Trailer Fallout - Official Trailer

[Ryujin]

I binged the rest of the show last night. So amazing!

I have questions and quibbles:

Spoiler

• How did Moldaver survive for so long? She didn't appear to be a ghoul, nor did she appear to have been cryogenically frozen. Is there some other way to extend your lifespan in the Fallout universe?
  
  
• How were there still working lights for the cold fusion generator to turn back on in the destroyed skyscrapers? (I presume that was downtown LA? Aside from the Hollywood sign, about the only landmark I recognized was LAX's Theme Building.)
  
  
• Cooper has kept himself alive because he's searching for his (ex-)wife and child? I had assumed that Cooper turned into a ghoul because he was exposed to the radiation from the bombs - given he was riding away on a horse with Janey, that means that Janey should either be dead or also a ghoul. Unless he somehow managed to get her to a vault, where they gave her RadAway but didn't let him inside?
  
  
• I'm sure I saw various people walk past the same long ruined building multiple times. I'm not sure if it was meant to be the same building (as in it lay on the main route people were taking back and forth) or just a convenient ruin that they kept reusing.
  
  
• We never learn how Wilzig knew Lucy's name. (Or how he was in contact with Moldaver.)
  
  
• I presume that Norm poisoned the raiders. It seemed like both Betty and Steph were manipulating him into doing it - I presume because the raiders were a complication in their plan.
  
  
• Also, who cleaned up Vault 32? Did Bud the brain-in-the-robotic-jar unfreeze a bunch of his buds and get them to clean it all up before freezing them again? Would Betty and Steph have known about what happened in 32?
  
  
• I'm guessing that the shadowy figure at whom Barb glanced up is the same person that Hank has gone to see in New Vegas?
  
  
• I'm super-confused by Vault 4.
  
  
• If ghoulification is something that can happen due to radiation exposure, how did the snake oil salesman turn Thaddeus into one with his "medicine"?
  
  
• Speaking of ghouls, the whole sentient but can go feral thing reminds me of Warm Bodies.

I'll start by saying I know absolutely no lore from the game, but here are my takes.

Spoiler

​

• I assumed that she was in cryo and just got out earlier. She developed the cold fusion tech, so would have been in one of the "good" vaults. she didn't liek the plan, so escaped?
• They probably set them up in the event that they finally got the cold fusion reactor running.
• Might be that the ghoul serum was a first attempt to preserve people, long term. I bet Cooper go tan experimental dose, before the war.
• Could be because there's a limited number of such locations. Might be because they were travelling between the same places.
• He was almost certainly in cryo, along with Moldaver and MacLean. Maybe that's it, or maybe it was just a slip?
• Norm seemed surprised when they were dead. It was likely the Vault 31 bunch that did it. Certainly set up plausible deniability for them, that he first brought it up.
• They have robots, so could have been that. Or it could have been the Vault 31 bunch from 33.
• Seems plausible. President/CEO of VaultTech would be my best guess.
• Vault 4 was presumably "one of the good vaults." Level 12 would be where they were cooking up mutants to wipe out the surface dwellers, so that there's a barren surface to repopulate.
• The ghoul serum would be what does it, not radiation, though I imagine radiation will eventually cook you into quite a mess with enough exposure. Two hundred years of exposure is rather a lot. I would hazard a guess that the serum is what also keeps them form going feral.
• A hell of a good movie. And I'm not a RomCom kinda guy.

 

[MarkB]

I binged the rest of the show last night. So amazing!

I have questions and quibbles:

Spoiler

• How did Moldaver survive for so long? She didn't appear to be a ghoul, nor did she appear to have been cryogenically frozen. Is there some other way to extend your lifespan in the Fallout universe?

Spoiler

I'm thinking either Vault 4, as they had similar pods, or something to do with the Enclave, as she must have been working with the Enclave defector.

Spoiler

• How were there still working lights for the cold fusion generator to turn back on in the destroyed skyscrapers? (I presume that was downtown LA? Aside from the Hollywood sign, about the only landmark I recognized was LAX's Theme Building.)

Spoiler

Moldaver's plans seemed to have been long-term. I'm guessing she was restoring the city's power infrastructure in advance of acquiring the cold fusion device.

Spoiler

• Cooper has kept himself alive because he's searching for his (ex-)wife and child? I had assumed that Cooper turned into a ghoul because he was exposed to the radiation from the bombs - given he was riding away on a horse with Janey, that means that Janey should either be dead or also a ghoul. Unless he somehow managed to get her to a vault, where they gave her RadAway but didn't let him inside?

Spoiler

His wife was talking about getting them a place in one of the "good" management Vaults. Maybe Vault 31 as part of Bud's Buds, maybe something similar designed to only defrost its occupants once the Buds had successfully achieved management of the wasteland.

