Fallout: New Vegas/Fridge

---

Fridge Brilliance

• In Fallout 3 and Fallout: New Vegas, blood packs heal 1 hit point per pack. In 3, you can get a perk from the leader of blood-consuming people which increases the hp gain to 20. Why do blood packs heal so little hp, when blood transfusions can save people from the brink of death sometimes? Because the player actually drinks the blood instead of replenishing his/her lost blood from an injury. The Lone Wanderer is taught how to more effectively gain health from drinking blood.
• At the end of the game (assuming you're not backing the Legion), you can use your Speech skills against Lanius Legate to convince him that the Legion's attempts to expand into the west will cause the organization to weaken due to its policy of fully integrating conquered peoples into a mono-cultural centralized government. A similar factor in real life caused the Roman Empire to collapse.
• At first, it seems like Fridge Logic that wearing Brotherhood of Steel power armor will get you shot on sight by NCR, while no one in the Wastes bats an eyelid at you storming around in a suit of Enclave power armor. Then you realize that, not only have the Enclave been gone for a couple generations, but also the number of Wastelanders who've ever actually seen an Enclave soldier and lived to tell the tale is probably extremely small.
• If you take a look at Caesar's SPECIAL stats you will find out that he only ranks 4 in both charisma and intelligence. It first seem like Fridge Logic since he is suppose to be extremely charismatic and process super intellect. But after you find out that he is suffering from a brain tumor, it makes sense that his skills were being affected as a result of it.
  • Do they go up when you cure his tumor?
    • While I'm certainly no expert on the subject, I think it would be odd for someone to make an instant recovery from such a tumor. Since it's one of the final quests in the legion questline, it would make sense that he doesn't completely recover before after the ending.
• In the deck of cards that come with the collector's edition, Colonel Cassandra Moore is the Queen of Hearts. She's a ball-buster. The King of Hearts? President Kimball. Fittingly the Suicide King because of his obstinate insistence of making a frontline visit with a wily pragmatic foe just over the hill.
  • It gets better, the two Jokers in the deck, Benny and the Courier, have those cards for more reasons than just being the Wild Cards. First, in Euchre, the Joker is called the "Benny" card. Second, the Joker cards in Tarot have significant meaning, one Joker meaning the Fool, the other the Magician. The Fool, being the Courier, is the spirit in search of experience (although XP might be a better word for it), and represents mystical cleverness, not bound by normal reason, and possessing an ability to tune into the inner workings of the world, and is often represented by a wanderer walking aimless, often one foot hanging over a void, a step away from falling to his death. Meanwhile, the Magician, being Benny, is a man who practices sleight of hand, trickery, and deception, a stage magician with the initial appearance of great power, but later revealed to have no ability of his own, and can also indicate a manipulator, a trickster, and the ego, as well as the pursuit of personal power, and is often associated with the first step in the Fool's Journey, as well as the potential for new adventure.
    • You just blew my fucking mind.
• Some might wonder why New Vegas has a lot less children in it than Fallout 3 does.
  • Likely, people hide their children when heavily armed strangers come to town.
  • Sexuality isn't a reason at any rate. The game has about five or six homosexual characters. Hardly "a large number" when the total number of NPCs in the game is several hundred.
  • New Vegas makes sense, since the Three Families would want the children in the upper residential levels of the casinos where they'd be safe and out of the tourist's (and Securitron's) way. Freeside and Westside aren't the best places to raise a family so few would be there. Why there are no children in Goodsprings, post-Powder Ganger Primm, or Novac, however is beyond me.
  • Goodsprings and Primm are fringe settlements which were only founded recently.
    • Goodsprings has been lived in at least seven years, and Trudy indicates there have been people living there longer. Maybe you could say Sunny is a teenager, but that's about it.
    • Also you find teddy bears and children's toys in the houses of both towns. It is possible that the children were evacuated when the Powder Gangers started causing trouble (according to the merchants at the 188 that began a month before the game starts.)
