Since the first Fallout, players and inhabitants of the wasteland have had to deal with the super mutants. These creatures have various origins, one of the most terrifying is in Vault 87.
Vaults are a central point in the Fallout universe. Apparently, they were supposed to protect people from the atomic bombs during the Great War, but many vaults were actually scientific or societal experiments conducted by Vault-Tec.
If you were unlucky and sought shelter in the wrong vault, you would face an even worse fate there than in the contaminated wasteland. One of them was Vault 87. Those who ended up there might have escaped, but probably no longer as a human being.
Experiments with a virus naturally went wrong
What happened in Vault 87? Vault 87, which you explore in Fallout 3, was dedicated to research on super mutants and the FEV. FEV stands for Forced Evolutionary Virus
and can turn humans into superhuman monsters. The goal was to create an army of super soldiers with the virus that could be deployed in the Great War.
The virus research in Vault 87 was conducted by Dr. Wayne Merrick. Initially, a social experiment was to be carried out in the vault, but in 2076, a year before the bombs fell, it was decided to use the vault for experiments with the FEV virus. The idea behind it emerged in collaboration with the U.S. military.
The inhabitants of the vault had no idea they were part of the research, and individual residents were regularly infected with the virus to observe what happens. If someone died during the experiment, it was simply covered up so the residents wouldn’t panic.
Another experiment for wartime purposes were the Deathclaws:
The creation of a super mutant
How did the experiment take place? Since the FEV cannot simply be transmitted through air or bodily fluids of an infected person (via Fallout Wiki), a test subject must either come into contact with the green substance or be injected with it.
After 10 days, the infected start to transform slowly. The muscle structure becomes larger and the skin tougher and more resistant. Depending on the method, the transformation can be quite painful as the bodies of the infected deform.
After a few days, brain functions also decline and the infected become more aggressive and dangerous. Dr. Merrick killed the super mutants in such cases because the danger was simply too great and the benefit of such mutants was not given.
As expected, a test subject managed to escape and defeat the security personnel of Vault 87. The imprisoned super mutants escaped, took over the vault, and began to raid the wasteland with a new objective: they kidnapped people from the former area of Washington D.C. and infected them with the FEV. This went on for nearly 200 years until the FEV supplies were depleted.
In 2277, the main character from the game Fallout 3 enters the vault as part of the main story to obtain the Garden of Eden Creation Kit. There, he encounters not only dangerous super mutants but also the peaceful and somewhat intelligent Fawkes, whom you can gain as a companion if you rescue him from his prison.
The other super mutants
Are there other super mutants in the world of Fallout? In the universe of Fallout, the super mutants are a constant threat and therefore have, depending on the location, different origin stories:
- In the first Fallout, the Master wants to conquer the wasteland with his own army of super mutants, which is why he uses the FEV.
- In Vault 96 (from the game Fallout 76), Dr. Edgar Blackburn is researching the FEV. The resulting super mutants were allowed to leave the vault.
- The Institute from Fallout 4, which also created the Synths (androids), experimented with the FEV as well, which explains why there are super mutants in the Commonwealth. The experiment was ended by Brian Virgil, who transformed himself into a super mutant.
Within the super mutants, there are different variants. The Nightkin are a sort of elite variant of the normal super mutants, and with the Behemoths, there are gigantic variants that are even more dangerous. Occasionally, intelligent super mutants like Fawkes emerge, with whom you can talk and who are not inherently dangerous.
Only a few vaults were built purely for the protection of humanity. Many were constructed by Vault-Tec solely to conduct experiments. This can also be seen in the Amazon series about Fallout, which is currently airing Season 2: Fallout Season 2: When is the release of episode 4? – Date and number of episodes of the Amazon series