Spoiler

• I'm sure I saw various people walk past the same long ruined building multiple times. I'm not sure if it was meant to be the same building (as in it lay on the main route people were taking back and forth) or just a convenient ruin that they kept reusing.

Spoiler

They sure walked through that long set of wooden houses by the beach every other episode. But I think that's deliberate - most of the series was just in and around a small area near Shady Sands, they weren't exploring vast stretches of the wasteland.

Spoiler

• We never learn how Wilzig knew Lucy's name. (Or how he was in contact with Moldaver.)

Spoiler

Hopefully we'll see some more exploration of that next season. I think Moldaver was already laying some long-term plans against Vault-Tec even before the bombs fell.

Spoiler

• I presume that Norm poisoned the raiders. It seemed like both Betty and Steph were manipulating him into doing it - I presume because the raiders were a complication in their plan.
  
  
• Also, who cleaned up Vault 32? Did Bud the brain-in-the-robotic-jar unfreeze a bunch of his buds and get them to clean it all up before freezing them again? Would Betty and Steph have known about what happened in 32?

Spoiler

I think Betty did the poisoning herself. And yes, in retrospect, the Vault 32 clean-up is hard to explain. At the time I'd assumed it was just staff from Vault 31. Maybe they have a whole bunch of Mr Handys on call.

Spoiler

• I'm super-confused by Vault 4.

Spoiler

Formerly one of the bad Vaults where much experimentation took place, until there was a mutiny and reform. The subsequent occupants seem to have retained a certain accidental creepiness. Later took in lots of Shady Sands refugees, who have taken their reverence of Moldaver just a little too far.

Spoiler

• If ghoulification is something that can happen due to radiation exposure, how did the snake oil salesman turn Thaddeus into one with his "medicine"?

Spoiler

Probably it was also highly irradiated. There's a ghoul in Fallout 4 who became one in a similar manner.

Spoiler

• Speaking of ghouls, the whole sentient but can go feral thing reminds me of Warm Bodies.

Spoiler

I haven't seen it. I have a dark theory about that medication: It's snake-oil. It's not a cure, it's just highly addictive for ghouls, giving them a combined drug and radiation high. The twist is that withdrawal is so mentally debilitating that it can actually drive a sane ghoul feral, or make them think it's doing so, so once they're on it they have to keep taking it.

 

[cbwjm]

I've put in some responses below about what I think.

I binged the rest of the show last night. So amazing!

I have questions and quibbles:

Spoiler

• How did Moldaver survive for so long? She didn't appear to be a ghoul, nor did she appear to have been cryogenically frozen. Is there some other way to extend your lifespan in the Fallout universe? No idea, I assumed she had some sort of cryogenic containment at some point.
  
  
• How were there still working lights for the cold fusion generator to turn back on in the destroyed skyscrapers? (I presume that was downtown LA? Aside from the Hollywood sign, about the only landmark I recognized was LAX's Theme Building.) I assume that some wiring was still in place, but otherwise, it's just a good ending.
  
  
• Cooper has kept himself alive because he's searching for his (ex-)wife and child? I had assumed that Cooper turned into a ghoul because he was exposed to the radiation from the bombs - given he was riding away on a horse with Janey, that means that Janey should either be dead or also a ghoul. Unless he somehow managed to get her to a vault, where they gave her RadAway but didn't let him inside? People were calling him a Pinko communist in the flashbacks, because Fallout is basically capitalism gone wild, he may not have been a suitable candidate. I wouldn't be surprised if in the future there is a flashback that explains how his wife and daughter were taken from him.
  
  
• I'm sure I saw various people walk past the same long ruined building multiple times. I'm not sure if it was meant to be the same building (as in it lay on the main route people were taking back and forth) or just a convenient ruin that they kept reusing.
  
  
• We never learn how Wilzig knew Lucy's name. (Or how he was in contact with Moldaver.) I'm not sure how he knew her name, but he belonged to the Enclave, from memory, the Enclave were a large part of the drivers to set up the vaults so he may have seen reports that were sent through to the Enclave but I'm not 100% sure on this. It is likely why he knows so much about the vaults though.
  
  
• I presume that Norm poisoned the raiders. It seemed like both Betty and Steph were manipulating him into doing it - I presume because the raiders were a complication in their plan. I assumed it was Betty, the raiders don't fit in with whatever plans Vault-Tec has for vaults 31-33.
  
  
• Also, who cleaned up Vault 32? Did Bud the brain-in-the-robotic-jar unfreeze a bunch of his buds and get them to clean it all up before freezing them again? Would Betty and Steph have known about what happened in 32? I hadn't thought of it beyond vault 31 cleaning it up, thinking back on it, they probably did wake them up to clean everything.
  
