FAO Feral Ghouls: You Are Not Zombies

[Moraelin]

What you get to see and whats lore (i.e. written in ingame logs of mad scientists) can be different. Plus I really don't remember FO1+2. :wink:

 

I'm asking because many games present you a lot of enemies but the number of civilians is somehow scaled down, so they don't have to create cities and camps with hundreds of people.

Well, obviously that is a design decision, so you're not wrong about how that ratio between enemies and civilians works. All I'm saying, though, is that it's been like that since Fallout 1, so I guess it IS the lore.

 

I guess what I'm saying is that I treat lore a bit like history, so to speak. It's the sum of all that was, the sum of all that happened. Sometimes we have first hand written documents, possibly even offering insight into the why and how and who, but stuff can be part of history even if we don't have the written documents or that kind of details. We can know that a town was destroyed in the collapse at the end of the bronze age, although we have no written record saying exactly what the hell happened there. We can know that the place was deserted during the iron age, right until mid-hellenic period, but again we have no idea why there weren't more people there, when they were fighting for land and resources mere miles from a place that was empty.

 

Same for game lore, I figure. Some stuff just is. Just happened. Some place had a lot of feral ghouls and very few villagers. That's just how it is. It may be a design decision, and probably is, but that's the lore.

 

And yes, I realize that I'm a huge lore nerd to even talk about it like about RL history, but, hey, in my partial defense, I'm not trying to push it on modders and szch. In fact, my usual annoyance is having people try to push it on me, when clearly they don't know half as much as I do about that lore.

[robhartman9]

I can identify with one of the earlier posts in this thread. I can remember playing fallout 3 and getting a bunch of quest fail messages after killing another ghoul. Oops I guess that one wasn't feral.

[Warmaker01]

I can identify with one of the earlier posts in this thread. I can remember playing fallout 3 and getting a bunch of quest fail messages after killing another ghoul. Oops I guess that one wasn't feral.

It was so bad in the old FO1 and FO2 titles because on a quick glance, there was no visual distinction between a normal and feral ghoul. This was all in the old school, 2d isometric sprite days. There was no VATS or HUD that said "Ghoul" or "Feral Ghoul" variant hovering over their heads. Either they went immediately into combat with you (game on, assholes!) or you'd have to right click on the "Ghoul" and examine to make sure before you pulled the trigger. Even sprite movement had no distinction between Ghouls and Ferals.

 

When the franchise went 3d under Bethesda, it was way easy to distinguish. Regular Ghouls carried themselves like regular humans and of course, some carried weapons. Ferals featured monster-like, creature postures.

[Jeesmies]

I'm pretty sure there's so many ferals in this one because they're more satisfying to fight than normal ghouls.

[Pthalo]

See, I always figured the threshold between a ghoul with an intact brain and a ghoul without one was just a very fine line favouring overdosing the brain. Brains are weaksauce when it comes to abuse like that. Much like how supermutants are overwhelmingly BARGHLRHARGH! and Fawkes is the only exception to this rule I can name.

 

I know Supermutants are the result of FEV exposure, and thus distinct from ghouls, but. Aren't ghouls supposedly the product of those with a genetic variation that causes them to mutate rather than die to rad poisoning? I feel like those two groups have something in common. Namely that loss of intellect seems so consistently tied to healed-by-rads.

 

Thoughts? I have only played FO3 and 4 sadly so my familiarity with the lore is rather slim. :sad: is there any mention of sapient/feral ghouls' genetics being used in FEV development?

Edited January 16, 2016 by Pthalo

[Warmaker01]

See, I always figured the threshold between a ghoul with an intact brain and a ghoul without one was just a very fine line favouring overdosing the brain. Brains are weaksauce when it comes to abuse like that. Much like how supermutants are overwhelmingly BARGHLRHARGH! and Fawkes is the only exception to this rule I can name.

 

I know Supermutants are the result of FEV exposure, and thus distinct from ghouls, but. Aren't ghouls supposedly the product of those with a genetic variation that causes them to mutate rather than die to rad poisoning? I feel like those two groups have something in common. Namely that loss of intellect seems so consistently tied to healed-by-rads.

 

Thoughts? I have only played FO3 and 4 sadly so my familiarity with the lore is rather slim. :sad: is there any mention of sapient/feral ghouls' genetics being used in FEV development?

Ghouls are not a product of FEV, simply heavy radiation exposure for humans. From there they diverge into being a regular Ghoul or the usual route: Feral.

 

There are 3 named Ghouls in FO4 for example, that are from the Pre-War era and were simply radiated; No FEV explosure.

 

 

Edward Deegan of the Cabot Household

Vault-Tec Rep

Daisy of Goodneighbor

 

 

 

Now, there are variation of mutants resulting from FEV exposure. I would go into it but that is Fallout 1's baby.

[Raycheetah]

Three more named ghouls in FO4 from the pre-war era are Billy Peabody and his parents (whose names escape me, at the moment). There is a hint that there may be a genetic element to the likelihood of ghoulification; I wonder if the family name "Peabody" is a reference to the seminal genetic studies of Gregor Mendel on pea plants? =^[.]^=