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00:00 "War... War never changes."
00:03 Welcome to Mojo Plays, and today, we're doing a deep dive into the Fallout timeline,
00:08 from the very first game through to the TV show today.
00:12 "From where you're kneeling must seem like an 18-carat run of bad luck."
00:16 Before we begin, we publish new content all week long,
00:19 so be sure to subscribe and ring the bell to get notified about our latest videos.
00:25 The Fallout lore isn't too complex, but there is a lot of it,
00:30 with the game world having an entire alternate history that begins centuries before you step out of your first vault.
00:36 Much of Fallout's history is the history of our own world, with a few differences deep in the past.
00:42 Things like the influence of the fictional Cabot family on Boston way back in the 18th century.
00:47 But things get notably different around the Second World War,
00:51 when Fallout pursues alternate forms of technology to us in the real world.
00:55 Specifically, they invest hugely in nuclear physics,
00:59 mastering nuclear fission and eventually nuclear fusion to create vast amounts of power.
01:05 Energy is revolutionized, but other forms of technology, like television and radio,
01:10 remain stuck in the 1950s, never moving on except that they're nuclear-powered now.
01:16 "People enjoyed luxuries once thought the realm of science fiction."
01:20 "Domestic robots, fusion-powered cars."
01:25 Fallout is so concerned with technology and exploring the impact its futuristic tech has on the world,
01:31 that all of its biggest private companies work in science and technology,
01:36 many of them becoming defense contractors for the US government.
01:39 These are companies like Vault-Tec, Robco, and Repcon.
01:43 Vault-Tec is, of course, hugely important, because it's the company behind the vaults that save humanity.
01:50 At least on paper.
01:51 Robco Industries, meanwhile, was run by Mr. House before the war,
01:56 and is responsible for practically all of the robots we encounter, as well as inventing the Stealth Boys.
02:02 Finally, Repcon largely built rockets, but was crucially contracted by the US government to create new fuel sources,
02:10 including nuclear fission, which makes the world go round.
02:14 "War... war never changes."
02:19 The world was also reliant on fossil fuels by this point, a finite resource.
02:24 But nuclear power was a finite resource too, because it depended on uranium.
02:29 This eventually led the world's two largest superpowers, the United States and China,
02:34 into conflict through the Resource Wars, beginning in 2052.
02:39 Our only real look into what the world was like at this time is through the liberation of Anchorage Simulation,
02:46 which shows American soldiers freeing Alaska from Chinese occupation.
02:50 Alaska had been under occupation since 2066, when the Sino-American War broke out,
02:56 but in early 2077, it was brought back into the US.
03:00 China's power led to extreme paranoia within the US about the impact of communism,
03:05 which again mirrors real life in the 1950s,
03:08 when America was gripped by the second Red Scare and thought communism was hiding around every corner.
03:14 But in Fallout, these fears weren't unfounded.
03:18 Not only were spies genuinely working to undermine America, as we see in Fallout 3's Point Lookout DLC,
03:25 but China had armed submarines stationed around the coast.
03:29 [gunshots]
03:34 This, of course, culminated in the Great War, which lasted for all of two hours on October 23rd, 2077.
03:42 America and China together, in the last hours of the Sino-American War, destroyed the world.
03:48 Some people survived, either by descending into vaults or by finding refuge in other places.
03:53 We can see this play out at the beginning of Fallout 4,
03:57 as the sole survivor descends below the Commonwealth to be cryogenically frozen.
04:01 In Fallout 3, we see that a community managed to survive by hiding in the Lamplight Caverns, creating Little Lamplight.
04:09 On the other side of the country, Vegas was left largely unscathed because of Mr. House protecting it with his superior technology.
04:17 But it would take a long time for the world to even begin to recover.
04:21 "They returned with tales of a city untouched by the warheads that had scorched the rest of the world,
04:27 and a great wall spanning the Colorado River."
04:31 With the exception of Fallout 4's opening, the earliest we've ever gone in the Fallout timeline is 2102,
04:38 which is when Fallout 76 begins.
04:40 You start in Vault 76, a vault designed to celebrate the signing of the Declaration of Independence back in 1776,
04:48 when it opens 25 years after the war.
04:51 Luckily, Vault 76 was one of Vault-Tec's control vaults,
04:56 meaning it didn't have any sinister experiments running in the background.
