Fallout/Headscratchers

Stealth Boys

• Why is it that the player characters can use as many stealth boys as they want without becoming a paranoid, schizophrenic wreck?
  • The PC uses them for twenty minutes at a time while the nightkin used them constantly for over a hundred and twenty years. It is distinctly possible that you simply haven't been using them long enough to make a difference. It's also possible that humans aren't susceptible to the mind-altering effects of stealth boys. Given that no human has worn them as long as any nightkin it's impossible to say either way.
  • Realistically, you can't get that many of them. Even if you used all of them (excluding FO3), you aren't using them anywhere near the 24/7 usage Nightkins used.
    • Fallout 1 has five.
    • Fallout 2 has none.
    • Fallout New Vegas has about twenty (ignoring farming a randomly appearing NPC in one of the safe houses).
    • Fallout 3 has tons since every random container and some enemy drops could have them, plus you had infinite through Stealth armor.
      • Maybe human brains and nightkins' aren't the same, they get affected differently?
        • judging from what the doctor in Jacobstown said, you're probably right.
          • Yes. Dr. Henry (who is in both Fallout 2, working for the Enclave, and then in Jacobstown in New Vegas) says as much. Stealth Boy side effects are more pronounced in Nightkin than humans.

Lack of protective eyewear

• One thing has been stalking me for a while: Why the hell the Vault Dweller wasn't given the Protective Eyewear when he had left the vault?
  • Or did he? There is no way to tell if he actually wear something. Maybe it's just an unsellable souvenir like his pajamas.
  • I think they just lost them. Vault 13 and Vault 8 had mixed up deliveries, maybe the goggles were delivered somewhere else?
  • Hey, the Lone Wanderer also didn't have a pair.
    • The Lone Wanderer didn't exactly leave the Vault in an orderly and proper manner.

Improbable Ammo

A revolver using .32 caliber ammo not even scratching your targets, that's fine. The same bullet in a hunting rifle taking off limbs with ease = what?

• • That's not too surprising; the power of a given unit of ammunition is based not just on how much gunpowder and lead is involved, but how much powder can burn before the bullet leaves the barrel. .223 is physically similar to several military rounds and is a good if borderline deer hunting round in a long rifle, while it's drastically less impressive in a shorter handgun barrel. You can typically see a doubling or even tripling of velocity going from a short revolver to a long rifle. This doesn't excuse the horrible game design choice, but that's a different issue.
  • This one is Truth in Television: in the Old West, the two most popular weapons were the Colt Peacemaker Single Action Army revolver and the Winchester 1873 Repeater. Why? Because BOTH USED THE SAME AMMO. The revolver allowed for faster drawing and shooting, but the rifle, with its longer barrel, allowed for more precise shooting and harder impact because of its rifling. Rifling is to cut spiraling grooves into the inside of a barrel (hence the term itself, rifle). These grooves cause the bullet to spin as it leaves the barrel, making the bullet more aerodynamic by gyroscopic motion. This results in a faster, more accurate, harder-hitting projectile.
    • Rifling has nothing to do with making a projectile hit harder, it just spins the bullet so it remains more stable the flight path, just like spiraling a football. Also, most pistols have rifled barrels as well, at least most modern ones.
    • That would mean something if a point-blank range shot to the face with each gun did the same damage, yet they don't.
    • Bullets fired from rifled barrels are more accurate and more ballistically stable over long ranges thanks to spin stabilization of the projectile. They are not faster, nor harder hitting at short range; the rifling effectively converts some of the projectile's forward velocity into angular momentum. However, longer barrels do generally mean higher velocity from the same ammo (there are a few caveats, however, and it's not so much of an issue with fast-burning powder).
    • The fallout series seems only differentiate by projectile size, not case size, since there are no case length dimensions (5.56mm is just 5.56mm, not 5.56X45mm). The hunting rifle looks like a M98 mauser, which is 7.92MM, which is .32 caliber. So, when you shoot the .32 ammo in the Hunting rifle, you're shooting 7.92mm Mauser ammo.
    • Fallout calibers are not necessarily the same as real world calibers, they are just probably very close since there's not much reason to reinvent the wheel. IIRC both Fallout 2 and Fallout Tactics do have use of historical guns from our Post-Divergence timeline (Fallout 2 sticking mostly to guns that never had real production runs), but this has been declared somewhat non-canon by Bethesda. Remember, the current NATO calibers are all post-Divergence. The .32 can just be treated as a caliber invented for Fallout that's a pastiche of real-world .32 pistol and rifle rounds and was designed to be used for either.
  • At any rate, the FN P90 and the FN Five-Seven as well as the other weapons in the family were all designed to use the 5.7mm round, mainly for logistical reasons. Other than that, it's probably best to just call it gameplay reasoning as it's not exactly enjoyable to juggle 15 different ammos types just for your handguns and rifles alone.
  • Among reasons already listed, you have to consider that a revolver dumps a surprising amount of the generated pressure through the gap between the cylinder and the barrel.

