with an infected deathclaw become intelligent,and can pass that on)

Feel free to take as much of that as you want for your mod,and I will download this ASAR(As Soon As Released)
peace :nuke: :wave:

This sounds amazing. I have been enjoying mods on Bethesda titles for a long time now and considering the scope of some bigger mods (Deserts of annequa, RTS etc) I would have thought this would be perfectly do-able. It would be great if this could catch one of the major modders eye... because I think we can all agree that this would be great. I have wanted to delve into the history of deathclaws and have a questline for them for a while. no other mod has ever fully utilized them really and this mod sounds like its the mod that can/will. I hope you get somewhere with it :thumbsup:

@Drakron

I felt that your post read a bit like a trolling effort, if I'm going to be honest with you. Otherwise, why else would have you primed it with such an aggressive opener (other than baiting)? I'm usually a pretty damned good judge of character, so I'm not going to bite, instead I'm just going to reply to the only part I felt you were being sincere about, and thus the only part it would be useful to offer a reply to: Voice-acting, is it really necessary?

My answer is that I don't think it is. People are educated and they can read, after all. It's what we used to do all the time in the 'old days', back before RPGs had voice-acting. You can do entire quest mods without even needing to voice a single line. I believe the venerable Puce Moose has proved that beyond the shadow of a doubt.

As for lip-synching, tied into the voice-acting concern, it's entirely not necessary. The Fallout lore tells us that Deathclaws use a physiological system of vocal mimickry similar to that of a parrot. Now parrots certainly don't have lips, nor do their beaks move that much when they're mimicking sounds. So you wouldn't need to rig a flapping jaw for it to be believable.

@Nekhanimal

Thanks for adding that, I'd completely forgotten about it. C:

If I do end up getting this underway, I'll be sure to poke you via PM. It seems that interesting things are happening on the Nexus, and people are interested. I've never been a project manager before, but aside from creativity and writing talent, I don't really have much I can offer. I don't know if I'm worthy enough to be the boss of such a project.

But right now, I'm reading more and more into the lore, and you've just given me another source to consider, too. I'll do a good bit of reading into that as well. Once I arrive at something I'm satisfied with, confidence willing, I may just start poking people with it, to see just how many are interested.

@SimplyAvarice

I have no issues with that whatsoever. In fact, I appreciate it. Thanks!

@robber804

Pretty much. It actually surprises me sometimes how limited some people are when it comes to creativity. There are loads of ways one could work this!

I mean, let's consider for a moment that Avellone's non-canon statement is correct and that Goris and Xarn are dead. Your possibility works, and others have thought of even more. I'd like to share with you ZombieUK's approach: single generation mutation.

Now, what's interesting about the FEV and the Deathclaws it infected is that the Deathclaws literally had to be soaked in the stuff for it to have any effect, and it had very little effect indeed. It didn't even make them sterile. So perhaps the Deathclaw are resistant to the effects of the FEV, and perhaps this evolutionary jump isn't so far away for the normal Deathclaws, even. Considering that, it's entirely possible that a few egg clutches somewhere could be hatching some very intelligent Deathclaw. And given the chance to listen to some spoken language, they too might try to mimic it.

Now here's an entertaining point. This was brought up when talking about ZombieUK's Luther mod on the Nexus. There's a large family of Deathclaw at Quarry Junction, with clutches of eggs present. There's also work equipment, and as ZombieUK pointed out, there would very likely be holotape audio logs of the workers. Now let's say that one of these inquisitive, oddly intelligent Deathclaws managed to figure out how to activate such a tape? There you go, you have a source of language. Then let's say that one of these Deathclaws was encountered by a human who was perhaps just open-minded enough to not blow the head off something that didn't look like it was about to attack him, then let's say that on hearing the human talk, the Deathclaw attempted to mimic him. That's where things get interesting. C:

And that's ZombieUK's take. There are just so many avenues of possibility with this. It seems almost criminal not to tap the potential of such a race, too. Imagine all the alien possibilities, small to large, of a culture based upon chameleons. You could have lots of fun by taking the base norms of chameleons, and then elevating that into a sapient society. It would screw with the minds of people, sure, but that's great! Minds exist to be screwed with!

