10 More of Fallout's Greatest Unsolved Mysteries 

I used to be confused about the Institute’s goals. However after doing every side quest, listening to all of the institute characters, looking at their base, and by analyzing their actions in the commonwealth, I believe I have a clear picture of what they’re about. They just want to run dangerous experiments, create a utopia underground(we see Institute construction equipment in the tunnels), and use the commonwealth as a playground for experiments(not caring about casualties. Father pretends to care but he really doesn’t). They are elitists and they see the Wastelanders as inferior. We learn that from the dialogue. That’s pretty much it. They are similar to the Tyrell corporation from blade runner. Creating powerful machines that have some free will but at the same time want to be the masters(treating the synths like slaves).

the zetans are just mad they got here too late, right after the xetans and the yetans

I believe the canonical ending for the Mechanist is him giving up the hero lifestyle and giving the costume to the player character. The player dawning the mechanist suit will trigger an encounter with a kid who could receive the suit as a gift. I believe that kid becomes the Fallout 4 Mechanist

I always thought the postman was a reference to the old Kevin Costner movie, The Postman . Set in a post apocalyptic future where the US has to pull itself back together after nuclear war. One side being a rebirthed and armed post service VS a tyrannical slaver and his army, great movie.

Not being able to even ask Father questions about the intentions of The Institute is what keeps me from truly being able to appreciate Fallout 4. Its infuriating.

maybe the postman was like the Mojave express? its generally regarded they work for every faction and no faction, you just deliver packages and letters across the wasteland

Ive got one. What did Owyn Lyons find jn tbe Pitt? In the Citadel you can find a terminal that says they found something in the Pitt that Lyons and few others only know about

My headcanon for the Lone Wanderer's disappearance is: disgusted by how Arthur Maxson had changed the BOS, the LW decided to leave the Capital Wasteland with Fawkes for the Pitt, to help Midea take back the city after Wernher took it over.

I tend to treat information from Fallout Van Buren as semi canon - if it isn't outright contradicted, it can be used to understand what is happening on the west coast and in Arizona outside of what we see in New Vegas. Which is to say that the Vaults being intended to simulate data for the Enclave's hopes of space travel could still be possible. And considering how the Bethesda games hint at Vault Tec having a sinister purpose outside of the Enclave, it's possible Vault Tec's leaders have been observing circumstances from space...

I always thought The Scribe was actually Reginald Rothchild. He could left the order due to disagree with Maxson and still being loyal with Lyons.

The busts and statues found on buildings. For example Fort Hagan in FO 4. Fast travel there and look up. You can see that head. A strange example of these is again 4. There is a small statue of a colonist that fought in the War for Independence. The statue was shot or blown up and damaged. But below that statue is one those busts and it is completely unharmed. As a matter of fact all buildings that have these busts and statues are in relatively good shape structure wise. These busts and statues have appeared in 3, New Vegas(I think), and the first instance might be 2. So who built them and why? What material are they made out of? How come people seem to be blind, deaf, and mute to their existence? How come buildings that surround got destroyed like one would expect for a nuclear war yet bust/statue buildings remain in good shape?

The true mystery Why Is preston incapable of not marking settlements on your map

Thank you for making these videos. I am on the brink of ending my life, and listening to your voice talking about the Fallout universe is very calming

I don’t know if it fits the bill but, I always wondered about theories on why the various Fallout settings are in very different states. The commonwealth is fairly lush while the capitol wasteland is still very madmax-esque. I realize it’s all just aesthetic choices by designers but, it’s still fun to debate and discuss.

In regards to the scribe being Rothschild. In Fallout 3 it stated that Rothschild isn't loyal to Lions because he believes in his cause in fact he doesn't believe in it at all He's just loyal to them at a friendship and because of the technology the Brotherhood still maintains. So it's more likely that he would have approved of Arthur bringing the Brotherhood to its more original goals. With that in mind though in Fallout 4 you can constantly hear soldiers state how they were tired of how Lyons was running the Brotherhood so it's possible he left because he was tired of people bad mouthing his dead friend. Now if he did leave the Brotherhood on bad terms it could explain why no one mentions his name during the Crest to rebuild Liberty prime despite the fact that he worked on it for years and was in charge of rebuilding him after broken steel. One last possibility on what happened to him is that he could have taken the role of elder for a bit after Sarah died as it was stated they had several unsuccessful elders before Arthur took command.