Chinese in the War

How were the Chinese fighting this war? This troper started the series with 3, and all the articles in that game suggested that the nuclear war was triggered by China invading Alaska. But here we are all the way at the opposite end of North America and there are dead Chinese infantry, wrecked Chinese jets, and an automated Chinese propaganda radio station broadcasting essentially across the street from the Pentagon.

• • It has been hinted in earlier games that the Chinese invaded Alaska first, and the US both expelled that invasion and made a landing of their own on the Chinese mainland ("Our boys fought from the Yukon to the Yangtze, and we were winning too...until those damned Reds launched everything they had at us."). The soldiers in the D.C. area can be explained as infiltrators/saboteurs, but jets are another matter entirely.
    • It's presumable that the China attempted to coordinate the nuclear strikes with an invasion to the enemy capital; presumably the idea was to conquer the remaining areas in the after-blast confusion. They got there, all right, but unfortunately for them, China had been decimated as well, and they got no new orders or support; under such conditions they either died in radiation, hunger and the remaining American resistance, or became integrated to the forming Wasteland community, as they had nowhere to return to, and nothing left to fight for.
      • The broadcast can be explained. It come from Mama's Dolce factory. Go in there to meet...Chinese troops. Well, ghoulified, but still half-alive Chinese troops. They apparently keep on following some 200 years old orders. I think this a reference to a story about some forgotten Japanese troops that fought WW 2...until the sixties or so.
  • If the design of the bomb in Megaton is any indication, the Chinese didn't have/weren't using ICBMs to nuke cities, they were dropping them from planes. Clearly, the jets and infantry were support units to the bombers.
    • Nukes can be deployed from more than one platform at a time. US strategy in event of nuclear war was to strike with sub launched ballistic missiles, intercontinental ballistic missiles, nuclear bombers and conventional forces simultaneously. The Chinese likely employed a simultaneous bomber and ICBM attack.

