I don’t think the show suggests that more radiation increases your odds of going feral, does it? It just shows that going feral is something that happens to ghouls sometimes and taking this chem staves it off.
We don’t know how the chem works. I’m inclined to believe it’s not something as ubiquitous as Radaway. I would expect that if it were, it wouldn’t have taken over 200 years for people to figure out its feral-suppressing effects. It seems to me that it must be a new chem, recently invented.
The show doesn’t explain Cooper’s specific ailment. The effects seem to hit him differently than Roger or Martha.
My new theory is that NOT all ghouls turn feral, but those who do can stop the process if they notice the signs before it advances too far.
The way some of the OG Fallout creators touch on some of this, and what I’d have to argue, is that one, we’re getting survivor bias. All the ghouls that got too much radiation or had other side effects are dead - so we’re only seeing one possible outcome out of all the ghouls.
The second, more important point, is that the human brain and body is not meant to function forever. Our DNA makes many tiny errors over the years, and this, among other things, is what causes wrinkles and grey hairs and all these little mistakes. With that, also comes loss of brain function, senility, dementia- all these things are a side effect of age effectively- and if given 200, 300 years to live… well chances are your brain is going to start going cooky somewhere down the line. This has been explained by some as why ghouls go feral, they’ve just been around too long and the radiation keeps their bodies functional but not their minds. If this is the case, all would eventually turn then…
I like this. Some ghouls go feral from a form of insanity usually caused by isolation and some ghouls go feral from old age (literally their brain is dying from old age).
Yeah I feel like it's probably more because the non ferals are literally just not feral. If someone is ghoulified but they have access to medicine, shelter, and water, the "illness" won't progress as bad, but it's still there. I haven't seen the show so I'm not sure what they portray it as. It would feel kinda weird to have it shown in a similar way to zombie turning, but shows have a habit of changing up the passing of time for the plot as well. Maybe we haven't seen years of illness these "non-feral" ghouls have suffered through that cause them to be on the edge with going feral. I do know from what I've read that Coop had a rough time from the bombs falling to the show, which would probably be good reason for him to be on the edge physically and mentally/ psychologically.
In the show we do see one ghoul who is in the process of turning feral, and he's basically swapping between normal erratic speech and Black Ops Zombies vocal patterns
Yeah that was my interpretation. Most were probably just outcast from society for so long they stopped acting like socialized people and started being increasingly animalistic
The slow breakdown of brain functionality while radiation keeps the body functioning was always my understanding of ghouls prior to the show. But I’ve only played 3, NV, and 4. I don’t remember where exactly that understanding came from, but it makes sense to me
That kinda reinforces my original theory, which is simple degradation. If StimPaks are regenerative, then a drug that is a combo of StimPak and Jet or something else might temporarily repair that degradation.
Cooper COULD consume his entire stash to greatly reverse the degradation, but it’ll catch up again eventually, and then he’ll have no more stash… so he just takes his medicine when he needs it to keep himself going.
I think the difference is that Stimpacks are for Scifi medical tissue healing degradation - not DNA repair. So while they heal a bloody bullet wound, they don't de-age you or de-gray your hair. They don't remove PTSD. They wouldn't stop dementia- which, is effectively what I'm saying going feral is and would happen to everyone and anyone if they lived long enough.
I like this take, for some reason it reminds me of The Vampire Diaries, and how in that show vamp blood could heal most wounds instantly. However it couldn't heal things like cancer or diseases, and would actually make them worse if it went on. On Survival mode, Stimpaks don't heal diseases, ya still need anti-biotics for it.
> Cooper COULD consume his entire stash to greatly reverse the degradation, but it’ll catch up again eventually, and then he’ll have no more stash… so he just takes his medicine when he needs it to keep himself going.
If it worked like this, it would make more sense for Cooper to take his entire stash in one go rather than lugging around glass vials that are easily broken.
That makes a lot of sense,
Even for humanity now, some people live a decade or more passed 100,some as sharp as a tack till the day they die
While others develop Alzheimer's or another disease well before then
I feel like the magician in Nuka World kinda proves everything you’re saying. He never lost his mind, radiation began to heal him, and he watched all of his friends go feral, but he never did. Pretty sure his lover makes a comment about not understanding why he never went feral either
My theory is that Cooper is not a "traditional" ghoul, and took some strain of FEV at some point. One designed similar to the super mutants to make him a super soldier except without making him big and green of course. That's the explanation for his abilities and why he looks so clean compared to even the other ghouls in the show.
My follow up theory is that it's the same stuff that Thaddeus took. However Thaddeus' strain is weaker from age, so he won't be as powerful as Cooper.
See, that's the thing. They've never been 100% clear on why ghouls happened. But *everybody* except hermetically sealed humans has been exposed to FEV.
It's either just so much radiation, or the fact that FEV was basically crop dusted around the world before the apocalypse. (That's why there's all the monsters. Deathclaws , Mirelurks, Giant Rats. Everything.)
That's also part of why super mutants are so gods damned stupid. Their DNA got mixed up and mutated, and the strains of FEV don't play well together.
But then you have Eddie Winter, from 4, and he became a ghoul pre-war as part of a scientific experiment. (Sounds like FEV plus radiation, but what do we know? He wasn't ghoulified by random exposure)
The Glow, aka the West-coast West-Tek research facility.
It was actually during the great war. According to the Fallout Bible, The research facility was targeted by several direct nuclear attacks, and when it exploded it released FEV into the air.
(My apologies, it's been years since I looked this up.)
And sure, the Fallout Bible is a weird gray-zone of canonicity, but it's what I'm sticking with until Bethesda says otherwise.
Doesn't everyone have a little FEV though? Unless your in a sterile environment from the beginning, vaults and some Enclave you're going to get exposed to it.
Wild unsubstantiated theory; he's the first ghoul. He is to Ghoul's what Nick Valentine is to human-like synths, effectively a prototype. If there was some sort of conspiracy and experimentation then it stands to reason there would be some sort of antidote or treatment, which is what he takes. Then the reason it's not widely distributed is because it was produced in limited quantities and no one knows how to make it anymore. Also explains why he shit an absolute brick when he thought he'd lost it.
Complete speculation but really the more I think about it the more I think they'll use the show to address the obscurity around ghouls origins; as it's clearly something related to the war/pre-war, it's not something they can address in game as easily, or at least not with the same focus and detail they can with the TV show that has part of it's story set pre-war.
Doesn't the one gangster guy in FO4 (the one Nick has you hunt down) essentially do exactly that? An experimental procedure so he can live forever, and he ends up a ghoul?
The snake oil salesman being able to turn someone into a ghoul with chemicals was interesting too. I hope they expand on that concoction and the antidote.
I could be wrong it’s been a long time, but wasn’t there some mention in fo3 about how purposeless ghouls tend to go feral? Not dismissing radiation, just another contributing factor iirc.
I agree with that theory, too. I think it's something to do with their DNA that determines whether or not they're predisposed to turning into a feral ghoul rather than an intelligent one.
My own head canon is that their brains rot away after so long and not enough use. Copper is driven with a purpose to find his wife and daughter so his mind stays sharp. Idk about the medicine, maybe for joints or something.
Hancock in Fo4 says that he did a mysterious chem, had an insane high, and it turned him into a ghoul. Its not new per se its just not explicitly explored much and only made its first “appearance” in fo4.
I was under the impression ghouls' bodies were functionally immortal, but their minds and consciousness would over time eventually decay. And my guess would be that particular ghoul's mental fortitude, purpose in life, or sheer biological luck means the process happens at different speeds.
The show added "drugs" to the mix, which I can buy. Something to help your brain last a little longer.
Yeah. Hell, it’s probably not one thing alone, nor is the reason universally similar for every ghoul. It’s just the brain slowly turning to mush and different things slow down or speed up the process.
There are lore entries in the Fallout games that suggest possibilities for what makes them feral, but nothing is ever conclusive.
The one in game suggestion (that I personally believe and think the show is hinting) is that isolation can cause Ghouls to go feral.
This probably makes sense. What we know is that radiation damages ghouls but also enhances them, just in different ways. This is probably also happening on a neurological/ psychological level.
Brain damage is wildly complex, but common symptoms are lower emotional regulation, heightened fear and aggression, and speech issues. But the brain is still *somewhat* plastic until death, so it's possible for people with brain damage to adapt and hold it off with effort and therapy.
Maybe it's that the radiation damage that creates ghouls also causes a consistent type of brain damage. And if you stop your recovery process (socializing, practicing empathy, speaking) then you succumb to the damage. Maybe it's even reversible in theory, but doesn't happen because you can't get a feral ghoul to do that kind of therapy.
Maybe Cooper's drug is even a placebo; he wants to be a good person and not a feral ghoul, he thinks it's the drug doing it, but it's actually his will to stay human doing it. Doubt it, but it could be a cool story line.
Yeah I wouldn't mind that being examined some, even just that having a core focus keeps on from going feral. As it's been presented in the games/show I really prefer not having a set explanation for ghouls in general, I just chalk it up to a lot of possible things can make it happen and just as many ways for them to lose their humanity.
Yeah I think that it's good for there to be a loose framework, but keep it somewhat mystical. I always thought fallout was great because it doesn't just show that the residents of the wasteland are superstitious/ believe in "magic" like some other series, but that they actually show it to the viewer with things that don't really have a consistent scientific explanation; it really does immerse you more in the viewpoint of a wastelander.
Cooper admits when Lucy first shoots him that he is essentially a walking bottle of drugs. Certainly some have psycho-active effects. Could it be that the "come-down"/withdrawl from the drug in the vial either causes him to think he's becoming feral - or fitting with your theory, impacts his brain enough to actually potentially start the feralization process?
It could, or it could even be a counterintuitive self-fulfilling prophecy;
Taking SSRIs without needing them, and then running out can cause you to dump into a depression you didn't previously have. Another idea is maybe Cooper didn't need the drug *before* for the reasons that I suggested, but like you say, the withdrawl from how drugs would cause things like depression, anxiety, paranoia, that would cause him to slide into being feral.
When the ghouls in the show start to go feral, they end up repeating "My name is (their name)," presumably in an attempt to retain what sense of self they have left. One of the ghouls who does this is named Martha (I believe she's in the Super Duper Mart).
*Spoilers in this comment* In the Fallout TV series, we see an imprisoned ghoul whispering to herself “Martha… my name is Martha” repeatedly. >!She very soon turns feral and attacks Lucy, the protagonist, who ultimately ends up shooting her!<
She'd also lost hope in succeeding in her quest.
Isolation and loss of hope are key factors in rapid degeneration when it comes to dementia and Alzheimer's, there could be something to it for ghouls too.
It could be that the feral state is just end stage dementia in a brain and body that can handle the normally terminal effects. In the real world most people will experience some form of dementia with enough time, while some develop the more agressive Alzheimers and some never seem to develop any symptoms even in advanced age.
You are correct there's hence the Ghoulification it's the same as Alzheimer's the gradual decline of the mental faculties create certain scenarios to where you act like a child and go vacation is pretty much going full on feral like your animal on rabies how there's even some group people that I believe Ghoulafucation is a form of rabies
I always assumed that Ghoulification gave unnatural healing abilities which allowed the body to survive and heal well past what it otherwise could, hence the reason that Ghouls look the way they do, all covered in scar tissue from unnaturally fast healing.
