The Complete FALLOUT Timeline Explained!

The Fallout franchise has a long and

complex history and timeline that has

been expanding its post-apocalyptic

future ever since the original game's

released back in 1997 with four Mainline

games a handful of spin-offs and now a

TV show that's set within the same

universe the series has a big meaty

timeline to wrap your head around

interplay in bethesda's Bleak bunkers

franchise has a megatan law that spans

centuries and even overlaps with our own

real world timeline but how exactly does

it all tie together well despite the

mainline games rolling in a roughly

chronological order it can all get a

little bit confusing especially with all

the extra World building and timeline

diversions that happen years before the

games even take place not to mention a

handful of games that are now considered

non-canon and have mostly been thrown

out of the timeline I'll explain that in

more detail a little later on and with

the TV show extending the timeline out

further into the future there's a lot to

get through so I better get straight

into it naturally there will be spoilers

for the TV show as well which I'll call

out when I get to them so consider this

your warning hey my name's Adam and

there is no better time than now to dive

into the lore of Fallout so join me as I

break down and explain the franchise's

Nutty

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timeline our timeline kicks off in the

mid 20th century in a postor war II

world that looks very much like our own

but that is all about to change you see

the world of Fallout diverges from our

own in the period after World War II at

some point between 1945 to 1961 and

imagines a technologically advanced

world steeped in the design Aesthetics

of the 1950s hence all the

retrofuturistic Vibes despite this our

own history and Fallout share a few key

moments namely the US entering the

Vietnam war in the mid 1960s amid a

heightening of tensions in the Cold War

but in 1969 the similarities come to an

abrupt end and the Fallout franchise

branches off in its own unique Direction

y with the threat of Communism looming

large in Fallout America the US makes

the radical decision to reshape itself

from 50 States into 13 commonwealths

while this plan kind of works in that

none of the 13 commonwealths become

communist it does turn the country into

a volatile cesspit of political Strife

paranoia and unrest but the Hostile

intensity of this new political

environment coupled with the ever Rising

temperature of the Cold War leads the US

to make huge technological advancements

in the fields of AI and robotics

harnessing the atomic power that brought

World War II to a close brings about

inventions that used to be consigned to

the realm of Science Fiction and at the

Forefront of these technological leaps

is one Robert house who is born in the

year 2020 house grows up to become a

leader in the robotic space and he

eventually sets up a company by the name

of robco who become quite instrumental

to the world of Fallout among their most

notle Creations are the protectrons the

Sentry Bots Fallout 3's Liberty Prime

and the iph phone of the Fallout world

the wrist mounted pit boy but despite

all these Nifty bits of tech the threat

of nuclear war still looms large over

the world of Fallout and by April 2052

things have gotten so dire on the global

scene that a new war takes hold of the

world the resource war with fossil fuels

Running on Empty the superpowers of the

world start to fight over the limited

reserves that they have left Europe

declares war in the Middle East in a bid

to lay claim to the Region's Bountiful

Supply while in the Western Hemisphere

the us invades Mexico annexes Canada and

has to defend its Alaskan territory from

the armies of China and this resource

War naturally sets off the spark that

leads to the nukes dropping but I'm

getting ever so slightly ahead of myself

you see before we get to the fateful day

of nuclear Devastation we have to talk

about fallout's iconic vaults the year

is now 2054 and international tensions

are Sky High reading the room the US

government and a secretive organization

known as The Enclave commissions vault

tech and robco to start work on a little

something known as Project Safe House

this involves building 122 public vaults

Across America with each Vault capable

of housing 1,000 US citizens from a

potential nuclear cataclysm well that's

the official story anyway the reality is

far more bizarre as each Vault was the

basis for a completely different social

experiment some of which I'll dig into