• Some might wonder why there would be a tribe full of crazy, drugged up psychos west of New Vegas. Then, you visit a Vault a little south of the Fiends territory, which, by reading the logs, you find was a Vault-Tec experiment, filled half with crazy people, the other half people that were intentionally driven insane (the only people who knew what was going on was the overseer of the "sane" group, and the Vault medical staff, including armed guards). The Vault had, amongst other things, an extremely well stocked pharmacy, since it had to medicate some of it's crazies to keep them from hurting other residents. When you get there, you find that there are no bodies and no damage that would be implied to have come from a serious fight, despite the fact that a dangerous gang had moved in. In fact, Vault 19 is in better condition than any save Vault 11, which was still occupied by it's original residents. Put this together, and it becomes clear: the Vault Residents, after getting rid of the small number of people who were supposed to control them, left the vault and migrated north and became the Fiends. Why else would there be so many chem addicted psychos gathered together into one group, and why else would their highest ranking members also be the most insane? Because they were descended from people who were already chem addicted and crazy!
  • I believe this is canon by Word of God, actually.
  • Vault 11 is in fairly bad shape, and no longer inhabited (both a result of a civil war). The OP might have meant Vault 21, though, which merely had its lower levels filled with concrete in an orderly manner and with the acceptance of the (then former) inhabitants.
• In Novac, a sniper who's been helping defend the city asks you to help him uncover and take deadly revenge on the person who sold his wife into slavery. It turns out that's quite a bit easier than you'd think, because the person responsible is keeping the bill of sale in a safe in her office. It even has her signature on it. Why would anyone do something that stupid? As it turns out, the Legion has agreed to pay the person an additional 50% of the sale price if the PREGNANT wife gives birth to a healthy baby. Without the signed bill of sale, the seller has no proof that the Legion owes her a bonus, and the Legion is notorious for reneging on any promise not put in writing (and some of the promises they do put in writing, if they can get away with it). Of course, it turns out the seller would never receive the bonus anyhow, but nobody in Novac except the self-widowed husband can possibly know this until he tells you.
• Chris Haversam is a human who believes that he is a ghoul due to radiation exposure from the vault he grew up in. When we visit his home, Vault 34 is filled with ghouls.
  • Chris actually got out just in time.
  • Or caused it. He was their reactor engineer.
    • Quite likely, both the unexpected loss of the reactor engineer and the civil war helped contribute to the reactor being damaged
      • I... never made that connection. You just blew the mind of a Fallout veteran, and that's something.
• How do you make Turbo? By using chems and poison from one of the fastest, most jittery enemies in the game, the Cazador
• There is an unmarked quest in which you help an NCR solider working as a chef at Camp Mc Carran to repair his food processor. To do so you will have to either meet a really high repair skill check, or gather a massive list of junk for the replacement parts. And your award for finishing this quest? Just a small discount when buying food from the camp's cafeteria. There is no NCR fame gain, no caps, no increase in karma, and not even any experience points. What is the name of this unmarked quest? Not Worth a Hill of Corn and Beans.
• All of the organic companions have this really annoying habit of saying something loudly every time you crouch to sneak anywhere. Everyone except Boone, that is. One of his three tag skills is sneak, so it's entirely possible he's the only person out of six who knows that you shouldn't talk when you're trying to get the jump on someone.
  • Doubtful. Cass has sneak tagged as well, and she's not exactly quiet.
  • So does Lily, who is also a Nightkin, and she still doesn't understand the importance of volume control. That said, as a professional sniper, Boone would likely know a lot about moving undetected.
• If you head toward Nelson from Novac, the highway will be littered with Legionaries' bodies, even if you have never been that way before/are a Legion sympathizer. After a moment, you realize they're dead because they've been shot down by Manny and Boone.
• An interesting example of Gameplay and Story Integration: Arcade has very little dialogue options compared to the other companions. Why? Because he says he hates talking about himself.

"Some people like talking about themselves. I just...don't."

• • Which makes sense since he's hiding his past.