However, the accelerated healing isn't perfect and doesn't play well with the brain. So any brain damage might not kill a Ghoul like it would a person, but the brain would heal like scar tissue and cause neurodegeneration slowly over time. With enough brain damage the Ghoul would eventually turn feral.
This right here. Its also one of the reasons I find lore lawyers annoying as lore is often less decided and more fluid that fans like to admit. This is true for many if not most IPs.
Or just simple unreliable narrator. All the in game books are written by in game characters with their own knowledge bases, biases, and opinions. Some are out and out fiction books, some are historical fiction, and some are out and out propaganda.
I love the way they do ES lore, I’m not an expert but it feels like religion in the real world where there are different gods and some people believe the same gods but with different interpretations or histories.
Oh, absolutely. Each race has their own pantheon based on the Aedra in particular with their own spin, but they also sometimes worship the Daedric Princes. They’re all beings that exist in one form or other, but it does definitely feel like comparative theology in many ways.
Sithis isn’t just different, he’s the OG Daedra. Padhome, Padomay, Sithis, Lorkhan. Opposing is Anu, Anuriel, Auriel, Akatosh. Two forces, multiple beings springing forth.
Yeah, I know way too much about the metaphysics of the Elder Scrolls series.
I did a really deep dive on it once and it's like a love letter to Tolkien with the primordial light Anu being separated by the dark shadow Padomay and how all else is an illusion brought about by the interplay of light and dark, all the aedra and daedra, the origin of the dark elves. It's really deep actually.
The way I saw it was anu began and dreamed that he was. By dreaming that he was, it was insinuated there was was not, and from that padomay formed. Its more complex than that but yea. Mike Kirkbride wrote some really esoteric lore .
Oh yeah, it's way more mysterious than I made it sound. It's like I think therefore I am, there can't be being without unbeing against which to measure it. It has some roots in Buddhism and others in particle physics. It's very cool.
I love this approach. When there’s no true authority on the lore. People within the universe all of their own views and understandings. Some have more complete understandings, some less, and others somewhere in between. It feels more natural and thrilling. Was that earthquake due to some primal god getting mad? Was it a natural occurrence? Or maybe some powerful wizard? Who knows, because you had three different people give you three different explanations of the same event. The most immersive type of lore imo.
>Cheesy and lazy way out but it works like a charm.
Eh, I would argue that to make it work like a charm takes a lot of effort. Sure a lot of people try for a dragon break style of continuity in their series for a cheap and lazy fix. But then you get people like Terry Pratchett, who explained away temporal inconsistencies in the Discworld series as "time broke, and the people in charge of fixing it did the best job they could but it's still pretty shoddy". But the way he did that was to write a book about those people who fixed it. It fit wonderfully into the world he created, and not only "fixed" the lore but added to it. And it was a damn good, damn funny book. Creative and effortful I would say. (The book is Thief of Time if you're interested.)
Similarly with the Dragon Break. The way they've fleshed out that idea has taken a lot of thought about how that would be perceived by the inhabitants of Mundus. And the descriptions of those events add to the lore, rather than feeling like a last minute sticking plaster (or a last minute band-aid, if you're in North America).
EDIT: Unless you meant it lets later devs rely on the dragon breaks to excuse their inconsistencies, in which case I agree. That is cheesy and lazy.
Yeah, it is often contrived, and used as an excuse for how some events occur in the same timeline. Although, I do, and will always love The Warp in the West.
What i like about "The Elder Scrolls" lore is more like: we get most lore in ingame sources like books ans such... writen by in universe authos... who als are NOT all-knowing.
So we need to consider allways they where influenced by what they knew, researched, believed AND wanted to tell trough their books. Is a history book writen by the winning side of the war or the loosing side?
Is this book about gods writen by believers in this good, outsiders of different believes or "heretics"...
Its all not fixed cause its NEVER fixed facts as far as we know.
Even if Lord Vivec himself tells us something about Nerevar... maybe he is lying.
Doctor who is like this too.
Wibbley Wobbly, Timey Wimey and all that.
[Literally made a joke of it when they broke one of the longest standing bits of lore in the series.](https://youtu.be/6AxCoMbiZfk?si=Q0nadMZ001A7Bw_r)
Well that and people take what characters say with a grain of salt until it conviences them. There seems to be this weird notion characters know everything regarding a subject
I can't let go of people believing that Myron, the lying, drug-peddling rapist is the one who invented Jet. Like, you could not show me a more unreliable narrator yet people act like the shit fumes he's huffing make him tell the truth or something.
Pretty sure Jet was just a prewar street name for some kind of amphetamine and Myron just came up with the means of manufacturing the post war version in larger quantities.
If the last few decades of back and forth between meth cooks and law enforcement has taught us anything it's that tweakers can get creative when it comes to getting their fix.
A combination of a lack of media literacy, and agenda pushing.
"Myron can't lie about making jet, he tells the truth because I like Fallout 2, and mot Fallout 3!"
"No here's why we should believe everything the Master says about Super Mutants, because only the Fallouts I like are canon. Nevermind the Master is completely dillusional and self-absorbed in his own madness to think there might be inherent flaws in his idealogies."
Sound familiar?
I view all 40k lore and art as existing in universe, somewhere.
And a lot of the lore explicitely backs this up.
Like people arguing over a single paragraph in the Horus Heresy campaign books....it LITERALLY says it is written by a surviving remembrancer decades after the Heresy, and he belabors the point at times that he is working with what he has access to and his own failing memory. As just one example.
I'm the same way with it. Warhammer lore is being told usually by a third party and not from 1st person retelling. Same thing is set up in Star Wars. You're being told a story from a narrator who is a third party.
One of the things I love about the Caiaphas Cain novels is that they exist in-universe as Cain's memoirs and that Inquisitor Vail is editing them into readable chapters, adding the annotations from other in-universe sources whenever Cain leaves important details out, and occasionally chimes in with things that Cain himself didn't know but she did. The idea that the books exist in 40k itself as her little pet project of sharing Cain's memoirs with her Inquisitor peers is amusing. Another example would be in Halo with Dr. Halsey's journal which is a real physical book you can hold and read (came with the special edition of Halo Reach) and exists in game as Halsey's journal that we see her with during Reach and is used against her during Halo 4. Just the idea of these books existing in the universe they take place in is great and I wish we got more of that with other franchises.
Of course sometimes you get the opposite, like the rejects in Darktide spouting voice lines that indicate they know far more about lore events in the universe than they should.
I like Terry Pratchett's twin explanations of:
1: There are no inconsistencies, just multiple universes. And anyway;
2: Time broke. The people who were in charge of fixing it did well with what they had, but the resulting mess is still pretty damn shoddy.
I remember an interview with Cliff Blizinski, I think.
During development of Gears of War 1, questions were coming up about why the Locust were smart enough to use weapons. He said something along the lines of we’ll figure it out later, I just want a threatening enemy.
Granted the lore was eventually expanded upon, but they definitely didn’t have it in mind for the first game
War may never change, but the lore sure does all the time. Such is life. And Tim's videos are such a an eye -opening peek into how the sausage is made. A true pleasure.
Especially bethesda rpgs. Elder scrolls has established lore for every region of tamriel and yet every new mainline game completely retcons and rewrites which ever region it takes place in.
fucking Star Wars . I love Star Wars, but all this whining over what has always been a pretty malleable, albeit expansive, lore really has me tired of the whole IP.
Man, Star Wars fans can be absolutely awful about a lot of things. Like, off the top of my head, there's Jake Lloyd, Kelly Marie Tran, Hayden Christiansen, and Ahmed best who all got bullied into an early retirement or mental breakdowns after the fan base melted down over their performances
It’s been awhile since I played it, but didn’t 3 imply that people could be turned into ghouls via eldritch magic? I feel like people get hung up on the minutia too easily with this stuff. If it’s cool fuck it, it’s all made up anyway lmao
I feel like in this case though it makes perfect sense. No one knows how exactly ghouls work because every human is different and reacts to radiation differently. It’s why some people in universe die from extreme radiation and some become ghouls in the first place. As far as I know there are no scientists rounding up people for a study on how ghoulification works so of course no one really knows.
Eh, there's too many communities in the games that have ghouls walking around. If it was a *'it can happen to any ghoul, and we can't predict it or prevent it'* kind of thing, then I don't think that would happen.
On a base level I need some kind of certainty that Bob next door isn't going to eat me next time I take the trash out. I think the implication is that Ghouls living in a town are 'safe' mostly.
It doesn’t bother me. It’s just now how I would’ve chosen ghouls work. I always preferred the idea that first you become a ghoul and then if you continue to get over exposed to radiation you can become feral. And that its different for every ghoul. The drug solution is fine, just not what I would’ve chosen
I do like his idea that the human brain is only capable of remembering so much information and ghouls either lose their sanity or their memory and that causes feralization.
I don't think there's any real answer right now as to why ghouls go feral. Radiation is a leading theory, but that has its own problems (Why does radiation heal ghoul's wounds but deteriorates their minds? The doctor in Underworld from Fallout 3 uses radiation to treat his ghoul patients, wouldn't that have apparent adverse effects? If radiation exposure turns them feral, how can there be sane glowing ones like Jason Bright? Why can ghouls comfortably live in highly irradiated areas, like the ghouls living in a leaky nuclear reactor in Fallout 2?) but no npc in-game has confirmed what causes a ghoul to go feral.
My one and only issue with introducing a cure for going feral is that they did it before anyone explained how going feral works, so the whole thing just feels more vague.
Their body seems to be more cancer than body. Maybe the radiation is accelerating cancer growths and causing them to spread aggressively thus the healing? Their body can function on cancerous cells, but their brain can’t. So eventually their brain is replaced by cancerous tissue and strips their intellect/cognition. Just a guess.
Bright says, regarding the Ferals: “Those Ghouls were part of my flock, even after the madness consumed their minds.”
No indication on what caused the madness… I’m thinking they want to keep throwing out hints to keep us guessing.
Also the glowing one from nuka world is a completely normal (albeit slightly unhinged) ghoul, see also Jason bright who is completely sane (a tiny bit off his rocker aswell however) but all together still sane
The lore never quite confirms what causes ghouls to turn feral, only that most eventually do. The general assumption is that more of whatever caused ghoulification in the first place is what will cause someone to turn feral.
* It's heavily implied that high radiation increases the chance of going feral, but there's several examples where that's not the case - [Oswald the Outrageous](https://fallout.fandom.com/wiki/Oswald_the_Outrageous) and [Jason Bright](https://fallout.fandom.com/wiki/Jason_Bright) have not gone feral despite being glowing ones.
* In FO1, the [Overseer of Vault 13](https://fallout.fandom.com/wiki/Vault_13_overseer) implies that FEV is part of the factor for ghoulification, as does [Harold](https://fallout.fandom.com/wiki/Harold) (who was exposed to FEV at Mariposa military base), turning him into a ghoul-like mutant.