as we make our way through this weird

and wonderful timeline many of these

vaults open in the Years preceding the

Great War of 2077 most notably Vault 76

which opens on the 300th anniversary of

the signing of the Declaration of

Independence Across the Nation local

citizens are picked as the lucky or

unlucky depending on the vault in

question future population naturally

vault tech is quite a prominent

Enterprise at this point of time to the

point where they're basically the

biggest company in the US and in the

Fallout TV show we get a closer look at

the inner workings of the company

Through The Eyes of Cooper Howard played

by Walton Goggins if you haven't yet

seen the show consider this your spoiler

warning as I'm about to get into some of

the major story beats skip ahead about a

minute to get back on track with the

games okay right so Coupe is a big-time

Hollywood star who's basically the John

Wayne or Clint Eastwood of the Fallout

timeline his wife Bob however is one of

vtech's leading Executives who's pretty

much in charge of the aformentioned

Project Safe House which has all but up

and running by the time of the pre-war

sections of the teleshow anyway Barb

encourages her Hollywood husband to help

advertise the vaults to the American

masses with one photo shoot in

particular inspiring the company's

future mascot Vault boy a picture

perfect blonde lad with a gleaming smile

and a big thumbs up thanks Coupe but as

Coupe learns more about vault tech he

becomes disillusioned with the company's

message and eventually meets with a

radical group seeking to undermine the

megacorp and so Coupe starts spying on

his wife which leads to him overhearing

a handful of major revelations in a

meeting with some of the US's biggest

players including Rob CO's Robert house

among others he learns the horrifying

truth behind the vaults and their

bizarre social experiments not only that

but he learns that vault tech even

intend to drop the bomb themselves to

guarantee their business model the

Twisted bastards anyway all of this

eventually leads us to the Fateful date

of October 23rd

2077 the day when the bombs fell with

the resource War reaching a fever pitch

the superpowers of the world started

launching nukes at each other and in the

space of two short hours pretty much

destroyed the entire world naturally the

vast majority of the planet's population

straight up died but the aftermath of

the Fallout brought about just as much

Devastation as a never- ending storm of

Black Rain lashed the nuclear wastelands

and poisoned the world with high levels

of radiation which in turn killed scores

of old species and created um new ones

to replace them and this brings our Grim

history lesson to an end as we reach the

prologue of Fallout 4 which takes place

on the day that the world ended

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yeah before you've even got time to

finish your morning coffee a voltech

representative turns up at your door and

asks you the player character AKA The

Soul Survivor a few personal questions

about your future good thing too is a

few short minutes later the first nukes

start to fall on the US and you your

spouse and your infant son sha are

whisked off to the local Vault number

number 111 and just in the nick of time

as well as a nuclear blast eviscerates

The Horizon as you descend into the

underground Vault the Soul Survivor and

his family Dawn the iconic blue and

yellow Vault suits and settle in for a

long peaceful sleep in a cryogenic

chamber we'll catch up on their Slumber

in a good 200 odd years but in the

meantime we're heading west to La for

even more nuclear devastation

yep happening concurrently to the blast

back in Boston is the total nuclear

obliteration of Los Angeles as seen in

the prologue of the Fallout TV show here

we catch up again with Cooper Howard

who's fallen from the heights of his

Hollywood career to become well a

glorified children's entertainer he's

performing in a birthday party at a

Swanky La Villa overlooking the

skyscrapers of downtown Los Angeles said

skyscrapers are not long for this world

though as the Horizon is inevitably lit

up by the harrowing sights of mushroom

clouds with the sky falling down on the

City of Angels Coupe Scoops his young

daughter up onto his horse in an ill-

fated attempt to escape the nuclear

Devastation we'll catch back up with

Coupe later on in the timeline but

before that let's get our first taste of

the irradiated wastelands

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the first Vault to open that we know