• That photo of James and Catherine in Vault 21? Probably just an Easter egg. But it may shed some light on some on Fallout 3's plot. James being a native vault dweller himself certainly explains why the paranoid, xenephobic loon of an Overseer was willing to let him into the Vault, as well as Eden's belief that the Lone Wanderer would be free of mutations.
• There's a child slave at Fortification Hill who has an unmarked quest to retrieve her teddy bear, which is named Sergeant Teddy and was taken away from her by a Legionary. Consider that "Sergeant" is not a term in use in the Legion, and the NCR flag has a two-headed bear on it.
  • ... Is there such a thing as a Fridge Tear Jerker? ;_;
• Mr. House's statement of "If you want to see where democracy takes you, you need only look out the window." Sounds contradictory and out of place, considering that by the time of The Great War, The U.S. was being run by The Enclave, and democracy was pretty much hurled out the window. Rob Co bought out REPCONN, and Arcade hints that REPCONN had connections with the Enclave. Mr. House had to have at least known about it's existance, if not been one of its affiliates. So why is he telling you such a bold faced lie? Because The Courier doesn't know that it's a lie. How exactly would he/she know what the Enclave was? Even after "For Auld Lang Syne" The Courer still is only given a vague description of the Enclave being militaristic and having done things that the Remnants would like to forget about. Mr. House knows that The Courier wouldn't know about this, so, being the Manipulative Bastard he is, he lies to him/her to get them on his side.
• At first, Rex seems like a cliche name for the dog. But then it dawned on me. Rex is latin for King. Who is it that owns Rex when you first meet him? The King.
  • One also find out in-game, that Before Rex met The King, he was owned by Caesar. It also explains why Rex is allowed to run around in the Legion Camp, even when he is a cyborg.
• Almost every Nightkin killed by the Ghouls was reduced to a pile of ash. This means they were killed by a critical hit, which is based on luck. Nightkin are invisible most of the time, so it makes sense that lucky shots took them out. Harland, the only truly competent combatant in the group, is the only one that was able to reliably kill Nightkin with regular shots.
• Colonel Moore getting mad at you if you spare the Brotherhood seems like she's just kicking the dog, but if you actually listen to her dialogue she indicates that she's afraid they'll betray the Republic after getting what they want out of the alliance. Considering that the Brotherhood did the exact same thing she's suspecting them of prior to the game beginning and the war started by their betrayal is still going on, her suspicions come off as a lot more reasonable.
  • And unless you finish things up juuuuust right, Colonel Moore turns out to be right.
• Why does Mr. New Vegas, if the Courier kills Caesar, say it remains unknown how the assassin was able to evade security, regardless of how he was killed? Because it is unknown, even if the Courier slaughtered his or her way across Fortification Hill: there is an army camped outside the Fort proper, and the game provides no explanation for how the Courier and companions manages to evade or get through that obstacle when travelling to and from the Fort after killing Caesar.
  • I always interpreted it this way-either you crept through and avoided detection, in which case nobody knows what happened, or you and at most two others stormed the biggest Legion garrison in the Mojave, containing probably around 100 of the Legion's finest and a full complement of Praetorians, and tore through them to their boss, whom you killed. Mr. New Vegas is reading those reports and going "No way."
• In Fallout 3, the color of the menus and icons of the Pipboy are greeen tint at default. In New Vegas it is Amber. The reason for this is because, while you were given a brand new pipboy of your own in Fallout 3, you were given a old one used by Doc in New Vegas. Once during the course of his life, he changed Amber to become default on the Pipboy.
• The talking armor in Old World Blues is lonely because as a stealth suit she can't be seen.
• Ulysses was the original Courier Six before he let The Courier have the job, right? That would mean The Courier was Courier Seven,as in Lucky Number Seven. He may have screwed up their winning streak with two bullets to the head.
  • The way it was written indicated the Courier was Courier Six before - Ulysses way of stating that he didn't want to take the job was "No, let Courier Six take it", which wouldn't make much sense if the Courier was Courier Seven at the time.