Purpose of the Vaults

• Perhaps this troper didn't explore enough, but what exactly is Vault Tec's angle? Pretty much all vaults you found included cruel social experiments, some of which were literally designed to drive inhabitants into murderous frenzy. But why? The knowledge from these experiments wouldn't be terribly useful under normal circumstances. What use would it be after society is gone (since no-one would enter the Vaults before WWIII), even if you still have the means to collect and analyze the data. Did they have any plausible goal, or is Braun simply the only stockholder of Vault Tec and has ordered then to 'just be dicks'?
  • It was all testing for space exploration, to examine every possible contingency of what could happen to a crew, and what the psychological response would be, so they would be adequately prepared when they actually sent colony ships out.
    • (Different Troper) That's all well and good, but Vault Tec wouldn't be able to actually perform its experiments until the apocalypse, and they wouldn't get the data for centuries afterwards. That's...awfully speculative on their part to assume that there would * be* a space program to benefit from their knowledge.
      • They had a deal with the Enclave who were planning to outlive the nuclear war, and at least some plans on how to build spaceships after the war, as well. Ultimately they still weren't quite prepared enough, however.
      • (Original Troper) Ok, so there is an explanation given (where exactly? In game or All in The Manual ?), it's just not a very good one "Okay guys, for our spaceship design, lets not place speakers that send frequencies that drive you insane, lets not pack it with twice the number of people its supposed to carry and hand out guns. Our research shows this is bad." Plus, some of these are implied (or explicitly mentioned in the logs) to have required the help of certain people living IN these vaults, who must have been a few really loyal company men. Especially in case of vault 101, which required consecutive generations of Overseers to cooperate. But it's the Fallout universe, heartless and stupid acts by authority figures are what got them into the post-apocalyptic mess.
    • Where's the explanation given? Fallout 2 for starters. If that doesn't float your boat there's always the Fallout Bible. Kids these days, never taking time for the classics...
      • • The maddening speakers were presumably to test what would happen if the PA system on the ship malfunctioned, the population tests were to see what would happen if there was an accident that either wiped out most people of one gender, damaged cryosleep stuff, there was a population explosion via breeding, or one ship was damaged and another took on its population, etc. Everything has a logical explanation if you think about it, except the vault with the panther.
          • Obviously the panther vault was to check the realistic effects of putting albino radscorpians in the same ship as where they keep several dozen unarmed civilians. on a more serious note it was probably about a dangerous livestock escape.
            • Vault 77 was a psychological experiment to see how a person would fare for long periods of time with only inanimate objects as company. The experiment failed miserably.
    • To be honest I think some of them were for said purpose, and some were just involved in general scientific testing for the Enclave. The speaker vault was specifically stated to be involved in testing the viability of sonic brainwashing techniques, and the Supermutant vault was involved in FEV research into creating a super solider. Both would be very useful for taking over the planet and beyond after the bombs had fell.
  • Fallout 3 -- only troper here. My impression was that Vault-Tec (and by extension the US Government and/or the Enclave) never actually expected a full-scale nuclear war to break out. Most of the Vaults were actually filled before the bombs started falling, a few days or weeks before the apocalypse. It wouldn't be hard for Vault-Tec to make up some lie like "they all signed on for five-year contracts and the Vaults have been sealed for that length of time, they won't be coming out until then" giving them plenty of time to conduct their "experiments."
    • You're partly right. Vault-Tec and the Government really did not expect Nuclear war to happen, neither did many of the people who signed up. But then war did happen, and the Vaults were used for their expressed purpose. Call it convenient timing, but if your theory is correct, the Vaults could only get the signal out within a day, at most, otherwise all sorts of issues would have happened. In Fallout 1, you can find recordings that say that many of the Vault's intended population ignored the warning calls, thinking it a false alarm. The details of going into the Vault include an emergency siren and lots of phone calls, which would probably alert quite a few people if it were to be a few days ahead of the Apocalypse. But all indications are that all was well in the general public the morning of the day the bombs fell - the school field trip that creates the Little Lamplight community, for instance. In Fallout 3, you find letters delivered to prospective Vault Dwellers explaining when and how they'll be contacted when the Apocalypse arrives (many of the letters are still in the mailbox, meaning they weren't received). It shows that the people going in had been screened well before-hand and had signed on expressly for shelter in the event of nuclear annihilation:

Vault-Tec Acceptance Letter: In the event of a Vault activation, whether actual or drill, Vault-Tec will sound a siren audible in the immediate vicinity of the Vault facility entrance, and residents will be contacted via holotape message at the phone number provided in their resident profile records. Please report promptly to Vault 101 to await admittance and processing upon such a notification.
Vault-Tec Rejection Letter: We are writing to inform you that your family was not selected for inclusion in your chosen Vault-Tec facility. Your deposit has been retained, and your application added to a waiting list for your preferred Vault. In the interest of your family's security in the event of a minor nuclear event, please consider relocating to one of these areas, where Vault-Tec facilities are available without a waiting list...

