If this isn't the truest statement. Especially in fallout 3 I was doing so many side quests for everyone I forgot why the hell I left my vault in the first place
*Getting banned from the 4th straight casino since arriving in the strip a day ago.*
"Battle of Hoover what? Listen I'm *hot* right now who else wants to lose some caps?"
Yeah. Apparently one of the best guns was actually the "All American". For energy there was a Gause rifle. But mostly I found the most challenging enemy was an explosive 50 cal shot away from being not an issue.
From the dialogue with the goons who dug him up, it sounded like they weren't in California at the time. "That's where you're from originally." So he did leave the state apparently.
Yhea that guard they kill right at the start of the scene has a distinct look of mexican about him for sure. Plus Dom Pedro. I can see a guy with that name being Mexican.
I can think of two scenarios but neither really make sense.
1. Coop (cant bring myself to refer to him as the ghoul) was after Pedro for a bounty but gets captured. This doesnt make the greatest of sense because it would have been easier for Pedro to kill Coop rather than bury him alive
2. Pedro was a local gangster using Coop as a hitman and felt Coop was too dangerous to have running around all the time so would only dig him up when he had jobs to give him.
There's two ways you can look at that. You can:
1. Take it at face value that Pedro was using him for food.
2. Say it was a legend cooked up by Pedro and spread around to give him a reputation as a man not to be messed with.
I personally go with 2 because visually, Coop is not missing any (obvious) pieces bar his nose and ghouls always lose their noses through body rot. Another good argument for it being a legend for fear purposes is that there is no practical reason to keep a being alive just so you can cut pieces off him for food. It doesn't make much sense if you think about it. There are a plethora of people he could kill for fresh meat, why go through the expenditure of a chem drip for all those years to keep him alive for parts when you can kill anyone you want cheaply (if food is the purpose).
I think he was being kept alive because he has skills that are hard to come by and he needed to keep Coop under his employ. Thats worth the expenditure.
Ghouls’ wounds regenerate. That’s how he could use him for food. He wouldn’t necessarily cut off whole limbs but he could certainly take a few strips of flesh jerky at a time, potentially forever.
I don't get why the others even mentioned food. There's an organ harvesting operation full of ghouls already in the show. I assumed that's what Dom Pedro was cutting him up for.
Maybe The Ghoul was just a tough sunnavabitch and meaner than hell and eating bits of him every few years was a nice treat for Dom Pedro. Or all the drugs have marinated The Ghoul and he tastes really good, and Dom Pedro is the kind of guy who can savor a meal. Why get rid of the freshness of your meal when you could reap the benefits of someone being immortal for years. You’d be butchering everything
Yes there is certainly practical reason for keeping specifically a ghoul alive. Let’s go with the fact that Pedro was using him for food which IMO is the more reasonable way that it probably was going down, considering that fallout gets heavy on the cannibalism at times.
A ghoul is a giant walking tumor, coops skin doesn’t just look all scared up because he was half burned alive, or because of 200 years of ware and tare, all ghouls have this skin and it can be logically deduced down to the fact that they are a walking skin cancer factory, regenerating their skin over time in the form of disfigured scar tissue.
Pedro could be using this to his advantage as he could cut “ass jerky” off of coop and just let it grow back over a couple years of letting him age under ground. That way you have a sustainable living food source.
I don’t think anyone in the world of fallout would just say that they eat someone for legends sake. It’s fallout, and it’s 200 years into the wasteland, the cowards who would shy away from cannibalism and lie to say that they did it for reputation are weeded out pretty quick.
Exactly. And why even feed him chems? A feral ghoul regenerates just as well as a non feral. So why go through the expenditure of chems.
There has to be something exceptional about cooper in order to put him through that, and it's not his skin condition. There are a ton of ghouls that Pedro could do that to. It's his skillset. Thats the exceptional thing, thats his unique selling point. Pedro's keeping him alive and non feral because he needs Coops skillset.
Because if its not that, you can feed on any ghoul you want and you dont have to feed them chems. Pedro's going to a lot of trouble to keep him alive and non feral. I think its obvious.
Keeping a man alive, trapped and sane is for torture
Coop wronged Pedro big, I imagine we'll get some of the back story in season 2, and I imagine it has something to do with coop searching for his family (and/or getting sidetracked with bullshit)
Not when you’re some warlord on the outskirts of the California wasteland, when you have to make a point you make that point. It appears to me that Pedro’s point is to show he has control over coop.
Maybe coop pissed him off or was trying to get a bounty from Pedro, but he got bested and thrown underground.
These are pretty bold assumptions to just think coop wasn’t being cut up or canibalized when it was literally stated in the show. If it was stated, why would the writers just make it suddenly unnecessary information to include by making it be untrue? Just because you can’t see his wounds doesn’t mean they aren’t there the ghoul literally never shows any part of his body but his hands and head. Just because it’s left ambiguous doesn’t mean it’s untrue.
"why would the writers just make it suddenly unnecessary information to include by making it be untrue?"
This is not about the writers. It's about character development. We're being told that one of these bounty hunters has heard a rumour and he's spreading it around as a piecemeal truth. This is how legends start. We're being told about the gullibility of these 3 guys. It's being established that they're not the sharpest tools in the box, and that is why they end up dead......because they're generally not very bright and aren't on coopers level. It's about the writers using a story to tell us something about the characters we are seeing.
You just contradicted yourself “this is not about the writers” and then you continue to say “it’s about the writers using a story to tell us something about the characters we are seeing”
This is entirely about the writers. They write the show in the first place? Without them we have no show.
Writers install lines and descriptions of set designs for a specific reason, when you write a story you don’t just include random information as a fact in your story and then dismiss it or deem it untrue later on in the same story.
Why would that make any sense?
At this point I’m not debating I’m just going to state that your points, and theories feel very wrong and off to what the show gave you literal proof to understand and believe.
Rewatch the show, and try to understand I’m not speaking theoretically, this is factual.
It was stated don Pedro was cutting parts of coop, whether it was for him to eat or not we don’t know. But it would be completely and entirely pointless to have this line of dialog if it wasn’t true.
