History Characters / Fallout

* FutureImperfect: Downplayed. While the Shi in general know of their origins, popular folklore and flowery prose has gradually distorted it to the point of denying the very submarine their forefathers were on existed. On the other hand, the intellectuals, engineers, and advisors have a very clear understanding of what actually happened, and aren't happy with said folklore.

* HidingBehindTheLanguageBarrier: Though they're shown in ''Fallout 2'' as speaking mainly in Mandarin, they are shown to be capable of understanding (and speaking) English just fine.

* LanguageDrift: Most tribals like the ones in Zion speak creoles based on their original founders' native tongues--the Dead Horse language, for example, is a mashup of English, German, and Navajo.

* DangerousDeserter: Averted; Captain Maxson and his men deserted their posts in the final days before the Great War, but were completely justified in doing so, and the only civilians they're known to have killed were the scientists at Mariposa [[JustFollowingOrders who were all complicit in the crimes of the federal government]].

* DangerousDesterter: Averted; Captain Maxson and his men deserted their posts in the final days before the Great War, but were completely justified in doing so, and the only civilians they're known to have killed were the scientists at Mariposa [[JustFollowingOrders who were all complicit in the crimes of the federal government]].

* TheRemnant: The Brotherhood arose from a group of U.S. Army mutineers who rebelled against the government and took shelter when the bombs started falling. Their flag still includes the red and white stripes of the U.S. flag, but with the blue field of stars replaced by their own logo.

** Roger Maxson was originally just the SergeantRock of his unit until circumstances and the suicide of his superior officer forced him to assume command and ultimately the mantle of Elder.

* PuttingOnTheReich: They see themselves as the last pure strain of humanity, and all other "humans" are lesser beings that must be killed so a glorious new America can be built on their ashes. The power armor their grunts wear is notably black-tinted and the design of their officer's uniforms carries some rather obvious connotations to Nazi Germany.

** Travelling to the bottom of the Dunwich Borers Quarry in ''Fallout 4'', specifically beyond the chained door, will give the Sole Survivor flashes to Pre-War times, when the mine was still active. After killing the long-ghoulified cultists, there's a final flashback, showing them kneeling around a water-filled pit like sacrifices.

* VillainTeamUp: On rare occasions, Raider bands will team up, either to overwhelm a powerful enemy with numbers, or hold on to territory individual clans can't on their own, but these groups never last long, as most Raiders are too volatile and short-sighted, and will collapse into infighting the second the outside threat is gone. The alliance between The Disciples, The Pack and The Operators from ''Nuka-World'' is by far one of the most successfull ones in recorded ''Fallout'' history, and even that is one loud noise away from falling apart by the time the Sole Survivor shows up.

** The company itself fostered a similarly harsh working environment in which the most cutthroat, deranged and amoral often came out on top, with competence at times almost secondary. Those who couldn't (or wouldn't) were pretty much left to fend for themselves once the Great War happened.
* StupidEvil: [=Vault-Tec's=] corporate culture was evidently so insane that they couldn't recognize the value of an employee who built practical machines with no harmful side effects rather than engage in pointlessly cruel experiments.

* TheRemnant: The last direct descendants of the United States government and military. Interestingly, the Courier can meet Enclave Remnants in ''VideoGame/FalloutNewVegas'', meaning they're a remnant of a remnant.

* SchizoTech: It's not unheard of for tribals to go into action with little than spears, clubs, and perhaps an old firearm, just as it for some of them to use pieces of Power Armor for protection or as badges of honor.

* TheSocialDarwinist: The true nature of the Vault experiments was [[spoiler:to cultivate talented individuals by subjecting them to horrific social and scientific experiments to see who would remain standing at the end, [[GoneHorriblyWrong with predictably terrible restults]]]]

* ElaborateUndergroundBase: The Brotherhood's bases are often underground bunkers or tunnel complexes. Averted in the main Bethesda games, as ''3'' has them making their base in the ruins of the Pentagon (now renamed "The Citadel") while the Brotherhood's Commonwealth expeditionary forces in ''4'' is headquartered in the ''[[ZeppelinsFromAnotherWorld Prydwen]]''.

