Fallout's Mysterious Stranger Keeps Getting Weirder

Hello, how are you guys doing? I'm Nate and a little over three years ago I uploaded what was at the time my longest and most researched video: a 1 hour long investigation into Fallout's Mysterious Stranger, the Mysterious Stranger, or just the Stranger as we'll usually refer to it . for him, as he is a peculiar, trench coat-wearing entity who has appeared in literally every Fallout game since the franchise's inception in 1997 and his origins remain one of the most fascinating unsolved mysteries in the universe now, when I uploaded that original video for the first time in 2020, I was and am very proud of it.

I think he did a good job of laying out all the facts and presenting the character as fully as possible. However, today I would essentially like to revisit the topic and remake that video for two main reasons, one. Despite what I considered to be fairly exhaustive research, as time went on I learned more and more about this universe and it became increasingly obvious that there were many small details particularly related to Fallout 4 that I overlooked in the first VOD and in the second. Reason number two is that in the last 3 years a lot of things have changed.

Fallout 76 has continued to receive several major DLCs and updates. DLC and updates that I think offer some of our best clues yet about the nature of this

mysterious

Oho

stranger

at that time as well. period, there have also been a couple of important tabletop roleplaying game rulebooks released that contain additional information that I think can help point us in the right direction, so in today's video we'll break down the

mysterious

appearances again.

stranger

s in every Fallout. game that started from the beginning in 1997 and progresses to the most recent updates of Fallout 76 and along the way we will pick up some clues and identify some patterns that I think will lead us to some very interesting clues and more importantly, probable possibilities regarding what's going on here, so without further ado, pour yourself a glass of your freshest Saparilla Sunset, have your lord on hand, dim the lights, and relax as we prepare to investigate the mysterious stranger of Fallout, but first a quick word about today's video, sponsor this video.

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In the more familiar type we've come to recognize in the isometric title, the Mysterious Stranger buff could be unlocked once the player had reached the appropriate special luck stat and worked a little differently than it does in modern releases where years 9, the mysterious one. A stranger had about a 25% chance of appearing in any random encounter in which he would lend a hand to our hero as best he could. Fallout's isometric combat was turn-based. The vat system, as we know, wasn't introduced until Bgs came in, so, when spawned into the Stranger, it would essentially function as a normal ally for the duration of the encounter, notably the character didn't have a set appearance, but instead which appeared with a random inventory full of items and its gender would be based on the players, so Miss's Mysterious Strangers also existed, assuming they faced a particularly tough fight the character could even die in combat and their deaths would be permanent, they would never return, although this required a particularly brutal set of enemies, plus the stranger would remain present. in the area after combat had ceased and could be interacted with, although they only said short vague, generic lines of dialogue such as I don't talk much or I'll help you when they approach me, there were no actual conversations that were actually published a year then in 1998.

Fallout 2's mysterious stranger was essentially exactly the same in all attributes, although he had some minor changes to his team rotation that weakened the character somewhat; It wouldn't be until Bethesda bought the rights to the Fallout Universe in 2007 that the Stranger finally began to morph into the more familiar character we recognize and the developers began to get more seriously involved with the idea of ​​his released backstory. in 2008. Fallout 3 saw the mysterious stranger's appearance and behavior change considerably as he emerged in a tan trench coat and top hat in the style of a late 40s Noir detective, his facial features also set in stone and now he carries the cup of a clean-shaven young man with brown eyes.

If he was forcibly inspected with the console, his inventory would now also be consistent, although it would contain small surprises that would simply consist of his clothing items. 44 and a few rounds of ammo, once the player had unlocked the Strange Mystery perk through the special Luck stat, there would be a 10% chance of the character appearing whenever the Lone Wanderer faced an enemy in Vats, a short guitar riff would announce his entrance and he would suddenly appear before firing a few rounds from his .44 at the player's target, which was usually enough to kill said opponent before another guitar riff spelled their demise.

By leveling up the special luck stat, the player could incrementally increase the odds of strange generating up to around 25% per Vats participation Beyond these surface-level impressions, although the base game gives us a little additional insight into the nature of this figure; However, fortunately, the official Fallout 3 game guide published by Prima Games shortly after the release of Fallout 3 and sold separately provides us with an interesting clue as to its origins, the gu game description of the mysterious strange perk says: You have a guardian angel but with a deadly hand Cannon instead of wings meet the mysterious stranger, a strange, ancient entity is said to appear and help You're in combat before you breathe, of course it helps that the mysterious stranger buff first cites a strange entity and ancestral.

This is the first of many clues we'll explore throughout this video that suggest the stranger's appearance has more Lovecraftian connotations, of course, as we've discussed at length on this channel before the folks at Bethesda are a big deal. admirer of HP Lovecraft's work and has extensively incorporated his ideas of cosmic horror and ancient civilizations into a larger Dunwich subplot. full 1 and a half hour long video about the Dunwich subplot in January, check it out for more information and as we continue this investigation, particularly as we start talking about Fallout 4 476, I intend to argue that the strange This theme may be connected to this Lovecraft mystery, but we'll delve into those ideas later.