05:00 Even better, Appalachia is definitely a more pleasant place than other Fallout settings,
05:05 though it's been ravaged by Scorch Beasts, which are enormous mutated bats.
05:10 Because it's an MMO, the plot of Fallout 76 is always growing,
05:15 with expansions released following the Zeta Aliens and returning to Pittsburgh.
05:20 But you spend the early hours and initial quests in the game trying to rid Appalachia of the Scorch Beasts
05:26 and the infected humans they leave behind, known as the Scorched.
05:30 It ends when you drop a nuclear bomb, but Appalachia bounces back from this quickly enough.
05:36 Crucially, this is one of the earliest iterations of the Brotherhood of Steel we see,
05:41 even though they were actually established in 2076, right before the Great War.
05:46 But Fallout 76 is still set far away from the main continuity of games,
05:51 since the story really begins in the year 2161 in California.
05:56 (Gunfire)
06:02 This is where Fallout, a post-nuclear role-playing game, starts,
06:07 almost 90 years after the war that destroyed the world.
06:10 You're playing as the Vault Dweller, who's been chosen to leave Vault 13, another safe control vault,
06:17 because the vault needs extra water chips to operate their water purifier.
06:21 Otherwise, it's not going to survive.
06:24 You leave the vault and soon encounter Shady Sands,
06:27 a small town that's beaten the odds and already learned how to grow fresh crops in the wasteland.
06:33 But it hasn't all been plain sailing.
06:35 Shady Sands was founded by Dwellers from Vault 15,
06:39 a vault that was a social experiment gone awry when the Dwellers,
06:43 chosen because they held beliefs across the political spectrum, came into conflict.
06:48 A group left and stole the vault's GECK when they did.
06:51 That's a Garden of Eden creation kit,
06:54 the crucial piece of pre-war technology that terraforms the wasteland to make it habitable.
06:59 In Shady Sands, you're witnessing the birth of the new California Republic,
07:03 which will be officially founded in 2189, 27 years after the first game begins.
07:10 More on them later.
07:11 Back in the 2160s, the wasteland is under threat.
07:15 A group calling itself the Unity is growing,
07:18 a cult with the aim of turning every human being into a super mutant,
07:22 a giant green monster.
07:24 Its leader is the Master,
07:26 a mutant himself who wanted to use the Forced Evolutionary Virus, or FEV, to transform mankind.
07:34 Like the GECK, the FEV is a key part of Fallout lore that will return time and time again.
07:41 The quest for the Water Chips eventually leads the Vault Dweller into conflict with the Master.
07:46 To pull off this final dramatic confrontation effectively,
07:49 you'll have needed to explore the wasteland to get several key pieces of information,
07:54 so that you can prove to the Master that the super mutants are sterile.
07:58 This means that his all-mutant society is doomed,
08:02 because it would be impossible for them to reproduce.
08:04 When the Master realizes this, he sets his base, the Cathedral, to explode,
08:10 scattering the Unity, known to others as the Master's Army far and wide.
08:15 "Wonderful, amazing. I'm so proud of what you've accomplished, what you've endured."
08:22 Between Fallout 1 and Fallout 2, we've actually got two spin-off games.
08:27 These are the confusingly named Fallout Tactics Brotherhood of Steel, released in 2001,
08:32 and Fallout Brotherhood of Steel, released in 2004.
08:36 The former follows a Brotherhood campaign in the Midwest in 2197,
08:41 as soldiers journey southwest to find the semi-mythical Vault Zero to claim its technology.
08:46 They, again, come into conflict with mutants and a villain called the Calculator,
08:51 a grotesque supercomputer powered by an amalgamation of real human brains,
08:56 not too dissimilar to the Master himself.
08:59 It's not clear which ending is the canon ending,
09:02 but it almost certainly ends with the Brotherhood getting its hands on even more powerful world-ending technology,
09:09 for better or worse.
09:10 "Humanity once again starts to prosper."
09:13 The 2004 game, on the other hand, is set 19 years on, in 2208,
09:19 following an initiate recently brought into the Brotherhood.
09:22 Interestingly, 2208 is the same year that the original Vault Dweller leaves their town, Arroyo, for good.
09:29 Unfortunately, this game was critically panned and doesn't offer too much new,
09:34 though it is the only Fallout game set in Texas, taking place in the city of Carbon.
