This will be a lengthy answer, as this question touches on several subjects. If you’re interested in a more nuanced look at the issue, rather than just Bethesda bashing, read on.
The opening questions makes a number of assumptions, namely:
- There exists a body of consistent *Fallout *lore.
- Said lore is immutable.
- As such, Bethesda broke the lore!
Each of these assumptions warrants a separate answer.
Just what is lore?
If we look at the Wiktionary (lore – Wiktionary), we have two definitions:
- all the facts and traditions about a particular subject that have been accumulated over time through education or experience,
- the backstory created around a fictional universe.
It seems straightforward, right? It’s all the fluff that isn’t the main plot, quests, or characters, the world beyond.
Problems start when you try to figure out what this fluff is made of. The biggest problem with *Fallout *is that the backstory is not only defined in multiple sources – games, strategy guides, developer interviews, forum posts, blogs, you name it – but the sources are also inconsistent and occasionally contradictory. For example:
Fallout cannot quite agree on whether super mutants have sexual organs or not. For instance, Vree’s autopsy report states that the gender of the subject was “indeterminate”, which is at odds with the Master’s direct statement that “the FEV-2 virus doesn’t destroy the reproductive organs of those it mutates.” Her statement that the lifespan of the super mutant is increased by 10% is also contradicted by ZAX, who states that “the FEV causes constant regenerative update to DNA [and] it would effectively render the subject largely immortal, as cell death would be offset by augmented growth.”
It doesn’t help that the developers couldn’t agree on various core elements of the setting. For example, ghoul origins were never defined with Tim Cain and Chris Taylor disagreeing on whether they were made by radiation, radiation mixed with FEV, or something else.
The Fallout Bible was one of the only attempts at organizing the lore and it was quickly derailed, turning into lengthy Q&A sessions where Chris Avellone shared fragments of design docs, quotes from fellow developers, or made lore up on the fly.
Although Bethesda used it as reference while developing the series, Avellone later disowned it, further confusing the community (and leading one wiki to wage war on it). At the present, it is useful as a supplemental source, but takes a backseat to whatever game is released.
Finally, the problem is compounded by the fact that the community has very strong feelings about lore – but strength of feelings doesn’t always correlate with strength of research.
Fan ideas can circulate, repeated thousands of times until they become fact. Which brings me to the next point.
Is lore immutable?
The lore, in practice.
Some Fallout players pretend that the lore of the series is not only consistent and clear, but also immutable -immune to change. It is, for a lack of a better analogy, the gospel and they are its keepers, proselytizing and recruiting new followers to spread the word.
However, in this series, lore always took a backseat to story and gameplay.
When Fallout 2 was rushed into development to capitalize on the success of the game, it became necessary to recycle assets. Super mutants were made effectively immortal, picking ZAX over Vree. Ghouls, originally intended to be a form of mutant unique to New California, proliferated all over, as did the deathclaws.
Black Isle also introduced a slew of other changes to the lore, such as introducing the Enclave as the shadow government and retrofitting social experiments to Vaults, adding new types of power armor, Vertibirds, recycling the G.E.C.K. as a MacGuffin driving the plot…
Many of these elements were introduced without an appropriate explanation. For instance, while there are fans who claim that the advanced power armor had rich lore in Fallout 2 and Bethesda messed it up, there was no actual lore in the game beyond item descriptions. The Vertibirds had even less than that.
Perhaps the biggest change was the introduction of the Enclave and the Vault experiments. It fundamentally changed the lore, altering the relationship between the United States and its citizens, altering the Vaults and their lore, changing everything.
That sweeping change was introduced in the form of a late-game conversation with the President, in just a few well-voiced lines.
What passed for lore was speculation that circulated between the fans and was eventually accepted as fact.
It wasn’t until the Bible was released in 2002 that we got a look at the design documents that elaborated on the subject, but, of course, it has its own problems. In summary, the lore was mutable from day one – and many aspects of the setting were not set in stone, subject to change as the story or gameplay dictated.
Bethesda broke the lore!
Pictured: The evidently evil EXECUTIVE of BETHESDEVIL issues DEVIOUS DASTARDLY DIRECTIVES to fundamentally fuck Fallout lore.
Bethesda changed the lore. Just as Black Isle did when it was necessary. The question is, was Bethesda changing it by building on the foundations provided by the previous game or whether it changed these foundations – and if either of these changes can be characterized as breaking it.