For now, let's go back to Fallout 3, little else is mentioned about the character in the game, although there is a single side quest that may or may not have any relevant implications for him, you can see that in the city of Megaton there is an iconic character named Moira Brown who runs the supply store next to the crater and is an aspiring writer after learning that the player is from Vault 101 and that she will be a big problem. She will offer you a series of side quests related to collecting data in the Wasteland to help her write a Wasteland Survival Guide pamphlet that she intends to sell for a profit.

These missions almost serve as a kind of optional tutorial, since Moira is supposed to do it. She can be found at the beginning of the game and her tasks help us introduce ourselves to various enemies and locations in the Wasteland, the capital, without tremendous difficulty. Anyway, assuming the Lone Wanderer accepts this offer, one of her quests will send you to the Anchorage War Memorial so she can install a data recorder in a Myer nest in exchange for completing this quest. Miss Brown will reward us with several Stealth Boys and a unique item of clothing called the Shady Hat that grants more Perception and five sneaky points when worn in an interesting way, this hat wears the exact same thing. textured model like the one worn by The Stranger, in particular, this is the only obtainable variant of this hat in the game.

A similar cap cannot be found anywhere else except on the stranger's head, as it increases our stealth and perception. and which is given to us along with so many Stealth Boys, many in the community have speculated that if Bethesda is trying to imply a connection between this bounty from Moira and the mysterious stranger, could this perhaps suggest that the stranger is operating with a similar team? using Stealth Boys? and her special hat to avoid detection until she spontaneously appears at our side. Could he and Moira have met and exchanged goods in the past? It is not clear.

I think it's possible that when they were making Fallout 3 Bethesda was toying with this idea, but as we'll see. Later on, the strangers' powers become more obviously supernatural as the games persist and this theory loses steam, so I'm leaning towards this quest reward being more of a coincidence or abandoned subplot than anything substantial, but of course Still, it's worth mentioning. That's enough for everything that Fallout 3 reveals about the stranger, so let's move on to the next game in the Fallout New Vegas franchise released in 2010 and developed by Obsidian Entertainment. Fallout New Vegas was built on the exact same engine as Fallout 3.

And, in fact, it was almost released as an expansion to Fallout 3, Obsidian even referred to it as Fallout 3.5 during its development, as a result, the strange mysterious perk was essentially copied and pasted between the games functioning in exactly the same way using exactly the same model and texture for the character, as well as the same clothing assets; However, Obsidian still managed to leave its mark on this character's story and the broader mystery behind him, as they did with almost everything else in the franchise in New Vegas, just north of The Gas Station. Dorado camped out with his guitar in front of a sasparrilla sign at sunset.

The coryer could encounter a shadowy character called The Lonesome Drifter when he approached him. The Drifter would reveal his backstory explaining that he was raised by a single mother in Montana and has come. to New Vegas' sunken musical work and answers about the identity of his father, it would be heavily implied and then outright confirmed that the homeless man's father was in fact our mysterious stranger. listen to just some of the homeless man's dialogue. My story is long, friend, and I can't tell it because it's very interesting, well, I was born in a small town outside of Montana.

Mom and I didn't have much since Dad left and he never knew why Mom always said he was a real mystery. when he was with her like he was a stranger sometimes maybe maybe I never felt like I belonged at home, it sure wasn't easy mom worked her butt off to make sure we had enough to survive and I worked in the coal mines since When I was 15, after my diet, I guess I wanted to find my paw and get some answers from him. I've been here looking ever since, but he's not an easy man to find, I can't tell, I really know, maybe I just will.

Ask him why maybe I'll punch him in the mouth. The more I talk about it, the more the whole damn thing sounds like a dumb idea. A long time ago, I didn't even know him. Mom always said he was a mysterious guy who was always traveling. secretly for so long friend his father was a true mysterious always fallendisappearing if that's not enough of a smoking gun The Tramp can provide us with a literal one, in fact in his invention there will be an object called The Mysterious Magnum which we can simply steal or convince him to surrender using a speech test where he will reveal that it was actually the only possession his father left him when he took it out and holstered it.

The mysterious object plays the exact same guitar riff we hear when the stranger appears and disappears. and is engraved with a variety of unique floral symbols, oddly enough it actually deals less damage than the standard 44 and only 42 base HP per attack compared to the standard 51, however its rate of fire and durability they almost double, which makes the compensation very good. deal anyway, unfortunately, regardless of his stats, this unique 44 is clearly of the same origin as the mysterious strangers and serves as pretty concrete evidence of his relationship with The Lonesome Drifter and that's not even the best part in 2011, the new director and leader of the Las Vegas project.

