10 Times 'Fallout' TV Show Expanded Game Lore

In the Fallout list, Vault-Tec was not alone in allowing vault atrocities.FalloutThe Fallout game franchise features Vault-Tec as the main (evil) company gamers interact with. Other firms also play a role. Rob-Co. Industries handled electronics; Rockwell made weapons; Big MT focused on science and development; Radiation King made electronics. Hundreds of companies players encounter feature discarded garbage with their logos and old parts.

In the eighth episode of the TV show, "The Beginning," some major, unethical companies join Vault-Tec in a secret meeting. Exec Barb Howard pitches a plan: the companies work together during a nuclear strike. They agree to drop the bomb for a financial contribution and help Vault-Tec. In return, the conglomerates get their own vaults to use as they wish.

Given carte blanche to treat humans as test subjects, the executives got excited. They quickly planned underground human testing sites. This meeting created ideas for some of the game's worst vaults, including Vault 27, Vault 72, Vault 87, Vault 106, and Vault 75.Vault-Tec gave carte blanche to vault atrocities.The executives thrilled when they could treat humans as guinea pigs. They quickly developed ideas for underground human testing sites. This meeting sparked designs for some of the game's most terrible vaults: Vault 27, Vault 72, Vault 87, Vault 106, and Vault 75.

Destroying mankind and changing survivors for profit is a joint effort.

Vault-Tec's Vault Boy and his "thumbs up" gesture have a dark history in the TV show. Before the war, Cooper Howard (Walton Goggins) advertised Vault-Tec for his wife Barb, an exec. To impress the executives for his partner, Cooper used the "thumbs up" pose, which the PR staff loved.

Viewers learned in the first episode the gesture has a darker meaning. Facing nuclear war, Cooper refuses the gesture in a photo with fans. His daughter Janey (Teagan Meredith) asks why. Cooper says he stops the thumbs up because the military taught him to use it to judge radiation cloud size. A cloud bigger than a thumb meant danger was too close; running or hiding offered no escape.

The gesture showed the dangerous times they lived, plus his work with Vault-Tec, which he does not like.

Part of the fun of the brand new vaults to explore!FalloutThe dark lore behind the game's mysteries involves Vault-Tec's actions. Players discover this by exploring Vault-Tec vaults and seeing what they did to the people inside. Forcing dwellers into lab rat experiments made Vault-Tec the villain. This action also created new species and societal groups for the game. You only find this out by exploring the vaults.

The game has over 120 vaults, but players haven't seen them all. The show lets fans explore four new vaults, ones never seen in the games. This adds to the lore.Fallout.This is the lore.

Viewers see Vaults 31, 32, and 33. These form a society. Vault 31 gave Overseers and managers. Vaults 32 and 33 were breeding vaults. The experiment aimed to make perfect Vault-Tec employees. They bred frozen executives with dwellers to create upper management. This group would then run the free world, making Vault-Tec dominant, destroying rivals, and creating their own America.

Viewers can explore Vault 4. Scientists Lloyd and Cassandra Hawthorne (Eric Berryman and Angel Desai) led Hawthorne Labs there. The vault studied radiation's effect on human DNA. They spent five years researching radiation before the War. Afterward, their work turned dark. They began experimenting on surface refugees, trying to make human hybrids by mixing DNA. This created mutants and monsters, including the Gulper.

Test subjects and dwellers eventually revolted against the unethical scientists. The scientists died. The Hawthornes were ripped apart by their "test subjects."

Vault 4 started badly, but it became one of the kindest vaults. It took in refugees from outside and helped them as much as possible.

The wrist computer worn by dwellers, survivors, and Vault-Tec employees in the Fallout games gets an upgrade in the TV series.The computer now has more functions outside of game needs. It has become an iconic part of the franchise.Fallout games.

The Pip-Boys get an update.Fallout.franchise, Pip-Boys monitor health stats and serve as a menu screen for the player. It has dozens of other functions. It acts as a satellite tracker, houses video games for bored dwellers and survivors, has a Geiger counter, offers lighting, and keeps inventory stock.

In the Fallout.Fallout.The Pip-Boy updates with a tracker, letting the wearer track key items like guns and stolen human heads. The Pip-Boy also has radiation meters. These measure objects, places, and people exposed to radiation. Lucy (Ella Purnell) uses this when she suspects her new husband Monty (Cameron Cowperthwaite) bathed before their wedding.

The Pip-Boy now connects to wireless tech. Cooper Howard (Walton Goggins) listens in on his wife's Vault-Tec meeting with a hidden earpiece. He finds she is heartless, vile, prioritizing money and power over human life.

According toFallout'screatorTim CainOne reason for building the vaults and their experiments involved prepping the rest of civilization for off-world colonization. Since possible worlds might be hundreds of years from Earth, Vault-Tec planned to use the vaults to build the technology for the trip and find ways toimproved humansso they can survive the journey.

Sadly, Vault-Tec could not build the starships before the War.

The show shows that the decision to nuke America came from a boardroom business choice, not from government or enemy groups.

At a meeting led by top Vault-Tec executive Barb Howard (Frances Turner), she proposed killing billions to gain billions. In that same meeting, she casually suggested companies could use vaults and dwellers freely. They could test products or scenarios on captives to get free test subjects and remake humanity "as they see fit."

Barb said, "Play out your own ideas for how to create the perfect conditions for humanity."