The first step is figuring out whether these foundations actually exist. As stated above, there are instances where fan speculation have been repeated to the point it’s accepted as fact.
Take advanced power armor, for example. The constant references to rich lore created the illusion that the armor actually had rich lore, which, again, is not corroborated by evidence. As such, Bethesda was free to define the background as they saw fit. The same goes for other power armor models. The T-45 was introduced as a concrete example of a last-generation power armor type. The T-60 is its successor and the game’s own lore still states that the T-51 is superior, maintaining its status in lore (see Bonus Stage for more details)
There are other cases:
- Although FEV was commonly assumed to be used exclusively by West-Tek, nothing in the game actually stated that. The introduction of super mutants on the East Coast, made from FEV derivatives is in line with existing lore. Whether it’s a good idea is a separate question beyond the limitations of this answer.
- Ghoulification was mysterious and poorly defined. Barrows
in Fallout 3 actually establishes lore and fills in the gaps, rather than changing fundamentals.Vertibirds were commonly assumed to be inventions of the Enclave, despite the fact that, again, the game doesn’t actually state that. Whenever characters refer to them, they are doing it without stating their origin. The (re)introduction of the VB-01 Vertibird
- is in line with the (non-existent) lore.
- And so on and so forth.
Many of the ideas introduced by Bethesda were retained or expanded upon by Obsidian for Fallout: New Vegas as well.
The key here is to understand the role of lore in the game. It’s fluff that’s meant to make the game more enjoyable and pleasant, perhaps offer some background information to fuel speculation and discussion, but it’s always subject to change and revision depending on the needs of the plot. It’s also important to distinguish between breaking (i.e. ignoring) and modifying the lore.
Not all modifications are breaks and not all breaks are bad.
BONUS STAGE: THE HORRIBLE FOUR
10 Then the third loremaster sounded his trumpet, and a small ghoul burning like a torch fell from heaven and landed in a fridge in the Commonwealth and on the day of the Great War. 11 The name of the ghoul is Billy Peabody. A third of the Fallout players turned bitter like wormwood oil, and many people screamed from the lore breaking. — The Book of Fallout, Todd 111:10–11
It’s time to tackle the big four lore breaks that constantly surface whenever you ask for an example of lore breaking.
- Billy Peabody, the destroyer of lore. On the surface, it’s a definite lore break. A boy shoved into a fridge and ghoulified, how did he survive over two centuries? Look back at 1998 and Fallout 2, probably the same way Coffin Willie survived being buried alive with no food, water, or air for months or Woody being used as a mummy while in deep sleep: Mysterious ghoul powers. These three ghouls are exceptional in their ability to resist going feral despite adverse conditions.
- X-01 power armor. Supposedly breaking the rich lore of the armor, the X-01 actually explains how a few thousand Enclave members stuck on an oil rig in the Pacific Ocean managed to come up with a “new” suit of power armor in half the time it took West-Tek to develop the T-51 with access to unlimited funds and resources. The Enclave took a pre-existing armor and figured out how to replicate it using what few resources they had.
- T-60 power armor. How come it’s better in terms of protection than the T-51? Is it better than the T-51? Not quite. The Tiger tank had thicker armor than the Panther tank, but the latter was superior because it was nimbler, faster, and cheaper to manufacture, on top of other advantages. It’s the same situation here and the T-51 is still described in Fallout 4 as the apex of power armor design. Apex doesn’t mean thickest armor plating, otherwise the Maus would be the apex of Nazi tank designs.
- Pre-War Jet. The horror. A sociopath and a rapist didn’t actually invent methamphetamine? The drug was actually first synthesized in the late 19th century and was commonly used in the first half of the 20th century, including as a combat drug by the Nazis. Plus, Myron’s explanation is bullshit. Interestingly, making it a pre-War drug actually adds to Myron’s story: He’s still a brilliant chemist who both weaponized the Jet for the Mordinos and devised a method of manufacturing methamphetamine in industrial quantities from brahmin dung. On top of that, he’s an excellent con man who convinced the Mordinos that he’s its inventor, securing a life of debauchery and riches for himself.
Summary
The fluff we called lore is fun, but it’s neither immutable nor set in stone, especially in this series. My advice? Have fun, chill out, and never assume that something breaks the lore because Bethesda did it.
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