Some facts for you.
1) Ghouls have no known age limit. Several Ghouls alive today are among the first that came to be.
2) Some ghouls are still intelligent.
3) Ghouls seem to be fully capable in all important areas of function.
4) People have pursued dumber goals.
5) They're ugly. But let's face it, after 200 years, humans get far uglier.
6) They're healed by radiation.
7) You can save money on haircuts.

But between Fallout 3 and New Vegas (I don't recall any in Fallout 1, but my memory is fuzzy on that game) there's only one cult of people trying to be ghouls. And they can be talked out of it. Talked out of immortality. The only way you could talk me out of pursuing immortality is at the barrel of a gun.

Gimme some of that ghoulification.

Probably hard to reach that radioactive 'sweet spot' between living, ghoul, and feral.
Seeing as there are many more ferals than sane ghouls.

That's where we apply SCIENCE!

Post-Apocalyptic science?
There are probably many more http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Fantastic in the Fallout world than actual legitimate scientists.
I think I rather take my chances living as an ugly ol' human.

if i recall,(and i think it was a conversation with someone in gecko, or maybe necropilis)

only some people become ghouls when exposed to radiation over a long period of time, and most still feral. most just die.

Right, the Lone Wanderer's daddy and all those poor Enclave fools didn't ghoulify when exposed to the Project Purity reactor radiation.
They just croaked.

You want real ghoulification in New Vegas?
Again, they'd have to create like 30% more dialogue and get every voice actor back into the studio.
It's a bit too big for a DLC or patch.

I can somewhat see where you might think that's what I was saying. But no.

Personally I couldn't live forever if I couldn't have 'reproductive pleasures.' (idk if we were allowed to say the simple three letter word)

They can. Talk to the cowgirl at the Followers of the Apocalypse fort.

I meant male basis, anybody can stick their junks in any hole. lol I don't think male ghouls have working reproductive organs.

If female ghouls are capable of pleasure, no reason to assume the males are not also.

I suppose we don't count what can happen to Moira in FO3 as correct ghoul lore?

I thought you meant you would want to be Ghoulified because of the list you gave, but by the way you described Fallout 1, maybe you meant their should be more cults like them on FoNV. But then you make the statement "The only way you could talk me out of pursuing immortality is at the barrel of a gun." So I thought, yea Tale meant personally....So I stated in my opinion, personally I couldn't have immortality if I couldn't have reproductive pleasures. As a male, I couldn't. That and having an ugly face like that!! I rather die pretty. lol

Not at first..


But, Maybe it just takes a few years to get the juice's flowin'.. (If you get this, I salute you.)

EDIT: Also theres a gal named Trash and she died trying to turn ghoul.

Funny if you find her body..

But that's the thing, as a male, you could.


I'm saying that it's surprising to not find people actively seeking this out in game. If you ask a ghoul how they became a ghoul, it's always "well, when the bombs started dropping." It's never "I joined this really cool group of people, one day they made us all drink some glowing kool-aid for immortality. I was the only survivor."

Or to find a group of raiders kidnapping people and subjecting them to radiation to try to figure out how to become ghouls themselves. Or other stories about people running into radioactive areas to try for it.

Well, since we're on the subject... Ghouls can get busy. Remember Harland in the basemant of the REPCONN facility? Most of the reason he hung around was because of his ghoulfriend. They just (probably) can't reproduce. A lot of radiation tends to sterling people.

As far as why more people don't try to become ghouls.. I don't think anyone knows how. Some people when exposed to radiation over a long time turn into ghouls. But most just kick the bucket. It's probably something in the ghoul's genes that allows them to stand more rads than an average person until they change. And I think you are underestimating vanity. Sure, people want to live forever... eternally young. Though in a post apocalyptic waste, I'm not sure many people would want to live forever through that. Especially in a form that most people cant' stand.

And then there is the feral problem. Even if your brain doesn't rot out right away and turn you into an unthinking monster, there's a moderate to fair chance of 'going feral' later on in life. So trading possible immortality, or at least a very long life, for a slim chance of success, turning into what most people consider an ugly monster, the possibility of becoming an ACTUAL monster and the bigotry of your fellow man that drives most ghouls into small communities or the wild. Or else become 'freak attractions' at places like Gommorah.

Personally, I don't think as many people as you believe would be eager to jump on the ghoul bandwagon. Which is kind of a shame, because on the average, I find the company of non-feral ghouls in the game to be often better than that of humans. At least they're honest and upfront about things. They pretty much have to be, just to survive. With humans, you can never be sure if they're being true or not.

You really think it would be functional?? like the skin wouldn't rip if you had the intercourse? Even for the women? lol Idk what pleasures men get out of things getting put in their hole(s), but I guess you're right if you meant it like that. I couldn't be water buffalo now as as Smooth Skin and I'm sure I wouldn't want to be one as a ghoul. :hehe:

For all the upsides there are a few major downsides:

There's no way of knowing if you'll go feral or not, or jsut die. I doubt there's a controlled process or a "sweet spot" that could be figured out, because it all depends on you, your brain, your body and how it absorbs/handles radiation, perhaps your genetics, maybe even what you've eaten growing up (what isotopes are in your bones/body and how much of what elements that could become radioisotopes). Some people have been ghouled by exposure to irradiated areas, others rode out the war itself when the rads were in the millions, for every intelligent ghoul we see there are a hundred or more ferals.

Secondly, ghouls are ostracized. Though it's getting somewhat better in New Vegas era as evidenced by ghoul entertainers and NPCs unharassed in otherwise human settlements like Freeside and New Vegas Strip, that might just be because vegas is more metropolitan than most areas of the wasteland. Certainly in prior eras most humans would soon shoot at them as look at them, and even in the modern DC ruins they're not accepted in most human towns.

third, being a ghoul can be unpleasant. I'd imagine it's somewhere between being dead and having severe untreated leprosy.

But most ghouls are depressed that they are even ghouls. Friends died throughout time, they see the rise and fall of humanity so many times, lived through the segregation of being a ghoul and being slaves to the smoothskins and having to fight all the time to just feel relief. I don't think they can become ghouls by forcing low amounts of radiation to themselves. I'm sure it has to be an ungodly massive bath of radiation all at one time. lol idk. I get what you're saying about the raider trying to make ghouls, that would be cool. Maybe have like an Hitler character persona in an DLC. That would be cool.

Marcus. On the topic of sterile Super Mutants.

I forgot about her. So New Vegas does have it!

Broken Steel had it, too. Which was actually the inspiration.

Ghouls [and supermutants] are sterile. In 'Van Buren' there was to be a lab experiment for born ghouls...
Ghoul attempts were said to have had a 2% success rate; None of that happened in any published Fallout game.

I salute you. :mohawk:

One a side note...