09:40 You're fighting yet another army of mutants who are, in-game, modeling themselves on the Master.
09:46 [Mutants growling]
09:49 [Explosion]
09:51 Fallout 2 sees another big time skip.
09:54 It begins in the year 2241, and you're a new player character, nicknamed "The Chosen One,"
10:00 living in Arroyo, grandchild of the Vault Dweller.
10:04 At the end of the first game, the Vault Dweller returned to Vault 13 to bring back the water chips.
10:10 It was exiled by the Overseer.
10:12 By 2167, Arroyo had been built in Northern California, but the town is hit by a severe drought,
10:19 and there's only one thing that can help, another GECK.
10:22 The Chosen One leaves to find it, but the Enclave soon emerge as a new threat.
10:27 You find out that before the war, the U.S. government made a lot of contingencies,
10:32 with many top government officials escaping nuclear annihilation and forming the Enclave,
10:38 which has been biting its time for over 150 years.
10:42 Its main base is Control Station Enclave, an offshore oil rig,
10:47 but it also has a major presence in Navarro, a military base on the West Coast.
10:52 The Enclave plan is, again, preoccupied with the Forced Evolutionary Virus.
10:57 They want to modify it so that it's lethal and airborne, capable of infecting and killing everybody in the Wasteland.
11:04 When this is done, they'll move in and rebuild America to their own specifications.
11:10 Obviously, you can't let this happen, because it turns out that while the Chosen One is successful at retrieving another GECK,
11:17 the entire population of Arroyo has been kidnapped by the Enclave to serve as test subjects for the modified FEV.
11:23 The Enclave is ultimately destroyed when the oil rig's nuclear reactor is detonated by the Chosen One,
11:30 who uses the GECK to turn Arroyo into a powerful force in the West.
11:34 Crucially, by this point in time, the NCR has been founded officially,
11:39 and is building shady sands into one of the most advanced cities in the entire Wasteland.
11:44 "Proving, once again, that genocide is a viable solution to any problem."
11:50 But it's time to skip another few decades, ending up in the year 2277,
11:55 and in a brand new location, the Capital Wasteland, the ruins of Washington, D.C.
12:01 A lot of people join the franchise with Fallout 3, with this game serving as their introduction to the world of Fallout.
12:07 It starts officially in 2258, though, when the main character, this time dubbed the Lone Wanderer, is born.
12:15 Your father James, aka Liam Neeson, decides to break out of Vault 101,
12:20 another Vault-Tec experiment where the populace was ordered to never open the vault doors.
12:25 The Lone Wanderer decides to follow him and is violently expelled from the vault,
12:30 where you begin the long journey of tracking James down.
12:33 Eventually, the Lone Wanderer discovers that they were born outside the vault,
12:37 and that the Observer remarkably let them and their father in,
12:41 after their mother dies in childbirth right at the beginning.
12:44 Their parents were working on something called Project Purity,
12:47 a high-tech installation built around the Jefferson Memorial, designed to deliver clean water to the Wasteland.
12:53 But it needs a GECK to get up and running properly, and that's where James has gone.
12:59 The Lone Wanderer tracks him down to Vault 112, where he's been trapped in a simulation called Tranquility Lane.
13:05 The simulation is being controlled by sadistic scientist Stannilus Braun,
13:09 who incidentally is also the creator of the GECK, but unfortunately, Vault 112 doesn't have one.
13:16 The Wanderer breaks James out by either going along with Braun,
13:20 or breaking his control of the simulation and freeing the residents.
13:24 - Son, you've saved me. I was afraid I'd be trapped in there forever.
13:29 It's so good to see you, but... but what are you doing here?
13:33 - James rallies the former Project Purity scientists, now all working in Rivet City.
13:39 They return to the Jefferson Memorial to get it up and running, but are thwarted by the Enclave,
13:44 many of whom have survived the events of Fallout 2.
13:47 To stop the Enclave's leader, Colonel Autumn, from activating the Purifier,
13:51 James seals himself inside and gives his life, dying from the equipment's massive radiation output.
13:58 The Wanderer and the other scientists fight off the Enclave and flee through the sewers.
14:03 - Well, that takes care of that.
14:06 - Eventually finding sanctuary in the ruins of the Pentagon,
14:09 now renamed the Citadel and occupied by the Brotherhood of Steel.