  
• I'm guessing that the shadowy figure at whom Barb glanced up is the same person that Hank has gone to see in New Vegas? I don't think we've ever really known much about who is in charge of Vault-Tec.
  
  
• I'm super-confused by Vault 4. Science gone mad. A population that was experimented on by the scientists before finally being overthrown. Many of the mutated monsters in the wastelands came out of the vaults, the vaults were never meant to save anyone.
  
  
• If ghoulification is something that can happen due to radiation exposure, how did the snake oil salesman turn Thaddeus into one with his "medicine"? I'm not 100% sure on this one, it might have something to do with the vials that Cooper needed, perhaps those same vials with a twist can ghoulify someone.
  
  
• Speaking of ghouls, the whole sentient but can go feral thing reminds me of Warm Bodies. I've not seen warm bodies, but playing the fallout games you occasionally come across journal entries on terminals which show the degradation of the ghouls mind. Starts out coherent then ends up crazy.

 

[pukunui]

Thanks all. Some responses below:

Spoiler

I haven't played any of the games, and somehow I had got the idea that ghouls were people who had somehow survived exposure to radiation. Having it be the result of an experimental serum makes sense, though - that would certainly explain the sameness of the ghouls.

Re: Warm Bodies - the film involves zombies who still retain some semblance of their human selves; if they lose that last shred of humanity, they transform into a feral "boney". As the protagonist proves, a regular zombie can be restored to life, but a "boney" is lost forever.

Re: the poisoning of the raiders - yes, now I see it. Norm didn't do it. He just gave Betty the idea. That's what she meant about words having consequences. I think maybe we were just meant to think it was him because we were repeatedly shown him bringing them food.

Re: Cooper and Janey - @Ruin Explorer: Cooper specifically says to Hank that he wants to know where his "family" is. Now, it is assumed by the birthday boy's dad in the opening scene that Cooper is divorced from Barb and has to work birthday parties to pay her alimony. Given the reveal in the finale, it seems likely that Cooper left her, but it's unclear whether they actually got divorced or not. The main issue I have is that Cooper and Janey witness multiple nuclear bombs exploding relatively nearby then attempt to escape from them via horseback. I'm hoping that season 2 will delve into what happened after that.

Re: Vault 4 - so the idea is that the current inhabitants are not conducting experiments? They're just looking after the cryo-frozen pregnant women and the guys with extra noses and ears were just born that way like the cyclops overseer? I also didn't make the connection that things like the giant axolotl would have been deliberately released into the wilds from Vault 4 rather than having merely escaped after the original scientists were all killed. (As an aside, that video clip of the woman giving birth to fish that then ate her was suitably horrific - one of those "can't be unseen" things.)

 

[trappedslider]

I binged the rest of the show last night. So amazing!

I have questions and quibbles:

Spoiler

• I'm super-confused by Vault 4.

So, i'll put this in spoilers because it's both spoilers for the games (I've only played 4 and 76 extensively and done youtube vids for both) and perhaps for the show

Spoiler

There's two types of Vaults control and experiments.
Only a fraction of the Vaults had no experiments, but only for the reason of acting as control groups so as to provide a baseline for comparison.
Vault 4 Publicly-known experiment; a Vault governed exclusively by scientists, with no other oversight. Scientists adopted a policy of letting in survivors to use as genetic experimentation test subjects; subjects broke free and killed the scientists, but continue to inhabit the Vault and accept outsiders, acting as a true refuge from the wastes.

The number of canon vaults is currently 36, some of the experiments are alluded to during the discussion : the only one that I can recall off the top of my head was vault 95, where the kids were separated form their parents (who were killed), which was a social and medical experiment, in which a eugenics program was used to breed young inhabitants into perfect soldiers. I'll have to go back and watch that scene again to see which others were mentioned.

Re:Ghouls
Exposure to radiation is the standard way that ghouls happen. A few people pre-war were made ghouls via controlled exposure to radiation, No one in game is sure how or why ghouls go Feral. There is one character in fallout 4 who used a an experimental radioactive drug to become a ghoul.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Might be that the ghoul serum was a first attempt to preserve people, long term. I bet Cooper go tan experimental dose, before the war.

Definitely this is not true in the game lore - ghouls 100% were created by radiation, it's absolutely explicit and repeated lore - most humans just die from it, but an infinitesimal proportion become ghouls. It's more likely the inverse is true, i.e. the scientists found out about ghouls and thought they could "improve" on that, but just found a way to make more ghouls.

I haven't played any of the games, and somehow I had got the idea that ghouls were people who had somehow survived exposure to radiation. Having it be the result of an experimental serum makes sense, though - that would certainly explain the sameness of the ghouls.

No, your idea is correct and it's not even in question. Even the Bethesda games repeatedly explain this. There are other ways to become ghouls though - I think this is "future-proofing" in a sense, because otherwise pretty much all ghouls would be from exactly 2077.

