>IMPLYING
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- Dec 14, 2022
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I had more regarding 3 and 4, but once I began to point out the wood panels on The Duchess Gambit I knew I had gone too far lmao.
I have one major source of autism then which might be enjoyable. It all comes out from Megaton, which given it's utter state, makes sense.
There's a few story-related issues but there's also one very important character for whom the entire thing rests on. And one number that I think needs to be addressed: 31
You wanted this.
First, Manya Vargas' grandfather founded the city of Megaton. They sought safety in the crater the bomb created before building outward from it. The crater offered them protection from "duststorms" which aren't present in the game, but would more or less describe the massive ecological impact of the nuclear bombs just going off. It also explains the ramshackle nature of the town, given the parts they needed to build the city were probably falling out of the sky if not blown into the crater from these ecological disturbances. To me this puts Megaton's founding sometime between 2077-2100.
The vicinity to Vault 101, alongside the skeletons outside the door itself, would point to the founders being people who were unable to get into the Vault, and sought safety in the crater rather than Springvale, which is closer than Megaton itself. A post-war founding doesn't make sense in that context because there's a pre-build town better situated not that far away.
Her story creates an incongruity with another character, and to me is an example of two different visions butting heads I think. The refugee remark strikes me as odd. Refuge from where? In my POV, it's other survivors of the bombs. In this vision, Megaton was a fresh, post-war town, built walls, and has become a little semblance of civilisation some 50-80 years after the war. Manya will make a return in a moment, and her birth year is important.
The Children of Atom would also, by and large, make more sense being the creation of those who witnessed the power of the bombs themselves rather than arbitrarily deciding to worship a nuke/atom based purely off of a flawed rationalisation long after the fact. Or, assuming the "city" was founded right after the bombs, worshipping the bomb which created the crater that ultimately saved them (rationalising it as a divine act) would also make more sense.
Moriarty is very important. Yes, bizarrely, he's the central lynchpin to a lot of the following autism, and he both muddies and elucidates Fallout 3's weird time fuckery. He arguably helps give an approximation of Fallout 3/4's true year, or the year Bethesda was going to set it in originally before changing it.
Firstly, where he's from.
Herbert Daring Dashwood (more on him in a bit) saw Moriarty as a child but also, potentially, visited Megaton before it had walls. From his computer terminal, he says:
Yes, Moriarty was also not from the USA, like Tenpenny*. This would mean Moriarty was old enough to remember coming from Ireland, that Moriarty's father was still alive at the time to tell him that, or Dashwood himself bore witness to Moriarty coming into the country.
There's a bunch of things to establish. First, Moriarty was potentially an adult before the walls were even constructed. He's also older than Lucas Simms, and by a bit given his tone. The raiders stopped assaulting Megaton after the walls were put up according to Manya, but Moriarty was shooting them before Simms became Sheriff.
He also saw you as a baby.
Another important note: he met Vault dwellers "5 years ago"
And we potentially know who this Dweller was, from the Vault 101 terminal entry "Scouting report"
The "guy" Moriarty is talking about is possible Lewis. Moira Brown gives you an armoured vault 101 jumpsuit made from another dweller's jumpsuit, which possibly belonged to him. If you're female I imagine you were given Agnes'. We do not know the fate of these two besides them no longer being in Megaton.
2241 also is significant because it's the same year Fallout 2 is set. Furthermore, the Overseer's terminal makes mention of receiving a message from the Enclave, which lines up.
Remove the last line, and it explains why the doors never opened again, not even to allow people back inside once they're out.
Old Lady Palmer's dialogue in the files has an association with the scout report, given it was written by her daughter:
Anne Palmer never returned to 101, right? Data can be received and saved remotely as it's capable of picking up radio signals, downloading audiofiles, etc. It's capable of uploading data too, given you can receive a pay-out for explored locations from Reily of Reily's Rangers without actually leaving, indicating data can be uploaded from the Pipboy too, wired or remote. We also know from Fallout 1's manual that the older model was capable of recording video, so a picture should be a cinch.
It's possible Anne sent the report, and was simply never let back inside. Or she sent it, went back out to Lewis and Agnes, and was then locked out. We don't know her, or Lewis', or Agnes' ultimate fate.
One final note is that the photo of Megaton included with the scouting report. It shows it having walls by 2241.
Stockholm isn't in the photo.
Originally he was going to be called "Solomon", apparently, given it's his name in the game guide.
I bring up the guide at all because it contains info older than what ended up being seen in-game, which means it possibly points to older intentions for the game and has a role to play in a moment.
The scouting Report in conjunction with Moriarty's dialogue ("5 years ago") would imply the game is set in 2246.
Going forward I'll be using this year, not 2277 as the start of Fallout 3 (more on why later).
The player character is 19 years old when they leave 101. Moriarty saw you as a baby, meaning the character's birth year would be 2226, and the player starts the game in 2227
Old Lady Palmer also remarks that:
Meaning it was open within her memory. We don't know if she's referring to when they let James in, or when they sent out the scouting teams.
