History WMG / FalloutNewVegas

First, let us assume that the Marvel Universe begins with the Fantastic Four taking their fateful space flight in 2261, exactly 100 years after their first issue hit newsstands in the real world. Other heroes such as Hulk, Spider-Man, the X-Men, Daredevil, and so on appear in the following years, with ''most'' stories occurring here as well (obviously Captain America still fights in World War II, his revival is just pushed back till the 2160s). Time travelers such as Bishop and Cable absolutely do not exist. Cosmic characters and races such as Galactus, Thanos, the Phoenix, and Eternals may exist, but for the purposes of meshing Marvel and Fallout continuity, never interact with the Earth. Might make an exception for Venom and Carnage because the idea of the symbiotes still running around somewhere in the wastelands is just too enticing. Storylines such as Secret Wars, X-Men: Second Genesis, or the Clone Saga, may or may not have occurred, it's up to you. After all, this whole WMG is just an excuse to write the outline for a Marvel/Fallout fanfic. Before we explain how Tony exists in New Vegas, let us get up to speed with how we got here...

** It could also be seen as comparable to the Vietnam War, as it involves a poorly disciplined American conscript Army with declining standards in training and the recruitment of soldiers with disabilities or health conditions (Ranger Ghost being albino, 10 of Spades having a speech impediment, indicating a similar set of low medical standards to "project 100,000") being sent up against a less technologically advanced but more cunning,resourceful and brutal opponent, the NCR service rifle is a clear homage to the M16 design of that era and the Bitter Springs massacre could be seen as a reference to My Lai Massacre (though not quite as clear cut evil as the latter), the reports on the NCR Emergency radio of the Legion bombing the NCR Embassy on the Strip and the assault on Camp McCarran is analogous to how the North Vietnamese and Vietcong left the jungles to invade urban areas during the Tet Offensive, in addition both NCR Troopers in Vegas and Americans during Vietnam spent a lot of time with the local prostitutes in the safest cities in the reigion.

** You can also hit on your brain with Confirmed Bachelor or Cherchez La Femme. The out-of-universe reason is likely just that the devs thought it'd be funny if you could flirt with your own brain, and put no restrictions on which perk enables it to maximize access to a fairly amusing bit of flavor dialogue. As for in-universe reasons, the original guess is fitting if using the Lady Killer or Black Widow, less so if going the Confirmed Bachelor/Cherchez La Femme route. The Courier seeing SelfCest as basically just masturbation-with-extra-steps could be a second interpretation that applies to both methods. Wouldn't be the first time ADateWithRosiePalms was plot-relevant in OWB either, thanks to Dala.

* The one good thing of Legion rule in Arizona is that [[GenghisGambit at least it wasn't just another free-for-all between]] [[AlwaysChaoticEvil Raider and Slaver gangs]]: a Lanius swayed by the Courier's words would try to rebuild the Legion as a legitimately stable empire, while [[YouHaveFailedMe getting rid of any trouble-making subordinates]] [[AsskickingEqualsAuthority through sheer badassery alone]], [[DecapitatedArmy while a Legion deprived of all their great leaders]] [[OhNoNotAgain would go back to square one]]: [[BalkanizeMe divided between warring factions]], [[ForeverWar locked in a perpetual war that would leave the Legion's lands almost completely depopulated]].

* Or you could say [[Creator/LauraBailey Vera]] is obviously [[Anime/FullmetalAlchemist Lust]] ;)

** While the Enclave's involvement in the DLCs is limited to some fleshing out of ED-E's backstory during Lonesome Road, Dead Money's plot is completely driven by a genocial remnant of a technologically-advanced, insular order that sets itself apart from regular wastelanders. Sound familiar? While there is no plot connection to the Enclave, a strong thematic connection can be drawn here, demonstrating how the Brotherhood of Steel serves as a foil to The Enclave. The BoS were The Enclave's primary opposition during 3 (and 2 to some extent), and ever since their introduction and clash with Unity they've proven a powerful ally to the player, despite their isolationist nature and sense of superiority. New Vegas shows them at their worst, and Elijah shows us the worst of the worst. The BadEnding where the Courier sides with Elijah ends in the Mojave and parts of the NCR scoured of life by the Cloud, effectively succeeding (albeit not globally. Yet.) where the Enclave failed. Elijah shows just what the Brotherhood can become if their dogma leads them in the wrong direction.