about at least is Vault 76 which opens

25 years after the Great War on

Reclamation day

2102 situated in the Appalachians of

West Virginia Vault 76 is home to the

best and brightest mines that the USA

has to offer which makes it ironic if

you choose one as your intelligence but

that's a moot point task with

repopulating the wastelands of West

Virginia the clever little citizens of

Vault 76 head on out into well a bit of

a lifeless lonely world well at least

that was the case when the multiplayer

game originally launched you see

non-player characters or NPCs didn't

start populating the game until the

wastelanders DLC launched but I'm

getting ahead of myself again anyway the

player character is given a secret

mission by The Vault overseer a mission

to secure a metric ton of nuclear

weaponry only there's a bit of a problem

in the Appalachians in the 25 or so

years since nuclear Devastation a plague

of Beast known as the scorched have

taken control of the lands mind

controlled by some giant bee likee

scorch East The Scorch present quite the

obstacle to repopulating the wastelands

and so the bulk of Fallout 76s narrative

sees the player character tracking down

a way to destroy the scorched and the

answer as we all know is to Nuke them

it's the only way to be sure on route to

this end game the player character

eventually discovers that The Scorch

might actually have been created in a

lab but despite this Revelation the plan

is still to Nuke the ever living crap

out of them and after they kill The

Scorch Beast Queen thing the connection

to the rest of the Scorch breaks only

there will be treasure in them Hills bub

or so the rumors go in the first DLC

expansion for Fallout 76 called

wastelanders yep as I mentioned before

with the threat of the scorched

extinguished people start to return to

the area in dribs and drabs and two

major factions begin to emerge out of

the Rabel the settlers and the Raiders

rumors of a vast treasure lead the

player character to discover the

existence of Vault 79 which basically

houses the entire gold reserves of the

US in one tiny living space anyway the

player chooses their allegiance to

either the settlers or the Raiders and

heads off to raid Vault 79 and depending

on your decision- making you can choose

to spread the wealth any number of ways

most of which will just break the

delicate balance of power in the area

between the two factions naturally as an

ever expanding multiplayer game the

story is constantly evolving but there

are a few key beats still to mention the

first is the introduction of a Fallout

franchise staple the Brotherhood of

Steel this highly militaristic faction

is a postwar creation built up out of

the remnants of the US Army with the

core goal of securing and preserving

technologically advanced pre-war

weaponry and kit and they're often seen

sporting that great big hulking

tank-like power armor anyway they set up

their base of operations in West

Virginia in the old Atlas Observatory

which they Rec Christen Fort Atlas as

that has presumably got more of an army

vibe to it as the player character you

can Ally yourself with the Brotherhood

in a bid to help keep the wastelanders

of the Appalachian safe and or help the

Brotherhood to steal double down on

their mission to secure pre War weaponry

and lastly for Fallout 76 are the

Expeditions which takes the player

character away from West Virginia to

visit the ruins of Pittsburgh

affectionally known as the pit and

Atlantic

City from the wastelands of West

Virginia we travel West to the remnants

of California in the year 2161 for the

events of the very first 4 game here we

witness the story of The Vault dweller a

citizen of the ill- fated vault 13 which

has got a problem a big one an all

important microchip that controls their

water processing unit has given up The

Ghost and it's the Vault Well's job to

venture out into the Wasteland to locate

a new one this Mission takes the Vault

dweller to the ruins of the nearby Vault

15 and then onwards to Vault 12 which is

located underneath a city known as

necropolis which is populated by ghouls

humans who've become hideously deformed

by nuclear radiation and it's here

underneath this city of The Walking Dead

that the Vault dweller finds a

replacement chip to solve Vault 13's

water problem one of the first major

settlements that the Vault Della visits

is a little place by the name of shady

Sands which will become one of the most

important townships in the whole series

for now it's a humble little place

that's managed to establish itself as a

thriving little Community we'll catch up

with this place a few times on the

timeline but let's just say its future

is not looking bright only there's a

lurking threat in the wastelands of

California a contingent of mutants that

have proliferated throughout the world

known as super mutants The Vault dweller

traces these reports back to a quasi

religious movement called the children

of the cathedral which is headed up by a

super mutant called the master long

story short The Vault dweller is tasked

by the overseer of Vault 13 with a

radica the super mutants which leads him

to encountering a conspiracy within the

cathedral you see it turns out that the

master is capturing humans and turning