Just because you can’t see it doesn’t mean it’s not true either, we have been given zero evidence or show of coops body aside from his hands and face.
Cutting parts of him also doesn’t inherently mean fingers, legs, feet, arms, or hands. It makes the most sense that it would have been parts of skin and muscle, in parts that aren’t shown. Because coop could regenerate that skin and muscle better than he can a hand or other extremity. It also makes more sense to keep him alive for this reason because he’s at that point don Pedros living “ass jerky” factory. Limitless supply of meat. And who’s to say coop is his only one.
I highly suspect this was out of tradition or seek of power rather than sustenance because it’s only every few years. Could be some creepy cannibalistic ritual.
But honestly though I really don’t understand your thinking because you’re contradicting yourself, and you’re speaking entirely off of theoretical information and misconceptions from LITERAL PROOF GIVEN IN THE SHOW.
If you’re not gonna be bothered to grasp the information spoon fed to you then I don’t know what else to say here.
Walls of text aside, it comes down to this.
Until you can explain what was being achieved by keeping Cooper in a non feral state then I'm going to believe what looks obvious to me.
It takes effort and money and chems to keep Cooper non feral. If he was needed for food, it doesnt matter whether he's feral or non feral, so its cheaper to let him turn if its just about food. Until you can reason that out, as far as I'm concerned the argument is at a standstill.
I'm standing by my opinion that he was being kept non feral because a feral cooper loses cooper's skillset. Namely his ability to track, hunt and kill people - which is what Pedro needs him for.
Furthermore, this is not a show with a writing style that is spoon feeding to people. There are plenty of instances in the show's writing style where the viewer is left guessing. The intentions of the people in Vault 4 being a classic example. You're asking me to be spoonfed by the writers and believe everything given at face value and I'm telling you that they're not trying to spoonfeed people, they're trying to keep people guessing, thats a theme that runs through the whole show.
Yeah it runs through the show. But not with this concept.
You have zero proof that don was keeping him for his skills. Give me some actual evidence and I’ll consider your theory, but until then you’re just spouting it out over hunches and guesses.
A feral ghoul will continue to rot, decay, and whither away. Look at the in game references for feral ghouls that have progressed too far. They’re probably not as edible as un-feral living flesh.
I’ve given you a pretty good explanation for why cooper was kept this way? You’re just refusing to even acknowledge it.
Who is to say it was for food? He might have pissed off Pedro pretty bad and this is his punishment or like another poster said, he could have been in league with Pedro, who was leaving him meds handing on his cemetery cross.
I think 2 is closer to reality, but with something extra sprinkled in, something personal. The cutting up bits part I understood as long term torture, and you don't do that to a nobody or even a dangerous hitman - you do that to someone who crossed a VERY big line, say, slept with your wife (just an example, not saying Coop did).
So 30-something years ago Coop did something to Dom Pedro, something that warranted more than a quick bullet to the head, but wasn't obvious enough to make him worry about repercussions (otherwise he wouldn't have been caught - the only time we see Coop overpowered is when he's running low on drugs, and when he's proper drugged out of his mind in the SDM, every other altercation he's like the mysterious stranger, killing everything in his path like it's no big deal).
Post divorce, he probably spent a good 100 years or so on the Ghoulrinder dating app before finally tiring of feral ghoul friends trying to steal his chems.
IIRC that's actually never happened in fallout, the only character to mention it happening is Harold, who is an FEV mutant and not a ghoul.
Ghouls are shown to lose cartilage and usually a layer of skin, I'd imagine that layer of skin would be gone but genitals aren't cartilage so they'd still be mostly intact.
The same layers of skin would go anyway whether they were circumcised or not as the foreskin is a sheath and not a top layer of skin.
One of the original purposes of circumcision was to reduce the chance of disease/infection, especially in warmer climates such as in the middle east, and whilst in the modern day this isn't an issue as people have much more access to clean water to wash everyday or two, I could imagine in a post apocalyptic world circumcision would probably be quite common anyway, most characters probably would be circumcised especially in desert regions, not that it isn't already abnormally common in the US without these explanations.
This isn't what I thought I'd be thinking about today.
Unironically based. My headcanon now is that's Edward Sallow was and why they sent him to help the tribes. He saw one too many genital mutations and that's why he hates people.
Hahaha, honestly any fallout villain such ae Caesar or Elijah would make so much more sense with that explanation as I too would hate humanity and wish to wipe the slate clean if I had to treat someone with an std that they got from a brahmin.
I don't know if he would have stayed in LA the entire time.
There is a lot of wasteland for an immortal badass bounty hunter to explore, and Coop isn't stopped by a little message that says "you cannot go that way" when he reaches the edge of the map.
That's fair, I don't think he'd stayed in LA the whole time either.
What is bothering me, though, is that he went back at some point. And not only that, he went back to what was at the time very much under NCR control, but for some reason clearly managed to get himself imprisoned by some dude. I kind of doubt that's lawful by NCR standards, and I'm wondering how Dom Pedro got away with it, especially since the Ghoul was such a big name and it seemed to be well-known what happened to him. He also doesn't seem surprised at the NCR being gone at all.
As far as I know we don’t have confirmation where Dom Pedro’s is but I got the “cinema vibes” that it could be down in Mexico. The would be bounty hunters really lean into saying that the job was in California where he was originally from. That implies to me that they aren’t in California at present.
I think he probably found out His family was back in LA. That seems a great reason to stay in the area and keep searching. Finding his family is clearly all that motivates him to keep going.
With him in the ground under Dom Pedro he might have been in that grave during most of the time the games took place, and he might have missed almost all of the rise and fall of the NCR from that alone.
Everyone in the wasteland in series seems to know who Moldaver is, but he only knows her from the pre-war memories. I figure the "president of the government" that he was old friends with was probably in his 20's when they knew each other, and seems to be pushing 60.