Legitamacy of Fallout Bible

• What bugs me is people treating the Fallout Bible as the Word of God, which seems to include Bethesda to an extent, and some people on this page. Despite the name, it isn't that. For one, Chris Avellone, who put it together, wasn't even involved with the first Fallout. For the second game, he was just one of several designers, and not in the lead. Another thing is, the design for a game changes throughout the development progress. The Fallout Bible has bits and pieces here and there from the design documents. Some ideas were changed by the time they made it to the finished game, and some were left out completely. Whether it was due to limiting the scope to fit the resources or because the developers just decides the idea was too silly or stupid or just ill-fitting, we don't know. After all, does anyone think the first Fallout would be better if it included a settlement of intelligent raccoons?
  • True enough, most of the Fallout Bible was What Could Have Been (and we're glad it wasn't) but much of it could also be considered Word of Dante. Avellone at least rates that much, as he was almost God at one point being lead designer on Van Buren, when most of the Bible was compiled.
  • It's really just Avellone showing you What Could Have Been rather than saying, "This stuff definitely is canon!"
  • It's not really intended to be "this is exactly what Fallout is supposed to be," so interpreting it in that manner is more Fan Dumb than anything else. Black Isle had a habit of putting very outlandish things into their games as jokes, so just because it might have appeared in a future Fallout game doesn't necessarily mean it was supposed to be a major plot point or very much beyond an Easter Egg.
  • Also considering Bethesda has ignored canon elements, I doubt they treat the Fallout Bible as though everything in it is supposed to be canon. Case and point, everything in Fallout 3 has a nuclear reactor and Washington DC still exists in a very recognizable form. As opposed to electric cars, which existed prior to the nuclear bombs falling, and Vertibirds using oil based fuel (which is a plot point in Fallout 2, since one of their bases is partially devoted to making fuel and the other serves as a refueling point).
    • Considering that the said fuel-making base was destroyed in a nuclear explosion at the end of Fallout 2, isn't it pretty logical that the Enclave would start powering them with different means? Also, Bethesda didn't "ignore" that there were electric cars; rather, they simply added nuclear ones. Both types of vehicle exist in the Fallout world now.
      • The Oil Rig was powered by a nuclear engine because it also served as a post-war facility. Logically, it's efficiency is expanded by using a nuclear power source to power the drill to siphon the oil, which is used for the vertibirds. It wouldn't make sense to use oil to power the facility that's meant to produce oil. The problem is that Nuclear power is treated as a dangerous and unstable in the other games (Fallout 2 demonstrates the problems with the Gecko power plant), and treated with fear and respect for that power. As for electric cars, Bethesda did forget, as there are zero references to electric powered cars in the game. As it's noted on the Fallout 3 Headscratchers page, with such a plethora of nuclear cars in DC, it's a wonder why there aren't more craters at the scene of major accidents. Adding to this is that FO3 Vertibirds explode with much more violence than cars or buses (and certainly more than a comparable fuel-driven vehicle), and they're certainly built to be quite robust. If it were only some vertibirds which are armed with nuclear weapons or missiles, this would be understandable, but in Fallout 3, even the unarmed troop carriers will explode rather impressively.
        • "Dangerous and unstable"? The Gecko plant's radiation leak is solved simply by replacing a single part. And the ghouls seem to view it like a big old hot tub in addition to a power source-- the workers will tell you that the background radiation feels good to them. Respect it, possibly. Fear it, no. As for the cars, it's evident that nuclear cars are quite popular in DC, so maybe an explanation is that there are just very few electric cars around that don't get mentioned and aren't seen in-game. The reason that the nuclear cars are so volatile is because their reactors have degraded after being left exposed without maintenance for 200 years. They could not explode like that in pre-war days. Vertibird reactors are significantly more durable-- they take a lot of damage before they explode (unless you use the Tesla Cannon, which instantly destroys the reactor's systems).
          • Please remember that anytime you use the word "Maybe" it's entering Wild Mass Guessing because of all the misinformation. Maybe nuclear cars are so volatile because they are simply there for more explosions, rather than any rational or sensible existence. Yes, nuclear power in Fallout 1 and 2 is considered unstable. Gecko's power plant is not stable and is under the constant and watchful eye of the Ghouls there. They simply happen to be comfortable in there. To wit, what is one way the Chosen One can destroy the Oil Rig? Tom Murray can be talked into simply turning off the control system for the power plant, which causes the destruction of the Oil Rig in a giant nuclear fireball. What you're saying instead is that these cars can just vent off two hundred years of intense heat without any sort of proper maintenance, while armed supermutants have been fighting in the streets for over a hundred years (let alone the past twenty when the Brotherhood came along), and none of these "destabilizing cars" explode or are pulled apart or used as improvised explosives.

Vault 13 Dweller's Pip-Boy

• Didn't see this, so here we go: In Fallout 1 you save Vault 13 and are exiled for all your trouble. So in Fallout 2, why doesn't Pip Boy know the location of Vault 13? Or even have basic maps? I can understand why wouldn't have the whole map (maybe the Vault Dweller headed straight to the tribe) but how come it doesn't have the route to Vault 13, the place it came from? Seeing as it automatically records your travels this is bizarre.
  • That's because it hasn't been maintained properly for almost 50 years. You can service it in Vault 8 by inserting it into a slot in one of the computers near the Overseer control room (through dialogue). You get a message saying how many maintenance cycles were missed that says that most of the memory blocks are corrupted, and then you're asked whether you'd like to update your Pipboy. If you do it adds the location of Vault 15 and a couple other places (NCR, New Reno and some more I can't remember now) to your map. You need PE of at least 7 to notice the slot. Granted, it's no Vault 13, but there's your explanation as to why there's no maps or anything of the sort on the Pipboy.