@shdowhuntt60

I think you're misappropriating the use of canon here; because if we're talking about canon, then the only sources of canonical information (by the definition of canon) are the games. Unreleased games, and texts surrounding them, are not considered canonical information.

When you buy a DVD and it has out-takes on it, the out-takes are interesting but they're not considered as part of the continuity of the show they were taken out of. They're something that runs parallel to it, but they're not canon. By the same merit, any source of information that does not come directly from the game is not canon. Sources like Van Buren, the Fallout Bible, and others external to the games aren't canon.

Now then, canon Fallout lore tells us only that Goris and Xarn survived. With that being the case, I suspect that they'd feel somewhat lamentful of their entire race having disappeared into the nether. But life is adaptive, resilient, and usually brilliant, life could find a way. The creator of the talking Deathclaws and of much of the content that surrounded them mentioned that they could pass on their intelligence gene via mating, what with it being a male dominant thing. This is non-canon too, yes, but it's a possibility. Another possibility would be for them to retrieve some of the FEV that created them, I don't believe that the lore protests against this still existing. And even if not, then another storyline could evolve where Goris' and/or Xarn's DNA is mixed with an FEV batch to create the same effect.

In other words, all that matters is that canon says that Goris and Xarn survived. And I know, from a story standpoint and as a writer, that if I were the last of my kind and I had a way to create more of my people, then I'd do it. I'd do it no matter what the cost, I wouldn't just go quietly into the night. I don't think they would, either. And with the right tools and the right help, then it would be pretty easy to bring the talking Deathclaws back to the Fallout Universe, as a peoples, even.

Again, the only canon source tells us that Goris and Xarn survived, and that's really all we need to be able to do something like this. Hopefully that will clear this up so that it won't come up again. Or at the very least, if it does come up again then I can just point out/copy & paste this post instead of having to retype the bally thing.

@LordSimpson

Also a very interesting idea!

Damn, there is some creativity flowing in this thread, and I'm loving it.

@-Pariah-

I actually had to read your post a couple of times to see if I understood what you meant. And I have to say that you're absolutely magnificent. At first, I thought you were simply talking about people having forgotten about the talking Deathclaws in Fallout 2, but then it dawned on me what you were really saying.

That's a great point. Thinking back to ZombieUK's take for a moment, what if the single-generation mutation had already happened somewhere? Then it would be a matter of Goris/Xarn having found them, and educated them. ...and there's your basis for a civilisation right there. Amazing.

Therefore, it wouldn't be untoward to actually find wandering chatty Deathclaw, seeking to find those who'd also undergone this evolutionary jump so that they might educate them. I now really want to do a Wild Wasteland encounter like this, or maybe I should just bug Nekh to because he already knows how to do this (and very well). >_> That would make for a really entertaining encounter, though, just a group of learned scholar Deathclaws out to find and teach their own.

@ThePwNinator

Hmmm... an unhatched clutch of talking Deathclaw? Fascinating!

What's interesting about New Vegas is that we already have the Remnants in place, and they were from Navarro. Now, there's also Doc Henry, and that's interesting, since he might have somehow been involved with the project on some level. He might have snatched a clutch himself, originally telling himself it was for research purposes, but later admitting to himself that it was because he felt that what the Enclave were doing was very wrong.

He could've kept them in a form of stasis, on ice as it were, every once in a while trying to figure out why they wouldn't hatch. And perhaps the answer is simple: they didn't feel comfortable hatching around their own kind. If another Deathclaw was present, talking or not, then they might finally break out of their shells.

Another good and valid idea! C:

@Iradiated BOXES

Same here. And there are so many good ideas! We could even roll a number of these ideas into one, all playing a part in a larger whole, uncovering the mysteries of the Deathclaw. I'd be really pleased to see something come of this too, because when I think of a race of giant, chameleon-based, sapient, and not essentially violent doombeasts, I can see so many potential storylines coming from that. There's just so much you could do with that.

And that's everything replied to! 8D

*Dusk falls over.*

The beauty of the whole thing is if you think it isn't possible or don't like or disagree with the idea of talking deathclaws, just don't use the mod. Besides the deathclaw I enslaved using the Wastland Whisperer mod in FO3 and kept as a pet could almost speak by the end of the game.