Re: feral ghouls - they're common in the games - you always start sentient then most ghouls go feral in days or weeks, but some take decades or just never do - non-feral ghouls are still relatively common as of FO4. The games didn't have a liquid to control it - it's unclear from the show how long that liquid has been around for, but it seems like a while - perhaps it was only locally available in this part of California.

The main issue I have is that Cooper and Janey witness multiple nuclear bombs exploding relatively nearby then attempt to escape from them via horseback.

They're really small nukes, like very tiny - I know they look large, but none of them except maaaaaaybe the first one are Hiroshima/Nagasaki in size - the flashes are much weaker too - the first should have blinded them and burned their skin at that range, if it was as strong as Hiroshima. Thus the amount of gamma radiation they're emitting is probably going to be pretty limited - they're not hydrogen bombs and they're certainly not neutron bombs (which are a real thing), both of which emit a lot more hard radiation. The alpha and beta particles won't be a serious problem for like, minutes to hours. So given in minuscule size of those nukes (like the nearest one, was that even a kiloton? It looked maybe smaller than the conventional fertilizer explosion in Beirut a few years back and that was what, 0.5 KT?). I will say despite the size of the nukes, that was a particularly eerie nuclear bomb scene.

The city-killers we have in our ICBM/SSBMs IRL are hydrogen bombs in the high dozens to many hundreds of kilotons, adjustable via how much deuterium/tritium is used - there's literally a mechanism to change it prior to detonation (and we have multiple ones per missile via MIRVs), and we've had (though I dunno if we still do) multi-megaton weapons (the largest ever detonated being 50 megatons, which was stupidly large even for the Soviets). So we have much, much nastier nukes than we saw deployed here. My guess is they had many more, much dirtier, much smaller nukes that we would use - perhaps hydrogen bombs were disfavoured for some reason (they're much much cleaner for the amount of destruction they cause - I can strongly recommend Dark Sun: A History of the Hydrogen Bomb if you're willing to read serious science along with fun anecdotes about the cold war and disturbing information about how awful nukes are).

Re: Vault 4 - so the idea is that the current inhabitants are not conducting experiments?

Correct. And yeah that grainy short video was by far the most disturbing thing in the entire show for me. The nukes being the next.

 

[pukunui]

@trappedslider and @Ruin Explorer Thank you both for clarifying. I am excited both for another season of this show and also to play the two FO games I bought last weekend.

As an aside, I rather liked Westworld (even season 3, although season 4 was not what I was expecting ...). I can see some similarities between that show and this one. It feels kind of like Nolan and Joy took their best learnings from Westworld and applied them to great effect in this series. (Fallout's switching between time periods was much less convoluted than Westworld's - and used to much greater narrative effect, I thought. Also Cooper's story follows a similar path to that of William's, going from a 'white hat' to a 'black hat'.)

 

[Ruin Explorer]

@trappedslider and @Ruin Explorer Thank you both for clarifying. I am excited both for another season of this show and also to play the two FO games I bought last weekend.

As an aside, I rather liked Westworld (even season 3, although season 4 was not what I was expecting ...). I can see some similarities between that show and this one. It feels kind of like Nolan and Joy took their best learnings from Westworld and applied them to great effect in this series. (Fallout's switching between time periods was much less convoluted than Westworld's - and used to much greater narrative effect, I thought. Also Cooper's story follows a similar path to that of William's, going from a 'white hat' to a 'black hat'.)

I mean, they might have but it's worth noting neither Nolan nor Joy is a showrunner or creator on this show, whereas on Westworld they were explicitly both. Also, and perhaps more importantly, Nolan and/or Joy are credited as writers on the majority of episodes of Westworld.

This is show is created and showrun by Geneva Robertson-Dworet and Graham Wagner, who also both wrote all of the first three episodes. Nolan and Joy are executive producers, which is a position that can basically be anything from nearly honorary - i.e. you're not really contributing to the show/movie, your name is just on it (truly countless examples of this), to close to that of a showrunner - but usually if this is the case they'll have writing credits. And neither got any writing credits.

So I suspect it's more a similarity caused by them choosing to work with people with similar ideas to them than "learnings".

 

[trappedslider]

This is some cool news Fallout is the #1 series streaming in Canada, the U.S. and the entire world

EDIT: Given that Maximus almost got killed by a Yao Guai, eaten by a Gulper, devoured by Radroaches, attacked by Cannibal Fiends, and he survived Shady Sands by hiding in a milk dispenser. So, I think that "Food" as a name for him fits better than Maximus.

 

[Gradine]

I actually think that the BoS was portrayed pretty well in FO4, all things considered. They were definitely the "good guys" of FO3 but in the Commonwealth they're pretty horrible, all things told.