Back to Moriarty, he bought Gob** off of slavers "15 years ago".
I.e. 2231
Gob does not know/recognise/remember Liam Neeson, which makes sense if Gob was bought after Liam Neeson's previous visit in 2227/2228.
It doesn't end there. I've spoken out against the Fallout New Vegas guide before. It had a solo writer with no affiliation to the game and is responsible for some dumb shit (such as making the NCR quasi-Communist), but the Fallout 3 guide wasn't a solo effort. Emil, Pete Hines, amongst others, all contributed to writing it. The guide contains a "census" detailing every named character and giving us their ages, which is the most important part. Some notably lack them (Overseer of 101), but many do, including Moriarty.
His birth year would be 2196.
2196 + 14 = 2210, the year Moriarty inherited the bar.
This would be after Herbert visited Megaton, which would have to be before this year. (I'd range 2204-2209 but it's not important)
Bringing Manya back, here's her entry.
Her birth year would be 2182.
Her grandfather founded the city, and her father and her worked caravans. Her grandfather had passed so she had to be told this. The game guide also reveals how long she and Nathan ran a caravan for.
We don't know when the retirement was exactly, but let's say it's their current ages.
There's a lot of conjecture here, but lets say he met and then ran the route from when he met her - age 35, 2216.
She says she ran a caravan with her father "for a while". This would put her, broadly speaking, as working anytime between 18 (2200) and 34 (2216) with her father.
However, nixing the game guide entirely for Manya, another character gives us a year which also ends up close to that point regardless: Carol.
Carol makes hubbub about being a pre-war ghoul too. She does not give anything besides one thing: her birth year:
Another time span she gives is when she met Greta.
Alright, so: 2246 - 60 = 2186
Four year difference than what you get with the guide.
Another source of year info is from Herbert Daring Dashwood's computer terminal:
After all this, what comes next seems extremely arbitrary, but I suspect this is genuinely what happened given how sparse the actual mention of 200 years is within the game itself.
2277
It's a nice round number, both it and the whole "200 years" thing.
I personally think it was decided closer to the end of development and tacked.
I think they made the game's year 2277 because it's a nice round number that rolls off the tongue more pleasantly for marketing than "One-hundred and sixty nine years after the bombs dropped" and they had already partway decided to nix the original start date of 2246. It's also not the first time they've been arbitrary with the lore, and even their own injections to it.
Moriarty being Irish was basically arbitrary to "make players think" (?????)
(This is not the only time Emil did this bullshit lmao)
(Also "200" years is mentioned sparsely. Liam Neeson doesn't mention it and Free Dog only drops a reference to it being 200 years with the addition of Broken Steel. Otherwise it's mentioned only a handful of times in the base game, 6 by recollection - Eden once over the radio, Carol, the Overseer. The rest are by Braun.)
Game year of 2277
Take off the 31 added to make it "200 years after the bombs fell" whilst also making the number nicer to look at to the date hinted at by Moriarty and the Scout report - 2246
Take off the years added to make it a sequel to Fallout 1 and 2 instead of a prequel.
2277 - 31 - 100 = Fallout 3 being (originally) set in 2146.
All those Dashwood year entries? Take 31 years off of them, assuming the year change was made at the ass-end of development:
Met Argyle = 2111
Discovery and exile from Rockopolis = 2117
Cholera outbreak = 2218
Death of Chase/New Paradise Falls leader/escape from Rockopolis = 2119
Honorary Ghoul = 2120 (we know they escaped Rockopolis, this is probably how he got it)
[Decades of separation (at least 2)
Argyle found dead = 2146
Greta meeting Carol? 2086.
And like I said with it having a mixed identity based on when it wants to be set, Bethesda's Fallout exists in 2 simultaneous time frames: 2100s, and 2200s, unable to actually settle on either. They wanted the "post apocalypse" of 1, but all the "cool shit" of 2, and couldn't decide on either. You can probably go through 3 with a scalpel and pick out little pieces and parts of before and after. Stuff like the inclusion of jet, the Enclave, the BoS? Once they decided to make it a sequel. Pre-war food, utter state of the "towns" and weird time inconsistencies? Before they decided on making it a sequel.
Like Bioware with Dragon Age, I wouldn't be too surprised if the skeleton for what 4 was originally going to be was written down somewhere during 3's development. It's not an unusual practice, given we've seen allusions to Oblivion in Morrowind so they can hit the ground running when it comes to developing the next title. I think it's wholly possible 4 was the original 3, but 3 had the cooler location and so they opted for that? 4's introduction to the BoS feels more momentous than their introduction in 3, and I wonder if, at some point, they switched to working on what was going to be the sequel purely because it seemed more titillating an idea?
*Want to know something stupid?