If you want,I can do this some point after christmas,when I get my copy of new vegas PC? :intergalactic:

Edited to say something productive:

If you wanted to stay true to canon, you could link in the Enclave remnants in the game, and their http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Remnant%27s_Bunker, which could have a facility or remaining specimens of the Fallout 2 talking deathclaws. I think it would be a cool addition to the game.

Interesting idea, could sort of like have a fallout version of http://tes.multimediaxis.de/?go=dlfile&fileid=349 feel...in the sense of it being a race of misunderstood, unfortunate http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/human* creatures that just want to make a home for themselves, and try to change the negative public opinion of them. It could even borrow some of the basic themes like helping people with non-violent tasks, educating some of the more feral/stupid deathclaws, resolving internal disputes, forming new services, resolving public relations issues (like maybe there are deathclaw poachers that make money off of their skin, claws, meat, etc. and you have to find away to resolve this without making the deathclaws look like rabid beasts that slaughter whoever bothers them.)


* first, third, and fourth definitions

@robber804

Quite so. It's really impossible to make a case against the talking deathclaw though because there are so many avenues of possibility. And if you don't like that the possibility for bringing them back exists, then as you said, it's just a matter of ignoring the mod.

Besides, there could be a number of versions of the Fallout reality, each with their own history. A thought that amuses me greatly is mod continuity. What we could do is consider--as the modding community--that killap's amamzing Restoration Project is the correct continuity for us, and that mods could continue that line of history.

The nifty thing in killap's RP, as rightly pointed out by Nekh, is that you can save the deathclaws and the pack migrates North. New Vegas is set some time after that, so by this point they could've established a society, and now they're looking to spread out. They're seeking places that have high deathclaw concentrations to distribute the FEV at. And quite interestingly - the Mojave has a very, VERY high concentration of Deathclaws. It's quite unusual, it would be the perfect lure for a few Acolytes of thew New strain.

@ThePwNinator

That would be amazing! I really wish I could help more. I might be able to though, I think I could tempt a friend of mine to put together some art and preview models. Perhaps. I'll have to tug his ear and see what he thinks.

@Phoenix

Interesting idea! Though rather than re-educating the feral deathclaws, they could simply introduce them to the FEV that created the original strain. See, a fun side-effect of the FEV (and one that the Enclave didn't want) is that it made the deathclaws ethical, to a surprising degree. This was so true that despite having been tortured and tormented by the Enclave, they harboured no malice toward humanity in general, and even merrily allowed humans to live with them in their vault.

So it could be a matter of appealing to the good nature of people, and imploring them to--rather than driving the deathclaws of that region to extinction--help them setup FEV distribution networks. For if the deathclaws are exposed, then eventually they'll become like the original strain. And by that, whilst they might not all be smart (some of them will be still be quite unintelligent and instinctive), they'll all be empathic and ethical to a noteworthy degree.

I mostly meant educating on a personal level. For instance some of the deathclaws in vault 13 were admittedly pretty stupid, and were trying to learn more. Also one ofthe main distinctions between man and animal is free thought and individuality, so not all deathclaws might believe that they should be bending over backwards to please humans, maybe some want to learn how to use guns and then "conquer the world!", "show that deathclaws are the superior being on the evolutionary chart!", and you'd have to deal with those intelligent deathclaw(s) with such choices as: convince them to change their mind, kill them, imprison them, disgrace them to the point that no other deathclaw will support their ideas, etc.


It probably wouldn't be good on a political scale to try and spread the technology that made them intelligent to other deathclaws. For one thing the technology could be dangerous in the wrong hands. Case in point: look at the Enclave's plans in fallout 2 and 3... mass genocide through technological means... you definitely don't want to make Enclave weapon technology(which is what deathclaws and the subsequent intelligent deathclaws originally were) readily available to just anyone.