Hey man I just found your channel the other night and I watched every iceberg video you had it was great. Happy to see a new video

Also in fallout 3 if you have the mechanist suit on, a random encounter can occur where you give the suit to the kid

Can’t wait to actually find out who won the Hoover Dam in season 2! Also curious which ending really is canon after 4. Since the Prydwyn is shown it has to be the BoS or the Minutemen but my guess is the Brotherhood ending is the canon ending. Live action Liberty Prime cameo would be so cool

Lone Wanderer ~ In my play-through he's a good guy. But a bit of an anti-hero. When given the choice between Riley's Rangers power-armour and that big Gatling gun, our hero chose the armour. (It's actually one of the _overall_ best in the game.) Thus, becoming a welcomed and honorary member of the team.... of his new family. Living mainly in his house in Megaton, he rarely ventures out anymore. Except to visit his new family and go on the occasional mission with them. Having amassed a massive fortune in caps. He doesn't need to do much of anything, and has stopped wandering. Mainly stays home with his loyal dog and his Mr. Handy robot servant.

Great video, thanks. With the TTRPG books being released now, we are getting more backstory on these different questions.

NGL your voice is really easy to listen to. Also A+ for grounded theory I love the unknown lore of Fallout because people can speculate so much

I remember seeing one rather interesting theory that The Lone Wanderer and Courier 6 are one and the same, citing that Courier 6's abnormality as a person, even for a Courier, (madlad literally survives a gunshot to the head, and without missing a beat immediately marches off to find his attempted murderer within minutes of waking up from Doc Mitchell saving his life) would be best explained if they had already gone through just about the worst the Fallout universe can throw at them, which describes The Lone Wanderer perfectly.

Tim Cain outlined the true purpose of the vaults he had in mind on his RU-vid channel. But since Bethesda took over, they clearly have abandoned that idea in favor of just wacky and seemingly sadistic torture for no reason.

The glowing sea was the target of a warhead because it was a miltitary launch site, there's probably a lot of unstable unlaunched material there

My Mechanist headcanon: The LW convinced him to hang up the helmet and everyone got their happy ending. The kid in town who loves heroes continues to illustrate, tell stories, and potentially write comics which would inspire the New Mechanist to make her own costume and give it a go herself!

i like to think the Mechanist retired and found a successor worthy of the suit and title to carry on his vision and legacy beyond the capital wastes.

6:09 Well my lone wandere is a boffout addicted force with Flawkes by her side at all time. Named after her mother, She was knighted by the brotherhood. So my headcanon is she is wandering amongst the brotherhood

I always associated the postMEN with the railroad. I usually find multiple corpses in the wasteland in a playthrough and of course you can find a live 1 in goodneighbor (which has ties to rr). But most importantly, the letters you find on the corpses, some of them almost sound like they could be code. Mixed in with some genuine letters or even faked ones for cover and plausibility.

There are more postman in gn. But u cant give them the undelivered letters. I always tought its a reference to that postman movie that also takes place in post apocalipse.

Yeah, I tend to lean toward the postman being a reference to the David Brin book and Kevin Costner movie (which barely resembles the book). I think the devs were tipping the hat, and at the same time, saying, "he may have succeeded in Brin's story, but in our Wasteland, he's just grist for the mill."

My thoughts on the lone wanderer’s fate was… good: they continued aiding the brotherhood until killed or forced into retirement. Filthy neutral: led the tunnel snakes as a stabilizing force for the capital before retiring from maturity. Getting hitched to Moira or Burke. Evil: after leaving a wake of destruction, the LW fulfilled Eden’s request before dying on the contaminated water before they could find the Krivbeknih.

The second battle of Hoover Dam ended with the Courier seizing the power for the Mojave Express. Glory ro the postal service!

8:27 the postman is a reference to the movie by the same name, “the Postman” starring Kevin Costner

3:30 I like to imagine that the Lone Wanderer either died at project purity or became a ghoul. Maybe a mix of both where they turn into a feral ghoul? I don't know. I just feel like something like that for the fate of the LW fits the themes and atmosphere of Fo3. But how them turning into a ghoul would affect Broken Steel? I don't really know about that. I would think that the events would stay mostly the same but if the LW does come back in a future game as an NPC or something I think it would be cool if they were to be a ghoul.

To solve the issue of the canonical victor of the Hoover Dam- if they make another Fallout game in the West coast, i think they should have an NPC at the start of the game give the PC an overview of the events of New Vegas, and then when their about to finish, they ask "and guess who won the battle?" And your options are- NCR, Legion, Mr House, or a 4th party. And whomever you choose becomes the canon winner in your playthrough.

Cobalt... The bomb that hit Boston was using cobalt.