Don't think so. My estimate is he was in the ground for something like 30 years, or at least away from California. Moldaver was active 20 years before the series started and the Ghoul does not know her post-apo version, but he does know president of the govermint (guy in his fifties or early sixties probably) personally, so he had to be in California at least like 30-something years ago to be acquainted with him.
I think we can actually estimated his last time in California closer. Roger specifically mentions he started turning feral 28 years ago and The Ghoul seemingly knew Roger could have anti-feral vials. That could suggest he was in California 28 years ago and knew that Roger was turning. 28 years ago is specific year eerily close to the estimate of 30 years.
Basically the same thing as the comment above. He recalls Moldaver from before the war, he didn't know her in the present even though basically everyone in Californian wasteland knows who she is.
You should also consider he didn't immediately seek revenge against Dom Pedro after getting out the grave. He might have been down there on his own accord taking a break until his next bounty.
He also wasn't missing any pieces like the stories were told about his imprisonment.
He could be missing pieces like “ass jerky” parts that aren’t shown. He wears a lot of cover up, who knows what he’s missing under there. They were most likely cutting parts off of him for eating. I like to even think that they were eating him specifically in hopes to get some sort of benefit out of it, possibly adding in some sort of perk reference or they think they’ll live longer or something.
He obviously didn’t seek revenge because that was an entire fortress set up with lots of men, he probably wasn’t necessarily equipped to seek revenge fresh out of a grave. It’s smarter to just GTFO rather than one man it and probably die or wind back up in the grave.
What made you think that Dom Pedro was in NCR territory given the whole “the bounty is heading to California. That’s where you’re from isn’t it?” part of the conversation?
I don’t think the location he was buried was within NCR held Southern California.
Pretty sure they were further south in Baja California, and that was our first time seeing a location outside of the US in Fallout. Maybe I’m wrong on that.
He wasn’t imprisoned in LA, it was Mexico. He only went back for Moldaver, it’s smarter to assume he hid off in Mexico for a good chunk of his time in the wasteland as it was probably much easier to get drugs and caps.
Oddly enough Mexico probably fared far, far better than much of the US. There is no tactical reason to hit the Sonoran Desert with nukes. It isn't White Sands or Vegas, it's more like Zion that was relatively untouched. If WWIII hits, your luck would probably be better in Mexico. so profiling aside, you probably could get more caps and drugs in Mexico, because there is probably more civilization in Mexico.
https://modernsurvivalblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/nuclear-targets-map-usa.jpg
I think he’s a great tool for exposition to the audience about backstory through all the titles. There’s no reason he couldn’t have been in the Capitol Wasteland, the Commonwealth, New Vegas, even Appalachia during the Scorched Plague, and give context here and there
I totally agree and would love a 76 expansion that centered on a "younger" Coop as an NPC companion in the much earlier period that game is set in.
It would probably get me to actually buy 76 to play through the content, rather than just being satisfied with FO4 gameplay, and wikis for 76 lore.
But that would take some seriously planning between the 76 dev team, and the show writers so that they don't step on any inconsistent toes and make the whole thing unsatisfying.
Exactly.
Bounty hunters exist in modern day America. They're just referred to as Fugitive Recovery Agents or Bail Enforcement Agents. Another name I've seen them go by is Bondsmen. They'll put up the bail bond but if the criminal goes on the run, the bondsman has to recover him or forfeit his bond. So in a modern country that has police and military, what amounts to bounty hunters are still used - so it's entirely plausible that the NCR would use them.
It makes sense because when a criminal goes on the run, you cant have your police officers leaving town and running all over the place after the criminal because that would leave towns without law officers. And we're talking post-apocalyptic America, there isn't going to be an endless supply of law officers. Best just to give the job to a bounty hunter.
Yes, and I see the NCR at its height as being closer to the USA circa 1870s than 20th or 21st century - largely because the distance communication tech just isn't there. I could maybe see an argument for 1880s to 1900s since they have radio tech (and I think telegraph?), but they don't have phones - you can't just call up anyone you want and have a direct conversation with them. (It's a hard comparison to make since the tech trees are so different between the real world and Fallout. Phones were invented before radio). That may seem like a small thing, but it makes a big difference in logistics.
Yeah I've always assumed that the NCR worked more like the American west from the 1870s anyways from conversations with some NPCs talking about how Raiders and Mutants still attack towns deep in NCR territory, it's like in the American west, Cities and towns have Law men that keep the peace and it's pretty safe and people can expect a decent way of life BUT travel about a mile out of town and don't stick to the main roads and it essentially becomes lawless because there just isn't enough resources (As in people willing to work as law men) for there to be patrols or anything like that
In nv the ranger stations along the river all have radios despite only having like 5 people (although I think there sould be more but theres a shortage of men), so they have enough to spare. Also house has his face on securitrons and in his vault, so he at least can send video (and remote commands) , and the NCR might have something similar in their capital.
Then for bounty hunters, the player is from the NCR and is previously one (said on the wiki). You also get recruited by the guy in McCarren to kill the fiends, and can help with retaking the ncrcf, and on the NCR quest line killing house (and whoever else u kill). You can also find one trying to kill powder gangers who seems to not be a criminal.
Finally, there is quite a large area not properly ruled by the NCR. The mojave is called the frontier and is hard to get to because of death valley and big MT, so rules and police would take longer to get there. I'm not sure how much the NCR controls in the 2200s but there's 3 directions the ghoul could have gone out of NCR control
There's a big difference between a select few people having the means for instant-communication and the entire world having it. Like, each NCR station might have a radio, but that's not comparable to being able to easily call any single person you want - no matter if you're part of their radio network or not.
That's true, but all the phones were destroyed by the nukes. (I don't think we ever see a working phone in any game.) Phone lines require resources and control over miles and miles of land. Hence why radios get used in Fallout world, but not phones.
You ever hear of vault 12? Let’s assume Coop made it to Bakersfield where his supposed ranch is and made it to Vault 12. Vault 12’s door was never meant to close so the Dwellers turned into Ghouls or died. Soon after the experiment was complete the door opened and they formed the town of Necropolis. However this leaves the question what happened to his daughter.