Secondly, the humans might be wary but give the deathclaws a chance if it's just a small group, but if they try to expand and make more of them... especially through unnatural means... they might see them as a major threat and wipe them out. Think of it this way: The 20 deathclaws that said they wanted to help you and prove their worth to you as legitimate NCR citizens suddenly becomes 250 deathclaws.
Also theres the matter of personality. The enclave deathclaws were treated like slaves, and forced to do horrible things. They determined that the scientists/soldiers that made them do these things and tortured them must be wrong... that is why they became peaceful. Wild deathclaws would likely become raiders or barbarians if they became sentient over night; so it'd probably be best to just leave the wild deathclaws as they are. Maybe have a quest where you're told to wipe out a group of them so they stop massacring people and making deathclaws look "evil." (think of it this way, most ghouls hate feral ghouls, or have no opinion of them. Some pity them, and some support them, but most are just happy that they aren't like that... same can go for deathclaws)

The thing is is that it doesn't work like that. I don't know how much you know about psychology, but a person would have to be ethical to begin with to a large degree to understand that those who tortured them were wrong. If that hadn't been the case, then you'd have deathclaws talking about humans as a plague that needed to be wiped off the face of the Earth, to make for a better planet for deathclaw-kind.

Of course, you didn't have a single deathclaw talking about such. Not one. This speaks volumes of what their minds are like. It seems like an unintended side effect of the FEV did make them ethical creatures, and you don't have to have a high IQ to have a sense of ethics. In fact, even the 'stupid' deathclaws seemed to have a sense of ethics that went beyond the moralistic black & white that we usually use.

What I'm getting at here is that this is evidence that the FEV actually made them ethical. The thing is is that the FEV has its own personality, that's the whole idea behind the thing. It does certain things to every kind of creature it encounters. It turns humans into sterile giants. And apparently it gives deathclaws the ability to speak and makes them ethically inclined.

Again, if this wasn't the case then you would've had at least one deathclaw that would've wanted vengeance against the humans due to what had happened to them. The atrocities committed against them would make for creating great racists if they were capable of thinking like that. In humanity, we have lots of examples of this. Such as black supremacy being an answer to white supremacy.

However, none of the deathclaws thought of all humans as evil, they were able to distinguish that only the Enclave had done unethical things to them, and that's why they didn't like them much. Yet despite all that had happened to them, they openly welcomed humans into their home, providing them with shelter and protection. And in all that time not one of the deathclaws thought that they should kill these humans in order to 'pay back' humanity for what it had done to them.

So it's also entirely possible that the deathclaws aren't prone to human psychoses, either. That would explain their more ethical leanings. And furthermore, in a cut ending, if you do save the deathclaws, their ending is that the pack expands peacefully North. They're very different from humans in how they work, in fact, they generally seem to be more inclined toward pacifism, only entering into combat when they feel it's necessary.

What I'm getting at here is that we've got a large case sample of deathclaws. They've been living--and breeding--in Vault 13 for years, and they've been living alongside humans. There was no anger to them, no hatred, and no indication that they would ever really want to let themselves fall to such emotions. So if one exposed other deathclaw to the FEV, then it would likely create a similar kind of deathclaw; a deathclaw that's inclined toward ethics, and not one that would just kill or harm for the fun of it.

The whole notion behind the talking deathclaws is that they're a stark contrast to their wild counterparts, that's what makes them so interesting. You might need a prison for a wild deathclaw, but a talking deathclaw wouldn't wittingly cause suffering.

So if we accept this as the way that talking deathclaws are, it doesn't actually make them good weapons. This is what the Enclave realised if you think about it. In Fallout 3, they used mind control devices on feral deathclaws, as opposed to making deathclaws intelligent enough to be able to be conditioned. Attempts to condition the talking deathclaws failed, which is why they wanted to kill them. You see, if you think about it, this is why the Enclave saw the deathclaws as a threat, since these deathclaws could be convinced to turn on the Enclave from an ethical standpoint.

This is why the FEV infused deathclaws would be useless to be used as a weapon, because you'd get the same result. Science tells us that if you run a test 100 times, running it one more time is unlikely to get a different result. So the same would apply to the deathclaws and FEV exposure. They would very likely end up ethical, and refuse ideas that would result in suffering, domination, or anything that could impact negatively upon any given person's quality of life.

As for dealing with the factions: Caesar's Legion might have a problem with it, but the NCR wouldn't. Especially if you tell the NCR that these guys are foes of the Enclave. It's a common ground. The enemy of my enemy is my friend is a very militaristic way of thinking. The NCR could be convinced to help out with keeping people out of the test areas if they realise that these deathclaws might be able to help them in some way with dealing with Caesar's Legion. A player with high speech accompanied by these ethical deathclaws could probably convince the correct key people within the NCR.