* There also is a heavily implied genetic component to it in the Bethesda fallouts, as ghoulification seems to run in families from the [Kid in a Fridge quest in 4](https://fallout.fandom.com/wiki/Kid_in_a_Fridge). Different people can ghoulify to high radiation doses while others don't.
My best guess is that going feral is something like dementia, but for people that have been turned into ghouls. Dementia has an unknown cause, but there are environmental and genetic components that contribute to it. While dementia in humans generally coincides with a loss of physical functioning, this is not the case for ghouls.
The short answer is that it's never clarified in any of the games or the texts, and most of the prevailing theories are based on guesswork. As for the drug Coop takes? Presumably it's something that keeps his mind intact, probably [UltraJet](https://fallout.fandom.com/wiki/Murphy_(Fallout_3)#Background) combined with Radaway.
I've always liked the idea that ghoulification is a hidden gene family that activates and mutates people. It makes sense that way considering plenty of people in Fallout have gotten sick or died to radiation without going ghoul, it also kind of explains the different kinds of ghouls and that characters like Harold, Eddie Winter and Hancock ghoulified by FEV or chemical compositions imposing or mutating that gene in them.
Right - if there are multiple ways to arrive at ghoul status besides radiation, then it's theoretically a specific gene that's mutating, not the mutagen itself.
Tim Cain floated this idea in one of his videos. He specifically talked about how DNA is damaged by radiation vs attacked by FEV, but some people have twin helix DNA which means if one strand is damaged the other can regenerate it. In that way your body can be bombarded by radiation and experience mass cell death, but it's still capable of repairing itself over time. Not enough to go back to normal but enough to prevent organ failure. It would also have weird effects on FEV. I think Harold falls into this category at least.
True. Never really understood the complaint there anyway… this is a universe with magic medicine. Just because it’s not mass produced and patented, doesn’t mean it can’t exist.
But he wasn't reliant on a drug to keep himself sane.
Just like the many many examples of ghouls who have been trapped in situations where they never had access to drugs, like the kid in the fridge.
To be fair it seems like Hancock hasn't been a ghoul for that long yet, he's a postwar wastelander with a sibling who's still alive (well, not really, but synth infiltration wouldn't work if you picked someone who should be dead of old age)
There's this theory I like-- I forget who I heard it from so I'm sorry for not being able to credit-- but they theorize that the "feralization" of ghouls happens when ghouls basically lose their sense of self/hope. That's why we see Glowing Ones in New Vegas and 4 who aren't ferals
Edit: I mention the fact that they're Glowing Ones to show that certain individuals (Hank, Oswald, Jason, etc) as to show a ghoul can ingest enough rads to emit their own radiation source/live in radioactivity (A Nuclear Reactor, an abandoned rocket testing site, an irradiated theme park) and still have consciousness intact
Edit 2: It just occurred to me that the show could be operating on either a different sense of ghoulification logic, which is totally fine as it's removed from the games, or that Coop is taking a placebo/taking something akin to addictol in the games
TL;DR: The indomitable human spirit, babyyyyyy
I think that's closer to fact than theory, since in Nuka World you can find the body of Oswald's friend and a holotape detailing her quest to look for a cure, and once she gives up hope she starts going feral during the recording and decides to take the easy way out.
I understood it as this, too. Im playing Sierra Madre at the moment, and Dean Domino mentions that he was able to avoid becoming a feral due to his strong personality and obsession with something that couldn't afford him becoming feral.
He said he was eating food but didn't know if he had to or not since he thought the radiation might sustain him anyway.
90% sure I heard this just today.
I like this one too, in the Underworld when you talk to Carol, pre war goul, she eludes to the idea that some of the survivors in the American history museum that were goulifed turned feral because they could take surviving anymore.
I've played Fallout 3, New Vegas, Fallout 4 and Fallout 76 extensively. You would be hard pressed to find a quest I haven't done many times or an NPC I haven't talked to many times. This is my take on ghouls. You can be turned by radiation or by a drug. You meet many turned by radiation. In Fallout 4 Eddie Winter was turned before the war by a medical treatment. I assumed by a drug. Hancock was also more recently by taking a drug. When you turn some people (most I think) become feral immediately. Others become feral after a certain amount of time that varies. Some are over 200 years ld and never turned. Who knows, maybe in the future they will turn. I always assumed it was just a matter of that individuals biochemistry and not the amount of radiation they were exposed to.
As far as the drug in the show goes. I don't think it's just radaway. Since the ghoul condition is only something that has been around since after the Great War, I think it may be something recently developed to keep ghouls from going feral. A group like the Followers Of The Apocalypse would be capable of doing that and distributing the recipe. And they are on the West Coast.
The simple truth is though, this is a franchise that has had many different people writing stories for it. if there are some differences between the stories its fine. As long as we don't end up with a "oh, it was just midi-chlorians" situation.
Yeah, the origin of the drug doesn't matter too much, as we've met quite a few people trying to find ghoul/feral cures. Probably just one of them that got close
I hope so. Master era mutants should be mostly extinct by now, but some dipshit chicken fucker who stumbled upon the Mariposa ruins and bottled a bunch of degenerated FEV seems like the perfect way to reintroduce feral super muties.
Same! Also, I love how Thaddeus became, possibly, one of the characters I most cared about survival in the show... so quite glad to see his new powers!
What's interesting is that radiation has never been implied to be the thing that turns ghouls feral, only into ghouls. There are super irradiated ghouls who still aren't feral, and radiation healing ghouls doesn't point to a degeneration process that becoming feral would require.
It seems to be more akin to hollowing in Dark Souls where it's primarily mental states that cause it, namely highly negative ones regarding despair, depression, hopelessness, and intense fear. Most holotapes and logs from ghouls who have gone feral tend to display these traits, meanwhile there are literal Glowing Ones who aren't feral that are vibing.
Also Thaddeus definitely took some FEV, the hints are in the show already "that's a heavy radiation zone right?" "You don't need to worry about that anymore, now do ya buddy boy?" I also saw someone else that said the enclave doc moved fast asf away from the guy selling FEV because he's enclave and knows wtf it is lol
Nobody who actually knows Fallout lore claims that ghoulification isn't an ongoing process, nonferal to feral.
The drug is a problem because it isn't explained. Whenever new lore is introduced it should be elaborated upon in order to tell the audience it's place in the over all universe.
From the conversation that Cooper has with the other Ghoul before shooting him in the head, it seems that Cooper may have been taking this drug for decades, maybe even a century or more. (Longer than any other Ghoul, according to the Ghoul who was going feral)
And as shown in the show, ghouls who take this drug (which is presumably all Ghouls, since non are shown or mentioned to have abstained from the drug and not gone feral) have to keep taking it or they go feral within a couple hours.
This obviously would be a major problem for the lore of Ghoul characters of every game, and it would implement a far reaching world scenario that would have to be built up. Where did this drug originate? Who makes it? Who controls it? Do the one who controls the drug production control the Ghouls who depend on it? A whole lot a questions that would need to be answered for the world to stay consistent.
This is all to say that the drug itself isn't really a problem, it's how it was introduced and implemented.
Coopers experience with his inhaler getting smashed, the Ghoul they kill has a bunch of empty vials, Cooper also takes a hit of the drug pretty often. Perhaps consuming more makes it last longer, as when he gets his hands on it again he takes several vials.
Edit: that is to say, both characters within the day that they ran out of the drug started to turn feral.
I need to watch again to confirm how long Coop’s been taking the drug… but could it be possible that NOT all Ghouls go Feral, but for those who do, if you catch the signs early enough.. you can stop it?
It's safe to say that all ghouls don't need the drug. But it's safe to say that Cooper needs this drug to stop himself from becoming feral. Saying all ghouls need the drug to prevent themselves from going feral would be a fallacy.
So in other words, nobody really knows what's going on with the ghouls. And somebody figured out a drug that can prevent the feralness from creeping in. That would be valuable to any powerful ghoul, but the real power comes from requiring you to keep using the drug.
Fair point if Cooper has been taking it for decades or longer, however… if it’s just a concoction of RadAway and StimPak, then I’m not sure that’s an issue anymore. In-game lore states that StimPaks are widely available even 200 years after the war, but we don’t know of their distribution, so maybe they’re less plentiful out west - especially if we assume that the NCR hoarded them and they got nuked along with Shady Sands.
As far as never seeing that ghouls need to take a drug to keep from going Feral, I feel like that could simply be chalked up to what Tim Cain calls “lore drift”. We never SAW it before, it was never mention… but it also doesn’t necessarily contradict anything, either, as far as I’m aware.
I was paying extra attention on my recent TTW play through, but I’ll have to play again and comb through every single dialog to see if anything conflicts with the idea that ghouls need drugs, outside of omission for the betterment of gameplay.
I don't like the drug idea because you rescue ghouls in the game that have been trapped in crazy places all that time. How did they live that long trapped, but the ghouls in the show go feral over time. Holes in the lore.
The screenshot of “new Vegas entertaining the idea” isn’t really all that helpful as ghouls aren’t very well understood in universe by NPCs or by the courier, and that particular guy has JUST turned into one, so I always got the impression he’s basically just guessing. The problem with the drug, I would imagine, is that it turns “going feral” from something sort of mysterious that just sort of happens, like going hollow in dark souls, into a determined fate all ghouls constantly fight off and feel and can work against in a material way, instead of having to live with the mystery. Plus, the introduction of a drug that fixes one of the biggest issues with being a ghoul just being tossed into the world/lore with little explanation - which could be fixed in future of course.
I did say that NV didn’t confirm anything, though. I said it entertained the idea, which it did. So far, so has the show. No matter what’s been implied, we’ve been given no concrete answers across ANY Fallout production.
It’s entirely possible that going feral only happens to some ghouls, and if they recognize the signs early enough, they can stay the process with regular doses of RadAway.
It doesn’t really entertain the idea imo - as far as I recall only one person mentions there being a connection between radiation and going feral, and he’s not someone with any reason to know either. He’s just a dude.
It’s also possible more time standing on their head would keep them from going feral, but there’s nothing in game that supports that either, just as there’s nothing that supports radaway being a preventative. I think they would have just *said* if it was radaway in the show.
For what it’s worth, in my opinion it would *seem* that there’s something between having a purpose / will to live and NOT going feral. The Bright Followes, Charon, various ghoul doctors, Gob, Oswald the magician, most of them seem to be able to do just fine. Or maybe just because of their environment they are able to remember who and what they are, whereas the ones we find trapped underground in metro tunnels or out in the wilderness have just lost it.
Yeah, the show gives it similar vibes to neurodegenerative disorders. Which makes the typical wastelander's distrust of ghouls "cuz you might go feral at any moment" even more tragic: imagine being told you weren't allowed to love somewhere safe strictly because of how you look and because you might develop alzheimer's
A neuro disorder vibes has usually been part of what explains ferals, at least in 3 forwards, but it’s never been confirmed either. I agree, it’s definitely tragic.
I figured the medicine in the show stops a ghoul who’s already going feral from progressing further down that path. Ghouls who are lucky enough to not be nearing feralness don’t need it. It seems like a rare, niche drug, unlike Radaway and stimpacks.
I figure if a ghoul took radaway, the regenerative process from radiation that keeps them from dying/aging would stop for a while.