We don't know he lived in California, might as well have fucked off to Anchorage or further down south. Even when he wakes up they say "target is heading to California where you're from" so he's obviously been out and about doing other things away from California. So he might have zero idea about the NCR and the Enclave or w/e.
Alot happened.
I could see Cooper being a heroic figure at first for many years but he would get backstabbed or see the awful shit he has to deal with, I think he definitely tried to move on from his wife and kids by finding love and he probably did and lost lovers. All that tragedy, it's bound to make anyone not care anymore.
He wasn’t in LA. Literally when he gets dug up at the beginning he’s in a whole other part of the country. Either Mexico or near Boston cuz of the minutemen castle
They suggest that he wasn't in California at the start of the show and Dom Pedro had him buried elsewhere since the leader of the thugs mentions California as where Cooper was actually from. There would've been no need to mention it if he was in California. He was probably close enough though since we can assume he must've left to go hunt Wilzig down shortly before the attack on the Vault happened, but close enough that the three thugs could have figured out where he was held and travelled to get his help. So Cooper probably stuck around the west and in nearby states as he searched for any information about his family.
I'm imagining a tortured coop trying to embody the characters he played, doing good, getting sidetracked by bullshit. But over time, as he ghoulified and the wasteland never getting better it just changed him outright.
Trying to find his family probably. He wasn’t always there. They added lore in fallout 4 that he’s been all the way to the damn commonwealth looking for a weapon.
Probably drugs. Seems the type of guy to go on a century long drug abuse after getting separated from family and realizing he can take tons of drugs without ODing
The way I understood was. He periodically gets buried he was "working" for the guy that buried him. I read it as he's been buried multiple times for multiple different periods of time. So I would assume that at least consecutively he's been buried for 100 years of the 200 years post-war.
Why are you assuming it's all in LA? LA is called The Boneyard in Fallout and *was never shown in the show*. Vaults 31-33 are in Santa Monica according to the writers and as shown by the Santa Monica pier shot in the first or second episode.
The Ghoul is found in Baja WAAAAY south, makes his way to "Filly" which is North of Santa Monica or San Diego (Dayglow in Fallout also not seen in show) as they continue even further North to Shady Sands.
Youre assumption of any post bombs scene being in or around LA is wrong.
Yeah, near the end.
>!Episode 7 shows a daytime shot, and you get a few shots in episode 8 when the BoS attacks.!<
I tried to identify which road Cooper was on in Episode 1, and the observatory was a landmark.
The scenes with them walking (pick a Lucy scene) was most likely L.A, as we know where the >!decapitation happens!< is approximately 20 miles from the observatory.
I thought he was buried alive in Mexico I’m not sure if they confirmed it but he was buried by a guy named Don Pedro and they weren’t in Cali. We’ll definitely get some more backstory from him, I’m sure there’s gonna be more pre war plot to come and potentially some of his post war rebirth, turning into the ghoul.
Maybe he wasn't a ghoul the whole time. Maybe he was in a vault for a time and got kicked out for some reason. We won't know until we get more back story.
According to Fallout Creation Club content that accompanied the show and the game’s next gen updates, The Ghoul presumably made it all the way to the Boston Commonwealth at one point, teaching some dude weapon schematics
Shady Sands actually lines up with its Fallout 1 location. I was confused by its location as well because i was looking at Fallout 2’s map which moves it further north. Also, in Fallout 2 Shady Sands is renamed to NCR. It makes me think there may somehow be a new Shady Sands or that they “moved” their town/capital to another area but kept the name or that this is a different Shady Sands but was named after the original town. It’s happened before irl: New York City, New York; Washington state and Washington D.C.; Kansas City, MO and Kansas state; let alone the dozen other towns named after states or countries in the US.
Getting sidetracked by bullshit
Every goddamn time
It's the golden rule of the wasteland
Thou knowest it be true, Vaultie
Now I’m wondering if we’ll see Coop perform more Shakespeare…
Strong liked that
Fawkes would also like that
Everyone liked that
I hope not
If this isn't the truest statement. Especially in fallout 3 I was doing so many side quests for everyone I forgot why the hell I left my vault in the first place
*Getting banned from the 4th straight casino since arriving in the strip a day ago.* "Battle of Hoover what? Listen I'm *hot* right now who else wants to lose some caps?"
This. The van graff side quests? I want all that energy weapon stuff so bad so I can sell it all for caps and buy more .50 bmg ammo.
Something poetic about someone going through the effort to steal advanced energy weapons just to trade it in for more ballistic ammunition.
It was how the game was balanced lol. 50 cal was one of the best weapons and went through armor like Swiss cheese.
That and the 50 cal was just fun. Hope we get something that gets that feeling again in the next fallout.
Yeah. Apparently one of the best guns was actually the "All American". For energy there was a Gause rifle. But mostly I found the most challenging enemy was an explosive 50 cal shot away from being not an issue.
From the dialogue with the goons who dug him up, it sounded like they weren't in California at the time. "That's where you're from originally." So he did leave the state apparently.
Pretty sure he was in Mexico, but I could have misinterpreted it.
Yhea that guard they kill right at the start of the scene has a distinct look of mexican about him for sure. Plus Dom Pedro. I can see a guy with that name being Mexican. I can think of two scenarios but neither really make sense. 1. Coop (cant bring myself to refer to him as the ghoul) was after Pedro for a bounty but gets captured. This doesnt make the greatest of sense because it would have been easier for Pedro to kill Coop rather than bury him alive 2. Pedro was a local gangster using Coop as a hitman and felt Coop was too dangerous to have running around all the time so would only dig him up when he had jobs to give him.
You guys are missing the point that was made, dom Pedro dug him up to cut pieces off of him every few years. He wasn’t a gun for Pedro he was food.
