Mutations and their causes

Mutations result from altered organic cell DNA that can help, hinder or not affect an organism at all. Their causes include a large range of conditions, including radiation, viruses, mutagenic chemicals or simple DNA replication errors. These mutants are spread throughout the wasteland and characterize one of the many effects of the Great War.

Radiation

Main article: Radiation

The various types of mutant creatures that inhabit the Wastelands were mostly created by radiation. This is from where mantises, geckos, radscorpions, brahmin and many other mutant species originated. Radiation is also how ghouls – decrepit, ragged, almost rotting, zombie-like victims of massive radiation poisoning – are created. Many ghouls were once Vault dwellers living in Vault 12 under the city of Bakersfield (better known as the Necropolis after the War). As part of the vault experiment, the blast door was designed not to close properly, thus those within the vault were exposed to massive amounts of radiation, and the majority of them that did not die became ghouls.

Ionizing radiation causes mutations by disrupting and breaking the molecular bonds of organic cells and, more importantly, the deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) molecules that encode the genetic instructions used in the development and functioning of these cells. Providing it does not kill the cell outright, the radiation changes the cells' genetic code, whereby it is no longer able to perform the tasks it was originally meant to. The mutation then spreads throughout the organism via cell replication and reproduction.

Forced Evolutionary Virus

Main article: Forced Evolutionary Virus

A typical Mariposa super mutant

The other major source of mutations in the Fallout world is the Forced Evolutionary Virus or F.E.V. Super mutants, floaters, centaurs, Snallygasters, Grafton monsters, and possibly wanamingos were all produced on a large scale due to FEV infection.

FEV was developed by the Pan-Immunity Virion Project and was created to combat a disease called the New Plague. However, abnormal side effects were observed in test subjects. The test animals began to grow dramatically and their brain activity increased. Seeing potential in the virus, the United States Army sent its own people to secure the project and began performing experiments on humans within the Mariposa Military Base. In addition to combating the New Plague, the project focused on turning men into abnormally strong and intelligent super soldiers. At the West Tek Research Center in Appalachia, further testing moved on from simple super soldiers, up to the infection of the water supply to turn the nearby town of Huntersville into test subject material.

After the Great War, and the exodus of Captain Roger Maxson and his troops to the Lost Hills Bunker, the base sat quiet until it was discovered by a group of explorers including Harold and Doctor Richard Grey, most of whom died when they encountered the automated defense systems. Soon, only Grey and Harold remained. Harold was knocked out and woke up out in the desert looking like a ghoul. Grey was knocked into a vat full of FEV by a crane and managed to crawl out. He began to mutate in horrible ways, turning into a gooey mess of skin, bone and organs. He developed psychic powers, which were enhanced by consuming living minds to expand his own brainpower. Slowly, he started doing his own experiments with FEV.

Grey found that many of the test subjects were metamorphosing into giant, mindless brutes with the brains of a child, if they survived at all. However, a rare few test subjects yielded super mutants. Immune to disease and radiation and blessed with exceptional strength, intelligence and endurance, super mutants were superior to humans in every way. They also possessed the exceptional lifespan of the mutated, but were total sterile. Grey – who now called himself the Master – lamented the needless destruction of the war. He decided that he would have to force humanity to evolve. Those who could not evolve would die.

Creating super mutants was a very hit or miss process. The great majority of super mutants produced by the Master and later his Lieutenant in Mariposa's vats were big, dumb brutes. Physically, there were vastly superior to humans, but they had the intelligence of children. What exactly causes some mutants to be brilliant and others to be stupid is unknown. As a rule of thumb, the less damaged or altered by radiation the subject's DNA, the better.

Aside from super mutants, the Master also created a variety of other creatures. No one is sure where the floaters came from, though some hypothesize that they are likely offshoots of West Tek experiments on flatworms, but then again most would rather not know. Centaurs were created by tossing a varied mix of dogs, humans, and other animals into a vat and seeing what came out the other end.

Military and scientific experimentation

Nightstalkers are prime examples of science experiments run amok.

Although methods like radiation and FEV, for the most part, seem unregulated, there have been many instances were mutation was the goal in mind.

Wanamingos were a pre-War experiment conducted by the U.S. military to make killing machines to aid in the conflict with China. However, after the bombs fell, wanamingos escaped into the Wasteland. Deathclaws were of similar origin. Created by the United States military, this FEV dipped Jackson's chameleons were designed to replace humans in high risk, close combat and seek-and-destroy operations.

