In many ways, the Fallout games are like your crazy uncle. They turn up at holidays and drive everyone mad, but they are also cool and have a ton of crazy theories to share. We are all about those crazy theories, but there’s a small problem: They don’t always make sense. In all the weirdness of Fallout, there are a few plots that are really important…but leave a lot of unanswered questions.

We’re talking about plots with synths and time travelers. We’re talking about impossible chemical solutions, and yes, aliens. It’s all fun, but sometimes these crazy twists leave a lot of questions to be answered. Since the Fallout games all exist in the same world, with the same history, these messed up plots piled up on each other until we are left wondering, “Uh, how has this thing not changed the entire story yet?”

We don’t know. We love all the weirdness in every game, from the impossible psychics to the strange magic that shouldn’t even exist. But they do raise a lot of issues with what we know about the universe. So let’s talk about the plot threads in Fallout that really deserve more attention. The moments that should change the game’s world forever, but are just left dangling, waiting for more explanation. Please tell us more! Because honestly, we want to know what’s up with this stuff. Check out the stuff from the games that really deserve more explanation, and wait with us for…well, who knows if these things will ever be explained.

25 Whatever Happened To All These Aliens?

Fallout games have a relationship with aliens, that’s just how it is. There are many hints to aliens in the early games, and aliens make explicit showings in the modern Fallout titles, with lots of crashing spaceships and alien laser guns you can use to blast enemies into dust.

In Fallout 4, there is a whole quest line based on the existence of ancient aliens.

DLCs have been devoted to these Zetans. But we still don’t know what they are, why they are interested in earth, or why they haven’t gotten involved in the nuclear fallout (see what we did there). So little is explained about such important technology with so much potential. Really, the next game should focus entirely on an alien invasion.

24 So Ancient Cthulhu Magic Exists…Right?

Yes, it does. That’s not the problem. Lovecraftian powers have existed in Fallout vaguely for more of the games, and explicitly in the last few, with quests related to ancient cults and mysterious powers that grant eldritch powers. Much like the aliens, a power such as this has the power to change the delicate balance of the post-nuclear world, altering alliances forever. So, why don’t we hear more about it? Is it because the world is primitive and scattered? But many groups like the Brother of Steel have the ability to communicate easily, and you really think they would have picked up on something like this. Or maybe it’s so rare that…your character just happens to run into this stuff over and over again throughout the games. Well, Cthulhu works in mysterious ways.

23 Just Who Is This Mysterious Stranger?

Speaking of mysterious, check out that Mysterious Stranger! He is a special perk, which gives everyone a chance for the Stranger to show in the middle of a VATS fight and shoot down your enemy. It’s handy and weird, which is exactly what we expect, but it also raises a whole lot of questions.

Who is the Stranger?

How is he so powerful? How has he survived throughout so many games and wandered around the continent effortlessly? Even our favorite detective Valentine has a case file on him, although he hasn’t discovered much. We all love powerful abilities, but you have to admit, the Mysterious Stranger pushes the limit in a world where everything has an explanation, even if it is a very weird one.

22 Trying To Figure Out What The Enclave Is

Okay, we do sort of know what the Enclave is: They are a secret organization that claims they were descended from the last remnants of the United States government. Commentary aside, they're basically just a bunch of evil people who want to control everything, which makes it easy to ignore just why they exist. Throughout the games, you have blown them up about half a dozen times, and surely destroyed all of the original leaders. Not only that, but they continue to surface in various parts of the world, apparently disconnected with each other, each group thinking that it is the one true Enclave. Even for an evil organization like Hydra, this wouldn't make a lot of sense. It’s even worse when you consider that the Enclave possesses varying amounts of random technology for whatever plot they are a part of. At this point, it’s little better than a random name.

21 The Origin Of Deathclaws

The problem with Deathclaws is that the Fallout writers really wanted to make a spooky stalking dinosaur to haunt your dreams, so they did…and then they just sort of filled in the backstory as they went along. That raises a whole lot of very annoying questions with a lot of different answers. First, the Deathclaws were made from the Jackson’s Chameleon, despite it looking nothing like a little fat lizard.

Then it was because of The Master’s crazy mental powers.

Then, it was experiments with the FEV virus. Oh, and then it was splicing animal DNA together to create a weapon. Let’s face it, no one knows how the Deathclaws exist. They are just awesome human-dinosaur hybrids that you don’t want to fight, let’s leave it at that and hope they don’t have chameleon powers (spoilers: they do).