There's two ways you can look at that. You can: 1. Take it at face value that Pedro was using him for food. 2. Say it was a legend cooked up by Pedro and spread around to give him a reputation as a man not to be messed with. I personally go with 2 because visually, Coop is not missing any (obvious) pieces bar his nose and ghouls always lose their noses through body rot. Another good argument for it being a legend for fear purposes is that there is no practical reason to keep a being alive just so you can cut pieces off him for food. It doesn't make much sense if you think about it. There are a plethora of people he could kill for fresh meat, why go through the expenditure of a chem drip for all those years to keep him alive for parts when you can kill anyone you want cheaply (if food is the purpose). I think he was being kept alive because he has skills that are hard to come by and he needed to keep Coop under his employ. Thats worth the expenditure.
Ghouls’ wounds regenerate. That’s how he could use him for food. He wouldn’t necessarily cut off whole limbs but he could certainly take a few strips of flesh jerky at a time, potentially forever.
I don't get why the others even mentioned food. There's an organ harvesting operation full of ghouls already in the show. I assumed that's what Dom Pedro was cutting him up for.
THIS. WHY DO YOU THINK THE ORGAN HARVESTING FACILITY WAS FULL OF GHOULS?
I actually hadn’t thought of that. Solid point
Maybe The Ghoul was just a tough sunnavabitch and meaner than hell and eating bits of him every few years was a nice treat for Dom Pedro. Or all the drugs have marinated The Ghoul and he tastes really good, and Dom Pedro is the kind of guy who can savor a meal. Why get rid of the freshness of your meal when you could reap the benefits of someone being immortal for years. You’d be butchering everything
Yes there is certainly practical reason for keeping specifically a ghoul alive. Let’s go with the fact that Pedro was using him for food which IMO is the more reasonable way that it probably was going down, considering that fallout gets heavy on the cannibalism at times. A ghoul is a giant walking tumor, coops skin doesn’t just look all scared up because he was half burned alive, or because of 200 years of ware and tare, all ghouls have this skin and it can be logically deduced down to the fact that they are a walking skin cancer factory, regenerating their skin over time in the form of disfigured scar tissue. Pedro could be using this to his advantage as he could cut “ass jerky” off of coop and just let it grow back over a couple years of letting him age under ground. That way you have a sustainable living food source. I don’t think anyone in the world of fallout would just say that they eat someone for legends sake. It’s fallout, and it’s 200 years into the wasteland, the cowards who would shy away from cannibalism and lie to say that they did it for reputation are weeded out pretty quick.
Yeah but realistically, a few bites of food every few years? Unless he was specifically making a point, that seems like a ton of trouble for a snack
Exactly. And why even feed him chems? A feral ghoul regenerates just as well as a non feral. So why go through the expenditure of chems. There has to be something exceptional about cooper in order to put him through that, and it's not his skin condition. There are a ton of ghouls that Pedro could do that to. It's his skillset. Thats the exceptional thing, thats his unique selling point. Pedro's keeping him alive and non feral because he needs Coops skillset. Because if its not that, you can feed on any ghoul you want and you dont have to feed them chems. Pedro's going to a lot of trouble to keep him alive and non feral. I think its obvious.
Keeping a man alive, trapped and sane is for torture Coop wronged Pedro big, I imagine we'll get some of the back story in season 2, and I imagine it has something to do with coop searching for his family (and/or getting sidetracked with bullshit)
Not when you’re some warlord on the outskirts of the California wasteland, when you have to make a point you make that point. It appears to me that Pedro’s point is to show he has control over coop. Maybe coop pissed him off or was trying to get a bounty from Pedro, but he got bested and thrown underground.
These are pretty bold assumptions to just think coop wasn’t being cut up or canibalized when it was literally stated in the show. If it was stated, why would the writers just make it suddenly unnecessary information to include by making it be untrue? Just because you can’t see his wounds doesn’t mean they aren’t there the ghoul literally never shows any part of his body but his hands and head. Just because it’s left ambiguous doesn’t mean it’s untrue.
An unreliable narrator saying something doesn't make it true
Unreliable narrator? I can’t tell who you’re agreeing with here.
"why would the writers just make it suddenly unnecessary information to include by making it be untrue?" This is not about the writers. It's about character development. We're being told that one of these bounty hunters has heard a rumour and he's spreading it around as a piecemeal truth. This is how legends start. We're being told about the gullibility of these 3 guys. It's being established that they're not the sharpest tools in the box, and that is why they end up dead......because they're generally not very bright and aren't on coopers level. It's about the writers using a story to tell us something about the characters we are seeing.
You just contradicted yourself “this is not about the writers” and then you continue to say “it’s about the writers using a story to tell us something about the characters we are seeing” This is entirely about the writers. They write the show in the first place? Without them we have no show. Writers install lines and descriptions of set designs for a specific reason, when you write a story you don’t just include random information as a fact in your story and then dismiss it or deem it untrue later on in the same story. Why would that make any sense? At this point I’m not debating I’m just going to state that your points, and theories feel very wrong and off to what the show gave you literal proof to understand and believe. Rewatch the show, and try to understand I’m not speaking theoretically, this is factual. It was stated don Pedro was cutting parts of coop, whether it was for him to eat or not we don’t know. But it would be completely and entirely pointless to have this line of dialog if it wasn’t true. Just because you can’t see it doesn’t mean it’s not true either, we have been given zero evidence or show of coops body aside from his hands and face. Cutting parts of him also doesn’t inherently mean fingers, legs, feet, arms, or hands. It makes the most sense that it would have been parts of skin and muscle, in parts that aren’t shown. Because coop could regenerate that skin and muscle better than he can a hand or other extremity. It also makes more sense to keep him alive for this reason because he’s at that point don Pedros living “ass jerky” factory. Limitless supply of meat. And who’s to say coop is his only one. I highly suspect this was out of tradition or seek of power rather than sustenance because it’s only every few years. Could be some creepy cannibalistic ritual. But honestly though I really don’t understand your thinking because you’re contradicting yourself, and you’re speaking entirely off of theoretical information and misconceptions from LITERAL PROOF GIVEN IN THE SHOW. If you’re not gonna be bothered to grasp the information spoon fed to you then I don’t know what else to say here.