• The origin of the expression 'Forlorn Hope' is a dutch saying, 'verloren hoop' that translates to 'lost troops.' It refers to the soldiers sent into battle who are not expected to survive. Camp Forlorn Hope is on the front lines of the Legion conflict, and has a high causality rate. Well, darn.
• Boone always inexplicably uses melee weapons, even though he's a sniper. I jokingly posit that he does this so he can run up to the person he's killing and make sure he's hostile, thus preventing another Bitter Springs. He may also be practicing in case any Legionnaire escapes his scope.
  • There's a darker side to this as well, which combines Fridge Brilliance with Fridge Horror: the more you learn about his Dark and Troubled Past, the clearer it becomes that a combination of grief over what happened to his wife and guilt over what happened at Bitter Springs have made Boone at least borderline suicidal.
• An interesting point I saw someone make about the 4 DL Cs: they all seem to be related to one of the four main philosophies/Factions.
  • Dead Money is about the Remnant Elder of the NCR-Brotherhood War.
  • Honest Hearts is about the surviving former Legate of the Legion.
  • Lonesome Road is about the past of the Couriers.
  • Old World Blues is a little harder since it doesn't relate to Mr. House directly. However, OWB is about the pioneers of the Old World, and its technology surviving into the Fallout world. Mr. House is one of those pioneers, and is also responsible for the technology that saved the Mojave and New Vegas from being a total shitstorm.
    • There's also the mini-securitron and its creator, who hates House.
• Along the same lines, each DLC's motif is based off older media.
  • Dead Money is based off the film The Treasure of the Sierra Madre
  • Honest Hearts has many biblical references and can also take elements from Dances With Wolves
  • Old World Blues has much in common with The Wizard of Oz
• There are heavy inconsistencies about what you hear about Legate Lanius. One person says that he was the strongest warrior in his tribe, another says that he became a praetorian at thirteen. Neither are really compatible. But this suddenly makes sense once Ulysses implies that Lanius is a Legacy Character. His origins don't match up because they're different people. This also explains why his face isn't messed up underneath the mask when you kill him. The Lanius that got damaged was a previous one.
• Blowing up the Brotherhood of Steel's bunker may seem like a strange case of A Million Is a Statistic, being as it subtracts significantly less Karma than just killing everyone in it individually. However, it should be noted that the self-destruct sequence is neither instantaneous (to allow all personnel to evacuate), nor secretive (thanks to the alarm that goes off). Judging by this, one could see destroying the base as the more merciful option (provided you don't kill anyone in the process), for as dickish a move it may be, it at the very least gives the Brotherhood a chance to evacuate. It can be safe to imagine that at least some got out alive, though we don't get to see that due to Gameplay and Story Segregation.
• Caesar may have chosen a bull as a symbol for the Legion because of his organisation's fierce opposition to the NCR, whose symbol is a two-headed bear. If he had some knowledge of pre-war economics (which is feasable given his past as a Followers scholar), he'd be aware that a bear is associated with failure (a 'Bear market' is a time of economic decline), and a bull is associated with success ('Bull market' is a time of prosperity).
  • Or, you know, because bull was the standard offering to Mars in ancient Rome.
    • More specifically, the Bull was the emblem used for the historical Julius Caesar's favorite Legion, the 10th Legion.
• The entire naming convention for Big Mountain reeks of Fridge Brilliance. For starters, after the Great War it is nicknamed the Big Empty, due to its vast swath of supposedly empty land, as seen from the outside of the crater. Now, Big Mountain is also abbreviated Big Mt. Big M T. Not only that, but there is actual location in Arizona called Big Mountain. While it isn't home to any scientific labs, it is known by another name. Black Mesa. Amazing, the coincidences that make up life.