His accent is fake according to Emil Pagliuro, which opens the door to him possibly not even being British, which makes Moriarty arriving as a kid in the USA more significant. Unfortunately the pixel.tv interview where he dropped this is gone. The Fallout 3 loading screen does confirm him as being British though.
"Refugee"?
Hmm, where has word been used before.
Tenpenny being a post-war Brit who arrived in D.C, was turned away or kicked out of Megaton would give sufficient motive to play the place up IMO. The idea he doesn't speak of himself much due to his less-than-affluent background compared to the front he puts on is plausible. Would also give a covert reason for why he allows the ghouls into the tower at all, which doesn't make too much sense given he supposedly hates them. He even put it up to a vote, hmm. Though to facilitate this idea, he'd need to be older than Manya Vargas, assuming he was alive when Megaton was still receiving refug–
Allistair Tenpenny did nothing wrong.**This runs afoul of Gob himself, who makes no mention of it. I think Gob along with his "mother" are possible occurrences of the game originally being set pre-Fallout 1 & 2
Gob was a "fresh" Ghoul post war, left D.C., and has been stuck in Megaton ever since. It's possible he left, got to Megaton, got enslaved, and then bought back from Moriarty, but that's more conjecture piled onto a lot other conjecture.
*** Fallout 4 has this to say on Wattz. It says she's a founder but Deacon is probably bullshitting.
Unfortunately, despite it not being too relevant, here's the insane swerve with Manya that helps us narrow down the founding year of the Railroad: she's fucking affiliated with them, lmao.
So now we get to bring in Harkness, Zimmerman, and the Railroad/Institute.
We don't receive an age for Victoria Watts***. And damn, that's a rough 58.
Zimmerman was born within the institute, giving us the year 2188.
Harness and Armitage gives us 2211. If Harkness' physical age is 35 but he escaped more recently, then Armitage still gives us this year.
He would've popped out a full-grown man so there's no childhood to adulthood to factor in here. It also means the Institute were capable of producing synths advanced enough that they wanted to escape as far back as 2211, thus birthing the Railroad anytime between Zimmerman's birth or Harkness' birth.
We know Nathan ran a Caravan with Manya for over 30 years, which would've had to come after she stopped doing it with her father. Manya claims her father was the one who funded and built the walls, whilst the guide says Moriarty did it shortly after his father died.
Moriarty inherited the Saloon: 2210
Harkness born: 2211
Nathan ran the caravan with Manya: 2216
This places the death/retirement of Manya's father between 2210-2216.
Regarding the Railroad, we know of 4 Railroad members in-game: Dashwood (70), Tulip, Manya (64), Father Clifford...
Woof. Year of birth: 2206. (Not relevant but damn, dude)
Fallout 4 = set 10 years after F3 = 2287 (or 2256 non-prequel or 2236 prequel)
60-70 years ago = 2196 or 2186.
Deacon, though a bullshitter, is someone who may vaguely allude to the truth. The first Railroad liberated synths were Gen 3, which Armitage (and Harkness?) became retroactively. In Fallout 4, the loading screen puts the Institute as being capable of creating Gen-3s from 2200 onward, which not only makes Deacon incorrect, it which surprisingly lines up with my bullshit.
.
If you do all the math autism, and basing it on Deacon's given years, you end up with a range between:
2256 or 2246 (from 2287),
2205 or 2215 (2256 from F3 2246)
Take 31 from 60/70 and apply the 100 year sequel number justification subtraction
2205-2215 also means the synths were complaint for at least 5-15 years before getting uppity.
2205-2215 can give a window for which Manya joins the Railroad.
It has to be before she met Nathan because she has this to say:
Meanings odds were she didn't drift out so far as to encounter the Railroad. The only other character who we know for sure would "adventure" that far out is Herbert.
So this helps to put the Railroad's founding as being after 2100/2200 regardless.
If the Institute's founding is also subject to the 31 year subtraction you receive 2079, 2 years after the war.
Fallout 4, if it were a prequel to 3, would have to be 10-13 years given Squire Maxon's age, so 2233-2236.
Even when you minus 31 from this year, you still get a year after 2100/2200, when Gen 3 synths were developed. and at some point liberated for the first time by the Railroad.
TLDR: THE (SCHIZO) FORMULA IS [CURRENT YEAR] - 100 - 31
31 = NUMBER ADDED TO OG YEAR (2246) TO MAKE IT 2277
100 = NUMBER ADDED TO MAKE IT A "SEQUEL" TO 2 INSTEAD OF A PREQUEL TO 1 & 2
DO NOT TAKE AWAY 100 IF IT GOES PRE-WAR
FALLOUT 3 2146 (OG 2277)
FALLOUT 4 2156 (OR 2136) (OG 2287)
THE PITT BoS RAID 2124 (OG 2255)
RAILROAD BEGUN 2100-2115 (60/70-31 YEARS BEFORE F4 YEAR)
INSTITUTE FOUND 2089 (OG 2110)
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