14:13 This faction of the Brotherhood has, by now, gone against the group's original mission statement
14:19 of hoarding technology for technology's sake.
14:21 They want to help the people of the Wasteland to rebuild.
14:25 This has led to the formation of the Brotherhood Outcasts,
14:28 who roam the Wasteland in red power armor and dismiss outsiders.
14:33 More on them later.
14:34 With the Brotherhood's help, the lone Wanderer determines that Vault 87 still contains its GECK,
14:43 the only one in the Capital Wasteland.
14:45 You've got two options for how to get in.
14:48 Through the front door, which requires a lot of anti-rad medicine and equipment.
14:53 Or through the back tunnels, which require you to get in good with the people who live in the caves.
14:59 The catch is that these people are children,
15:02 and in their town of Little Lamplight, they hate adults and won't want to help.
15:07 - You can't very well keep the peace if you've already lost it.
15:10 So, bam!
15:12 - Unless you do a quest or pass a speech check.
15:14 Whatever the case, the Wanderer gets into Vault 87 and acquires the GECK,
15:19 only to be snatched by the Enclave at the last second.
15:23 They awaken in the Enclave's high-tech base, Raven Rock,
15:26 and make their way to the President of the United States, John Henry Eden, at his invitation.
15:32 This is where they find out Enclave's grand plan, which is, yet again,
15:36 to release the modified FEV and reclaim the Wasteland.
15:40 Eden is easily talked into blowing up Raven Rock, and the Wanderer makes their escape.
15:45 The final assault begins, with the Brotherhood activating its enormous pre-war robot, Liberty Prime,
15:51 and taking back Project Purity.
15:54 - Revised stratagem.
15:56 Initiate photonic resonance overcharge.
16:01 - At the end of the game, the lone Wanderer has two choices.
16:05 Activate Project Purity themselves, dying in the process,
16:08 or send Sarah Lyons, one of the Brotherhood, to do it instead, in which case she dies.
16:14 The game was later patched to give you the third option to send Fox, the super mutant companion, to do it,
16:20 since Fox is immune to radiation.
16:22 But they don't actually die, because the Broken Steel DLC sees them awakening back in the Citadel.
16:28 From there, you're tasked with wiping out all the remains of the Enclave.
16:33 Along the way, you'll also get abducted by aliens and have to fight your way off their ship,
16:38 you'll help the Brotherhood outcasts to gain access to a pre-war stash of dangerous weapons,
16:42 you'll journey on a riverboat to Maryland and have part of your brain removed,
16:46 and you'll return to Pittsburgh, seen much earlier in its history in Fallout 76,
16:51 to free its slaves and cure its plague.
16:54 - Don't worry about it. Sergeant Montgomery will be your squad commander,
16:58 and he knows all the ins and outs of the team.
17:00 - Finally, we're moving on from the surprising density of Fallout 3 to 2010's Fallout New Vegas,
17:06 where we return to the West to see the expanding NCR,
17:10 which is now one of the most powerful forces in the Wasteland,
17:14 come up against a new faction, Caesar's Legion.
17:17 The Legion model themselves on ancient Rome and have brought peace and security with them from Arizona,
17:23 albeit peace and security enforced strictly by slavery and crucifixions.
17:27 The two groups are fighting for control of the Hoover Dam and subsequently Vegas.
17:32 We're also going to catch back up with Mr. House, owner of Robco, who still controls Vegas from the shadows.
17:39 Since the war, Vegas has regained its pre-war reputation for hedonism,
17:43 with large casinos now run by the three families.
17:47 They were originally Wasteland tribes that Mr. House saw potential in,
17:51 giving them control of the Tops, the Ultra-Lux, and Gamora, while he kept control of the Lucky 38.
17:58 The game opens with you, Courier 6, being shot in the head and buried in a shallow grave in Goodsprings in 2281.
18:06 You wake up with no memory of your previous life and decide to hunt down the man who shot you,
18:12 tracking him all the way to Vegas.
18:14 The Courier discovers that this was Benny, the leader of the Chairman who run the Tops.
18:19 He killed the Courier to retrieve the coveted Platinum Chip,
18:22 which they were trusted to deliver to the Lucky 38.
18:27 "The truth is, the game was rigged from the start."
18:31 It turns out that the Platinum Chip is a computer chip,
18:36 carrying upgrades to the Scuritron robots that patrol the Strip and keep its citizens,
18:42 and Mr. House, protected from the NCR and the Legion.