• While speaking with Dr. Mobius in Old World Blues about how to defeat the Think Tank without violence, he'll shrug (as much as he can, anyway), and suggest appealing to their humanity. He quotes: "Well, there's many things they have forgotten sitting in their bowls. Friendship. The thrill of discovery. Love. Masturbation. The usual." At first glance, this just seems like some funny line of dialogue with a Bread, Eggs, Milk, Squick joke to it...except all of those things are exactly what you can do to talk the Think Tank down! Borous can recall his love and fondess for his dog, Gabe. 8 can be thrilled when he sees how well the Sonic Emitter he created works after it's upgraded, as well as learn a thing or two about empathy if you opt not to hack into him. And Dala...gets quite excited at watching you breathe.
  • Another instance with Mobius is when you ask about why the Think Tank needs the technologies, he explains that each one is representative of the Brain, Heart, and Courage (represented with the spine), and that the process of getting them is to reclaim those lost concepts of humanity. He likens the whole concept to some old story about "a band of murderous thugs" who sought them out without realizing they had them all along. This sounds like a Future Imperfect recollection of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. However, a popular interpretation of the story is that Dorothy and company were Designated Heroes who set out to murder the Wicked Witch of the West, despite her never actually doing anything all that villainous anywhere in the story, simply because the Wizard told them to. Looks like he might have shared that view.
• The Wizard of Oz analogy goes further. In the movie Dorothy's companions each wanted certain qualities, namely a brain, a heart, and courage. In the game, the surgery done to the courier removes their brain, their heart, and their spine. Cowardly people are often referred to as being spineless. Not to mention the similarity in the methods of arrival to the Big MT and Oz the characters went through.
• Chris Haversam was sainted after helping the Bright Brotherhood make their journey. St. Christopher was sainted after helping Christ cross a dangerous river. St. Christopher was offered a last chance to avoid martyrdom when the king of Lycia sent him beautiful women to tempt him away from his religion. You can convince Chris he's human and should sabotage the rockets at the nth hour if you're playing as female Courier and have the Black Widow perk. (Also, he's a revered religious figure who enabled the followers to reach a paradise in the heavens through his selfless dedication and sacrifice and Chris is one letter off from ... ?)
  • Also, Saint Christopher was the Patron Saint of travel. And oh, boy, do the Ghouls have a long trip in front of them.
• The Karma loss from stealing from even gangs like powder gangers. Sure they are evil, but there has been a somewhat unsavory reputation with prospectors as Daniel will tell you. So by just plain looting everything on sight, you are being a filthy prospector.
  • Although in a balance mod made by Project Director Joshua Sawyer, the alignment of all Powder Ganger NPCs was set to Evil so that stealing from them would no longer affect your Karma. Take that as you will.
• There are many Ranger Stations throughout the Mojave, but the one just north of Searchlight happens to have a very large number of NCR Ghouls. Since Searchlight was hit with a dirty bomb and is now a radioactive hellhole, the NCR obviously decided to put all of their radiation-resistant rangers as close as they can to it in case they need to get into the town!
• It is literally impossible, even with a critical hit, for Maria (the gun used by Benny to shoot the Courier in the head) to kill the player in the opening cutscene using the combat damage tables. Even at level 1, Endurance 1, no armor, and assuming Benny has maxed Guns skill (which he doesn't), it does not do enough damage to kill with the critical and headshot bonuses to damage. This is either a bow to realism (this is a lethal injury) or Fridge Brilliance (those two shots to the head don't kill The Courier after all…)
• RE: Caesar's arrogance under Idiot Ball: After 'killing' Joshua Graham, the only other well-educated and independent man in the Legion, Caesar will be constantly surrounded by obedient subordinates that worship him as a god-figure. He's living inside an echo-chamber where his ideas and opinions are always right and no one will ever consider anything else. The courier is probably the first free agent that he's met in a very long time, and Caesar would naturally assume that you too will bend under his will like so many others. He may even be so far gone into megalomania that the idea that you'd defy him is something he can't even admit to himself anymore.
• California, Caesar, and House are all kinds of salads. As is Cobb.