It bugs me that in Fallout 2, it's mentioned that Vault City was built by the Vault 8 dwellers who were lucky enough to be part of the "control" group for the experiment. Yeah, they had a G.E.C.K to terraform the nearby area, but otherwise they used supplies and technology from the Vault to build and maintain Vault City, one of the most high tech settlements in that game. And, also in Fallout 2, it's mentioned that no one wants to leave Vault 15 alone because it has valuable high-tech pre war goodies in it. So why, at least in Fallout 3, can't you go to some of the other Vaults and find advanced technology in them? I realize Vault 112 didn't exactly need much except something to power the Tranquility pods, and the rest of the Vaults, except 101 of course, have Gone Horribly Wrong (all according to plan) not long after sealing so I can understand that a lot of things have been damaged in those 200 years, but some things have to still be functional and able to use outside of the Vaults. Namely the Vault power generators, which are still keeping computer terminals and those eerie red lights on. Learning what makes said generators tick may at least help the settlements in finding better power sources of their own, and, at best, recreate smaller versions of the generators for themselves.

• And with Vault 101, should you convince the Overseer to hand the title over to Amata, I hate how there's not even any implications that they'll trade some of the Vault's technology in exchange for supplies. It just seems like all Amata and the rebels thought were "Woohoo! We can live in the Vault but still travel to the outside!" And nothing beyond that, when they don't seem to realize settlements in the Wasteland would be doing quite a bit for some of the Vault's advanced technology. If they're nervous about being attacked, why can't I at least tell them that certain settlements like Megaton and Rivet City are sociable. Instead it's just "Well, you may have learned a useful thing or two while out in the Wasteland, but some of the residents blame you for this mess so you can't ever come back again, even if it's just a few quick short visits with nice tidbits for survival and/or equipment for us."

The Master

• It bugs me that The Master does himself in when present with the evidence of supermutant sterility. He's an immortal supergenius who apparently has the means to create more immortal geniuses, he should be able to at least take a shot at curing the sterility or developing another means of reproduction before the mutant population drops too low, which could take centuries if ever if they avoid overharvesting the human population.
  • The short answer: the Master was quite insane. The long answer: the Master was deluded Darwinist and thought that he had solved the sterility problem and that "nature would find a way" or something like that. In his mindset super mutants were just logically superior to humans since -- like him -- they were immune to disease and radiation and -- due to stupidity or insanity -- not self-serving pricks like the rest of the humanity, therefore laws of evolution would be on his side. He was right so he WOULD triumph! When Vault Dweller gives him solid proof that super mutants have not and will likely never become fertile, the Master (being an intelligent man of science under all of his madness) realized in a moment of clarity that he had not been breeding a master race but turned hundreds of people into stupid, hideous abominations and, as a correlation, he is one as well. Cue freakout and suicidal depression.

Opening Vault Doors

• Neither design of vault door (FO1/FO2 or FO3/NV) entirely makes sense. In the originals there's an arm that pulls the door to the side, but nothing to push it out of the doorway. It just pops out by itself. In the later models there's an arm to pull it out of the doorway, but nothing to push it to the side. It just rolls away by itself.

Super Mutant Fashion

• This is just out of curiosity, but what's the deal with those leather straps on their heads that stretch up their upper lips?
  • Their lips are huge. If they didn't wear braces, they wouldn't be able to talk or eat. It's not as obvious by the time of New Vegas, but just look at the Lieutenant, or Harry, and the need becomes obvious.

The Enclave

Here's what's bugged me throughout the entirety of Fallout 2 and 3. The Enclave are remnants of the pre war U.S. government. They have the best technology and most members of any organization in the Fallout universe (well, close to the most numbers, though that's obviously not the case now). They have top of the line military training and weapons that will disintegrate Brotherhood Paladins in one hit. So why is it that time and again, they keep getting foiled by untrained civilians and factions they clearly should be curbstomping? The NCR in Fallout 2 didn't even have anything special about them, they were just a bunch of Vault dwellers who united some tribes and made a nation, the Enclave does not even have a plan for stopping post-war nations that don't even have power armor or plasma weapons in a straight up fight? And in Fallout 3, they get their asses kicked by the Brotherhood, which is especially odd since not only are they more numerous, better trained, and have better tech than this branch, but the Brotherhood was already stretching itself thin dealing with the super mutants! Seriously, it's a wonder these guys even got to their positions in the U.S. government.