18:46 There are four ways the Courier can proceed.
18:49 They can side with the NCR, the first and largest faction they encounter,
18:53 and work to reclaim the Hoover Dam and the city for California.
18:57 They can work with the Legion and do the opposite,
19:00 undermining the NCR from within and dispatching Mr. House.
19:04 They can take Mr. House's side and let him have absolute control with his upgraded army.
19:09 Or finally, they can take Benny's plan for themselves and become his legacy,
19:15 creating a truly independent Vegas.
19:17 We don't know which of the four endings is canon, despite widespread debate,
19:21 and we won't know until the series revisits the Mojave.
19:25 "Don't disable!"
19:27 "I have... nothing... to say."
19:34 But we're traveling all the way back to the East Coast for Fallout 4.
19:38 After being sealed in cryostasis for decades, the sole survivor is briefly awakened,
19:44 only to see a hardened mercenary kidnap their newborn son and kill their spouse,
19:49 before they're sealed away again.
19:50 They finally wake for good in 2287, six years after New Vegas,
19:56 and leave Vault 111 to track down their son, Sean.
19:59 This search takes them to Diamond City almost immediately,
20:03 a large settlement built in the ruins of Fenway Park in Boston.
20:07 They learn about an alleged conspiracy by members of a shadowy group that may or may not exist,
20:12 called the Institute, to kidnap and replace the citizens of the Commonwealth with synths.
20:17 By tracking down the mercenary who kidnapped their son and getting the help of one of the factions,
20:22 the sole survivor discovers that not only is the Institute and its plan real,
20:26 but that its leader is their son Sean, who's far older than initially thought.
20:31 We then head into Act 2 of the game,
20:33 where the sole survivor helps all four factions until reaching various points of no return.
20:39 "You'll accomplish your task and ruin humanity's best hope for the future."
20:45 "The only question left then is why you're standing here."
20:50 "Is it regret, or did you just come to gloat?"
20:54 If they decide that Sean is right,
20:56 there's another plan to get rid of the current human population with pure, non-irradiated people,
21:01 albeit not by releasing a dangerous virus.
21:05 They side with the Institute and destroy the other factions, taking the Commonwealth for good.
21:09 Alternatively, they can side with the Brotherhood of Steel.
21:13 This is another iteration of the East Coast Brotherhood,
21:16 but now they've only got one mission,
21:19 purge the world of synths, mutants, and anything else that isn't completely human.
21:24 Third, you can team up with the Railroad.
21:27 They want to destroy the Institute and the Brotherhood because they threaten the synths and their freedom,
21:32 but they don't care half as much about humankind.
21:35 Finally, you've got the Minutemen, who just want to protect the people of the Commonwealth.
21:40 Only the Minutemen and the Railroad can coexist.
21:44 The other factions all demand you destroy two of the others,
21:47 leaving the Minutemen alone in most cases.
21:50 Whether Fallout 4 has a canon ending or not, we also don't know,
21:54 and likely won't until the next game in the series.
21:57 "Ripped apart and put back together.
22:01 I thought, I hoped, I could find my family, cheat time, make us whole again."
22:07 But that brings us to the present day in Fallout terms, 2296,
22:12 nine years after the events of Fallout 4,
22:15 and the blockbuster television show that opens in Vault 33.
22:19 Vault 33 is also in the ruins of Los Angeles,
22:22 last seen as the Boneyard in Fallout 1.
22:25 It's in the Los Angeles Vault, a demonstration vault built by Vault-Tec
22:29 that was fully functioning and used as a shelter
22:32 where the Master originally waited to build his army.
22:35 And it's very close to Shady Sands, now supposedly,
22:39 the sprawling capital of the New California Republic.
22:42 Unless the Legion has had something to say about that.
22:45 Todd Howard said that he didn't want the TV show to build much on the existing lore,
22:49 but we can't help but wonder why, if that's the case,
22:52 LA was chosen as the setting at all.
22:55 "Lucy!"
23:03 We'll have to wait to see whether the show sticks to the established Fallout timeline
23:07 or veers off in another direction.
23:10 And that was the Fallout timeline explained.
23:13 "I do not think you would be willing to do what it takes to survive a p--"
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23:25 [outro music]
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23:31 [outro music]
23:34 (upbeat music)
23:36 (upbeat music)