To readers new to the Fallout universe:

This is a tale of post-nuclear west coast America. In 2077, the world is devastated by nuclear war. Not all is lost, however, as thousands take refuge in large underground fallout shelters called "Vaults". This novelization of the great PC game Fallout tells the story of one group of survivors who emerge from one of the vaults only to find the new post-nuclear world a completely different place than the one their grandparents lived in. It is at once amazing but dangerous, full of life but bleak, thriving but scarred.

Because this is heavily based on the computer game, you may notice that this prologue seems a little… strange. If so, it is because it is an almost exact description of the introduction of the game, more for nostalgic purposes than anything else. In order to get a better taste of my writing style to see if it suits your fancy, please check out chapter one.

To those already familiar with the Fallout franchise:

This is my attempt to novelize this awesome game. I have yet to see a complete, thorough, and detailed novelization of the game, so this is my attempt to fill that gap. I try to remain as faithful to the Fallout canon as possible and fully exercise my creativity only where the canon is silent (which, for Fallout 1, happens quite often actually). I borrow as much as possible from the material of the first game since I want this to be as faithful as I can make it and diverge from canon usually only when there are plausibility issues. Just a little more than the notion of being faithful to the game, I wish this to be a more-or-less realistic and believable story, at least as far as the game's mythos allows. To that end, the one big change I am making is to introduce 3 starting characters instead of 1. It just strikes me that if the Vault really were running out of water, the Overseer would at least try to make the quest succeed, hence the inclusion of more characters. The 3 characters I use are derived from the 3 default templates in the original game.

DISCLAIMER:

Most names, locations, and the overall plot are properties of Black Isle Studios and Interplay Entertainment (or whoever it was that now owns officially owns the Fallout 1 IP. Bethesda? Is it you?). This work is a piece of fan fiction written in homage to an excellent video game with the express purpose of bringing to the literary medium an amazing story that would otherwise be restricted only to computer gamers. The work is completely not-for-profit. A strong effort has been made to replicate the events, themes, and key dialogues from the game, except where alterations had to be made for the sake of narrative plausibility. The result is that this story may occasionally deal with dark and mature themes that are catered to an adult audience.

NOTE: I recently proofread and revised the entire novelization as of June 2015. What you are now reading is the revised form, excluding a lot of the commentary I sometimes included at the beginning/end of some of the chapters. The novelization is still very much the same as it was before, except that typos that I spotted have been corrected and phrases that came across to me as too awkward have been replaced. There is one particularly big change I've made in the name of plausibility. A year or so ago, I watched a fan video of New Vegas and I realized that the cost of items in caps in Fallout 1 is ridiculously large, meaning everyone would have to be walking around with backpacks stuffed with caps. To solve this logical issue, I have divided the denomination of the cost of anything in the novelization by 10. In other words, every cap in this novelization is worth a lot more than it used to.

War.

War never changes.

The Romans waged war to gather slaves and wealth. Spain built an empire from its lust for gold and territory. Hitler shaped a battered Germany into an economic superpower.

But war never changes.

In the 21st century, war was still waged over the resources that could be acquired. Only this time, the spoils of war were also its weapons: Petroleum and Uranium. For these resources, China would invade Alaska, the US would annex Canada, and the European Commonwealth would dissolve into quarreling, bickering nation-states, bent on controlling the last remaining resources on Earth.

In 2077, the storm of world war had come again. In two brief hours, most of the planet was reduced to cinders. And from the ashes of nuclear devastation, a new civilization would struggle to arise.

A few were able to reach the relative safety of the large underground Vaults. Vault Thirteen was one such vault. There, imprisoned safely behind the large Vault door, under a mountain of stone, a generation has lived without knowledge of the outside world.

Life in the Vault is about to change.

Prologue

A black-and-white animated video of a boy in a jumpsuit watering plants flickers into life. The boy waves at the camera as a cog-shaped blast door rolls into place in front of him, blocking him from sight. The video is replaced by the image of a poster of a multi-level bomb shelter built within a mountain. The words "Vault of the Future" stretch across the image, just above the smiling faces of a well-dressed man and woman. The words "Call Now!" flash across the image encouraging the viewer to invest in a shelter space of his or her own in the event of a nuclear holocaust.

"Galaxy News" comes next, identified by the image of a revolving planet Earth with a space shuttle orbiting around it in the opposite direction. 'Our dedicated boys keep the peace in newly annexed Canada' says the Galaxy News Network blurb as the image is replaced by a video recording of two men in full head-to-toe body armor. Before them kneels a Canadian insurgent, his hands bound behind him. One of the armored soldiers walks up to the man from behind, pulls out a handgun, and fires a bullet into the man's head. The man lurches and falls on his front, his right foot twitching as the soldier fires off another shot into the body for good measure. Noticing the camera, the soldier makes a gesture at his companion to alert him that they are both being filmed. Both soldiers face the camera. The one who made the execution waves. The video fades into black, replaced by a patriotic image of the soldier's profile, backed against an American flag with thirteen stars on it, rippling in the wind. "Buy War Bonds" the next image says.

An advertisement for Chryslus' new car model, Corvega, follows. A list of specifications running horizontally across the screen one by one: "Full Analog System"; "No electronics!", "No computers!"; "800+ Horsepower"; "0 to 60 in 0.5 sec". In light of recent inflation rates, the last line rolls across the screen, assuring the readers that the car is "Only 199,999.99."

The next advertisement is of a multi-armed robot called "Mr. Handy" – a testament to how far American ingenuity has had an impact on technological advances. Mr. Handy, the ad suggests, is even handy for walking the dog, as demonstrated by a short video clip of the robot hovering behind a dog leashed to one of its many mechanical arms.

The image flickers and dies as the television set on which the string of ads were being displayed loses power. The reason quickly becomes apparent: the television set sits at the edge of what was once a living room. Now, more than half the ceiling and all of the southern wall are gone, revealing the view of a ruined skyline. The charred innards of the concrete lining the edges of the broken walls, floor, and ceiling frame the sight beyond. Remnants of skyscrapers stand, half-destroyed, in the distance, silent except for a mournful whistling of the wind. Dawn arrives with a gentle orange glow, but its arrival goes unnoticed. For the city is dead.