Of course, if you can't pass the right speech/barter checks, then the quest ends right there. But I think that with all the evidence present, the NCR could be convinced, since the NCR really, really don't like the Enclave, as I'd imagine you'd remember from Fallout 2. This is further evidenced in New Vegas, where they try to hunt down Gannon to hold him and his people accountable for the past crimes of the Enclave.

To wrap up: None of this means that you can't create your own mod which has the kind of deathclaws you'd like! As I already said, there could be countless sorts of timelines which could show the deathclaws in varying kinds of light. And you could petition modders to do that. All I want really is a mod that continues from where killap's Restoration Project left off, and that ending in Fallout 2 really does portray the deathclaws as ethical creatures, just as I've spent this post explaining.

What you have to remember is that deathclaws aren't human, and truly, their thought processes could be quite foreign to us, quite alien, we could use the deathclaws to explore opinions and ways of thinking which are strange to us, and would be out of character for a human unless that human was clinically insane. There are certain ways of being that wouldn't be acceptable for humans - for example, it's more believable to have humans operate under moral shades of grey, because that's par the course for us. But you could do anything you wanted with a deathclaw.

I personally think it would be fun to show them as admirable, even noble, creatures. The reason for this is that it's a good counter to binary thinking. That's why they were ethical in Fallout 2, you know? It was a sequence breaker. Normally, people see a feral doombeast and they expect that, they don't expect peaceful, ethical scholars. That would throw anyone for a loop and make them re-evaluate what they see. Sure, we could make the beasts more beastly, but everyone and their mother has done that, so it's a bit boring by this point.

I want something that would really make people challenge how they view things. And talking deathclaws could do that, just as they did in Fallout 2. This was the very reason that talking deathclaws were like they are in Fallout 2. And changing that about them is--just in my opinion--entirely missing the point of why the talking deathclaws were there in the first place: to illustrate the horror and the atrocities of the Enclave. Since only a bunch of seriously effed up in the head people would want to euthanise a race of ethical, peaceful, harmless people. And yes, there are quite purposeful parallels to reality, there.

(Fixed a few typos, mostly double-letters, these old hands of my are prone to sticking on a key for too long. I should learn to proofread before I hit submit. Which I might do, one of these days.)

Edit #1: As a fun sidequest, you could have the Legion steal a sample of the FEV and test it on their own people. What you could then find is a bunch of dead Legion and super mutants riddled with bullet holes, and notes explaining that the FEV isn't something that they want to play around with because it's too dangerous, unpredictable, and uncontrollable. And the Legion want weapons that can be easily controlled. So their experiments with captured FEV were an abysmal failure. And even if they deployed this weapon against the NCR, creating that many super mutants would give them a bigger problem than the NCR to deal with. So they've figured it's best to leave well enough alone.

Edit #2: In fact, I have yet another angle: Weren't the first generation super mutants ethical? Isn't that why The Master considered them failures and started screwing around with the FEV in the first place? The reason I say this is because the first generation super mutants we've encountered (like Marcus) actually seem to be quite ethical. This could be a recurring theme with the FEV, that unaltered FEV considers ethics as important to evolution.

So if the Legion did capture and try tinkering around with the FEV, the super mutants they created could've lost their will to fight and left to find their own way in the world. It'd be pretty funny to have an irate Legion scientist ranting about how useless a biological weapon is if it just creates a bunch of ethical super beings, which would give them an even bigger problem to deal with than the NCR.

The old nature vs nurture thing is basically what this comes down to. I say nurture, you say nature.

I'm not sure if there's enough canon facts to prove either of us wrong, but I'll continue the discussion just for fun, and to keep the topic bumped.

The Nature of deathclaws. According to the http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Deathclaw they're genetically altered http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jackson%27s_Chameleon
Interesting quote:
So I guess they are kind of nice by nature, another interesting thing is that they give birth to live offspring yet in Fallout deathclaws have eggs.

http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Joseph_(Fallout_2) seems to agree with you


It's likely a mix of both. A predetermined pack mind set mixed with the fact that Gruthar was very benevolent, nurturing and kept them isolated for a time. Also given the fact he was the sole breeder that means that all young deathclaws would be raised by him and the mother deathclaw furthering their moral fabric. It's like if you were raised by two good parents and didn't have any media or outside world to corrupt you, of course you'd be peaceful and nice like your parents.