20 Are We Just Gonna Skip By The Talking Tree?

What talking tree? Oh, this one: It’s Harold, who is sort of the Forrest Gump of the Fallout games. He has been around forever, he has had a hand in tons of important events, he’s a ravaged ghoul who has mutated beyond recognition…the usual. Eventually, you find that Harold has a tree growing out of his head that is called Bob. But it gets weirder – eventually, as the main characters help Harold out throughout the games, you discover that he becomes a sacred tree in a green grove with a cult worshipping him. So yeah, that happens. Can all mutants become eternal growing trees if they have a seed planted in their heads? There is so much we don’t know! Here’s to seeing Harold in future games, where he probably becomes a sentient moon and changes earth’s gravity forever.

19 So, How Do Robots Survive, Anyway?

Wait, wait, Fallout fans, we know that robots in the games are powered by nuclear cores that can last forever without needing to be recharged. But that’s only one part of them: These robots are also made of steel, usually with an extra supply of lasers, saws, claws, and…marital devices. All these things wear down with time (trust us, we know) and eventually need to be repaired or replaced.

In the games, you frequently see robots with rust, blemishes, and missing parts.

When you talk to robots about surviving more than 200 years, the most you get is some babble about maintenance. But how does a robot maintain itself when its claws fall apart? They certainly don’t get help from their mortal enemies, a.k.a. every other robot. So how do they survive intact?

18 The Big 200 Year Problem

Ah yes, that 200 years thing. In the latest game, the Fallout world has been around for a bit more than 200 years since the nuclear disaster. As we mentioned, robots have a problem with this, because they should have fallen apart. But even weirder, so many other things still exist. Paint on the walls, toys in the drawers, computers with no malfunctions, nuclear cars, cities (that aren’t overgrown by weeds), and so many locking mechanisms that should have failed. What gives? Not everything in Fallout can be made of magical nuclear material, especially not the teddy bears. Well, probably not the teddy bears. Those Fallout scientists were some crazy people, so we wouldn’t put anything past them. Seriously though, maybe don’t pick up any teddy bears.

17 Do True Ghosts Exist?

Fallout is not known for its forays into the supernatural, despite our talk about dark magic and unholy monsters. But one concept has plagued the Fallout games for years now, the concept that ghosts really exist. Some ghosts in the earlier games appear to be holograms, although that is not especially made clear. A number of other named NPCs encountered throughout the games appear to be literal ghosts, and no other apparent explanation is provided in their particular locations. While we have stories that prove ancient aliens and talking trees, no story really proves the existence of ghosts, even though a few appear to be wandering around.

Do the games acknowledge that some sort of spirit world exists?

What would that mean for this all too scientific world? We don’t know because no story has really explained this crazy occurrence.

16 Too Many FEV Experiments

The FEV or Forced Evolutionary Virus is sort of the cure-all for Fallout plots. If anything is too weird, then FEV did it. The problem is, FEV ends up doing pretty much everything. It creates half the major enemies in the game, can be spread by either air or experiments depending on the plot, and turns creatures in everything from Super Mutants to any gross monster that the game needs. Sometimes it makes people dumb, sometimes it doesn’t. Sometimes it makes people sterile, sometimes they reproduce. In fact, sometimes it doesn’t do any of those things and just makes evil people really strong. Look, we aren’t playing Resident Evil here. A single virus doesn’t have power over the entire game, and it shouldn’t be changed into whatever form the plot requires. At least give us an explanation instead of just throwing FEV into the mix and hoping for the best.

15 The Real Purpose Of The Children Of The Atom

…What is it, exactly? When the Children were introduced, we understood that they worshipped atomic energy and desired to set off nuclear reactions so everyone mutates or fails. So what? Everyone has their kink. But we also know that some of them are evil, and some of them are just religious priests.

We know some of them are cynical, and some are true believers.

We find acolytes who foolishly sacrificed themselves because they didn’t know what radiation was, and ghost dreams of holy radiation mothers who lead us toward our destiny. We don’t even know if they worship ghouls or keep some around as pets. Look, the Children are a really cool idea, but they are never properly explained and it would be nice if we had a little nuclear clarification.

14 Ghouls And How They Work

On the surface, ghouls are easy. They got a weird form of radiation that turned them into zombies, and they just chill around until they go crazy and try to eat all your brains. But dig deeper, and they are a big plot thread that needs to be answered. What keeps some ghouls around for 200 years to stay perfectly sane, and what condemns other ghouls to go crazy and try to gnaw on your bones? Why do some have magic radiation that heals them, and others don’t? Did they come about through radiation alone, or was the FEV involved? Even the developers don’t agree on these questions. The creators just really wanted zombies in the games, so there were zombies. Please tell us more!

13 Whatever Happened To The Molerat Renewal?

Let’s start at the beginning. There once was a molerat who was genetically modified to be super intelligent, and he called himself The Brain. No, we aren’t going to get into why that happened, it is just one of those things that happens in the post-apocalypse. The more interesting thing is that you can help The Brain and his cult, called the Renewal. You see, the molerat promised ghouls a chance to restore them to their human forms, and while it’s not sure if he was lying, a lot of ghouls sure believed him.