* The one good thing of Legion rule in Arizona is that [[GenghisGambit at least it wasn't just another free-for-all between]] [[AlwaysChaoticEvil Raider and Slaver gangs]]: a Lanius swayed by the Courier's words would try to rebuild the Legion as a legitimately stable empire, while [[YouHaveFailedMe getting rid of any trouble-making subordinates]] [[AsskickingEqualsAuthority through sheer badassery alone]], [[DecapitatedArmy while a Legion deprived of all their great leaders]] [[OhNoNotAgain would go back to square one]]: [[BalkanizeMe divided between warring factions]], [[ForeverWar locked in a perpetual war]] [[KillEmAll that would leave the Legion's lands almost completely depopulated]].

And, there we go. My own little Marvel/Fallout treatment. Yes, if you've paid attention, this proper has left a MASSIVE plot hole; how the hell would Mr. House, a pre-war industrialist, NOT somehow notice that Tony Stark, another pre-war industrialist, has somehow reappeared? Aaaand... yeah, I got nothing. But, in my defense, this is just Wild Mass Guessing, and, like I said, the whole purpose is just to imagine a fun scenario involving two franchises I really like. Maybe you enjoyed this too and might want to run wild with it, either here, another forum, or, for the more tech literate than this troper, in the form of mods and total conversions.

The Legion ''have'' made things a lot safer, no doubt about it (the testimonies of Raul and Dale Barton say as much)... but a large part of the perception of the Legion's territories being the safest in the west is a combination of the Legion being ''exactly'' the sort of organization that by design and by unavoidable consequence of the sort of incitaments that are in play will say that things are safe and ensure no-one under their dominion says otherwise even if it isn't actually entirely true (in comparison, the NCR's more pluralistic, open society means there will be people with both the motivations and means to spread stories of security failures) and a tendency to compare Arizona with the Mojave rather than the NCR's ''actual'' core territories in California (notice that some of the raider trouble in the Mojave comes from gangs/tribes that fled California).

* The [[AwesomeMcCoolname B.o.S]] has gone through a pretty heavy {{Flanderization}} since their introduction, from xenophobic hi-tech guardians of The World That Was, to the current well-meaning-but-misguided-[[AGoodNameForARockBand anachro-crusaders]]. The Enclave (and to a certain extent, the Outcasts) are everything the [[MemeticMutation Baws]] ''used'' to be. This puts the B.o'S., and by extension the game designers, in the position of having a group of good guys using bad-guy tactics while trying to retain the players' sympathies. This is morally and logistically unsound, as Veronica points out by suggesting numerous ways and reasons that the B.o.S ''should'' and ''can'' help the outside world, but the Codex - and by extension, the canon - forbids it, [[DoomedByCanon dooming the Brotherhood to extinction]] despite being a [[AddedAlliterativeAppeal fan favorite faction]]. The developers would be freer to make the [=B(r)oS=] the unqualified good guys if the fans would let them, instead of requiring them to be The Enclave Lite "because other source material says they are".

Matthew Perry's notoriously "bad" voice acting, especially during the g-rated sex scene, was StylisticSuck, completely intentional as a way to show that he's a terrible, terrible lay.

Not that the Legion haven't made major strides in crushing raiders and bringing (harsh, brutal, often arbitrary and unjust) peace (the comments of Dale Barton and Raul show that much), but the Legion is also ''exactly'' the sort of group that by the unavoidable consequences of how it is organized and acts encourages its members to lie about how safe things are in the areas they control and crack down on alternate stories -- not just to outsiders, but also within the Legion, to avoid punishments for unavoidable failures. A secondary reason is that people tend to compare with either the Mojave or with Arizona as it was before the Legion -- but the Mojave isn't the NCR's core territory, ''California'' is, and California is implied to be a lot safer than the Mojave (notable, the Vipers, Jackals and Great Khans all used to be Californian gangs/tribes).

After realizing she helped secure Mr. House's autocratic rule over the region, possibly forever, she felt so guilty that she jumped off the dam in that moment.

[[WMG: The Courier is {{transgender}}]]

The box art and loading screen for the game both show a figure in NCR Ranger Combat Armor, and many players assume this figure represents a late-level Courier (to the point where the majority of fanart featuring the Courier depicts them as such). This armor includes a face-obscuring helmet, so if Cass was drunk enough she might not recognize the Courier if he was wearing this.