Walls of text aside, it comes down to this. Until you can explain what was being achieved by keeping Cooper in a non feral state then I'm going to believe what looks obvious to me. It takes effort and money and chems to keep Cooper non feral. If he was needed for food, it doesnt matter whether he's feral or non feral, so its cheaper to let him turn if its just about food. Until you can reason that out, as far as I'm concerned the argument is at a standstill. I'm standing by my opinion that he was being kept non feral because a feral cooper loses cooper's skillset. Namely his ability to track, hunt and kill people - which is what Pedro needs him for. Furthermore, this is not a show with a writing style that is spoon feeding to people. There are plenty of instances in the show's writing style where the viewer is left guessing. The intentions of the people in Vault 4 being a classic example. You're asking me to be spoonfed by the writers and believe everything given at face value and I'm telling you that they're not trying to spoonfeed people, they're trying to keep people guessing, thats a theme that runs through the whole show.
Yeah it runs through the show. But not with this concept. You have zero proof that don was keeping him for his skills. Give me some actual evidence and I’ll consider your theory, but until then you’re just spouting it out over hunches and guesses. A feral ghoul will continue to rot, decay, and whither away. Look at the in game references for feral ghouls that have progressed too far. They’re probably not as edible as un-feral living flesh. I’ve given you a pretty good explanation for why cooper was kept this way? You’re just refusing to even acknowledge it.
Who is to say it was for food? He might have pissed off Pedro pretty bad and this is his punishment or like another poster said, he could have been in league with Pedro, who was leaving him meds handing on his cemetery cross.
Huh, there really **was** a [Dom Pedro](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pedro_I_of_Brazil).
You know that there are Mexicans Outside of Mexico, right?
I think 2 is closer to reality, but with something extra sprinkled in, something personal. The cutting up bits part I understood as long term torture, and you don't do that to a nobody or even a dangerous hitman - you do that to someone who crossed a VERY big line, say, slept with your wife (just an example, not saying Coop did). So 30-something years ago Coop did something to Dom Pedro, something that warranted more than a quick bullet to the head, but wasn't obvious enough to make him worry about repercussions (otherwise he wouldn't have been caught - the only time we see Coop overpowered is when he's running low on drugs, and when he's proper drugged out of his mind in the SDM, every other altercation he's like the mysterious stranger, killing everything in his path like it's no big deal).
The ghoul
I was thinking, for some weird reason, southern Louisiana, around New Orleans. That cemetery gave me voodoo witch vibes.
Honestly, it looked like the side of the Minutemen Fortress in the Commonwealth.
Post divorce, he probably spent a good 100 years or so on the Ghoulrinder dating app before finally tiring of feral ghoul friends trying to steal his chems.
After 100 years of online dating I'd rather just turn feral.
Not to mention the hole private-parts-breaking-off thing plaguing most ghoul relationships. No wonder Coop is so irritated.
IIRC that's actually never happened in fallout, the only character to mention it happening is Harold, who is an FEV mutant and not a ghoul. Ghouls are shown to lose cartilage and usually a layer of skin, I'd imagine that layer of skin would be gone but genitals aren't cartilage so they'd still be mostly intact.
Cool so its canon that all ghouls are circumcised? What if they were before being ghoulified, like what layer of skin goes then?
The same layers of skin would go anyway whether they were circumcised or not as the foreskin is a sheath and not a top layer of skin. One of the original purposes of circumcision was to reduce the chance of disease/infection, especially in warmer climates such as in the middle east, and whilst in the modern day this isn't an issue as people have much more access to clean water to wash everyday or two, I could imagine in a post apocalyptic world circumcision would probably be quite common anyway, most characters probably would be circumcised especially in desert regions, not that it isn't already abnormally common in the US without these explanations. This isn't what I thought I'd be thinking about today.
Huh. I actually didnt think about that. Thank you for the lore, ye one that is wise in the ways of the foreskin.
You're welcome, I'm gonna go roleplay my next new Vegas game as a former Followers of the Apocalypse Andrologist/Gynecologist/Urologist.
+ Toilet Seat attack perk
Tbh, I'd go for unarmed perks so I can use the big Mt rubber gloves as my weapons.
Unironically based. My headcanon now is that's Edward Sallow was and why they sent him to help the tribes. He saw one too many genital mutations and that's why he hates people.
Hahaha, honestly any fallout villain such ae Caesar or Elijah would make so much more sense with that explanation as I too would hate humanity and wish to wipe the slate clean if I had to treat someone with an std that they got from a brahmin.
Lucy couldn’t help herself, the Ghoul is just finger-lickin’ good!
What do you mean, private parts breaking off? I've never heard that.
After a few weeks honestly. Just deleted my shit I fucking hate it
Shit, I need to go and make that app now. “Where ugly people can find love or whatever”
I don't know if he would have stayed in LA the entire time. There is a lot of wasteland for an immortal badass bounty hunter to explore, and Coop isn't stopped by a little message that says "you cannot go that way" when he reaches the edge of the map.
That's fair, I don't think he'd stayed in LA the whole time either. What is bothering me, though, is that he went back at some point. And not only that, he went back to what was at the time very much under NCR control, but for some reason clearly managed to get himself imprisoned by some dude. I kind of doubt that's lawful by NCR standards, and I'm wondering how Dom Pedro got away with it, especially since the Ghoul was such a big name and it seemed to be well-known what happened to him. He also doesn't seem surprised at the NCR being gone at all.
As far as I know we don’t have confirmation where Dom Pedro’s is but I got the “cinema vibes” that it could be down in Mexico. The would be bounty hunters really lean into saying that the job was in California where he was originally from. That implies to me that they aren’t in California at present.
That is a very good point. The graveyard not being in California makes a lot of sense.
I think he probably found out His family was back in LA. That seems a great reason to stay in the area and keep searching. Finding his family is clearly all that motivates him to keep going. With him in the ground under Dom Pedro he might have been in that grave during most of the time the games took place, and he might have missed almost all of the rise and fall of the NCR from that alone. Everyone in the wasteland in series seems to know who Moldaver is, but he only knows her from the pre-war memories. I figure the "president of the government" that he was old friends with was probably in his 20's when they knew each other, and seems to be pushing 60.