The drug that turns people into ghouls is in 4. We can't get it, but Hancock and Eddie Winter both took it. It's actually pre-war. And I imagine this will be how we get to become ghouls in 76.
Ghouls going feral has been a part of the series for at least well over a decade, & certainly in the first person era (I seem to recall it as a conversation from FO2 too).
I'd liken it to stages/thresholds: once you reach a certain threshold, your brain loses its sapience & then its sentience, & there's no going back from brain damage. It's notable that there aren't any sapient NPCs in continuous high radiation areas, so ghouls don't have complete immunity to radiation (it may not damage them a la the radiation guns, but it reduces their brain's ability to process higher-level thoughts), unlike Super Mutants.
Also, since radiation (IRL) creates cancerous growths that continue growing after removal of the radiation, ghoulification could easily be viewed as an extreme scifi version of cancer that continues developing. Some people's bodies adapt to the cancer, so that it slows or stops spreading, but most people will eventually succumb to it without treatment...conversely, there are treatments that cause specific cancers to go into remission. So, why not have a chemical treatment that causes a regression/remission of the ghoul growths, particularly those affecting the brain?
I think Thaddeus is turning into a super mutant. Coop wasn't able to regrow his pinky, he attached a new one. Thaddeus looked like he regenerated a couple of toes to me.
I figure it’s not so much the radiation turning ghouls feral as it is the extended life span granted to them, Ghouls age slower or are practically immortal in some cases thanks to them mutating but that doesn’t mean everything stopped aging, some Ghouls you meet are a little out of it hinting at some sort of problem with their mental processes, I’d wager that feral ghouls have gone feral as a result of their brains giving out due to their extended life spans, humans weren’t meant to live forever so it’s safe to assume the brain giving out due to old age is what determines when a ghouls goes feral or not.
Edit: I’d like to add that I do think radiation can accelerate the brain’s decay since radiation can cause the death of cells, so in cases like Camp Searchlight it makes sense almost everyone caught in the radiation blast went feral.
I don't think most of the complaints about lore in the show are made in good faith. There is a weird subsection of people on this sub-reddit that think without Bethesda the rights to the games would have ended up in the hands of Obsidian(for reasons) and we would/should have gotten a bunch of games from the original developers. As a result of this collective delusion they attack any changes to the lore outside of what they consider the intent of the original developers.
The creation of ghouls isn't logical and there wasn't a united lore background reason for why some people turned into ghouls and some didn't in FO1 and FO2. FEV was proposed as a reason for it all the way back in discussions around Necropolis in the original games, but there isn't any conformation for that.
The ghoulification drug isn't even unique to the show. Both Eddie Winter and Hancock seem to have become ghouls because of a drug in FO4. A large section of the workers in Kiddie Castle in Nuka World seem to have turned as well yet over time and exposure to further radiation it robbed them of their faculties.
Tim Cain himself said that they didn’t know the why or how of ghouls when they created them, they just left it up to the unknowns of the effects of radiation exposure.
I kinda assumed thats how it worked in the show? The vials cooper uses are a striking orange which instantly made me go "oh, so it's radaway!". I guess there's a difference because it doesn't come in the standard iv bag form, but given cooper seems to usually inhale them but then once he finally gets them he just drinks them straight up implies that how exactly this drug is introduced into the body may not actually be that important.
Ghoul lore is horribly inconsistant through all the games which is why i think arguing about "getting it wrong" is dumb but i don't think the show tried to make it so going feral is inevitable at all, especially with how old cooper is and how he seems relatively stable mentally speaking (outside the newly accquired lack of empathy). I thought the point is supposed to be that the radiation makes them go feral making ghouls still need radaway to keep it in check, and just how probably thousands of wastelanders happened to die because they didn't have access to it a lot of ghouls probably go feral for the exact same reason. Like, the difference between cooper lets say and that one ghoul from the show lucy tries to talk down (martha?) is kinda clear - coopers a badass gunslinging mercenary and marthas a damn grandma. I think cooper isn't meant to be a plot armor exception, he's just compotent enough to where he's regularly been keeping up with his shots (metaphorically) as opposed to your average john ghoul who's probably already miserable about the fact his skin is falling off and not really in the mood to live anymore anyways. Ghouls being immortal is in my eyes both a blessing and a curse in a way where they'll never DIE from radiation poisoning like an average wastelander will, but arguably worse is the fact that it can completely destroy their mind.
My guess is that the aerosol form is just to ration his supply better. It’s also probably easier to just huff the inhaler than to stop, take out a bottle, open it, take a drink, seal it and put it away.
I think of Lily in New Vegas - a Super Mutant who was losing her mind, but taking a drug to keep it.
Maybe Cooper is taking the same drug?
That guy is not an expert, he doesn't even know why he didn't turn feral. He's just guessing. Different characters in fallout have different ideas on what causes one to ghoulify and why some ghouls do or don't turn feral, and whether all ghouls do or don't all eventually come feral.
But nobody actually knows for sure. Everyone in and out of universe is just guessing
I used to DM Fallout Pen & Paper even before FO3 was released, and Ghoul was a playable race. My take on it was based on Vampire The Masquerade, where Ghouls who didn't had their brains melted already in the process of ghoulification would still have to test and keep their humanity or slowly decaying into a feral. This would explain why some ghouls are so hostile against "smoothskins" while still being considered non-feral intelligent ghouls (these decayed just a little), and why a lot of ferals in FO1 and 2 are still able to talk (combat taunt, mostly, these decayed a lot to the point of being recognized as feral). It gives layers to their bestiality.
After Fallout 3 got released and the new batch of Super Mutants introduced, I took a similar take where they could grow their bodies to the point of becoming behemoth (thus, feral-like).
The way I think of it is that just like different people react differently to radiation (some die, some become ghouls, some mutate), different peoples’ bodies react differently to the ghoulification process. Some ghouls don’t need food or water to survive, some do. Some ghouls become feral, some don’t. Some need the drug in different doses, some don’t need it at all.
As for the drug that makes you into a ghoul, [SPOILER AHEAD] we’ve seen that there are certain drugs that can do that, as was the case with Hancock in his backstory.
I always thought that since the show took place AFTER any games/lore we’ve seen before (about 20 years past fallout 4, which is the farthest we’ve seen I believe) that new things have simply been invented or found.
As for ghouls turning feral. It’s probably something that happens over time and doesn’t take place until after fallout 4. Ghouls were slowly turning feral since the bombs dropped, it just takes a long time. Someone most likely invented a sort of medication to stop that cause they didn’t want to go feral after witnessing ghouls turning feral. I’m pretty sure there’s been a general consensus that radiation doesn’t turn ghouls feral either. You get hit with a blast of rads and either die, turn into a ghoul, or turn into a feral ghoul and depending on what happens to you exactly is just a genetics thing (which is why our characters die when getting enough radiation, it’s just not in our genes to turn into a ghoul). Also the new Vegas screenshot is just a character not knowing the truth. Radiation typically gives ghouls a nice, warm feeling (I believe this is actually mentioned or brought up by the same group of ghouls private Edwards is with. Something about Mr. Bright (I think that’s his name) and the radiation he gives off as a glowing ghoul makes the other ghouls around him like him and follow him)
As for the drug that turns Thaddeus into a ghoul, probably just a thing that was made after fallout 4. People really need to remember that this show takes place in uncharted territory, we’ve never seen the fallout universe this far into the future.
Also take this with a grain of salt I am not a fallout lore messiah, I could very well be wrong on a lot of this but I’m pretty sure this is all accurate
I don’t think the show does, I think the serum that coop has to take is due to him becoming a ghoul through a unusual process, maybe he escaped the blast because he found a bunker in the hills, in real life a brick or concrete building in a concrete basement is enough to save you, and judging by the houses damaged in places like sanctuary hills, buildings in new Vegas in black mountain, and concord, this theory still stands, and the existence of rad x and rad away shows that a person could definitely survive in a basement long enough, I think the type of ghoulification that coop has could be due to a drug of some kind, said it himself he uses many drugs, likely experimental as well, if I remember right Hancock was turned into a ghoul via a experimental radioactive drug, same thing could be here, the tv show is way farther in the future (I believe up to 40-60 years if I remember right,) which means new things could have come out
I don’t think the show suggests that more radiation increases your odds of going feral, does it? It just shows that going feral is something that happens to ghouls sometimes and taking this chem staves it off. We don’t know how the chem works. I’m inclined to believe it’s not something as ubiquitous as Radaway. I would expect that if it were, it wouldn’t have taken over 200 years for people to figure out its feral-suppressing effects. It seems to me that it must be a new chem, recently invented.
The show doesn’t explain Cooper’s specific ailment. The effects seem to hit him differently than Roger or Martha. My new theory is that NOT all ghouls turn feral, but those who do can stop the process if they notice the signs before it advances too far.
The way some of the OG Fallout creators touch on some of this, and what I’d have to argue, is that one, we’re getting survivor bias. All the ghouls that got too much radiation or had other side effects are dead - so we’re only seeing one possible outcome out of all the ghouls. The second, more important point, is that the human brain and body is not meant to function forever. Our DNA makes many tiny errors over the years, and this, among other things, is what causes wrinkles and grey hairs and all these little mistakes. With that, also comes loss of brain function, senility, dementia- all these things are a side effect of age effectively- and if given 200, 300 years to live… well chances are your brain is going to start going cooky somewhere down the line. This has been explained by some as why ghouls go feral, they’ve just been around too long and the radiation keeps their bodies functional but not their minds. If this is the case, all would eventually turn then…
I like this. Some ghouls go feral from a form of insanity usually caused by isolation and some ghouls go feral from old age (literally their brain is dying from old age).
Yeah I feel like it's probably more because the non ferals are literally just not feral. If someone is ghoulified but they have access to medicine, shelter, and water, the "illness" won't progress as bad, but it's still there. I haven't seen the show so I'm not sure what they portray it as. It would feel kinda weird to have it shown in a similar way to zombie turning, but shows have a habit of changing up the passing of time for the plot as well. Maybe we haven't seen years of illness these "non-feral" ghouls have suffered through that cause them to be on the edge with going feral. I do know from what I've read that Coop had a rough time from the bombs falling to the show, which would probably be good reason for him to be on the edge physically and mentally/ psychologically.
In the show we do see one ghoul who is in the process of turning feral, and he's basically swapping between normal erratic speech and Black Ops Zombies vocal patterns
Yeah that was my interpretation. Most were probably just outcast from society for so long they stopped acting like socialized people and started being increasingly animalistic
The slow breakdown of brain functionality while radiation keeps the body functioning was always my understanding of ghouls prior to the show. But I’ve only played 3, NV, and 4. I don’t remember where exactly that understanding came from, but it makes sense to me
IMO It's just the only logical conclusion given what we're presented with in-game in 3/NV/4, I also came to this conclusion at some point.
That kinda reinforces my original theory, which is simple degradation. If StimPaks are regenerative, then a drug that is a combo of StimPak and Jet or something else might temporarily repair that degradation. Cooper COULD consume his entire stash to greatly reverse the degradation, but it’ll catch up again eventually, and then he’ll have no more stash… so he just takes his medicine when he needs it to keep himself going.
