Gunners Origins

[jcdenton2012]

OK, so I have a theory. The Gunners, Bostons highly militaristic Raider Faction, were founded by the kids who escaped Vault 75. If you adventure abroad you will noticed that Vault 75 and 95 are both controlled by the Gunners. They are the only faction to control not one but two vaults, and I wonder how they would know about one without having lived in the other.

 

Therefore I postulate the following theory. The kids trained to be mercenaries in Vault 75 killed all the employees and looted the place of all military arms and equipment, not to mention Intel, before escaping out into the wasteland where they then founded The Gunners Mercenary Band.

[CyrusAmell]

I thought this as well. However, if you look around Vault 75 you will find skeletons laying about. This is odd, the place where your faction originated and you could not take the time to clean out the place? It seemed more like the Gunners moved in and got the Vault's training fields online for their own recruits with no regard to cleaning up after themselves. Frankly, Vault 75 seems a better place to hole up and fortify than the Gunner's Plaza, so why was it not the organization's go-to HQ? Unless, it was only discovered recently.

 

The theory can work, but the state of the Vault seems to contradict it somewhat in my opinion. As factions go, the Gunners are somewhat shallow. They certainly have more color and history than Talon Company back in FO3, but not by much. They were intended to function as heavily armored hostiles the players could turn into equipment pinatas. Which is a shame considering the effort that went into distinguishing them as a group. I would have at least liked more Minutemen quests based around their rivalry with the Gunners. Preston Garvey of all people should have a chip on his shoulder when it comes to the Gunners, especially after Quincy, but this never shows.

Edited January 22, 2016 by CyrusAmell

[tomomi1922]

Are we to assume that everyone on the surface died (beside some ghouls) and all the people left are those who came back out from some vaults?

 

To me, I feel that most of the surface population see Vaults as relic. They know the existence but they have no immediate connection to it. It has been only 200 years. Their grandparents would have been in the Vault. Thus my theory is not many are from the Vaults. And those who did come from the Vault tried to hide that identity in fear of being identified and robbed. Vault dwellers have more resources than those who roams the land. It's like a zombie apocalypse without worrying the zombie bite as much. You don't have to want to kill yourself or ask your friend to kill you simply you got a scratch from a ghoul. That said, the water is poisoned with radiation fallout, which makes food hard to grow. Avoiding rad entirely is impossible, but ignoring rad poisoning altogether will probably end up killing you (instead of turning you into a mutant with super power like with Marvel comics).

 

Raider is not even a faction. It is a generic name given by common people to identify those bandits who resolve to robbing and killing for survival. And since most of them are drug addicts (no sure why drugs are plentiful in FO), they aren't even coherent enough to be a real organization.

 

Gunners is another generic name given to the remain of the US military forces, scattered and without a leader. Supposedly Bethesda want us to believe that theory as they all wear supposed pre-war standard issue uniforms. Some more fortunate groups with a stronger leadership would found something like BOS, with more organized and centralized leadership and ranking hierarchy. The rest, they just sit around and decide what to do with only weapons and ammunition are the only available resources. This is similar to how Samurai came to Japan. They were remnants of a lost country, drifted to Japan, and all they knew was fighting. So they took up banditry, bodyguard for hire, caravan guards, assassin, etc.... and there started the Samurai class.

 

That said, it has been 200 years. All of the Gunners now are descendants and have no knowledge of the pre-war world. I wonder where they get their population from? Probably how Raiders and others recruit: grab anyone who they see fit to their ranks. Fit men can bolster their ranks, unfit men can be slave labors. Women the same, can be use as "commune prostitute" and "breeding device". It sounds bad, but this likely happens. I am actually surprised that they are quite many women in their ranks.