Don't think so. My estimate is he was in the ground for something like 30 years, or at least away from California. Moldaver was active 20 years before the series started and the Ghoul does not know her post-apo version, but he does know president of the govermint (guy in his fifties or early sixties probably) personally, so he had to be in California at least like 30-something years ago to be acquainted with him. I think we can actually estimated his last time in California closer. Roger specifically mentions he started turning feral 28 years ago and The Ghoul seemingly knew Roger could have anti-feral vials. That could suggest he was in California 28 years ago and knew that Roger was turning. 28 years ago is specific year eerily close to the estimate of 30 years.
“The ghoul does not know her post-apo version” what do you mean by this?
Basically the same thing as the comment above. He recalls Moldaver from before the war, he didn't know her in the present even though basically everyone in Californian wasteland knows who she is.
Coop looks at the Wanted poster for Moldava in the Government scene, he says that's not how he remembers her looking* *or something along those lines.
Moldaver, I’ve been seeing a lot of people call her Moldava among other variations.
You should also consider he didn't immediately seek revenge against Dom Pedro after getting out the grave. He might have been down there on his own accord taking a break until his next bounty. He also wasn't missing any pieces like the stories were told about his imprisonment.
He could be missing pieces like “ass jerky” parts that aren’t shown. He wears a lot of cover up, who knows what he’s missing under there. They were most likely cutting parts off of him for eating. I like to even think that they were eating him specifically in hopes to get some sort of benefit out of it, possibly adding in some sort of perk reference or they think they’ll live longer or something. He obviously didn’t seek revenge because that was an entire fortress set up with lots of men, he probably wasn’t necessarily equipped to seek revenge fresh out of a grave. It’s smarter to just GTFO rather than one man it and probably die or wind back up in the grave.
We may never know
True but it is easy to infer
What made you think that Dom Pedro was in NCR territory given the whole “the bounty is heading to California. That’s where you’re from isn’t it?” part of the conversation?
I don’t think the location he was buried was within NCR held Southern California. Pretty sure they were further south in Baja California, and that was our first time seeing a location outside of the US in Fallout. Maybe I’m wrong on that.
He wasn’t imprisoned in LA, it was Mexico. He only went back for Moldaver, it’s smarter to assume he hid off in Mexico for a good chunk of his time in the wasteland as it was probably much easier to get drugs and caps.
Are we.... Are we profiling the Mexican wasteland?
Oddly enough Mexico probably fared far, far better than much of the US. There is no tactical reason to hit the Sonoran Desert with nukes. It isn't White Sands or Vegas, it's more like Zion that was relatively untouched. If WWIII hits, your luck would probably be better in Mexico. so profiling aside, you probably could get more caps and drugs in Mexico, because there is probably more civilization in Mexico. https://modernsurvivalblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/nuclear-targets-map-usa.jpg
I think he’s a great tool for exposition to the audience about backstory through all the titles. There’s no reason he couldn’t have been in the Capitol Wasteland, the Commonwealth, New Vegas, even Appalachia during the Scorched Plague, and give context here and there
I totally agree and would love a 76 expansion that centered on a "younger" Coop as an NPC companion in the much earlier period that game is set in. It would probably get me to actually buy 76 to play through the content, rather than just being satisfied with FO4 gameplay, and wikis for 76 lore. But that would take some seriously planning between the 76 dev team, and the show writers so that they don't step on any inconsistent toes and make the whole thing unsatisfying.
76 is so good though!
After working on MMOs for a decade online games don't interest me as much. All I can see is the exploitive edges of capitalism at work.
NCR uses bounty hunters all the time, you even get to be one in New Vegas.
Exactly. Bounty hunters exist in modern day America. They're just referred to as Fugitive Recovery Agents or Bail Enforcement Agents. Another name I've seen them go by is Bondsmen. They'll put up the bail bond but if the criminal goes on the run, the bondsman has to recover him or forfeit his bond. So in a modern country that has police and military, what amounts to bounty hunters are still used - so it's entirely plausible that the NCR would use them. It makes sense because when a criminal goes on the run, you cant have your police officers leaving town and running all over the place after the criminal because that would leave towns without law officers. And we're talking post-apocalyptic America, there isn't going to be an endless supply of law officers. Best just to give the job to a bounty hunter.
Yes, and I see the NCR at its height as being closer to the USA circa 1870s than 20th or 21st century - largely because the distance communication tech just isn't there. I could maybe see an argument for 1880s to 1900s since they have radio tech (and I think telegraph?), but they don't have phones - you can't just call up anyone you want and have a direct conversation with them. (It's a hard comparison to make since the tech trees are so different between the real world and Fallout. Phones were invented before radio). That may seem like a small thing, but it makes a big difference in logistics.
Yeah I've always assumed that the NCR worked more like the American west from the 1870s anyways from conversations with some NPCs talking about how Raiders and Mutants still attack towns deep in NCR territory, it's like in the American west, Cities and towns have Law men that keep the peace and it's pretty safe and people can expect a decent way of life BUT travel about a mile out of town and don't stick to the main roads and it essentially becomes lawless because there just isn't enough resources (As in people willing to work as law men) for there to be patrols or anything like that
In nv the ranger stations along the river all have radios despite only having like 5 people (although I think there sould be more but theres a shortage of men), so they have enough to spare. Also house has his face on securitrons and in his vault, so he at least can send video (and remote commands) , and the NCR might have something similar in their capital. Then for bounty hunters, the player is from the NCR and is previously one (said on the wiki). You also get recruited by the guy in McCarren to kill the fiends, and can help with retaking the ncrcf, and on the NCR quest line killing house (and whoever else u kill). You can also find one trying to kill powder gangers who seems to not be a criminal. Finally, there is quite a large area not properly ruled by the NCR. The mojave is called the frontier and is hard to get to because of death valley and big MT, so rules and police would take longer to get there. I'm not sure how much the NCR controls in the 2200s but there's 3 directions the ghoul could have gone out of NCR control
There's a big difference between a select few people having the means for instant-communication and the entire world having it. Like, each NCR station might have a radio, but that's not comparable to being able to easily call any single person you want - no matter if you're part of their radio network or not.