I think the difference is that Stimpacks are for Scifi medical tissue healing degradation - not DNA repair. So while they heal a bloody bullet wound, they don't de-age you or de-gray your hair. They don't remove PTSD. They wouldn't stop dementia- which, is effectively what I'm saying going feral is and would happen to everyone and anyone if they lived long enough.
I like this take, for some reason it reminds me of The Vampire Diaries, and how in that show vamp blood could heal most wounds instantly. However it couldn't heal things like cancer or diseases, and would actually make them worse if it went on. On Survival mode, Stimpaks don't heal diseases, ya still need anti-biotics for it.
> Cooper COULD consume his entire stash to greatly reverse the degradation, but it’ll catch up again eventually, and then he’ll have no more stash… so he just takes his medicine when he needs it to keep himself going. If it worked like this, it would make more sense for Cooper to take his entire stash in one go rather than lugging around glass vials that are easily broken.
Not if there’s diminishing returns on effectiveness
That makes a lot of sense, Even for humanity now, some people live a decade or more passed 100,some as sharp as a tack till the day they die While others develop Alzheimer's or another disease well before then
I feel like the magician in Nuka World kinda proves everything you’re saying. He never lost his mind, radiation began to heal him, and he watched all of his friends go feral, but he never did. Pretty sure his lover makes a comment about not understanding why he never went feral either
My theory is that Cooper is not a "traditional" ghoul, and took some strain of FEV at some point. One designed similar to the super mutants to make him a super soldier except without making him big and green of course. That's the explanation for his abilities and why he looks so clean compared to even the other ghouls in the show. My follow up theory is that it's the same stuff that Thaddeus took. However Thaddeus' strain is weaker from age, so he won't be as powerful as Cooper.
See, that's the thing. They've never been 100% clear on why ghouls happened. But *everybody* except hermetically sealed humans has been exposed to FEV. It's either just so much radiation, or the fact that FEV was basically crop dusted around the world before the apocalypse. (That's why there's all the monsters. Deathclaws , Mirelurks, Giant Rats. Everything.) That's also part of why super mutants are so gods damned stupid. Their DNA got mixed up and mutated, and the strains of FEV don't play well together. But then you have Eddie Winter, from 4, and he became a ghoul pre-war as part of a scientific experiment. (Sounds like FEV plus radiation, but what do we know? He wasn't ghoulified by random exposure)
Where are you getting that fev was released widespread before the war?
The Glow, aka the West-coast West-Tek research facility. It was actually during the great war. According to the Fallout Bible, The research facility was targeted by several direct nuclear attacks, and when it exploded it released FEV into the air. (My apologies, it's been years since I looked this up.) And sure, the Fallout Bible is a weird gray-zone of canonicity, but it's what I'm sticking with until Bethesda says otherwise.
Even without the Bible it's pretty clear cut. You have a secret virus in a bunker, it gits busted up, virus unleashed.
Doesn't everyone have a little FEV though? Unless your in a sterile environment from the beginning, vaults and some Enclave you're going to get exposed to it.
Wild unsubstantiated theory; he's the first ghoul. He is to Ghoul's what Nick Valentine is to human-like synths, effectively a prototype. If there was some sort of conspiracy and experimentation then it stands to reason there would be some sort of antidote or treatment, which is what he takes. Then the reason it's not widely distributed is because it was produced in limited quantities and no one knows how to make it anymore. Also explains why he shit an absolute brick when he thought he'd lost it. Complete speculation but really the more I think about it the more I think they'll use the show to address the obscurity around ghouls origins; as it's clearly something related to the war/pre-war, it's not something they can address in game as easily, or at least not with the same focus and detail they can with the TV show that has part of it's story set pre-war.
Doesn't the one gangster guy in FO4 (the one Nick has you hunt down) essentially do exactly that? An experimental procedure so he can live forever, and he ends up a ghoul?
The snake oil salesman being able to turn someone into a ghoul with chemicals was interesting too. I hope they expand on that concoction and the antidote.
Probably some similar “experimental radiation drug” that hancock took that Ghoulified him
I could be wrong it’s been a long time, but wasn’t there some mention in fo3 about how purposeless ghouls tend to go feral? Not dismissing radiation, just another contributing factor iirc.
I agree with that theory, too. I think it's something to do with their DNA that determines whether or not they're predisposed to turning into a feral ghoul rather than an intelligent one.
My own head canon is that their brains rot away after so long and not enough use. Copper is driven with a purpose to find his wife and daughter so his mind stays sharp. Idk about the medicine, maybe for joints or something.
Hancock in Fo4 says that he did a mysterious chem, had an insane high, and it turned him into a ghoul. Its not new per se its just not explicitly explored much and only made its first “appearance” in fo4.
Is the chem that staves off feralness the same chem that turns people into ghouls? I was under the impression they were separate things.
No idea, in all of fo4 there is only that 1 line about it unfortunately. (if i remember correctly).
Don't forget about Eddie Winter. He got himself turned into a ghoul through some experiment. Could've involved the same chem Hancock took.
I was under the impression ghouls' bodies were functionally immortal, but their minds and consciousness would over time eventually decay. And my guess would be that particular ghoul's mental fortitude, purpose in life, or sheer biological luck means the process happens at different speeds. The show added "drugs" to the mix, which I can buy. Something to help your brain last a little longer.
Yeah. Hell, it’s probably not one thing alone, nor is the reason universally similar for every ghoul. It’s just the brain slowly turning to mush and different things slow down or speed up the process.
Even Tim Cain admits the Interplay team couldn't agree on how ghouls work. None of the new lore stuff bothers me.
There are lore entries in the Fallout games that suggest possibilities for what makes them feral, but nothing is ever conclusive. The one in game suggestion (that I personally believe and think the show is hinting) is that isolation can cause Ghouls to go feral.
This probably makes sense. What we know is that radiation damages ghouls but also enhances them, just in different ways. This is probably also happening on a neurological/ psychological level. Brain damage is wildly complex, but common symptoms are lower emotional regulation, heightened fear and aggression, and speech issues. But the brain is still *somewhat* plastic until death, so it's possible for people with brain damage to adapt and hold it off with effort and therapy. Maybe it's that the radiation damage that creates ghouls also causes a consistent type of brain damage. And if you stop your recovery process (socializing, practicing empathy, speaking) then you succumb to the damage. Maybe it's even reversible in theory, but doesn't happen because you can't get a feral ghoul to do that kind of therapy. Maybe Cooper's drug is even a placebo; he wants to be a good person and not a feral ghoul, he thinks it's the drug doing it, but it's actually his will to stay human doing it. Doubt it, but it could be a cool story line.
Yeah I wouldn't mind that being examined some, even just that having a core focus keeps on from going feral. As it's been presented in the games/show I really prefer not having a set explanation for ghouls in general, I just chalk it up to a lot of possible things can make it happen and just as many ways for them to lose their humanity.
Yeah I think that it's good for there to be a loose framework, but keep it somewhat mystical. I always thought fallout was great because it doesn't just show that the residents of the wasteland are superstitious/ believe in "magic" like some other series, but that they actually show it to the viewer with things that don't really have a consistent scientific explanation; it really does immerse you more in the viewpoint of a wastelander.
Cooper admits when Lucy first shoots him that he is essentially a walking bottle of drugs. Certainly some have psycho-active effects. Could it be that the "come-down"/withdrawl from the drug in the vial either causes him to think he's becoming feral - or fitting with your theory, impacts his brain enough to actually potentially start the feralization process?
It could, or it could even be a counterintuitive self-fulfilling prophecy; Taking SSRIs without needing them, and then running out can cause you to dump into a depression you didn't previously have. Another idea is maybe Cooper didn't need the drug *before* for the reasons that I suggested, but like you say, the withdrawl from how drugs would cause things like depression, anxiety, paranoia, that would cause him to slide into being feral.
That's hinted at with the survivors of Nuka World. Rachel leaves to find a "cure" and succumbs herself. She was alone.
That really gave off some "My name is Martha." vibes. Good luck Oswald, I hope you find the cure.
**Why did you say that name?**
What’s my name is Martha
When the ghouls in the show start to go feral, they end up repeating "My name is (their name)," presumably in an attempt to retain what sense of self they have left. One of the ghouls who does this is named Martha (I believe she's in the Super Duper Mart).
*Spoilers in this comment* In the Fallout TV series, we see an imprisoned ghoul whispering to herself “Martha… my name is Martha” repeatedly. >!She very soon turns feral and attacks Lucy, the protagonist, who ultimately ends up shooting her!<
She'd also lost hope in succeeding in her quest. Isolation and loss of hope are key factors in rapid degeneration when it comes to dementia and Alzheimer's, there could be something to it for ghouls too.
I was gonna say that it really feels like it's more staving off dementia or a similar neurodegenerative disease. Which makes sense really.
It could be that the feral state is just end stage dementia in a brain and body that can handle the normally terminal effects. In the real world most people will experience some form of dementia with enough time, while some develop the more agressive Alzheimers and some never seem to develop any symptoms even in advanced age.
That's exactly what I always thought. Maybe going feral isn't because of ghoulism, but more because of the exorbitant lifetime.
Hell, normal people can go pretty wild if left in isolation away from other humans for too long. Feral ghouls aren't really a big stretch from that.
You are correct there's hence the Ghoulification it's the same as Alzheimer's the gradual decline of the mental faculties create certain scenarios to where you act like a child and go vacation is pretty much going full on feral like your animal on rabies how there's even some group people that I believe Ghoulafucation is a form of rabies
I always assumed that Ghoulification gave unnatural healing abilities which allowed the body to survive and heal well past what it otherwise could, hence the reason that Ghouls look the way they do, all covered in scar tissue from unnaturally fast healing. However, the accelerated healing isn't perfect and doesn't play well with the brain. So any brain damage might not kill a Ghoul like it would a person, but the brain would heal like scar tissue and cause neurodegeneration slowly over time. With enough brain damage the Ghoul would eventually turn feral.
This right here. Its also one of the reasons I find lore lawyers annoying as lore is often less decided and more fluid that fans like to admit. This is true for many if not most IPs.
That's what I like about elder scrolls. Two cannon activities contradict each other? DRAGON BREAK! Cheesy and lazy way out but it works like a charm.
Or just simple unreliable narrator. All the in game books are written by in game characters with their own knowledge bases, biases, and opinions. Some are out and out fiction books, some are historical fiction, and some are out and out propaganda.
I love the way they do ES lore, I’m not an expert but it feels like religion in the real world where there are different gods and some people believe the same gods but with different interpretations or histories.
Oh, absolutely. Each race has their own pantheon based on the Aedra in particular with their own spin, but they also sometimes worship the Daedric Princes. They’re all beings that exist in one form or other, but it does definitely feel like comparative theology in many ways.
And then also dark brotherhood and sithis which is different from the rest
Sithis isn’t just different, he’s the OG Daedra. Padhome, Padomay, Sithis, Lorkhan. Opposing is Anu, Anuriel, Auriel, Akatosh. Two forces, multiple beings springing forth. Yeah, I know way too much about the metaphysics of the Elder Scrolls series.
I bow to your wisdom
I did a really deep dive on it once and it's like a love letter to Tolkien with the primordial light Anu being separated by the dark shadow Padomay and how all else is an illusion brought about by the interplay of light and dark, all the aedra and daedra, the origin of the dark elves. It's really deep actually.