You know, until Mothership Zeta dropped. I thought that the Zetans might be trying to recover one of their own (considering you can find crashed ships in every Fallout). After that DLC, and seeing that they'd hybridized with humans, I started thinking: What if they aren't after our resources or technology. What if they are trying to get our DNA so they can fix some kind of genetic issue? None of the Zetans look different from each other, except in their gear choices. What if they tried doing what the Asgard did is SG1?

The first one is so easy. It is stated multiple times, even by the main character. The institute believes that the institute is the future of mankind and that the surface will eventually just die out. They only send synths to the surface for recon and gathering material they need. They do replace living humans, and that part is just completely glossed over by Father for whatever reason, but everything else is literally just "We will outlive the surface and we will ensure it. We are humanity, the surface is a dead end."

The institute's end game motives confuse me too cause their motto is 'Humanity Redefined' and yet, what they create they don't see as humans. I don't approve of what they do but I can understand if they build a synth army to conquer and control the Commonwealth (which I guess maybe is one of their goals), I don't approve of them snatching people but I can understand the idea behind Warwick in that they want to try growing stuff, but what happens if they replace everyone with Synths? How's that humanity, their gene pool in the institute if they don't bring in more people(which they rarely do) will probably be completely screwed up in a couple more generations

Every since playing Destroy All Humans, I cannot stop thinking that Zetans are more barbaric and ugly counterparts to Furons. Yes, more barbaric, yet not as trigger happy as Cryptosporidium. Their saucers also seem to be crashing on Earth. Actually, that begs the question: What caused them to crash? It appears like they got shotdown by something in Fallout 1, 3, and 4, despite going ridiculously faster in their Fallout 4 appearance. Too fast for most humans to both react and shoot at as well as hit something to cause them to crash.

The zatans always made me wonder if they where attracted to earth do to the many eldritch horrors that are part of the lore

Kevin Costner is the Postman.

Well, seems like we'll soon find out that last one.

Remember, these are all theories game theories😅

I think that the spaceship is the true purpose for the vaults construction. However, that creates another mystery. How would this purpose be achieved? Ok, each vault houses an experiment, but who oversees all the vaults? Who and how would collect the experiments' results? How did they plan to use these results?

Sir this is a great start! Quick question; are you a Canadian?

Correct me if I'm wrong, I think the postman thing is a reference to the NV courier. Dala calls you a postman, I think? Or a mailman. In The Big MT. Maybe it's a nod to the previous installment? Just a thought.

The Institute embodies the failures of "Effective Altruism"

The night after the lone wanderer walks off into the sunset he's asleep next to a small campfire when a death claw pack ambushes him, he is now forever part of the wasted world.....as a few separate small piles of waste.

My lone wanderer headcannon: after the DLC adventures, she was done with DC as she had nothing left (and the DLC adventures kinda fucked her up) so she decided to go west, ended up in the Mojave and with nothing really to do she became a courier... All was well until she was hired to deliver a package as "Courier 6" and was ambushed by a man in a checkered suit... The Divide is explained by Ulysses confusing us with another courier and well as i said before we had nothing really to do so we entertained him...

Good supply of Norte after boot, I love this for me.

I guess until we get canon information on why the vault experiments are a thing I'm ready to run with the generation ship idea of the original devs. It makes just too much sense, a lot of Vault-Tec evil shit starts to make sense when you factor in that a generation starship and its population have to last for thousands of years at minimum.

the institute is quite literally what would happen if the enclave and Big MT had a child

6:23 really nice alliteration

Who refills the nuka cola automats? Why (Oh why!) can none of the wehicles be repaired and driven? And why no riding animals or motorcycles. Or bicycles? :P

Everytime i hear ol' peg i think of the mighty boosh 😂 im ol' gregg!

wasn’t the goal of all the vault test s were for a starship that would be generational and each vault tested some aspect that came in play during ship flight?

FFS Old Pegg is the Chinese submarine. How do you play Fallout 4 and NOT figure that out 😂😂😂

The postman is the ref to the movie with Kevin kostner

The Institute's goals are pretty clear, to become the dominant power by means of technology assisted subterfuge and sheer might. They want to help humanity alright but they only view themselves as humanity.

I will be 60 year of age and still asking questions about these games

Nicee!

Here's one. Where did the institute get it's advanced technology?

09:54 "saytans" :D

I was onboard until you said "kyzers" legion

What ever happened to helicopters that were replaced by the Vertibird

That was always my question with the Institute, what was the point?

One unsolved mystery is the high degree of literacy in the whole wasteland. Seems like everybody can read and write, even raiders.