Being that Dead Money is more of a character-focused story than a concept-based one, the exact origin of the Cloud is unimportant. But because of that unimportance, it doesn't feel quite so egregious for one of its DLC monsters to put one foot outside of its usual genre.

Since he's the only character unaffiliated with Caesar's Legion to have a Roman name. He got ghoulified in some incident and left the Legion since he knew they wouldn't accept a ghoul in their ranks.

Think about it, there's a lot of gussied upgrades of preexisting systems at Big Mountain, chiefly the robots, most of which are from Robco and General Atomics, it's possible that Big Mt. had been looking for a pre-existing set of armor that they could work on building up. The Lab has plenty of scraps from Chinese Stealth Armor that they presumably captured and had Dr. Zero disassemble, and the "concept drafts" could be based on sketches constructed from corporate espionage de-briefs, leading up to them either finally stealing a prototype, or using combined assets to figure out enough to create their own version to compete with equipment contractors, hence all the gimmicks like an on-board computer, and med-x and Stimpak dispensers.

* Or at lease he knows about their existence every since before the Great War. He is intelligent, powerful, influential, wealthy, and ruthless when it comes to achieving his goals, which basically fits every requirement for someone to be accepted into part of the Enclave. Also, the RobCo Industries which he founded was working closely with Vault-Tec and the US government before the war. It is highly unlikely that a chessmaster like Mr. House doesn't eventually discover that a secret organization is working behind the shadows.

* This is completely plausible if you consider the PipBoy. In Fallout 3, according to Stanley Armstrong, biometric seals prevent the device from being removed, and Gary 23 in the Outcast outpost had his arm cut off because the Outcasts needed his Pip-Boy to unlock a weapons vault in the add-on Operation: Anchorage. However, this portrayal is notoriously inconsistent, as clothing in Fallout 3 is depicted as fitting under the Pip-Boy, with sleeves coming out on the other sides, while in New Vegas this issue is not mentioned at all. The Courier receives Doc Mitchell's old Pip-Boy and can freely switch between the regular and the Pimp-Boy 3 Billion version; the 3 Billion also appears loose on the player's arm. Ricky in Honest Hearts wears a Pip-Boy he claims to have found, though he doesn't mention the biometric lock. (from Fallout Wikia)

Given that many players roleplay as the Lone Wanderer this may be true. Mass Effect 2 allowed players to do this and given that New Vegas borrows liberally from it with elements such as the follower missions and the Illusive Ma- eh, I mean Mr House, it’s possible they wanted to follow this trend. The opening even gives the player a convenient reason as to whatever happened to your god mode skills, given the damage to your brain and physical trauma to your body. Doc Mitchell giving you his Pip Boy may also be a subtle concession, since as a former Vault Dweller, it shows it must be removable, giving players some leeway as to why they no longer have theirs. While probably a coincidence, several lines in the game even have a double meaning for the Lone Wanderer, not least commenting on Neil being unusually articulate for a Super Mutant saying regret when Doc Mitchell asks about your mother.

* That is a huge stretch given absolutely no evidence justifies that, especially since the name of that NPC was listed as "Pacoff" in the dialogue files. Maybe it means "Public Address Communications Officer," but since you aren't using a public address system, ComOff would be a better abbreviation, and all the other dialogue files are character names it seems fairly likely that is supposed to be his name.

[[WMG: Mr House has a couple of secret subroutines written into the software of the [=PipBoys=].]]

Now let's look at things a little further. Veronica's staying with the Brotherhood in the NCR Truce ending still has her continuing to feel isolated and trying in vain to get the Brotherhood to adopt new technologies and help other people. But here's the thing: in order to achieve that ending, and NOT fail the quest, you more or less have to deal with the group of asshole paladins peacefully (you might be able to kill them without failing the quest, but it is pretty damn hard to do). When you factor in the Mojave Brotherhood's fairly small numbers, of course those paladins are going to have much more influence and thus continue, via both their own behavior and peer influence, to make the lives of progressive members like Veronica and Elder McNamara miserable.

** umm, no. First of all, it is made clear by Ulysses that the Courier created the Divide. As in the settlement. So the Courier can’t be born there. Aside from that, there is a dialogue option in which you ask Ulysses if he referred to himself with the graffiti of ‘you can go home, Courier’. “You can go home again, Courier. Not a message for me, for you.” You can say to him. He’ll answer either “My home in the East, Dry Wells, is no more. It is part of the Legion.”
Or: “ The only other home... the chance of a home... was what you built at the Divide. Then you destroyed it.”