• • Well the Enclave never actually had to fight any of the major factions in Fallout 2. The NCR, even at that point, had a huge reserve of manpower to draw from and the Brotherhood technology isn't as far behind Enclave as reputation makes it out to be. The Enclave probably could have won that fight, but the cost would have been substantial and their Final Solution would have simply made the whole fight pointless. As for Fallout 3, it would seem that the Brotherhood simply withdrew and fortified, not presenting a viable target for the early assaults. It was a stalemate until Liberty Prime was deployed, and by the time it was destroyed the Enclave was in full retreat.
  • You are misinterpreting the capabilities of the factions significantly.
    • The only point in the series the Enclave was only the largest faction when the bombs actually dropped and that was solely because none of the other factions existed. Even that is disputable because the Brotherhood of Steel was made up of the survivors from the military vault and very quickly became about the same numbers.
      • Enclave also has a much, much higher percentage of non-combat civilians compared to the Brotherhood of Steel.
    • Enclave numbers do not and have never compared anywhere near the same level as the NCR reached by Fallout 2.
    • Superior technology isn't an "I Win" button in the Fallout universe. Yes, power armor does stop small arms fire very effectively. It does not stop heavy weapons or armor piercing bullets very well, and, while there isn't a huge amount of it around, there is more than enough considering the numbers differences. Besides, running around with weapons capable of disintegrating power armor is one of the most bone headed things they could possibly have done because the NCR and Brotherhood, with there superior numbers are going to win fights and scavenge those weapons. Once they have those weapons, they took away one of your main advantages (power armor), while still keeping superior numbers.

The price of drugs

• In the original Fallout 1 and 2, drugs are a commodity worth it's weight in caps. A single bottle of buffout or Mentats can cost almost as much as a stimpack. But after new vegas, they got the selling price of Jet while Stimpacks are as pricy. Also addictions are simply worth 2-5 doses of the drug you gotten high on and the doctors are more than willing to combat your addiction instead of telling you are constantly getting addicted and need to learn the hard way of going cold turkey. So why is there more "liberal" reactions to drug use and drug price.
  • Supply and Demand versus the time period. In Fallout 1, Stimpacks were in a greater demand simply because of the Crapsack World nature of the game. Other drugs, like Buffout and Mentats were something of a luxury, and really, there wasn't many suppliers for those drugs (most of them were apparently pre-war items). In Fallout 2, there still was a great demand for stimpacks, and less for 'performance enhancing' drugs, with recreational drugs like Jet becoming more popular (though it's performance enhancing properties less manageable, but useful). By this time, there still weren't many suppliers, but they were starting to have some manufacturing capabilities. By New Vegas, simply put, that's because it's New Vegas. A few hundred miles away from the relatively safe and conservative NCR, and you're in a Den of Vice and Villainy with a greater need for medical supplies because of the nearby conflict between armies. Drug use is quite a bit more liberal, by both locals and visitors, and since there's a steady flow of supplies coming in from the West, there's more of the other kinds of drugs readily available. There is a thriving drug trade, which is amply supplied by the Khans (see: Jack and Diane), the Atomic Wrangler, street dealers (Dixon even sells a 'low-quality' version of jet), the NCR (black market dealings), and so forth, compared to the limited number of suppliers from 40 and 120 years before. And why wouldn't a 'quick fix' to rid a person of their addiction be appreciated in such a town for the low cost of 5-6 doses of your preferred drug of choice? "What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas," afterall.
  • It also applies to Fallout3 which started the whole "Med-x is cheaper" thing, and the Capital Wasteland isn't what you call a civilized place.
    • It's implied to be pre-war morphine. The change was made because some countries were going to ban Fallout3 for portraying real-world controlled substances in a "realistic" fashion. That said, Morphine is cheap and plentiful in the real world.

Navarro

• How did that gas station cover keep Navarro hidden for so long? The distance from the small station to the huge military base/oil refinery is maybe 40 feet at most, with only a thin line of trees between them. A wastelander would be able to spot the base simply because they approached the area from an angle.
  • Essentially, they are not actually hiding the base (it's too big to be a 'hidden base'), but they are also not advertising that it is there. There's a little bit of Gameplay and Story Segregation that comes into play with the isometric view and limited graphics capability of those older games, but there's plenty of reality to something like that as well. Navarro military base is based on Fort Bragg (the real Navarro has no military base and is far away from where Navarro would appear in game). This Troper has lived near major military bases all his life, and a thin line of trees (particularly evergreens) obscures major structures awfully well to the point that if it weren't for the big signs that pointed out that it was a base, one would not realize there was anything of importance back there at all - particularly to people travelling on foot. That said, there's also the one gate guard there at Navarro who deters uninvited guests, as well as a chain-link fence to prevent anyone from entering the base itself.