• Everyone talks about how corrupt NCR has become under Kimball. But flash back to Fallout 2 and you'll see an NCR that's aggressively trying to expand, is willing to let you beat up a prisoner since he's a jerk and they really need the information, is unduly influenced by brahmin barons, has a shoot-first approach to criminals, and is in a state of imperial presidency. NCR is no more corrupt than it ever was - it's just that over the last forty years its citizens have become more idealistic and now expect better of their country!
• Why is pre-war money worth anything? Historical value. Having that money in your pawn collection would serve as a reminder of what America used to be like, it serves as a symbol of when their ancestors were part of the United States of America and not part of a Wasteland. Anyone with pre-war money would use it as a symbol for how great America once was and how great they can be again.
• I Put a spell on you (a quest in which you have to root out a spy in camp MC Carran) is a Guide Dang It, since if you follow the compass markings and report to Captain Curtis about the break-in in the radio tower, you fail the quest. Why is the compass pointing at him then? Because he leads the investigation. Unless you are smart enough to figure he is in the ideal spot to both spy on the camp and escape being identified as the spy, you have no reason not to report to him. So the game cleverly uses the interface to put you in the Courier's perspective.

Fridge Horror

• Cook-Cook REALLY stinks. He also REALLY likes his pet cow. Guess what cows re-actively do when you try to shove them from behind...
• Think about it. If you activate the Archimedes II Orbital Weapons Platform BEFORE you get the targeter away from a young boy who thinks its a toy ray gun, and who is always playing with his little friends and shooting it at them... Fortunately, Veronica comments on the fact that the safety is still on when you get it.
• Wander into a Vault from now on, bear this in mind: there were seventeen Vaults where absolutely nothing was built to go horrifically wrong. One of them was Vault 3... who lived happily and peacefully for years until they opened their door to let in a group of Wasteland survivors: the Fiends.
  • And the fiends are likely the survivors of a vault south of Vault 3, that was originally filled half with people suffering serious mental disorders, and the other half intentionally exposed to stimuli that would slowly drive them insane. If Vault 3 was a "safe" vault, which probably housed the descendants of Vault-Tec employees and executives seeking to avoid the horrors of the war (naturally, the Vault-Tec staff wouldn't want to be stuck in a Vault that wasn't expected to save anyone), then it might be Laser-Guided Karma that their descendants would be wiped out by the survivors of one of Vault-Tec's cruel experiments
  • It Gets Worse. The problem that Vault 3 had, which caused them to open the vault door in the first place, is nearly identical to what happened to the vault in Fallout 1. With a little bit worse luck or timing, the story of that game could have ended almost as soon as it began.
• Come to think of it, any of the Vaults are filled with Fridge Horror whether from their apocalyptic logs scattered around, or the simple idea that these things were supposed to be the last bastion of human survival in the event of nuclear holocaust, and Vault-Tec decided to 'experiment' on the lot of them.
  • They weren't meant to "save" anyone from an actual nuclear apocalypse. They were created to see how humans would deal with long-term isolation. The actual plan of the Enclave (brought up a few times in passing) was to build a spacecraft that could find a new planet, knowing that a nuclear war would spoil the earth forever. The Vaults were intended to be sealed when a false alarm sent the dwellers inside, and then serve as information on how people in a spacecraft would deal both the isolation and unforeseen complications. Not that this makes it any less of Fridge Horror.
• Vault 22's Spore Carriers are the former residents of the Vault, infected with a fungus that basically kills them and reanimates them as mutated, zombie-like beings. There's a particular type called the Spore Carrier Runt, which is much smaller than the other ones. Since they were former vault residents, guess what the smaller ones were.
• Vault 21 actually did rather well, considering that it was filled with compulsive gamblers and every disagreement was settled by chance. Of course, Mr. House took it over, evicted the agoraphobic residents who didn't want to work for him, and filled most of the place with concrete...but the experiment itself was a success.
• If you walk around the Legion's fort, you'll see slaves carrying backpacks almost as big as they are while walking awkwardly. If you go into vats you can see that their legs have no health; the legion broke their legs then made them carry around supplies all day.
  • Or worse, were made to carry loads so heavy that their legs break from the strain, and were then forced to keep going.