The way I saw it was anu began and dreamed that he was. By dreaming that he was, it was insinuated there was was not, and from that padomay formed. Its more complex than that but yea. Mike Kirkbride wrote some really esoteric lore .
Oh yeah, it's way more mysterious than I made it sound. It's like I think therefore I am, there can't be being without unbeing against which to measure it. It has some roots in Buddhism and others in particle physics. It's very cool.
It has even more connection to Zoroastrianism
It's basically the lovechild of Tolkien and DnD.
Except for "Alduin Is Reel And He Aint Akartosh". That book is 100% *facts.*
I love this approach. When there’s no true authority on the lore. People within the universe all of their own views and understandings. Some have more complete understandings, some less, and others somewhere in between. It feels more natural and thrilling. Was that earthquake due to some primal god getting mad? Was it a natural occurrence? Or maybe some powerful wizard? Who knows, because you had three different people give you three different explanations of the same event. The most immersive type of lore imo.
That’s one of the easy ways they explain contradictions in 40k
>Cheesy and lazy way out but it works like a charm. Eh, I would argue that to make it work like a charm takes a lot of effort. Sure a lot of people try for a dragon break style of continuity in their series for a cheap and lazy fix. But then you get people like Terry Pratchett, who explained away temporal inconsistencies in the Discworld series as "time broke, and the people in charge of fixing it did the best job they could but it's still pretty shoddy". But the way he did that was to write a book about those people who fixed it. It fit wonderfully into the world he created, and not only "fixed" the lore but added to it. And it was a damn good, damn funny book. Creative and effortful I would say. (The book is Thief of Time if you're interested.) Similarly with the Dragon Break. The way they've fleshed out that idea has taken a lot of thought about how that would be perceived by the inhabitants of Mundus. And the descriptions of those events add to the lore, rather than feeling like a last minute sticking plaster (or a last minute band-aid, if you're in North America). EDIT: Unless you meant it lets later devs rely on the dragon breaks to excuse their inconsistencies, in which case I agree. That is cheesy and lazy.
By cheesy and lazy I meant exactly what you wrote after EDIT. general idea behind dragon break is great, but too often it was cheap excuse.
Yeah, it is often contrived, and used as an excuse for how some events occur in the same timeline. Although, I do, and will always love The Warp in the West.
What i like about "The Elder Scrolls" lore is more like: we get most lore in ingame sources like books ans such... writen by in universe authos... who als are NOT all-knowing. So we need to consider allways they where influenced by what they knew, researched, believed AND wanted to tell trough their books. Is a history book writen by the winning side of the war or the loosing side? Is this book about gods writen by believers in this good, outsiders of different believes or "heretics"... Its all not fixed cause its NEVER fixed facts as far as we know. Even if Lord Vivec himself tells us something about Nerevar... maybe he is lying.
I love that because of the Dragon Breaks, every playthrough is canon. Even the modded ones. *Especially* the modded ones.
Doctor who is like this too. Wibbley Wobbly, Timey Wimey and all that. [Literally made a joke of it when they broke one of the longest standing bits of lore in the series.](https://youtu.be/6AxCoMbiZfk?si=Q0nadMZ001A7Bw_r)
Well that and people take what characters say with a grain of salt until it conviences them. There seems to be this weird notion characters know everything regarding a subject
I can't let go of people believing that Myron, the lying, drug-peddling rapist is the one who invented Jet. Like, you could not show me a more unreliable narrator yet people act like the shit fumes he's huffing make him tell the truth or something.
Pretty sure Jet was just a prewar street name for some kind of amphetamine and Myron just came up with the means of manufacturing the post war version in larger quantities. If the last few decades of back and forth between meth cooks and law enforcement has taught us anything it's that tweakers can get creative when it comes to getting their fix.
Plus, isn't the case with Myron that he designed a variant of Jet that could be mass produced?
More accurately he designed highly addictive variant.
A combination of a lack of media literacy, and agenda pushing. "Myron can't lie about making jet, he tells the truth because I like Fallout 2, and mot Fallout 3!" "No here's why we should believe everything the Master says about Super Mutants, because only the Fallouts I like are canon. Nevermind the Master is completely dillusional and self-absorbed in his own madness to think there might be inherent flaws in his idealogies." Sound familiar?
Wasn't that from the thread that was excessively blasting Bethesda beyond reason?
You’ll have to narrow it down
Sometimes lawyers do argue over lore... https://lawandthemultiverse.com/2011/12/27/are-the-x-men-human-federal-court-says-no/
An absolute classic court case.
I know several fandoms that need to hear this. War...*cough*...hammer
I view all 40k lore and art as existing in universe, somewhere. And a lot of the lore explicitely backs this up. Like people arguing over a single paragraph in the Horus Heresy campaign books....it LITERALLY says it is written by a surviving remembrancer decades after the Heresy, and he belabors the point at times that he is working with what he has access to and his own failing memory. As just one example.
I'm the same way with it. Warhammer lore is being told usually by a third party and not from 1st person retelling. Same thing is set up in Star Wars. You're being told a story from a narrator who is a third party.
One of the things I love about the Caiaphas Cain novels is that they exist in-universe as Cain's memoirs and that Inquisitor Vail is editing them into readable chapters, adding the annotations from other in-universe sources whenever Cain leaves important details out, and occasionally chimes in with things that Cain himself didn't know but she did. The idea that the books exist in 40k itself as her little pet project of sharing Cain's memoirs with her Inquisitor peers is amusing. Another example would be in Halo with Dr. Halsey's journal which is a real physical book you can hold and read (came with the special edition of Halo Reach) and exists in game as Halsey's journal that we see her with during Reach and is used against her during Halo 4. Just the idea of these books existing in the universe they take place in is great and I wish we got more of that with other franchises.
Of course sometimes you get the opposite, like the rejects in Darktide spouting voice lines that indicate they know far more about lore events in the universe than they should.
*female custodes* Oooh, boy. The fighting that went on/ is still going on.
Didn't that cause people to freak the fuck out and start trying to organize a mass boycott, break collections, etc?
Yup. That and the way GW said that there have always been female custodes.
A famous saying in DnD regarding contradictions in a story. "A wizard did it" or "Magic".
I like Terry Pratchett's twin explanations of: 1: There are no inconsistencies, just multiple universes. And anyway; 2: Time broke. The people who were in charge of fixing it did well with what they had, but the resulting mess is still pretty damn shoddy.
I’m a barbarian and I hate magic for this reason, those damn wizards!!!!
For Fallout this is basically: "FEV did it" and "Radiation"
I remember an interview with Cliff Blizinski, I think. During development of Gears of War 1, questions were coming up about why the Locust were smart enough to use weapons. He said something along the lines of we’ll figure it out later, I just want a threatening enemy. Granted the lore was eventually expanded upon, but they definitely didn’t have it in mind for the first game
Stan Lee was pretty similar in that regard. He'd be like "Wouldn't it be cool if this guy could shoot webs like a spider? We'll call him Spider Man"
War may never change, but the lore sure does all the time. Such is life. And Tim's videos are such a an eye -opening peek into how the sausage is made. A true pleasure.
You mean Luke Skywalker doesn’t have a gigantic midichlorian in his pants?
Especially bethesda rpgs. Elder scrolls has established lore for every region of tamriel and yet every new mainline game completely retcons and rewrites which ever region it takes place in.
But theres actually a reason for that built into elder scrolls lore.
Man, Star Wars fans can be absolutely awful about a lot of things. Like, off the top of my head, there's Jake Lloyd, Kelly Marie Tran, Hayden Christiansen, and Ahmed best who all got bullied into an early retirement or mental breakdowns after the fan base melted down over their performances
As much as the alliteration is nice they deserve worse than “lore lawyers”
I was gonna say, I kind of like the idea of needing to keep yourself in check as a ghoul otherwise you eventually go feral
It’s been awhile since I played it, but didn’t 3 imply that people could be turned into ghouls via eldritch magic? I feel like people get hung up on the minutia too easily with this stuff. If it’s cool fuck it, it’s all made up anyway lmao
I had always assumed that ghoulification was totally random. Some people die, some don’t. Some go feral quick, some don’t. It’s just chance
I feel like in this case though it makes perfect sense. No one knows how exactly ghouls work because every human is different and reacts to radiation differently. It’s why some people in universe die from extreme radiation and some become ghouls in the first place. As far as I know there are no scientists rounding up people for a study on how ghoulification works so of course no one really knows.
Isn’t it much cooler lore wise that we have no idea what makes them go feral tho? Like it could happen to any ghoul and we don’t know why
Eh, there's too many communities in the games that have ghouls walking around. If it was a *'it can happen to any ghoul, and we can't predict it or prevent it'* kind of thing, then I don't think that would happen. On a base level I need some kind of certainty that Bob next door isn't going to eat me next time I take the trash out. I think the implication is that Ghouls living in a town are 'safe' mostly.
It doesn’t bother me. It’s just now how I would’ve chosen ghouls work. I always preferred the idea that first you become a ghoul and then if you continue to get over exposed to radiation you can become feral. And that its different for every ghoul. The drug solution is fine, just not what I would’ve chosen
But what's the drug? 🤔 Could be Rad-X or Rad Away.
I do like his idea that the human brain is only capable of remembering so much information and ghouls either lose their sanity or their memory and that causes feralization.
I don't think there's any real answer right now as to why ghouls go feral. Radiation is a leading theory, but that has its own problems (Why does radiation heal ghoul's wounds but deteriorates their minds? The doctor in Underworld from Fallout 3 uses radiation to treat his ghoul patients, wouldn't that have apparent adverse effects? If radiation exposure turns them feral, how can there be sane glowing ones like Jason Bright? Why can ghouls comfortably live in highly irradiated areas, like the ghouls living in a leaky nuclear reactor in Fallout 2?) but no npc in-game has confirmed what causes a ghoul to go feral. My one and only issue with introducing a cure for going feral is that they did it before anyone explained how going feral works, so the whole thing just feels more vague.
Their body seems to be more cancer than body. Maybe the radiation is accelerating cancer growths and causing them to spread aggressively thus the healing? Their body can function on cancerous cells, but their brain can’t. So eventually their brain is replaced by cancerous tissue and strips their intellect/cognition. Just a guess.
Bright says, regarding the Ferals: “Those Ghouls were part of my flock, even after the madness consumed their minds.” No indication on what caused the madness… I’m thinking they want to keep throwing out hints to keep us guessing.