Bishop child

• Why on Earth did they make the Fallout 2 ending with a male character having bastard kid with one of those nasty (and very much antagonistic) Bishop women canon? I was more than miffed about this, because my Fallout 2 hero was a good guy. Who never everr did any such things.
  • Well, two issues I see right off the bat.
    • A) Making anything canon about a Fallout PC is going to invalidate how some people played the game, so there is no reason why your belief on how the PC reacted in that situation should invalidate someone else's reaction unless it is a totally absurd action that would completely wreck the continued existence of the gameworld. "Had sex with someone I wouldn't" isn't on the same level as "hit the rest button until the vault died of dehydration and the super mutants commited genocide against the entire west coast."
    • B) The game never once states Mr. Bishop's father is the Chosen One. They left who his father was open ended so people that played Fallout 2 and got the ending would see the results of that action. However, considering the outright sluttiness of both the Bishop women, the number of wandering tribals that could have fathered their child would be a very high number, so it is not unrealistic that someone else is Mr. Bishop's father.
  • Then I don't quite get why so many people believe Mr.Bishop IS the Chosen One's kid, it even says on this wiki page that he is even though it's never outright stated that this is true... I read on the Fallout wiki that he died without ever knowing his father, which doesn't make sense to me because Fallout 2's canon hero was benevolent, if he was the Dad why on Earth would he ditch his child? Doesn't seem very heroic to me (neither does having casual sex with two characters who are clearly evil but that's beside the point). My character was also gay, so. Besides why would the Bishops have the time or the desire to raise a baby, especially if the Dad was someone they absolutely hate?
    • This is explainable. It says in the ending that the Chosen One lived out the rest of his days as Arroyo's elder. It is entirely possible that, like his grandfather, he simply never left Arroyo again, or until he had reached a great age. It is therefore entirely possible that he never even knew the child existed, let alone that it was his (if indeed said child is his). The Bishop family likely wouldn't play up the birth of the child either, so it's looking increasingly likely that the Chosen One just doesn't know about the child. It's as simple as that.
    • But why would a bunch of folks like that want to raise some random tribesman's child? Much less a tribesman that they absolutely loathe... and how could a drug addict like them carry a healthy child to term?
      • They wouldn't say it was "some random tribesman's child." If Leslie was the mother, then she probably said John Bishop was the father. If Angela was the mother, she could have said it was X person. In addition, you are assuming they even know who the father is. Given their sexual promiscuity, it could probably have been a dozen different people for either.
      • Drug addicts can carry a healthy child to term. It is hardly impossible or unheard of. Drug addiction increases the chances of a variety of different health issues, but it doesn't guarantee them.
    • As for why, the Bishops are a family business based on the popular culture mafia. Of course, the family is important, no matter how morally bankrupt they are otherwise.
    • You are reading a lot into the canon Chosen One that doesn't actually exist.
      • There is no reason to automatically assume he was "benevolent" or "heroic." His quest was for the gain of his own tribe (this is not necessarily benevolent, since tribals tend to be less individualistic). He was well rewarded. The people he destroyed were people that actively attacked him. The people he helped were people that actively aided him. In a lot of black and white morality games, that would make him a good guy. In Fallout, not so much. The Enclave would have killed the Chosen One eventually and made this very clear. Attacking people to take their stuff rather than getting their help, while beneficial in game, is less beneficial to the Chosen One who wouldn't be able to reload an old save if he died.
    • Why is the Chosen One necessarily the father? I've questioned this, too. If the Bishop woman are "so ridiculously fertile" (which doesn't make sense because IRL, sex hormone imbalances have the exact opposite effect), and are such whores, particularly the daughter, how is it she doesn't have children already? Why would she only get knocked up with her first when the PC comes along? I mean, come on, she's had sex with thousands of men, and there's no way they ALL used protection, considering that condoms are very difficult to come across in post-apocalyptia (and the fact that they're 200 years old would make them very ineffective anyway). I think she was most likely already up the duff by someone else at that point.
      • It's simply Metagame-y knowledge that the audience and player knows, but no one in-universe would have a clue. The ending for the Bishop child only occurs if a male Chosen One sleeps with either Bishop woman without a condom in his inventory. "Out of billions and billions of sperm, the Chosen One's is the one that gets through."