Frank Horrigan, the Enclave's most powerful enforcer, was produced by a series of treatments involving a carefully modified version of the FEV, surgery, a variety of other drugs and the addition of a suit of power armor. Lastly, there is Harold, who looks a lot like a ghoul, but actually is a different kind of mutant than the standard necrotic meta-humans. Ghouls are the result of massive radiation exposure, while Harold was mutated by brief FEV exposure without being dipped into one of the nutrient vats containing the virus. Harold surviving was an oddity, resulting in a unique combination of a specific degree of exposure to the virus, a specific degree of prior radiation exposure within his own body and any number of other factors. While FEV does not produce ghoul-like mutants like Harold as reliably as it does super mutants when humans are infected by it, it does occasionally spit out something that looks like one. Another important exception is Talius, the ghoul-like creature that was hiding with the Followers of the Apocalypse and who was turned into his current state by FEV exposure, much like Harold, though under different circumstances.

In the Big MT research facilities, many mutations were deliberate, but without clear intention. Cazadores – large mutant wasps – for one were created by Dr. Borous. He was convinced they couldn't escape the research crater and were sterile, but this has been proven false by sightings of cazadors in large colonies in the areas surrounding the research facility. Also the handiwork of Dr. Borous, night stalkers were the result of the genetic hybridization of coyotes and rattlesnakes. Borous admits night stalkers were created after Dr. Calis dared him to splice mountain lion, eagle and condor genes together, but instead used the combination of coyotes and rattlesnakes.

Other mutants

There are a few other types of mutant creatures in the Wastelands that don't directly stem from FEV or radiation. These are mostly the intelligent animals and one spore plant encountered in Fallout 2. The intelligent spore plant and radscorpion in Broken Hills were another, separate experiment conducted by a scientist there. Occasionally, other intelligent animals have appeared here and there in the Fallout games, but all have been flukes. A race of intelligent raccoons living in an colony known as the Burrows was originally intended to appear in Fallout, but was cut due to style issues.

There are human societies that have undergone gradual mutations over several generations due to either environmental conditions like radiation exposure, or other reasons. Two examples are the Slags (mutated by genetic adaption to life underground) and the Beastlords (mutated by a unique form of radiation). Additional forms of these such mutants include the trogs of the Pitt, the swampfolk of Point Lookout, The Family of the Capital Wasteland, the Ghost people of the Sierra Madre, and the tunnelers of the Divide. Early after the Great War in Appalachia, a unique type of mutant surfaced: The Wendigo. The mutation appears to arise due to one of two factors: A human consuming human flesh and staying in low light subterranean environments for some time, or large amounts of radiation surpassing typical Ghoulification, and rendering a human a Wendigo.

Mutations in regard to canon

Over the years, different developers have been in charge of Fallout canon and have come up with different interpretations on this subject. Mutant creatures and where they come from is one of the most controversial topics in Fallout canon and it's very easy to annoy veteran scholars of the setting by getting things wrong or even just partially right.

Chris Avellone seemed to prefer the "FEV explains everything" theory of mutation. He suggests that when the Glow was hit by the Chinese warheads, the tanks holding the virus burst and the FEV was vaporized and shot into the air. It was then mutated by the radiation from the blast, and went on to help radiation create the various mutant animals we know and love as well as ghouls. The problem with this theory is that first off it's a bit redundant since Fallout radiation is already fully capable of producing the mutations seen in the gameworld. Second, we know from the Lieutenant's mention of inoculation from mutant FEV that any airborne strain of FEV could not cause these mutations. If it did, why didn't any humans mutate from exposure to the airborne FEV? Furthermore, FEV causes sterility and if radscorpions, geckos, molerats, deathclaws and other creepie-crawlies are all products of FEV, they would be unable to breed and continue to be present in the wasteland. Avellone eventually admitted that he was wrong, and that most mutations in the Fallout world were caused by the ambient radiation.

Chris Taylor offers a different point of view on how ghouls are made. He suggests that when people with too much radiation damage are dipped, you get ghouls. When people with mild radiation damage are dipped, you get stupid super mutants. When people with very little radiation damage are dipped, you get intelligent super mutants. This would mean Harold is a normal ghoul. However, since the population of Vault 12 was never dipped, not all ghouls could be made this way, only that FEV would speed up the process slightly.

Enclave Mutation Policy

The Enclave holds the view that any "human" who has been "exposed" to the post-nuclear world's ambient environmental radiation is a mutant and that all mutants should be destroyed. The Enclave's definition of "exposure" would seem to mean that only Enclave members and those people still residing in Vaults count as "pure" human beings.