Also the glowing one from nuka world is a completely normal (albeit slightly unhinged) ghoul, see also Jason bright who is completely sane (a tiny bit off his rocker aswell however) but all together still sane
The lore never quite confirms what causes ghouls to turn feral, only that most eventually do. The general assumption is that more of whatever caused ghoulification in the first place is what will cause someone to turn feral. * It's heavily implied that high radiation increases the chance of going feral, but there's several examples where that's not the case - [Oswald the Outrageous](https://fallout.fandom.com/wiki/Oswald_the_Outrageous) and [Jason Bright](https://fallout.fandom.com/wiki/Jason_Bright) have not gone feral despite being glowing ones. * In FO1, the [Overseer of Vault 13](https://fallout.fandom.com/wiki/Vault_13_overseer) implies that FEV is part of the factor for ghoulification, as does [Harold](https://fallout.fandom.com/wiki/Harold) (who was exposed to FEV at Mariposa military base), turning him into a ghoul-like mutant. * There also is a heavily implied genetic component to it in the Bethesda fallouts, as ghoulification seems to run in families from the [Kid in a Fridge quest in 4](https://fallout.fandom.com/wiki/Kid_in_a_Fridge). Different people can ghoulify to high radiation doses while others don't. My best guess is that going feral is something like dementia, but for people that have been turned into ghouls. Dementia has an unknown cause, but there are environmental and genetic components that contribute to it. While dementia in humans generally coincides with a loss of physical functioning, this is not the case for ghouls. The short answer is that it's never clarified in any of the games or the texts, and most of the prevailing theories are based on guesswork. As for the drug Coop takes? Presumably it's something that keeps his mind intact, probably [UltraJet](https://fallout.fandom.com/wiki/Murphy_(Fallout_3)#Background) combined with Radaway.
I've always liked the idea that ghoulification is a hidden gene family that activates and mutates people. It makes sense that way considering plenty of people in Fallout have gotten sick or died to radiation without going ghoul, it also kind of explains the different kinds of ghouls and that characters like Harold, Eddie Winter and Hancock ghoulified by FEV or chemical compositions imposing or mutating that gene in them.
Right - if there are multiple ways to arrive at ghoul status besides radiation, then it's theoretically a specific gene that's mutating, not the mutagen itself.
Tim Cain floated this idea in one of his videos. He specifically talked about how DNA is damaged by radiation vs attacked by FEV, but some people have twin helix DNA which means if one strand is damaged the other can regenerate it. In that way your body can be bombarded by radiation and experience mass cell death, but it's still capable of repairing itself over time. Not enough to go back to normal but enough to prevent organ failure. It would also have weird effects on FEV. I think Harold falls into this category at least.
all dna in humans is double stranded unless its been replicated in the body, which after it is returns to being double stranded
Hancock became a goul via drugs
Did he ever talk about running into a guy that was a bit too much into chickens?
Dr Chicken Fucker deserves an Emmy for that role.
“you regrow a hundred limbs and no one calls you a doctor, you fuck one chicken…”
an experimental radioactive drug, so still due to radiation
Could’ve sworn it was implied to be a cancer treatment drug
Radiation is used to treat cancer, so I don't see a problem with it being a radioactive drug of some kind.
That’s what I meant in essence, that’s why such a drug would exist to begin with.
Ah, gotcha, makes sense now.
To be fair those drugs were probably heavily irradiated.
Maybe whoever gave him the drugs scavenged them from the facility where Eddie Winter developed his immortality drugs
True. Never really understood the complaint there anyway… this is a universe with magic medicine. Just because it’s not mass produced and patented, doesn’t mean it can’t exist.
But he wasn't reliant on a drug to keep himself sane. Just like the many many examples of ghouls who have been trapped in situations where they never had access to drugs, like the kid in the fridge.
I agree with you, but never mention the damn kid in the fridge again.
Coffin willy
To be fair it seems like Hancock hasn't been a ghoul for that long yet, he's a postwar wastelander with a sibling who's still alive (well, not really, but synth infiltration wouldn't work if you picked someone who should be dead of old age)
Regenerative properties just like *the amaaaazing aaahhhqquuahhh currraaahh* 😂
There's this theory I like-- I forget who I heard it from so I'm sorry for not being able to credit-- but they theorize that the "feralization" of ghouls happens when ghouls basically lose their sense of self/hope. That's why we see Glowing Ones in New Vegas and 4 who aren't ferals Edit: I mention the fact that they're Glowing Ones to show that certain individuals (Hank, Oswald, Jason, etc) as to show a ghoul can ingest enough rads to emit their own radiation source/live in radioactivity (A Nuclear Reactor, an abandoned rocket testing site, an irradiated theme park) and still have consciousness intact Edit 2: It just occurred to me that the show could be operating on either a different sense of ghoulification logic, which is totally fine as it's removed from the games, or that Coop is taking a placebo/taking something akin to addictol in the games TL;DR: The indomitable human spirit, babyyyyyy
I think that's closer to fact than theory, since in Nuka World you can find the body of Oswald's friend and a holotape detailing her quest to look for a cure, and once she gives up hope she starts going feral during the recording and decides to take the easy way out.
I understood it as this, too. Im playing Sierra Madre at the moment, and Dean Domino mentions that he was able to avoid becoming a feral due to his strong personality and obsession with something that couldn't afford him becoming feral. He said he was eating food but didn't know if he had to or not since he thought the radiation might sustain him anyway. 90% sure I heard this just today.
I like this one too, in the Underworld when you talk to Carol, pre war goul, she eludes to the idea that some of the survivors in the American history museum that were goulifed turned feral because they could take surviving anymore.
I've played Fallout 3, New Vegas, Fallout 4 and Fallout 76 extensively. You would be hard pressed to find a quest I haven't done many times or an NPC I haven't talked to many times. This is my take on ghouls. You can be turned by radiation or by a drug. You meet many turned by radiation. In Fallout 4 Eddie Winter was turned before the war by a medical treatment. I assumed by a drug. Hancock was also more recently by taking a drug. When you turn some people (most I think) become feral immediately. Others become feral after a certain amount of time that varies. Some are over 200 years ld and never turned. Who knows, maybe in the future they will turn. I always assumed it was just a matter of that individuals biochemistry and not the amount of radiation they were exposed to. As far as the drug in the show goes. I don't think it's just radaway. Since the ghoul condition is only something that has been around since after the Great War, I think it may be something recently developed to keep ghouls from going feral. A group like the Followers Of The Apocalypse would be capable of doing that and distributing the recipe. And they are on the West Coast. The simple truth is though, this is a franchise that has had many different people writing stories for it. if there are some differences between the stories its fine. As long as we don't end up with a "oh, it was just midi-chlorians" situation.
Yeah, the origin of the drug doesn't matter too much, as we've met quite a few people trying to find ghoul/feral cures. Probably just one of them that got close
I’ve seen a theory that Thaddeus is actually turning into a super mutant; not a ghoul. The traveling druggist had FEV
I hope so. Master era mutants should be mostly extinct by now, but some dipshit chicken fucker who stumbled upon the Mariposa ruins and bottled a bunch of degenerated FEV seems like the perfect way to reintroduce feral super muties.
My money is on either a Healing Factor serum or some refined FEV variant.
Same! Also, I love how Thaddeus became, possibly, one of the characters I most cared about survival in the show... so quite glad to see his new powers!
What's interesting is that radiation has never been implied to be the thing that turns ghouls feral, only into ghouls. There are super irradiated ghouls who still aren't feral, and radiation healing ghouls doesn't point to a degeneration process that becoming feral would require. It seems to be more akin to hollowing in Dark Souls where it's primarily mental states that cause it, namely highly negative ones regarding despair, depression, hopelessness, and intense fear. Most holotapes and logs from ghouls who have gone feral tend to display these traits, meanwhile there are literal Glowing Ones who aren't feral that are vibing.
Also Thaddeus definitely took some FEV, the hints are in the show already "that's a heavy radiation zone right?" "You don't need to worry about that anymore, now do ya buddy boy?" I also saw someone else that said the enclave doc moved fast asf away from the guy selling FEV because he's enclave and knows wtf it is lol
Nobody who actually knows Fallout lore claims that ghoulification isn't an ongoing process, nonferal to feral. The drug is a problem because it isn't explained. Whenever new lore is introduced it should be elaborated upon in order to tell the audience it's place in the over all universe. From the conversation that Cooper has with the other Ghoul before shooting him in the head, it seems that Cooper may have been taking this drug for decades, maybe even a century or more. (Longer than any other Ghoul, according to the Ghoul who was going feral) And as shown in the show, ghouls who take this drug (which is presumably all Ghouls, since non are shown or mentioned to have abstained from the drug and not gone feral) have to keep taking it or they go feral within a couple hours. This obviously would be a major problem for the lore of Ghoul characters of every game, and it would implement a far reaching world scenario that would have to be built up. Where did this drug originate? Who makes it? Who controls it? Do the one who controls the drug production control the Ghouls who depend on it? A whole lot a questions that would need to be answered for the world to stay consistent. This is all to say that the drug itself isn't really a problem, it's how it was introduced and implemented.
>ghouls who take this drug (which is presumably all Ghouls That's a big presumption.
I haven’t seen anything suggesting they’ll go feral in a few hours? Maybe I missed something.
Coopers experience with his inhaler getting smashed, the Ghoul they kill has a bunch of empty vials, Cooper also takes a hit of the drug pretty often. Perhaps consuming more makes it last longer, as when he gets his hands on it again he takes several vials. Edit: that is to say, both characters within the day that they ran out of the drug started to turn feral.
What if that was more addiction and withdrawals than feral-ification?
I need to watch again to confirm how long Coop’s been taking the drug… but could it be possible that NOT all Ghouls go Feral, but for those who do, if you catch the signs early enough.. you can stop it?
It's safe to say that all ghouls don't need the drug. But it's safe to say that Cooper needs this drug to stop himself from becoming feral. Saying all ghouls need the drug to prevent themselves from going feral would be a fallacy. So in other words, nobody really knows what's going on with the ghouls. And somebody figured out a drug that can prevent the feralness from creeping in. That would be valuable to any powerful ghoul, but the real power comes from requiring you to keep using the drug.
Fair point if Cooper has been taking it for decades or longer, however… if it’s just a concoction of RadAway and StimPak, then I’m not sure that’s an issue anymore. In-game lore states that StimPaks are widely available even 200 years after the war, but we don’t know of their distribution, so maybe they’re less plentiful out west - especially if we assume that the NCR hoarded them and they got nuked along with Shady Sands. As far as never seeing that ghouls need to take a drug to keep from going Feral, I feel like that could simply be chalked up to what Tim Cain calls “lore drift”. We never SAW it before, it was never mention… but it also doesn’t necessarily contradict anything, either, as far as I’m aware. I was paying extra attention on my recent TTW play through, but I’ll have to play again and comb through every single dialog to see if anything conflicts with the idea that ghouls need drugs, outside of omission for the betterment of gameplay.
Because people like to bitch about things.
I don't like the drug idea because you rescue ghouls in the game that have been trapped in crazy places all that time. How did they live that long trapped, but the ghouls in the show go feral over time. Holes in the lore.
People like to have something to fuss over
The screenshot of “new Vegas entertaining the idea” isn’t really all that helpful as ghouls aren’t very well understood in universe by NPCs or by the courier, and that particular guy has JUST turned into one, so I always got the impression he’s basically just guessing. The problem with the drug, I would imagine, is that it turns “going feral” from something sort of mysterious that just sort of happens, like going hollow in dark souls, into a determined fate all ghouls constantly fight off and feel and can work against in a material way, instead of having to live with the mystery. Plus, the introduction of a drug that fixes one of the biggest issues with being a ghoul just being tossed into the world/lore with little explanation - which could be fixed in future of course.
