FEV or Forced Evolutionary Virus was created before the War to try and make supersoldiers (by modifying both humans and animals). The Master, a guy heavily mutated by FEV, develops a particular strain of it to create the Super Mutants.
It’s funny you ask that. In Fallout 3, the plot revolves around Project Purity - an attempt to create a water purification plant to bring fresh water back to the DC Ruins. At the end of the game, you’re asked by the Enclave (assuming you didn’t destroy them, which I did) to add yet another form of modified FEV to the water purifier, which President Eden (the leader of the Enclave) tells you will kill all of the ghouls, Super Mutants, and other people whose genetic makeup has been altered by viruses or radiation - which, if you press them enough, they’ll admit means everyone who isn’t a Vault Dweller or Enclave member.
The DLC wanted you to be able to keep playing after the end of the main game regardless of which decision you made, so they retconned the premise a bit, but as FO3 originally shipped and AIUI in the canon lore, if the FEV was used then everyone in the Capital Wasteland who isn’t of pristine genetic makeup would die.
Well, I don’t know that the situation is resolved - whatever happens next in Vault 32 could impact the water sharing deal they made.
But overall I expect that the water chip malfunction is mostly a reference to Fallout 1 where the water chip failing is the reason you leave the vault.
I don’t know what the plan was for Vaults 32 and 33 (and how it goes into Vault 31) but there WERE a number of vaults where humans were experimented on using FEV, including Vault 87 in DC (where the East Coast Super Mutants come from).
The President at the time of Fallout 2 is definitely post-war, no stasis involved. They mention his father was president before. So the US President in 2077 is a completely different person and presumably there were many in between.
Right, I didn’t mean the President we meet in-game, I meant if we know anything about him from books, computer terminals, or other sources of in-game lore.
That’s how we know that he fled to the oil rig shortly before the war, but I don’t think we know what his name was or what he was like (beyond being an Enclave member).
Ah, the wiki has a page for him but doesn’t mention any name, so indeed unknown. But check the notes section for some clues, any of which could be non-canonical.
And I appreciate discussing shows like this with people who aren’t familiar with the source material (games, books, whatever) because it helps to get grounded in what this show expects you to know so far.
The link between the president we just met and The Enclave is probably not something the show expects us to know yet because even with game knowledge it’s just contextual and circumstantial evidence.
Having read a lot of computer terminals in the various Fallout games and learning about the prewar world by doing so, I think it would have been pretty quaint in their alternate 2077 too.
As an aside, the way they de-aged Kyle MacLachlan for the “meanwhile in the past” segments was pretty impressive. He doesn’t look all that different than he did as Paul Atreides 40 years ago.
I do think that will play into it…like you have to use a person with a “good brain” and altruistic inclinations for the mainframe to get docile subjects who will collaborate peacefully. Which makes it an even more problematic “solution” to conflict…. what happens if you connected the mainframe to an Enclave member brain or a raider’s?
I agree that that is a distinct possibility. I figure that that could be the way to show that everything/everyone was corrupted by power. She’s railing against corporate power, but only because it lessens her governmental power.
Still real curious if we’re getting an explanation about what Moldaver’s deal is.
Man, they know how to do a penultimate episode… I feel like every single plot is on a major cliffhanger.
Any last minute predictions? I have some:
Steph will be able to get herself out of trouble in one way or another using whatever was in Hank’s box? Maybe it’s a weapon, or FEV, or a way to call in reinforcements from Hank’s mysterious bosses. Speaking of which…
Hank’s mystery boss will be revealed to be the Enclave. That’s why he’s happy to experiment on Vault Tec personnel - he was an Enclave mole (some of them might be customers rather than personnel, but I thought it was implied to be both? And he’s certainly willing to kill Barb to threaten Cooper).
I think the Enclave will be revealed to be behind the threats on Barb.
Meanwhile in the past, I think it’s pretty obvious that the President is a member of the Enclave, and he’s probably also responsible for Cooper being labeled a Pinko and losing his job, reduced to birthday party gigs. His wife Barb will have kept her job and maybe even publically separated from Cooper but not because she is a cold heartless monster, but in coordination with Cooper to ensure that she can protect their daughter. When the bombs dropped, Cooper will be bringing her to Barb, who will take her to the vault; Cooper will not be able to join, not because Barb doesn’t want him to but because Vault Tec wouldn’t let him in.
Oh, and I’m doubling down on my Thaddeus prediction. He’s going to start accidentally gobbling up rats with tendrils that come out of his new chest-mouth. He’ll try to stay in good spirits but when his allies give up on him and try to burst his bubble about all this being “normal for us ghouls”, and even talking about putting him down, he will flee them and start turning bitter, and eventually be found by that Super Mutant who found Cooper
My wife fell asleep about 10 minutes before the end of the episode so I stopped watching just when Cooper is about to open his wife’s chamber. I’ll have to hold off till tomorrow to see how this ends then.
But in the meantime…
I was right - with one of my guesses - a way to call Hank’s bosses (who I was also right about). With 10 minutes left until the end I’m guessing that [spoiler]“initiate phase 2” means “flood the vault with FEV”. If it does, that doesn’t necessarily help Steph, who will either be mutated as well (and a super mutant in the remnants of a wedding dress is an evocative image so I wouldn’t be surprised) or trapped behind a hallway full of monsters.
I was right about this as well as my other Enclave predictions, which I’m psyched about. They’re a great enemy to have.
Loved the Deathclaw fight, I was thinking “damn, even at high level in power armor with lots of ammo I wouldn’t want to take on that many deeathclaws in any of the games” and indeed there were way too many of them in the end. The slo-mo NCR sniper is straight out of the intro to New Vegas, I loved that too. And I loved House’s line about his body becoming a target although I’m not sure how to interpret that yet - does this mean his body was killed at some point, but this diode powered construct is really him and not an artificial consciousness?
I’m guessing the Enclave base we saw is in the Rockies? And not the same one that the scientist in Season 1 left?
More thoughts tomorrow night after I finish the episode.
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