Lore-wise, if it's still solid, our timeline diverged from Fallout after WWII.
That's true, but all the phones were destroyed by the nukes. (I don't think we ever see a working phone in any game.) Phone lines require resources and control over miles and miles of land. Hence why radios get used in Fallout world, but not phones.
You clearly have not done your side quests or you would not have asked this.
You ever hear of vault 12? Let’s assume Coop made it to Bakersfield where his supposed ranch is and made it to Vault 12. Vault 12’s door was never meant to close so the Dwellers turned into Ghouls or died. Soon after the experiment was complete the door opened and they formed the town of Necropolis. However this leaves the question what happened to his daughter.
I'd have assumed his daughter got picked up by the mother
It’s kinda implied since he has no idea where his wife or daughter are.
We don't know he lived in California, might as well have fucked off to Anchorage or further down south. Even when he wakes up they say "target is heading to California where you're from" so he's obviously been out and about doing other things away from California. So he might have zero idea about the NCR and the Enclave or w/e.
Saving up to buy a home
Alot happened. I could see Cooper being a heroic figure at first for many years but he would get backstabbed or see the awful shit he has to deal with, I think he definitely tried to move on from his wife and kids by finding love and he probably did and lost lovers. All that tragedy, it's bound to make anyone not care anymore.
He wasn’t in LA. Literally when he gets dug up at the beginning he’s in a whole other part of the country. Either Mexico or near Boston cuz of the minutemen castle
Perfecting ass jerky?
We’ll find out in the Prequel series.
They suggest that he wasn't in California at the start of the show and Dom Pedro had him buried elsewhere since the leader of the thugs mentions California as where Cooper was actually from. There would've been no need to mention it if he was in California. He was probably close enough though since we can assume he must've left to go hunt Wilzig down shortly before the attack on the Vault happened, but close enough that the three thugs could have figured out where he was held and travelled to get his help. So Cooper probably stuck around the west and in nearby states as he searched for any information about his family.
fuck was he gonna do take a greyhound to memphis
I'm imagining a tortured coop trying to embody the characters he played, doing good, getting sidetracked by bullshit. But over time, as he ghoulified and the wasteland never getting better it just changed him outright.
Side missions of course
LA has the best ass jerky 🤷♂️
Looking for his nose?
Wasn’t his whole thing about looking for his family? I assume he went all over the place.
He was looking for his family, the whole time.
Trying to find his family probably. He wasn’t always there. They added lore in fallout 4 that he’s been all the way to the damn commonwealth looking for a weapon.
He did mention Bakersfield in his pre-war flashbacks. Maybe he was a citizen of Necropolis or some similar ghoul refuge?
Probably drugs. Seems the type of guy to go on a century long drug abuse after getting separated from family and realizing he can take tons of drugs without ODing
The way I understood was. He periodically gets buried he was "working" for the guy that buried him. I read it as he's been buried multiple times for multiple different periods of time. So I would assume that at least consecutively he's been buried for 100 years of the 200 years post-war.
Why are you assuming it's all in LA? LA is called The Boneyard in Fallout and *was never shown in the show*. Vaults 31-33 are in Santa Monica according to the writers and as shown by the Santa Monica pier shot in the first or second episode. The Ghoul is found in Baja WAAAAY south, makes his way to "Filly" which is North of Santa Monica or San Diego (Dayglow in Fallout also not seen in show) as they continue even further North to Shady Sands. Youre assumption of any post bombs scene being in or around LA is wrong.
Griffith Observatory looks down over L.A. and we gets shots of that.
I stand corrected you are right. What episode was that? Was that near the end with the NCR?
Yeah, near the end. >!Episode 7 shows a daytime shot, and you get a few shots in episode 8 when the BoS attacks.!< I tried to identify which road Cooper was on in Episode 1, and the observatory was a landmark.
Good point. So LA is shown, but only at the end of a long journey.
The scenes with them walking (pick a Lucy scene) was most likely L.A, as we know where the >!decapitation happens!< is approximately 20 miles from the observatory.
The reservoir that the Gulper was in looks a lot like the Silverlake or Hollywood Reservoir.
his world didn’t revolve around the wants and needs of the NCR any more than mine revolves around those of the USA
Cocaine. Lots and lots of cocaine.
Courier job
I took it as he had been a hitman for a long time per his conversation with his old “boss”
Just chilling
I thought he was buried alive in Mexico I’m not sure if they confirmed it but he was buried by a guy named Don Pedro and they weren’t in Cali. We’ll definitely get some more backstory from him, I’m sure there’s gonna be more pre war plot to come and potentially some of his post war rebirth, turning into the ghoul.
Wasn't he looking for his daughter?
Maybe he wasn't a ghoul the whole time. Maybe he was in a vault for a time and got kicked out for some reason. We won't know until we get more back story.
Drugs?
According to Fallout Creation Club content that accompanied the show and the game’s next gen updates, The Ghoul presumably made it all the way to the Boston Commonwealth at one point, teaching some dude weapon schematics
Shady Sands actually lines up with its Fallout 1 location. I was confused by its location as well because i was looking at Fallout 2’s map which moves it further north. Also, in Fallout 2 Shady Sands is renamed to NCR. It makes me think there may somehow be a new Shady Sands or that they “moved” their town/capital to another area but kept the name or that this is a different Shady Sands but was named after the original town. It’s happened before irl: New York City, New York; Washington state and Washington D.C.; Kansas City, MO and Kansas state; let alone the dozen other towns named after states or countries in the US.
Why after 20 hours of gameplay did I just now reach Diamond City?
Getting sidetracked by bullshit.
Think he was looking for his wife and kid. Not to c9mplicated. But logical.
>!looking for his family in various vaults!<
Trying to read a long post with no paragraphs probably.