Zetans run Vault-Tec. Postman IS the Lone Wanderer. Boom. Several theories solved.

12:05 could it possibly be eluding to the emissary of starfield?

Some postulate that the sightings of Ol' Peg involve the Chinese submarine in the harbor.

Tbh I'm more interested in what the courier did as we don't get any post game content at all unlike 3 and 4

the true purpose of the vaults is to create generation ships the creator of fallout already told us

I doubt the lone wanderer would be a synth which u know deacon is

I mean, the legend about the ghoul whale probably stems from the existence of the Yangtze sub in the harbor. The people of Boston had no idea that this wasn't some undersea beast, but a massive submarine instead.

20:46 isn’t that technically an ultracite laser rifle?

Id imagine the real nv ending is the independent one. Ncr was pretty much dying by 2281 and maybe the courier was fed up with the west and all it's BS. so he probably went east.

A few of these I don't really see as mysteries. The Institute are just a bunch of scientists gone rogue, not unlike Big MT or hell, even Vault Tec. Wanting to learn things for the sake of learning it, wanting to control nature just to say you can, and to make their own perfect world for themselves. In a world where many MANY instances of scientists have done just that I would think it's obvious. And as for the postman.... like... I thought Couriers were established. Why is this such a mystery? More likely than not he was just a courier who happened to opt for the old school mail carrier outfit. He could be missing a weapon either cause he simply felt he didn't need one or because it was taken. That isn't very weird.

The zetans might be trying to study or combat the eldritch entities. They can do so now easier now that the Great War occurred. Whether or not they started it is irrelevant.

I think that the Institute is much simpler than it appears. They're just nerds to the extreme, completely socially inept and lacking empathy. They want to do their science and the outside world should either cooperate in every way (when needed) or just leave them alone.

… doesn’t the lone wanderer die? Do they get revived even without broken steel?

Plot twist, the institute are just robo sexual so they needed more robots

I love you diving into the more obscure aspects of this series without being a pedantic asshole "classy" man

Two options for how to do New Vegas 2 is either s questionsire that determines the endings (dlc effects hold potential but night be too much.) or release it with New Vegas HD and use the mass effect Brand of continuity. (Bonus points if you change New Vegas depending on the endings of Fallout 1 and 2 remastered. This would mean making significant and entirely unseen changes to 2 and New Vegas. Too much Hasle)

Any criticism of the Institute is a form of sciencephobia

Every players playthrough, whether first or last is considered Canon, modded or vanilla. That’s the beauty of Fallout.

Person gravy

I don't think you can say that the vault experiments are no longer about space travel. Vault-Tec has a prescient feel of Tesla and Musk, of arrogant, inhuman monsters who regard normal people as irredeemably impure. The Jorbson Lobsterson of Fallout. These people are real, think the poor should be robbed and the rich worshipped like gods. The fictional version is almost quaint. They're certainly less racist and sexist than the real ones. And just as arrogant. Vault-Tec, for some reason, assumed they would survive and collect data. That data would be used to staff their own starships. I'd imagine the Vault 111 project was quite crucial, while other social experiments looked at pitfalls from minor technical glitches to rogue AI. The sad thing is, it's pretty easy to see what the vaults were for. Space billionaires torturing the "subhumans" in their facilities to make sure they can survive escaping the earth they destroyed.

i got a fanfic i'm writing where courier six is an amnesiac lone wanderer. she gets small snippets of memory sometimes, and it's led to her making a stringboard to piece together what little memories she has left.

People keep forgetting that Yes Man Ending is 2 endings. The independent and ghe Chaos ending. To be honest destroying the securitrons and not diverting power leads to chaos. I consider that the most evil ending.

The Institute’s goals isn’t a mystery, it’s bad writing.

To be honest , I think the most fallout thing to have happened to the lone wander, would be ultimately dying to some malfunctioning robots that are trying to collect taxes. The lone wander dying because of taxes , a truly fallout death.

Miss me with that 76 shit. Half of it doesn't make any sense anyway

Honestly I don't really care what the institute's motives are I just don't want them to show up again they're a more boring Enclave and id much rather just have the enclave over them

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you talk too slow broski, i had to turn the playback speed up to 1.25x just to not hear that

The biggest mystery is actually why did the western part of America rebuild but not the eastern?

Overarching: ō-vər-ˈär-chiŋ not over arc ing You got it wrong twice. Spelled OverARCHing not overARCing.

Ive got one. What did Owyn Lyons find jn tbe Pitt? In the Citadel you can find a terminal that says they found something in the Pitt that Lyons and few others only know about

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