them into super mutants using something

known as the forced evolutionary virus

or F which is contained within a series

of Vats that glow with an unhealthy

Green Glow which just screams danger to

me anyway as Fallout is a classical RPG

you can see about this mission in a

handful of different ways with the

ultimate end goal of destroying the Vats

of green fev goop and neutralizing the

Super Mutant threat and for all the

Vault dwellers efforts you'd think that

they'd be cheered back into vault 13 as

a hero right wrong the overseer Flatout

denies the Vault doeller entry back into

their home on the grounds that he's

worried that your actions will inspire

future Generations to leave the Vault

and undermine all the hard work of

keeping it going strong and so Fallout

comes to an end with the Vault dweller

exiled back into the

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wastelands all of which brings us to the

year

2197 the Year in which fallout tactics

Brotherhood a steel takes place and this

is where the timeline gets a little

funky as while tactics isn't Cannon some

elements of the story are Cannon let me

explain the main gist of tactics is that

it vastly expands the story behind the

Brotherhood of Steel specifically one of

the factions chapters in the Midwest of

America the game sees you join the

Brotherhood as an initiate and help them

move across the country from Chicago

down to Colorado be thda have outright

said that the game isn't a part of the

larger franchisees Cannon but they have

included a few references to the

brotherhood's operations in the midwest

since they took over series and all of

this is further confused by another game

helpfully called Fallout Brotherhood of

Steel which launched on consoles in 2004

and is also considered totally non-canon

in short we can largely ignore both of

these games in the grand scheme of

things after our non-canonical detour

we're back on the west coast in the year

2241 for the events of Fallout 2 here we

learn what became of the Vault dweller

after he was exiled in the first game he

eventually settles in a village called

aoo where he has a family and 80 odd

years down the line we catch up with one

of his descendants who goes by the

grandiose name of the chosen one you

were the chosen one much like their

ancestor the chosen one is tasked with

saving their community in this case a

Royo which is suffering from the effects

of a devastating drought and so the

chosen one is sent out into the world to

to find something that is known as the

Garden of Eden kit or geek for short a

terraforming kit that is capable of

creating life out of well nothing

although as the advert says results May

Vary anyway the chosen one Ventures out

in search of the gek and eventually

comes across the remains of Vault 13

which has now become infested with death

claws which are vicious dinosaur-like

beasts just a quick word on our old Pals

at Shady Sands which the chosen one can

visit in Fallout 2 not content with

being just a thriving Community Shady

Sands has become the home and capital of

one of fallout's biggest factions an

organization known as the new California

republic or NCR for short in Fallout

terms they are basically the nearest

thing to an actual functioning Community

remember the NCR they'll become very

important further down the line Upon

returning home to report on their

findings The Chosen One discovers that

aoo has been taken over by an

organization called The Enclave which is

basically made up of what's left of the

US government sitting on a cache of

sophisticated technology and weaponry

The Enclave basically tries to rule the

US with an iron fist so naturally they

need taken down a peg or two and so that

becomes the chosen ones core Mission

take down the enclave and save the poor

citizens of aoya they said about this by

charting a course on a giant Freight

ship to the enclave's base of operations

an offshore oil rig where they discover

that both the residents of aoo and vault

13 are being held captive to make

matters worse The Enclave have evolved

the nasty feev from the original game

into an Airborne virus which will help

them maintain their control over the

local populations The Chosen One

naturally throws a spanner into the

works though saves the aoo and vault 13

hostages and kills the head of the

Enclave who's also the president of the

US to boot and with this happy ending

the combined forces of Vault 13 and aoo

create a prosperous Community together

with the aid of a newly found geek just

don't mention those devastating death

claws

[Music]

next up we're heading back East to Vault

101 the home of the lone Wanderer from

Fallout 3 whose early life we see play

out in the prologue of that game kicking

off in 2258 Fallout 3's prologue starts

right at the very beginning of the lone

wonderer life as they're brought into

the world and into the arms of their

father voiced by Liam niss and his

wonderful Irish perr a boy we've got a

son Catherine and across the next 16

years we see the Wonder grow up todtling

around their play pen having their 10th

birthday and sitting their goat exams as

a teenager life seems pretty idilic in

Vault 101 well as adelic as you can get

for a life underground in a grim gry

[Music]