* LandOfOneCity: Briefly. In 2186, Aradesh conducted a trial run for the NCR as a functioning country using Shady Sands as a testing ground for nation-building.

* ImpartialPurposeDrivenFaction: Downplayed. While the Followers won't lend their expertise towards raiders or openly antagonistic factions, they're otherwise impartial towards who they help. Whether it's providing the NCR an academic, agricultural and industrial foundation [[spoiler:or helping the Khans, the NCR's old foes, forge their own empire in Wyoming with ancient knowledge of logistics and economics.]]

%%zce* RapePillageAndBurn: Standard raider operating behavior goes about like this, and sometimes not even in that order.

* VisionaryVillain: While most Raiders never think further than their next Jet hit, a handful of them have higher aspirations, most notably the Operators from the ''Nuka-World'' DLC, who function more like a post-apocalyptic crime syndicate than traditional Raiders, and are more interested in money than the traditional RapePillageAndBurn lifestyle. They even want to restore Nuka-World to its original purpose as an amusement park, because that would mean their potential victims would just show up and hand over their money willingly.

[[quoteright:240:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/f9nkrmvauaet2qo_5.png]]

* DeliberateValuesDissonance: Even by the standards of the wasteland, tribals generally abide by social and moral norms that are seen as eccentric at best, or [[BlueAndOrangeMorality outright alien]] at worst.

* RapePillageAndBurn: Standard raider operating behavior goes about like this, and sometimes not even in that order.

* TrashOfTheTitans: Wherever they start to squat in, it's almost never going to be clean, not even bothering clean up all the pre-war debris and plenty of food, alcohol, drugs, and weapons just left sitting around in piles. Not to mention all of the gore, bones and dead bodies left to rot around rooms.

** In ''4'', raiders come with the hastily built yet versatile pipe weapons, making them come with anything from pistols, revolvers, machine guns and bolt-action rifles and generally prepared for most battles, even if their armor leaves a lot to be desired. More importantly though, they can now wear PoweredArmor and wield weapons like the fat man and missile launcher to blow the player away. Their ranks have also improved, with a clear distinction from the pathetically weak standard raider who stand out in the open to the tougher raider survivalists and veterans, who come with the much more dangerous combat shotguns and rifles and the tactical sense to stick to cover. Similar to ''The Pitt'', the ''Nuka-World'' DLC shows that raiders can be rallied as a domineering force comprised of multiple gangs, able to take over entire communities for themselves. If you so wish, you can even lead the Nuka-World raiders to take over the entire Commonwealth.

* VisionaryVillain: While most Raiders never think further than their next Jet hit, a handful of them have higher aspirations, most notably the Operators from the ''Nuka-World'' DLC, who function more like a post-apocalyptic crime syndicate than traditional Raiders, and are more interested in money than the traditional RapePillageAndBurn lifestyle. They even want to restore Nuka-World to it's original purpose as an amusement park, because that would mean their potential victims would just show up and hand over their money willingly

* LostCommonKnowledge: Tribals tend to stick out like a sore thumb in organized settlements and more "civilized" regions due to their lack of familiarity with what other wastelanders take for granted. Follows-Chalk of the Dead Horses, for instance, is confused over bottlecaps as currency and can't grasp why the NCR and Legion are fighting over a "river dam."
* NewAgeRetroHippie: The Point Lookout tribals are descended from counterculture survivors who came to cultivate punga fruit and worship Calvert, the latter using a holographic guise as the "Transcendental One" to manipulate them to do his bidding.

* WhiteMansBurden: Deconstructed.
** Both the New Canaanites and Followers of the Apocalypse are notably careful with how they approach tribals. Both know too well that even the best of intentions, such as simply observing or cataloging their cultures, could all too easily spiral into "civilizing" missions or the creation of something like Caesar's Legion if they go too far.