If you choose to help The Ole Brain, then the Renewal is empowered and spreads.

So…what happens to the cult? You would think it would spread pretty quickly around the world if you help it prosper, but no one hears from it again.

12 All The Perfect Bases…That No One Is Using

Let’s focus on Fallout 4 specifically for a moment. In this game you have settlements that you can find and populate (and build laser turrets around), a crafting side mission with lots of Minecraft potential. However, these bases raise a lot of questions, because they are either empty (like in Sanctuary) or filled with just a few innocent farmers. Remember, this is a game that is also full of super mutants, raiders, gunners, and every other nasty thing looking for a place to hide or steal from. While the settlements do get attacked, it doesn’t make sense that they were left empty for years beforehand. Surely someone would have discovered them at some point, considering you just wander across them in 10 minutes?

11 There Are Vampires! Wait, No There Aren’t

Fans will immediately understand that we are talking about The Family, a group of cannibals in Fallout 3 who call themselves vampires and have a Lost Boys theme going on. They have a whole arcana to go along with their beliefs, which are basically, “We can eat people and it’s fine because we are awesome vampires.” The official story is that they really aren’t vampires, just people with a really good excuse for their snacking habits – nothing magical or zombie-like about them.

Conversations in the game bear this out at times.

However, there are also signs that the vampires are real – by siding with them, you get a permanent healing bonus, and there are other pieces of Family-related equipment that bestow powers on you as well. So are vampires real, or not? Let’s speculate wildly.

10 What Is The Ultimate Goal Of The Vaults Again?

If you follow all the story threads about the Vaults, you eventually uncover that they are all various experiments conducted by the government – now the Enclave, which claims they have inherited the old government by blood (yes, they are a little crazy). Some experiments were scientific, some were social, and some were just plain evil. That explains why every vault you encounter is a horror show of one kind or another, but it doesn’t explain what the vaults were for in the first place. How was the Enclave expected to benefit from any of these experiments in any way? It’s not like they could collect data after the apocalypse, and data on how the vaults perished in awful ways wouldn’t help them very much.

9 The Shifting Vault 13 Layout

It’s time for an old continuity problem! Vault 13 is in both Fallout 1 and Fallout 2. However, there is a small problem: The layout of the vault doesn’t quite match up. No, they tried really hard, but the vault’s locations are in different directions and don’t align well with the original plan of the vault.

It’s no surprise that fans have noticed this over the years, and wondered why the two don’t really match up.

Granted, Vault 13 is a bit different from a plot perspective as well (we'll spoil it down below, don't worry), but that is no reason to change where the rooms are. This is Fallout, so there is probably a potential crazy reason for this, like physics breaking down, but no one ever mentions it, so really we are disappointed by this unexplained change.

8 Are You Or Are You Not A Synth

In Fallout 4, the synths are highly advanced robots created by scientists who are probably evil, depending on how you see them. They are so good they can take the place of humans and no one finds out for years and years. One of the big plot questions is if you, the main character, are in fact a synth who doesn’t know that he or she is not human. There is a lot of evidence against this fact, including the belief of those evil scientists. However, there is also some evidence to support the conclusion, especially when you go to the Far Harbor expansion and talk to DIMA. Here you can admit that yes, you are a synth, or no, you maybe are not. Which is it? Are you just playing with us, developers? No need to answer that question.

7 Vertibirds Ruin Everything

Vertibirds are helicopters, except with nuclear-ish engines and the ability to present themselves in unlimited numbers. Throughout the games, you can find them used by your enemies or owned by the Brotherhood of Steel or fighting a random deathclaw. But Fallout games have had a strange relationship with these on-demand helicopters. Technically, transportation is the one thing that keeps the East Coast and the West Coat apart, the thing that stops the various factions from ganging up together. But there are just so many vertibirds, guys.

Why aren’t they used to transport messages and supplies around the world, especially by the later games?

We aren’t sure, but the games don’t really make sense whenever they are involved. Mankind was not meant to fly! Especially when it ruins the plot.

6 Oh, Look, Impossible Super Rad-X

Let’s take a visit to the ending of Fallout 3. There’s a bunch of stuff with magic Eden devices that don’t make a lot of sense anyway, but the worst part is the final encounter with Colonel Autumn. We’re not going to give away all the details, but it ends with both of you in a radiation zone where the radiation is so powerful it will straight up destroy you. You can pound Rad-X and Radaway and any other chemical that you want, but this special radiation doesn’t even care…except for Autumn, who injects himself with some stuff and then is totally fine, ready to return for a later quest. How does he survive when, radiation specialist, cannot? Theories range from a shielded overcoat (what?) to a super powerful Rad-X serum with magic properties. …We still have questions.