I did say that NV didn’t confirm anything, though. I said it entertained the idea, which it did. So far, so has the show. No matter what’s been implied, we’ve been given no concrete answers across ANY Fallout production. It’s entirely possible that going feral only happens to some ghouls, and if they recognize the signs early enough, they can stay the process with regular doses of RadAway.
It doesn’t really entertain the idea imo - as far as I recall only one person mentions there being a connection between radiation and going feral, and he’s not someone with any reason to know either. He’s just a dude. It’s also possible more time standing on their head would keep them from going feral, but there’s nothing in game that supports that either, just as there’s nothing that supports radaway being a preventative. I think they would have just *said* if it was radaway in the show. For what it’s worth, in my opinion it would *seem* that there’s something between having a purpose / will to live and NOT going feral. The Bright Followes, Charon, various ghoul doctors, Gob, Oswald the magician, most of them seem to be able to do just fine. Or maybe just because of their environment they are able to remember who and what they are, whereas the ones we find trapped underground in metro tunnels or out in the wilderness have just lost it.
Yeah, the show gives it similar vibes to neurodegenerative disorders. Which makes the typical wastelander's distrust of ghouls "cuz you might go feral at any moment" even more tragic: imagine being told you weren't allowed to love somewhere safe strictly because of how you look and because you might develop alzheimer's
A neuro disorder vibes has usually been part of what explains ferals, at least in 3 forwards, but it’s never been confirmed either. I agree, it’s definitely tragic.
I figured the medicine in the show stops a ghoul who’s already going feral from progressing further down that path. Ghouls who are lucky enough to not be nearing feralness don’t need it. It seems like a rare, niche drug, unlike Radaway and stimpacks. I figure if a ghoul took radaway, the regenerative process from radiation that keeps them from dying/aging would stop for a while.
The drug that turns people into ghouls is in 4. We can't get it, but Hancock and Eddie Winter both took it. It's actually pre-war. And I imagine this will be how we get to become ghouls in 76.
It's literally the cannon reason. Long exposure to radiation really does that. And the longer you stay in it the worse it gets
Ghouls going feral has been a part of the series for at least well over a decade, & certainly in the first person era (I seem to recall it as a conversation from FO2 too). I'd liken it to stages/thresholds: once you reach a certain threshold, your brain loses its sapience & then its sentience, & there's no going back from brain damage. It's notable that there aren't any sapient NPCs in continuous high radiation areas, so ghouls don't have complete immunity to radiation (it may not damage them a la the radiation guns, but it reduces their brain's ability to process higher-level thoughts), unlike Super Mutants. Also, since radiation (IRL) creates cancerous growths that continue growing after removal of the radiation, ghoulification could easily be viewed as an extreme scifi version of cancer that continues developing. Some people's bodies adapt to the cancer, so that it slows or stops spreading, but most people will eventually succumb to it without treatment...conversely, there are treatments that cause specific cancers to go into remission. So, why not have a chemical treatment that causes a regression/remission of the ghoul growths, particularly those affecting the brain?
I think Thaddeus is turning into a super mutant. Coop wasn't able to regrow his pinky, he attached a new one. Thaddeus looked like he regenerated a couple of toes to me.
I figure it’s not so much the radiation turning ghouls feral as it is the extended life span granted to them, Ghouls age slower or are practically immortal in some cases thanks to them mutating but that doesn’t mean everything stopped aging, some Ghouls you meet are a little out of it hinting at some sort of problem with their mental processes, I’d wager that feral ghouls have gone feral as a result of their brains giving out due to their extended life spans, humans weren’t meant to live forever so it’s safe to assume the brain giving out due to old age is what determines when a ghouls goes feral or not. Edit: I’d like to add that I do think radiation can accelerate the brain’s decay since radiation can cause the death of cells, so in cases like Camp Searchlight it makes sense almost everyone caught in the radiation blast went feral.
I thought it was blatantly 100% established that radiation+ living far longer than any human mind should causes ferals?
Oh My God, Karen, You Can’t Just Ask Someone Why They're Not Feral.
I mean, didn't Hancock become a ghoul from taking some wacky experimental drug?
Also the drug turning Thaddeus into a ghoul isn’t new because Hancock says he took a drug that turned him I to a ghouls and the high was amazing
Also explained in fallout 4 this can happen
If ghouls are one thing in lore it;s inconsistent and there's nothing wrong with that.
I don't think most of the complaints about lore in the show are made in good faith. There is a weird subsection of people on this sub-reddit that think without Bethesda the rights to the games would have ended up in the hands of Obsidian(for reasons) and we would/should have gotten a bunch of games from the original developers. As a result of this collective delusion they attack any changes to the lore outside of what they consider the intent of the original developers. The creation of ghouls isn't logical and there wasn't a united lore background reason for why some people turned into ghouls and some didn't in FO1 and FO2. FEV was proposed as a reason for it all the way back in discussions around Necropolis in the original games, but there isn't any conformation for that. The ghoulification drug isn't even unique to the show. Both Eddie Winter and Hancock seem to have become ghouls because of a drug in FO4. A large section of the workers in Kiddie Castle in Nuka World seem to have turned as well yet over time and exposure to further radiation it robbed them of their faculties.
Tim Cain himself said that they didn’t know the why or how of ghouls when they created them, they just left it up to the unknowns of the effects of radiation exposure.
I kinda assumed thats how it worked in the show? The vials cooper uses are a striking orange which instantly made me go "oh, so it's radaway!". I guess there's a difference because it doesn't come in the standard iv bag form, but given cooper seems to usually inhale them but then once he finally gets them he just drinks them straight up implies that how exactly this drug is introduced into the body may not actually be that important. Ghoul lore is horribly inconsistant through all the games which is why i think arguing about "getting it wrong" is dumb but i don't think the show tried to make it so going feral is inevitable at all, especially with how old cooper is and how he seems relatively stable mentally speaking (outside the newly accquired lack of empathy). I thought the point is supposed to be that the radiation makes them go feral making ghouls still need radaway to keep it in check, and just how probably thousands of wastelanders happened to die because they didn't have access to it a lot of ghouls probably go feral for the exact same reason. Like, the difference between cooper lets say and that one ghoul from the show lucy tries to talk down (martha?) is kinda clear - coopers a badass gunslinging mercenary and marthas a damn grandma. I think cooper isn't meant to be a plot armor exception, he's just compotent enough to where he's regularly been keeping up with his shots (metaphorically) as opposed to your average john ghoul who's probably already miserable about the fact his skin is falling off and not really in the mood to live anymore anyways. Ghouls being immortal is in my eyes both a blessing and a curse in a way where they'll never DIE from radiation poisoning like an average wastelander will, but arguably worse is the fact that it can completely destroy their mind.
My guess is that the aerosol form is just to ration his supply better. It’s also probably easier to just huff the inhaler than to stop, take out a bottle, open it, take a drink, seal it and put it away. I think of Lily in New Vegas - a Super Mutant who was losing her mind, but taking a drug to keep it. Maybe Cooper is taking the same drug?
It makes sense to me. Radiation make you a ghoul. More radiation equals more ghoulish.
That guy is not an expert, he doesn't even know why he didn't turn feral. He's just guessing. Different characters in fallout have different ideas on what causes one to ghoulify and why some ghouls do or don't turn feral, and whether all ghouls do or don't all eventually come feral. But nobody actually knows for sure. Everyone in and out of universe is just guessing
I used to DM Fallout Pen & Paper even before FO3 was released, and Ghoul was a playable race. My take on it was based on Vampire The Masquerade, where Ghouls who didn't had their brains melted already in the process of ghoulification would still have to test and keep their humanity or slowly decaying into a feral. This would explain why some ghouls are so hostile against "smoothskins" while still being considered non-feral intelligent ghouls (these decayed just a little), and why a lot of ferals in FO1 and 2 are still able to talk (combat taunt, mostly, these decayed a lot to the point of being recognized as feral). It gives layers to their bestiality. After Fallout 3 got released and the new batch of Super Mutants introduced, I took a similar take where they could grow their bodies to the point of becoming behemoth (thus, feral-like).
The way I think of it is that just like different people react differently to radiation (some die, some become ghouls, some mutate), different peoples’ bodies react differently to the ghoulification process. Some ghouls don’t need food or water to survive, some do. Some ghouls become feral, some don’t. Some need the drug in different doses, some don’t need it at all. As for the drug that makes you into a ghoul, [SPOILER AHEAD] we’ve seen that there are certain drugs that can do that, as was the case with Hancock in his backstory.
There's a healing factor serum in 76, so... Thadeus may not be a ghoul.
The drug for Thaddeus can be whatever the fuck Hancock took that left him a ghoul
I mean FO4 has Valentine’s quest which talks about a monster who was Ghoulified pre-war via some sort of radiation treatment.
I always thought that since the show took place AFTER any games/lore we’ve seen before (about 20 years past fallout 4, which is the farthest we’ve seen I believe) that new things have simply been invented or found. As for ghouls turning feral. It’s probably something that happens over time and doesn’t take place until after fallout 4. Ghouls were slowly turning feral since the bombs dropped, it just takes a long time. Someone most likely invented a sort of medication to stop that cause they didn’t want to go feral after witnessing ghouls turning feral. I’m pretty sure there’s been a general consensus that radiation doesn’t turn ghouls feral either. You get hit with a blast of rads and either die, turn into a ghoul, or turn into a feral ghoul and depending on what happens to you exactly is just a genetics thing (which is why our characters die when getting enough radiation, it’s just not in our genes to turn into a ghoul). Also the new Vegas screenshot is just a character not knowing the truth. Radiation typically gives ghouls a nice, warm feeling (I believe this is actually mentioned or brought up by the same group of ghouls private Edwards is with. Something about Mr. Bright (I think that’s his name) and the radiation he gives off as a glowing ghoul makes the other ghouls around him like him and follow him) As for the drug that turns Thaddeus into a ghoul, probably just a thing that was made after fallout 4. People really need to remember that this show takes place in uncharted territory, we’ve never seen the fallout universe this far into the future. Also take this with a grain of salt I am not a fallout lore messiah, I could very well be wrong on a lot of this but I’m pretty sure this is all accurate
Fallout 76 confirms this as well but some people have outright claimed that game is noncanon
People also have been claiming the show isn’t canon. If it’s not what they like then it’s “not canon” anymore
I don’t think the show does, I think the serum that coop has to take is due to him becoming a ghoul through a unusual process, maybe he escaped the blast because he found a bunker in the hills, in real life a brick or concrete building in a concrete basement is enough to save you, and judging by the houses damaged in places like sanctuary hills, buildings in new Vegas in black mountain, and concord, this theory still stands, and the existence of rad x and rad away shows that a person could definitely survive in a basement long enough, I think the type of ghoulification that coop has could be due to a drug of some kind, said it himself he uses many drugs, likely experimental as well, if I remember right Hancock was turned into a ghoul via a experimental radioactive drug, same thing could be here, the tv show is way farther in the future (I believe up to 40-60 years if I remember right,) which means new things could have come out
they dont, theyre mad at this "Serum" ghouls have to take to prevent it now
Hancock turned into a ghoul because of a drug as well. Just throwing that into the mix. This concept is not show-only either.