Vault naturally that piece doesn't last

the [ __ ] hits the fan in Vault 101 as

the lone Wanderer turns 9 in the year

2277 and this kickstarts the main plot

of Fallout 3 yep things go sideways for

the wer when they're awoken to be told

that their father has left the Vault

something that has never happened before

in Vault 101 although that'll prove to

be a fib I'll explain shortly with the

overseer and his men going a little

crazy in the circumstances the lone

Wanderer is forced to flee for their

safety and into the surrounding Capital

Wasteland the irradiated remains of the

land surrounding Washington DC yeah it's

a real out of the frying pan and Into

the Fire moment for our young hero and

so the lone Wanderer Ventures out into

the capital Wasteland in search of their

father a quest that makes up the main

bulk of Fallout 3's story on their

travels through the Wasteland The

Wanderer travels to a variety of

different settlements Chief among them

the town of Megaton named for an

unexploded nuclear bomb buried in the

foundations of the city the remnants of

Washington DC which houses the Galaxy

news radio station and the topest of top

Lads three dog and a giant Battleship

that's been christened Rivet City while

chatting with Colin mariatti one of the

inhabitants of Megaton the lone Wanderer

discovers a great deal more about their

parents' history namely that they

weren't actually born in Vault 101 which

is actually a double shock as we also

discover that 101 was designed never to

be opened as part of those Sinister

social experiments I mentioned earlier

anyway as they continue to explore the

waste the wand eventually meets a

scientist called Dr Madison Lee who

worked alongside their father while

chatting to Dr Lee we learned that James

the wondrous father was once involved in

something known as project Purity more

on that in just a second but had to take

refuge in Vault 101 in the wake of his

partner's death during childbirth on top

of all these meaty Revelations the lone

Wanderer gets embroiled in the power

struggle between the two heavyweight

factions in the Wasteland the corrupt

bureaucratic bastards at The Enclave led

by president Henry Eden who shock twist

is actually an AI and a splinter group

of the Brotherhood of Steel led by the

charismatic Elder Owen lions and at the

center of these two Waring factions is

the aformentioned project Purity a giant

water processing plant that helps feed a

clean water supply to the wider DC area

while you can Ally yourself with either

faction along with a whole host of other

oddballs and eccentrics across the

capital Wasteland you're largely pushed

towards joining the Brotherhood after

you learn that the lone Wanderers father

worked with them in the past all of this

eventually leads the lone wonderer into

taking up their father's Mission by

seeking out a gek in order to reignite

project Purity a helping out with the

project The Wander actually tracks down

their father to another Vault 112 to be

precise where they have to free him from

some bizarre virtual reality Nightmare

and with James and the wer reunited they

team up with the good Dr Lee to resume

work on the gestating project The

Enclave has different ideas though and

an ambush led by Henry Eden's right-hand

man Colonel Autumn Augustus results in

James's death when he sacrifices himself

to keep the project out of the

bureaucrats hands The Wanderer

eventually hunts down a geek in vault 87

with the aid of the Brotherhood of Steel

and a top Super Mutant lad called Forks

if you choose to prend him that is but

it's all for not as they're captured by

The Enclave when they leave the Vault

and this all leads us towards the

bombastic conclusion of Fallout 3 you

see after they break free from the

shackles of The Enclave after learning

about their darly plan to pollute the

water supply with a modified antim

mutation variant of the fev no less The

Wander is thrown into a full scale

assault against The Enclave joining him

in this daring attack is the

brotherhood's poster boy a big Iron

Giant by the name of Liberty Prime yeah

cuz nothing hits harder than democracy

and a giant killer robot this all leads

to a final confrontation with Colonel

Augustus who you can either kill or

convince to [ __ ] off and with the kernel

out the way the route is clearer to save

project Purity or not the fate of the

Wasteland is in your hands you do what

you please as the control center for the

project is in the middle of a highly

irradiated area turning it on will kill