        • Which is extremely stupid I think. There's really nothing special about him - he's just a plain old human being like everyone else. His spermatozoa are no different from those of any of the other millions of men both of these (vile) women have slept with. This Canon hearsay is rubbish, I really don't believe the Mr. Bishop mentioned in New Vegas is the same person that was born at the end of FO 2 (which, regardless the game's scripts, I don't believe was truly the Chosen One's kid - they both had a thing for tribals, so he was most likely just the kid of some random tribal dude.). If these women were "so ludicrously fertile", who's to say neither of them ever had any other children? If Leslie/Angela is even his mother, or some other extended family member.
          • There's a couple more things to consider. Leslie is a former Vault City citizen, whose capacity for pregnancy is diminished because of things such as background radiation. Furthermore, Leslie is a product of years of drug abuse and neglect, whose memory is affected (she believes she was hooked on jet years before it was invented - Word of God confirms her story is incorrect). Thus, her perception regarding Angela's fertility is also skewed. Angela is potentially more fertile than Leslie, but may not be moreso than the average human in the wasteland. Why hasn't either of them gotten pregnant before? There's too many possibilities, ranging from sheer luck to reduced fertility due to damaged genes, to abortion or miscarriages resulting from Fetal Alcohol syndrome or Jet abuse. Angela herself may have come from a time when Leslie was not abusing drugs, or at least was healthier to initially care for a child before slipping into alcoholism and drugs. As for the Chosen One, depending on the outcome of his choice, has had much more of an impact on either Angela or Leslie than any other random tribal. Right place, right time to open a window where either of those two might be able to take charge of their lives inside the Bishop family.
          • So what? No. My PC was not such a manwhore as to touch such vile women, and he was 100% homosexual. Plus, she was a jet addict AND a total whore, which makes the chances of him being the kid's dad (if he DID do her) one in a bajillion. Nigh impossible. More of an impact? Not really. John Bishop is sorta important, but neither of those chicks really have any role or relevance in the plot at all. To them, he's just a lay of the day and a random tribal. Plus, as I said, that Angela chick was clearly a very stupid person, AND a prostitute, so more than likely she would have had children with someone else later in life, as an older and perhaps more mature woman. Which, as you said, is VERY unlikely because radiation and drugs have a tendency to nuke one's sex cells. It's not the PC's kid, and that little girl isn't any mother.
            • Unfortunately, that's falling straight into Fanon or Wild Mass Guessing territory. You do forget that you could play the Vault Dweller as female, yet the NCR canonically builds a statue dedicated to a male Vault Dweller. Reinforcing this idea is that the Chosen One could be female, and under that assumption, would take the Bishop child out of the equation entirely. Simply put, doesn't mean that the canon story has to take into account your particular playthrough or decisions. What we do have is an explanation found within the story's possibilities, that the Bishop child is the child of a male Chosen One, even if you played a female PC or a homosexual male PC, or if you killed the whole Bishop clan, or never even met them. As for more of an impact, the Chosen One is the only one of many potential fathers who can talk Leslie into starting over again (the ending where the Bishop child, as a tribal, comes in and takes over the Bishop family). He's also the only character who is canonically put in a position to kill John Bishop.
    • Long story short: Your Chosen one is not the canon Chosen One and your timeline may not match up to the canon one. Your PC had the means to hand control to any one of four families or even wipe out New Reno entirely. When setting up a 'canon' ending some of the routes were inevitably going to get cut off.
    • That disgusting, nauseating stuff never happened. The Chosen One never had any such kid with anyone in that hole. It's some other barbarian's. Seriously, of all people, why THOSE women? No. Nope. Never. Not in a million years. Never.
      • That is all Fanon. Word of God and Canon sources point out that the Bishop child is the illegitimate son of the Chosen One, and not a random tribal, despite your insistence. Cite a source or deal with it.

Chosen One's Age

• I don't think we can be sure about the PC from the original Fallout, but does anyone know if the canonical Chosen One from Fallout 2 has a canonical age? I always thought it was weird that you could make the PC a teenager; since the PC's mother (the village elder) appears to be a very old woman, that really can't be possible. I think the Chosen One should canonically be at least in his thirties at the start of Fallout 2.
  • The Village Elder is only 53 at the start of Fallout 2 (born in 2188, and the game starts in 2241). She is not aging very well, probably due to the rustic conditions and hard life in a dry community like Arroyo. The Fallout Bible states the Chosen One's birthday is March 23, 2221, which would make the Chosen One 20 years old when Fallout 2 begins.
    • Isn't the Elder the Chosen One's grandmother?
      • Nope, the Elder is the Chosen One's mother. The Vault Dweller is the canonical Grandfather.