Fifty years after the Great War, Vault 15 opened and its people splintered in raider groups and one small town, Shady Sands. Over time under the leadership of their elder Aradesh and his daugther Tandi, Shady Sands became a major economic power in the southwest, and united with other major hubs of civilization in the area to found the New California Republic. Over the decades, the NCR has expanded across much of California and become its push into Nevada, coming into conflict with Caesar's Legion and the city of New Vegas under the leadership of Robert House.\\

* IHaveYourWife: To ensure the loyalty of operatives and sleeper agents working on enemy soil, Pre-War China had a habit of promising that their families would be taken care of should they succeed in their missions, or implicitly be "taken care of" should they fail. ''Fallout 76'' reveals that this is similarly how hardline Chinese remnants keep others in line, threatening to kill their loved ones if they fail their mission or entertain deserting.

* StealthExpert: What Pre-War China lacked in terms of technology they more than made up for in terms of being ''masters'' at espionage warfare.

* VestigialEmpire: China was on the verge of collapse in the final days of the Resource Wars, being completely defeated in Alaska and being pushed back all the way to Mainland China as the Americans launched a counter-invasion from the Philippines.

* YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness: If the hidden bunker in Point Lookout is any indication, it's likely that the Pre-War Chinese government had little intention of actually bringing its operatives back home. Those ''not'' gassed to death or shot by hardliners were likely to be simply left to either fend for themselves in the ensuing chaos or continue awaiting orders that would never come.

* InvadedStatesOfAmerica: The Resource Wars between China and the United States were sparked when China invaded Alaska, occupying a decent portion of the state to gain access to the last known oil deposits on Earth. The Chinese were driven out of Alaska shortly before the Great War, but infiltrators, spies and military remnants remained on American soil, and in a few cases, still do.

* {{Flanderization}}: Their recruiting policy is something that gets played up in later games. In ''1'', their "recruiting mission" was a SuicideMission SnipeHunt, because they weren't planning to recruit you, they were trying to ''get rid of you'', and you only got to actually join because [[IGaveMyWord they gave their word]] and you succeeded. In later games, not only do you get to join in nearly all games, the Brotherhood is aggressively recruiting outsiders, and even the Codex-bound, xenophobic West Coast Brotherhood in ''New Vegas'' will admit you if you do some work for them.

* InvadedStatesOfAmerica: The Resource Wars between China and the United States were sparked when China invaded Alaska, occupying a decent portion of the state to gain access to the last known oil deposits on Earth.

Most raider gangs are improvised and short-lived affairs, arising from a handful of thugs banding together and rarely lasting long before being brought down by infighting, retaliation from stronger forces or the dangers of the wastelands. A few, however, manage to endure in the longer term, eventually growing in numbers and developing into primitive tribes in their own right with some cultural nuance beyond being thieves and killers.

-->'''Rose of Sharon "Cass" Cassidy ''': "You know, like one of the tribes from the East - we got 'em out West, too. NCR's herding 'em up, though, domesticating them."

** Others like the New California Republic, while more tolerant of tribals, have less qualms about assimilating those living within or close to "civilized" regions, whether it's "domesticating" those who revered President Tandi as "the Great Mother" or putting more antagonistic ones like the Khans onto reservations. [[BlackAndGreyMorality Compared to the Legion]], this is seen as more preferable.
-->'''Cass''': "You know, like one of the tribes from the East - we got 'em out West, too. NCR's herding 'em up, though, domesticating them."

** The cancelled ''Van Buren'' featured The Ciphers, tribals descended from surviving scientists and soldiers from Los Alamos, who passed their pre-War knowledge about technology to their children and grandchildren similarly to religious tradition. As a result, The Ciphers became wasteland tribals with a very out-of-place understanding about repairing and maintaing tech, even though they barely even used it themselves, nor understood ''why'' any of it worked, just how to ''make'' it work. Even their cave paintings are actually copies of schematics for various technology.

* WhiteMansBurden: Deconstructed. Both the New Canaanites and Followers of the Apocalypse are notably careful with how they approach tribals. Both know too well that even the best of intentions, such as simply observing or cataloging their cultures, could all too easily spiral into "civilizing" missions or the creation of something like Caesar's Legion if they go too far.

* WhiteMansBurden: Deconstructed. Both the New Canaanites and Followers of the Apocalypse are notably careful with how they approach tribals. Both know too well from experience how simply observing or cataloging their culture can spiral into "civilizing" missions or the creation of something like Caesar's Legion from even the best of intentions.