  • Though sometimes they have normal health in their legs.
• The sign outside of the church in Searchlight has the Bible verse Revelations 9:6 displayed on it. For those of you that haven't been there yet the NCR garrison in Searchlight was wiped out due to Legion sabotage exposing them to overwhelming radiation from toxic waste. Most of the garrison became feral ghouls. A single survivor turned into a "normal" ghoul who remained sane and intelligent. What does Revelations 9:6 say? "During those days men will seek death, but will not find it; they will long to die, but death will elude them."
• One of the game's Crowning Moments of Awesome was watching the Boomer's newly repaired bomber lay waste to the Caesar's Legion compound. Unfortunately, if you actually visit the encampment, you discover that there are dozens of PO Ws, slaves, and children eagerly training to become Legionaires. And you just ordered them carpet bombed.
  • I thought it wasn't the Fort that was bombed, but the Legion side of the front lines? You see where the bombs hit on and around the Legion side of the dam.
    • Yes, but the activated Securitrons underneath the Fort did destroy it.
    • The Securitrons arguably had the ability of threat determination and only fired on those who posed one to them. The POWs and slaves probably had the impulse to go hide, while the little barbarians legionnaires in training would simply deal with themselves a decade or so before you would have to.
      • The Securitron Rampage only takes place when the Battle for Hoover Dam is underway. Before that, House/Yes Man keeps them underground.
• The first time you're in the Silver Rush, you see Gloria Van Graff making a violent example of a poor unfortunate hostage to "convince" someone to pay what he owes. If you use VATS and focus on the hostage, he's a Van Graff thug. The logic continues when you ask Gloria for a job, she says "a position just opened up." You're filling in for the guy who just got vaporized.
• Cazadores are already fairly horrific, but it gets even worse when you learn that they are based on the Tarantula Hawk wasp. Why? Because the Tarantula Hawk, aside from having one of the most painful stings in the world, has toxins so that it can paralyze tarantulas and lay their eggs in them. This creates even more unpleasant implications than usual when your character dies to them.
• Melody, the little slave girl in the fort. Considering the Legion's attitude to women, and the attitude the society they were based on had to children (Caligula's "little fishies" come to mind), the way she insists that all she does is carry food and tend to the Brahmin seems just a little too fast. Bonus points for being kept in a pen literally just down the hill from the totally-looks-the-type Caesar, and even more bonus points for there being zero options to help her.
  • I've got an option.
• Although failure to convince Canyon Runner to lower the price on the slave girl he has is humorous, when you think about the Legion's general demeanor towards women and willingness to break certain social norms, his comment that he "inspects" all his slaves, combined with the medical condition you try to say she has (Vagina Dentata) becomes fridge horror.
  • However its implied it was just a normal inspection as he made it very clear, at the point, she doesn't even have the right to be a sex slave.
    • Could be seen as Even Evil Has Standards moment from the centurion. Slavery is ok, but he's drawing the line at paedophilia.
• Should you ever encounter a dead female NPC with no clothes on as you find her, it is likely implied that she was raped before she was murdered. Example: the dead Crimson Caravan guard between the NCRCF and Goodsprings that was presumably part of Ringo's caravan.
• The Trauma Harnesses in Old World Blues were designed as exosuits that would take control when the wearer was maimed, bringing him back to base for medical treatment. It's revealed that no one designated a home base for the prototypes in the Big Empty, meaning that they still wander as literal walking dead. However, by gameplay mechanics, having a crippled limb isn't going to kill you in the Fallout universe...meaning that they likely starved inside the suits.
• In the Divide, Deathclaws are most prominent on the highway/High Road and mostly absent in other areas. They don't spread to the other areas because they would have to pass Tunneler territory, and either don't make it through that or because the Deathclaws are actually scared of another creature.
  • You can find a dead deathclaw in the tunnel. One that seemingly died cowering inside an overturned dump truck.