Even with a predisposition towards honor, and loyalty I doubt wild deathclaws would just go: "you make we not dumb, we join you pack." after being subjected to the FEV.. truth is you couldn't really assume what would happen, it's impossible to predict and probably wouldn't be worth the risk in my opinion.

Also the part about politics still stands. No matter how many scientific facts you present that show deathclaws are moral politics is the kind of stupidity that responds more to a child crying about how a deathclaw killed her father last week.

As for super mutants the master would probably be pretty happy if the mutants he created were moral and ethical seeing as how he was trying to create a perfect society of superior beings where there was no need for war, but I suppose violent idiots would make better foot soldiers to capture people and convert them to your society, or kill those who oppose. Regardless if the FEV were some kind of miracle potion that brainwashed people into becoming decent human beings with the slight side effect of becoming ugly hulking green mass... it probably would have come up somewhere in the game.

As for why I support the nurture explanation above nature, well.... I like weird things, uniqueness, etc. and I hate cliches/stereotypes. To me the thought of someone/something defying their surroundings, nature, society, peer pressure, etc. to truly walk their own path, bean individual and seek self improvement; and have to prove themselves to the idiots that think they're just like the rest--- I... just find that more interesting than it simply being that they were "born that way", or some magical mutagen altered their brain chemistry and just happened invoke reason, logic, and ethics instead of the more likely psychopathy.

Blargh, double-post. ...which happened as I was editing typos. That's fun. Please don't let this turn into a triple-post...

I do not want a triple-post, gamesas forums!

I think we'll have to agree to disagree, here.

The problem we're having is that you're incapable of accepting that there could exist creatures out there which are functionally different than humans. You have an innate need for everyone to be human so that it can be familiar, and so that you can relate to it. And that's fine! It really is. But that's not what I'm after. I liked the deathclaws because they were a paradigm shift, they were something alien.

They were special because they didn't conform to one's expectations of life. And that's why they bother you, because you need them to be flawed in the same way that any human is, you also need them to be perfect in the same way that any human is. Except that's a very two-dimensional way of thinking. Deathclaws are their own entity, their own species, they have an entirely different physiology and neurological make-up to us. So it's entirely more realistic and believable to say that a mutagenic serum actually took something alien and made it intelligent, but still alien, rather than having made it intelligent and ultimately human. Which is what you're asking for.

The problem with what you're asking for is the uncanny valley. Where you take a human and put them inside an alien suit but keep them human, it spurs feelings of revulsion because they come across like mutated humans, rather than their own people. This is why the best fictional writers actually create their own culture and ways of life for their fictional beings. And that's what was done for the deathclaws. Being ethical is simply a way of life for the deathclaws. Yes, they were born that way. And yes, if you're a decent writer then you can do some very interesting things with that. Certainly more so than just making everything human but in a different skin.

You find things more intrinsically fascinating if you can relate to them in a human way. And I find things more interesting if they're genuinely inhuman and have a refreshingly new and alien outlook on things, an outlook which couldn't be considered human. As I'd already mentioned. We can continue going around in circles, but this is what it boils down to. I've had this discussion with others before, and I tend to recognise it when I see it. Some people want familiarity (just humanity) in a new skin. And if you read your post, despite making claims of uniqueness, that's exactly what you want. Everything you've described is simply making the deathclaws human, not alien, like they're supposed to be.

The reason the deathclaws were so appealing in Fallout, and the reason any half decently written non-human race is compelling, is because it doesn't have to conform to human standards. But what you're saying in your post is basically this: "It's not okay that they don't conform to human standards. It's not okay because we shouldn't be allowed to use that they're not human in the first place, or that they were altered by a mutagenic virus, or that they were originally irradiated animals, changed by a form of radiation that couldn't even exist according to the physics of our Universe." You're saying that you want them to conform. And you're saying that it bothers you that they don't conform. This is contrary to uniqueness on every possible level.