In theFalloutThe Fallout franchise showed mounting conflict between China and America. This put the world in a dangerous spot as both global powers built a cache of super weapons capable of destroying Earth many times. Who first moved toward total global destruction?

In an interview withFalloutcreator Tim Cain, he stated China was thefirst to dropnuclear bombs in the Great War over America's creation of bio-weapons, which are illegal and morally wrong for war. Cain said:

We got nuked because bio-weapons were illegal, and China discovered we were doing FEV. They told us, ‘You have to stop it.’ We agreed. But all we did was move it.

The TV series shows mass destruction looks different than a huge global power. Executives make the decision, viewing war as "good business."

Vault-Tec exec Barb Howard met with competitors and peers. She decided war would sell their product, ensure its use, and give investors total control over vaults. Howard suggested businesses drop the bombs. She argued, "War never changes," meaning people will die anyway; they could control the timeline and profit.

Vault-Tec did not drop the bombs. China or America might still be responsible. One of Vault-Tec's top execs has her husband and child in a vault for safety. If she cared, the drop seems surprising. This is just guessing. We confirm Vault-Tec is pure evil. They claim credit for the act, as brain-on-a-Roomba exec Bud Askins describes Vault 31's occupants:

People possess positivity. People make lemonade. People will inherit the Earth after wiping the surface clean.

The game features large, man-eating amphibious Gulpers appearing inFallout 4andFallout 76, describes these as "massive mutated salamanders." Episode six, "The Trap," shows fans this claim is false.

Hawthorne Labs, created by Cassandra and Lloyd Hawthorne (Angel Desai and Eric Berryman), first sold their "scientist vault" to people in TV land with Cooper Howard (Walton Goggins). They took full control of Vault 4 after the bombs dropped. They began testing surface dwellers and refugees. Vault 4's real goal was to create a hybrid human resistant to radiation, capable of surviving the Wasteland, regardless of human lives.

Lucy finds Vault 4's horrors by sneaking onto the restricted 12th floor. She watches archive tapes of the experiments. She sees a woman giving birth to Gulpers, who then eat her. A floating dead Gulper corpse in the lab shows viewers the creation of the water monsters, which were once humans.

This explains why the creatures have human traits, like human fingers lining their throats.

Vault 4 Overseer Benjamin (Chris Parnell) confirms this. He states his maternal great-uncle, Peter, became a Gulper.

Before the War, Vault-Tec sales exec and former West Tek employee Bud Askins started a training program called Bud's Buds. This program promised Vault-Tec domination of the new world order.

Using a three-vault system, cryogenically frozen Vault-Tec execs go into one vault (Vault 31). They are thawed and used as top management and overseers for the other two vaults (Vaults 32 and 33), which function as "breeding vaults."

Vault-Tec seeded the vaults with their own executives. This created a perfect community of loyal super managers. These managers would take over Earth with their superior skills upon release. The new Vault-Tec loyalists will kill post-War rivals they see as threats. This grants them a monopoly on rebuilding America. The result creates loyal customers following a Vault-Tec manager forever.

Vault-Tec's master plan meant every overseer from Vault 33 moved from Vault 31.

Bud Askins oversees Vault 31. He lives as a brain on a Roomba.

Ghouls are humans hit by so much radiation that it changes their being, physically and at the molecular level. They do not die. They live post-human because gamma radiation disrupts normal decay, turning them into monsters. Radiation causes skin to flake, facial features to rot, and eventually, their brains rot.

In the FalloutSome ghouls keep human traits like speech and thought. Others go feral or glow from the radiation and cell damage in their bodies.

Ghouls live longer than humans in the game. The game does not confirm what makes a ghoul feral or how to stop it. All ghouls will lose their humanity over time. Ghoul regeneration equips them for the Wasteland, as long as they stay sane.

The TV show shows a drug, or "chem," that lets a ghoul think and act clearly. This drug keeps their personality and memories. It fights ghoulification or slows it down, letting ghouls join society or become bounty hunters.

The Ghoul (Walton Goggins) takes "his medication" sometimes. This fights ghoulification; otherwise, he becomes a mindless creature roaming the Wasteland.

A drug turns humans into ghouls, like what happened to Thaddeus (Johnny Pemberton). We do not know if this is the same drug.

The New California Republic is a new commonwealth established in the FalloutThe franchise spans California, parts of Oregon, and Nevada. It functions as a major political faction in the game lore. Survivors of Vault 15 created it. Shady Sands began as its first stronghold; the booming community established trade, a government, and living standards to manage population growth. Peace and wealth let the faction grow into a country and an aggressive political force, eventually taking control of the five Wasteland states: Shady, Los Angeles, Maxson, Hub, and Dayglow.

After a conflict over New Vegas, the NCR faced new threats to its power. These included the Brotherhood of Steel and Caesar's Legion. Following the first and second Battle of Hoover Dam, Shady Sands suffered a nuclear strike. This killed 35,000 people and destroyed most of the NCR's political structure.

The TV series shows the fall of Shady Sands and the NCR's retreat to the Griffith Observatory as a key plot point. After the bombing, the NCR became a fanatical military unit under revolutionary Lee Moldaver. Moldaver led the faction, which first appeared as antagonists, then as chaotic neutral while trying to gain power and aid Los Angeles citizens with cold fusion stolen from the Enclave.

By the series' end, the NCR seems destroyed. The Brotherhood of Steel assaulted the Observatory.