• When Ranger Andy sends you to check on ranger station charlie, if you visit the station before andy asks you to do so, you might notice a legion strike team atop the nearby ridge, or in the nearby valley, watching the ranger station through binoculars. It was always going to happen, and you didn't do anything to stop it. (It'll just be another squad if you kill them, though.)
• Lonesome Road has ED-E's story of being raised by a nice Enclave Scientist who cared for it like a father. Then you come to the realization that Whitely was probably one of the no-name scientists the player gunned down as the Lone Wanderer.
  • And if he wasn't, then he probably was executed for insubordination/treason by Colonel Autumn (Whitley did sneak away valuable Hellfire armor from the Enclave, and would be a top suspect for it given that he'd already indicated un-Enclave-like concern for the ED prototypes).
    • And then Autumn himself, there is also a General Winters which could possibly hint that Autumn isn't even human but part of a series of androids developed by Eden to instantly receive or transmit orders via eyebots.
    • On the one hand, that sounds kind of awesome. On the other... Well, that could explain why Autumn fails to die when flooded with radiation.
• In Fallout: New Vegas, the Kill Sat laser pointer was in the hands of a kid. Now, if you made the Kill Sat work... the kid would have flash fried plenty of people.
  • The safety was on.
• Fallout 3 and Fallout: New Vegas both have instances in slaver camps where there are stripper poles with teddy bears scattered nearby. This has disturbing implications.
• There are Fallout 2s and New Vegas outcomes for some of the cities, if you kept Vault City independent from NCR, you effectively placed a good deal of the population in permanent servitude since without NCR's meddling, they will not bother with the servants in the city. Meanwhile, NCR's victory in New Vegas give Warhawks more political sway and will pave way to something worse.
  • In the latter case, only if you do it wrong.
• Consider the name "Dogmeat." Maybe it isn't just a grimly clever name. Maybe it's not a name at all. Maybe it's more like a label. A label that could apply to more than just the companion.
  • There is an actual food item called "Dog Meat." If Dogmeat dies in Fallout 3, you can loot Dog Meat off of his corpse, just like with the Vicious Dog enemies.
• Vault 69 (999 Women, 1 Man) and Vault 68 (999 Men, 1 Woman). At first glance, it looks like just a coy joke at the number 68 and 69 and were done by Penny Arcade for a Fallout book, but they're still claimed to be of existance in the series. Imagine the fate of the single man or woman in the vaults...
• If you kill Ulysses, there's nothing to stop marked men from running through the Hopeville missile silo bunker to the canyon wreckage and straight into the Mojave. If you spare him, at least he'll be between the entrance to the silo and the wreckage, which might mean the death of many marked men.
• The Gobi Campaign Rifle, one of the most powerful conventional rifle sin the game, can be found locked in a box at a sniper's nest overlooking Cottonwood Cove. Wait...a sniper's nest....at Cottonwood Cove.... did I just give Boone the very weapon he used to Mercy Kill his wife?

Fridge Logic:

• In-universe, if you have enough Intelligence your character can point it out.

Courier (When dealing with a Fake Ultimate Hero): "You fired three shots and four of them fell down."

• Since most of the legion call caesar as Kaizar like classic latin, however most of the wasteland pronounce it as sizar,how did the wasteland know about the other version if the legion keeps calling him the former?
  • NCR has a bunch of ghouls, who all got their education before the Great War. Chances are, they know exactly what Caesar is pulling, and are less than impressed with it.
  • Remember how Caesar learned it: he found a copy of Caesar's Commentarii which isn't exactly that common in real life. In addition, there are tons of history books still lying around in addition to the ghouls. NCR has a public school system as well... so, for the most part if they're NCR they know about the historical Caesar (though Arcade mentions he had to pick up some of his Latin through Gladiator holotapes), hell Word of God says even the New Canaanites like Joshua Graham knew Caesar as a historical figure.
  • It's also brought up in Goodsprings that the Mojave residents aren't sure what to call Caesar. They hear both versions being used but pretty much say see-zur because they more interaction with the NCR than the Legion.