Furthermore, just to throw this in here, I'm not sure how recently you've played the original Fallout but The Master (which is hinted at by the name) generally only held up a pretense that he was beneficent and benevolent in any conceivable way. (In fact, one could honestly say that The Master was no more benevolent than Ernst Stavro Blofeld. Another villain that liked to pretend to be acting toward the greater good.) His perfect world was one of total control, with him on top of it. He actually considered the first strain of super mutants to be imperfect because they were too intelligent, they questioned him, and they wouldn't obey orders. They were actually ethical, and every first generation super mutant you'll meet in Fallout 1, Fallout 2 and Fallout: New Vegas supports this. The second generation super mutants were far less intelligent and more aggressive, and they were considered The Master's 'favourites'. This is backed up by New Vegas, in which Tabitha dwells on having lost The Master, and how the second generation of super mutants were always his favourite. She misses him and such.

So in all likelihood: The version of the FEV that the Master used for the first generation, the version that the Enclave used for the deathclaws, tends to imbue a sense of ethics as an evolutionary trait. And that would make a lot of sense if you think about it. As a culture, we're already heading towards that ourselves, it's something we aspire to but barely ever meet. So that the end path of our evolution leaves us much more ethical people than we are today is sensible. And that might be true for a lot of life forms. The FEV has its own sort of personality, and even 'mind', it could've looked at life as it is, figured this out, and then chosen to imbue a sense of ethics in all that it infected. This is something that The Master took away when he started tinkering with the FEV for the second generation of super mutants.

As for politics: It doesn't stand. You're being a limited thinker about this, I'm sorry. You're acting as though everyone is human in today's world. It's an impossible Universe, one that's thrown the laws of physics and the nature of humanity out of the window. Do you honestly think that if there was a post-apocalypse, you'd have this many people being chummy and working together for the greater good? Do you honestly think that something like the NCR could spring up so very soon after the bombs dropped? The thing is is that even the humans are different, they seem to lean more toward reason and less prone to political stupidity. They're not immune to it, mind you, just less prone. So it's entirely possible that with the right words and/or caps in the hands of the right people, you could convince them that the deathclaws could be a force of good in the Mojave. Again, this comes down to understanding Fallout.

What's worse is that your argument about the FEV is a straw-man. I never said that they would immediately 'join someone's pack', not anywhere did I say that. What I did try to explain to you was that they'd be predisposed to reason and ethics, which is something that the FEV does. Therefore, after exposing the feral deathclaws, you'd just go and start talking with them. The thing is, in Vault 13, humans discovered deathclaws and through their interactions with them, the deathclaws learned English. As I've already pointed out, if I was wrong about FEV infected creatures, then at least one deathclaw would've seen the humans as 'The Enemy', and slaughtered them outright. Did that happen? No. The humans were invited openly into their home. Again, you're just saying that you can't stand the FEV creating a creature that isn't human.

But the point of the FEV isn't to create humans. The point of the FEV is to create ideal life forms. It doesn't always succeed, but the original FEV gets damn close. It makes some mistakes though: Such as making humans sterile, but it also gets a lot of things right. The interesting thing is that the FEV actually works better with the deathclaws than it does with humans, because it doesn't even leave the deathclaws sterile. This means that the deathclaws are likely physiologically closer to the end result that the FEV desires than humans are. A point you're missing here I think is that the FEV is an intelligent virus.

And finally. To make the point once more: There were other original deathclaws other than Grunthar, you've played Fallout 2, so you should know that. Is that a red herring? I just can't tell. The thing is, you should know that other deathclaws escaped from the Enclave, but you make it sound like only Grunthar escaped. It was actually a large group. Now consider that if you were right and they weren't all naturally benevolent as configured by the FEV, then one of them would've seen the humans as 'The Enemy' and slaughtered them. Q.E.D. Other dathclaws escaped from the Enclave, all as one pack, and yet none of them saw the need to slaughter the humans. Given that all the first generation super mutants we've seen and all the deathclaws we've seen are ethical, it's strong evidence toward my point that the FEV, being an intelligent virus, tries to create ethical life.

But you see, this is where we'll have to agree to disagree. You want humans dressed up in deathclaw suits. For me, that's a bit... I don't know, uncanny valley, furry, it's not unique at all, we've all done it. It's boring. What I want are the deathclaws as they were in Fallout 2. Those creatures were genuinely unique because they were so alien to us. Yes, they were better people, but sometimes we just have to set aside our apparently massive and bruised egos (bruised by a work of fiction, no less) and admit that there might be forms of life out there which can be born into things that we have to work for. Yes, we have to work for them, but the entire notion of something being alien is that the alien form of life might not. Hence alien. And they might have to work for things we take for granted: Such as the lack of opposable thumbs. They wouldn't use tools all that well, would they?

I just hope you realise that you're really not calling for uniqueness or innovation here at all, like you claim you are. You're just asking for humans in suits. If you want innovation, then you create really alien things. And to create something alien, you have to try and make it different than whatever we're familiar with. I've already illustrated how we can do that, and I think that the deathclaws would be much more interesting for it. We could even make them perhaps a touch too naive and gullible, which would be fun to work with from a narrative standpoint.

I'm a svcker for really alien forms of life. For something different. For something that I'm not completely familiar with. That's why I want the deathclaws back, to have a genuinely alien influence as a faction within the game, providing us with thoughts and views on things that wouldn't occur to most humans simply because we're a different species, and our brains just don't work the same. What you want is humans in deathclaw suits. Now, you can ask modders to create humans in deathclaw suits if you like. But me? I'm a svcker for the Fallout 2 deathclaws, because at least they were a little bit different, yeah?

Yeah, I guess it's just hard for me to imagine interesting strict, rigid, one dimensional characters. The thing that makes the main New Vegas factions interesting is that you can find good and bad elements and philosophy in all of them, but something without such flaws, conflicts, contradictions is just.... there. I was thinking of some funny "evil quest" ideas for it though:

Someone who opposes the deathclaws for whatever reason(maybe he wants to build a casino where their cave is or something stupid like that) wants you to go in and destabilize them and cause a internal feud so they kill each other. So you spend like 3 hours in there talking to grunts trying to make them resent the alpha male, trying to frame people in high positions, spreading rumors, sabotage, creating drama, all of that human crap, and the whole time they don't fall for any of it. Eventually it would end in failure if when your character either:
1: trying to do something really big to destabilize them and get caught(they attack you)
2: Tell the guy who hired you that you quit and it won't work.
3: Just become overwhelmed by it all and go into a crazy rant exposing everything you've done to try and destabilize them. (At which point the deathclaws either imprison you like they did with Max, or politely ask you to leave banning you from ever coming back with a apologizing "We're sorry it's just the way we are, please leave you've lost the trust of the pack." at which point the player could say something like: "See! was that so hard?" and walks off thinking they succeeded by destabilizing the pack into not trusting him and him alone.

I'm sure after some people started to discover how they think differently they'd probably try to find some way to exploit that too... like their trusting/ethical nature. (ie: NCR try to convince the deathclaws that a nearby legion base is planning to attack them.)



Been at least 2 years since I've played Fallout 2 and about 5 since fallout 1. Part of the stuff with super mutants/The Master I got off the wiki. The Master didn't seem too unwilling to accept that he was wrong, after all you could convince him to blow up the chapel, and all.... I guess that's more about survival though. Like the http://liberta.co.za/images/blog/maslows_hierarchy_of_needs.png survival/physiological making up the base of it. I guess the main thing is I assumed that all creatures had to abide by those needs in a strict sense, when I suppose it is possible that in some minds parts of the 'triangle' could be heavily altered or missing all together... I was mostly thinking of ego, but I suppose it's possible for deathclaws to have a much smaller and more submissive ego by nature... I'm pretty sure they do have an ego though because I recall one of the Death Claws in vault 13 talking about how he was proud to be a guard.... Maybe ego is the wrong word, maybe I'm thinking more about jealousy.


As for politics you do have a point, the humans are in some ways rather different than real world modern day humans. Like I was recently trying to remember if there was any racism in any of the Fallouts. Sure there's stuff like: "tribal", "vault dweller", etc. but that has more of an upbringing, and sociological connotation, not really the color of their skin. You see a lot of racist propaganda against the "reds" from before the war, but it seems like after the bombs fell stuff like that really didn't matter anymore to most people.

EDIT: On the subject of there being more escaped intelligent Deathclaws than just Gurthar, that doesn't really change much. In a "pack" setting the pack leader is usually chosen because they're the biggest, strongest, and smartest; the one that can look out for the pack, and lead most effectively. Considering that a lot of the other deathclaws had the intelligence of an 8 year old still, it isn't inconceivable say that perhaps they are swayed by the general consensus of the tribe which is set forth by the pack leader.

tell me what u want and i will do it now(got me new vegas)