Designer Josh Sawyer responded to a comment about the somewhat horrible forms in which a user commented on how uncomfortable it would be for the mysterious stranger to kill the lone wanderer in Vats, to which Sawyer responded by quoting that "we really wish we had time to code that for that the mysterious stranger would attack you if you ever tried that final quote so straight out of the horse's mouth that the two characters are actually related and there was even supposed to be a little more to this relationship than the developers had time to tease out, especially This entire interaction seems to confirm that the stranger is capable of reproducing and has apparently spent time in Montana.

It doesn't appear that he passed on his teleportation and combat abilities, however, possibly implying that his powers are not necessarily hereditary, whatever the case may be. case this suggests. It is at least somewhat human because, in addition, The Lonesome Drifter New Vegas also introduced the Miss Fortune perk, which has a similar early effect to the more familiar strangers and is also unlocked through the tree. Lux skills. The description for the Miss Fortune perk reads as follows: Quote only when your enemies think they have the advantage Misfortune seems to turn their world upside down and appears only in Vats.

He has the ability to snatch defeat from the jaws of Victory. In fact, this perk has some extraordinary functional similarities to the Mysterious Stranger when active. and the corer enters Vats, there will be a 10% chance that Misfortune will appear and fire a single round of his exclusive 44, although instead of significantly killing or wounding, misfortune's opponent's attacks will produce a random bad luck event if so you wish. cause some form of misfortune to befall her victim usually this means a limb is suddenly crippled or they are enraged or disarmed she could even cause any explosive in their inventory to spontaneously detonate her name doesn't lie she is the bearer of bad luck.

Mis for's outfit also differs dramatically from that of her male counterparts: she wears a feather hat and an almost legionnaire's red scarf along with a rather daring Las Vegas dancer's outfit, a far cry from the more reserved coat we've seen our guardian angel until now, curiously. looted it is revealed that the suit of misfortune uses the exact same id and reference files as the mysterious strangers with the exact same statistic this is literally the same suit it is just the female mesh and the texture of it is a strange feature but it helps clarify the relationship between the characters, as if we had any doubt, it seems very likely that the same supernatural power or perhaps technology or entity is behind the seemingly superhuman supporters of our star characters, alas, between Misfortune and The Lonesome Drifter we have essentially covered everything new.

Vegas adds to our mystery, so let's take the next step in this story and move on to the next title in the Fallout 4 franchise, and boy, this one adds a lot, released in 2015. Fallout 4 gives us perhaps our biggest story dump yet. moment. strange and there are several clues in this game that I missed in the original version of this video, so I'm especially excited for this part. The most immediately obvious changes made to the Stranger in this installment of the franchise would be those to his appearance. While in the previous two games he took the form of a clean-shaven young man, in Fallout 4 he is a much more mature, middle-aged, gray-haired guy. and wrinkled, with a giant bushy cat mustache on his lip, plus his eyes have gone from a dark brown Fallout 3 in New Vegas color to a brighter shade of teal, all of this seems to confirm that we are now dealing with a totally new mysterious stranger than before.

Additionally, some minor changes have been made to the stranger's inventory and his physics, while his role is functionally identical. In previous games, he randomly appears at Vats to lend a hand after the appropriate luck buff has been unlocked. He is now marked as a ghost in the archives. This doesn't necessarily imply that it is a real ghost, it just means that when it is forcibly spawned it has all the physics of a ghost and therefore cannot be interacted with at all, attacks pass through it and it is immune to pickpockets, although if we forcibly inspect the actor's inventory in the game files, we will find something rather strange, of course, that he carries. a generic 44, some ammo and a dirty trench coat and Fedora, but for some reason he will also have a pack of Gray Turtles in his inventory.

This is a pretty strange detail given that no one is supposed to see his inventory in the game anyway, so why would anyone at Bethe Asda put this here? Well, I have a theory, it's really more of an idea and it's a bit off and tenuous at best, so take it with a grain of salt, as you see at the beginning of the In-Game Within the Nate and Nora's house before the war, we can find a group of gray turtles next to a beautiful bottle placed on a small stand inside the family living room, interestingly we can interact with the object and, interestingly, no matter which spouse you are.

We are playing, as you will both react to the package with surprise and confusion, asking how it got there. Listen. We have developed now. Who left those here now. Who left those here now. I understand this is absurdly tenuous, but you have to wonder what they are. doing there, how they got here, of course, it's entirely possible that both characters are being a little cheeky, like you know, haha, how they get there, but still, the voice actor's script notes that we can dig up in the kit of creation suggest. They were supposed to deliver those lines in a pretty serious tone, our protagonists don't really seem to know what they're doing there, so you know it makes you wonder and I thought this detail was, you know, worth mentioning, but regardless of us.

In fact, we'll come back to the topic of the gray turtles a couple more times during the rest of this video for now, although let's investigate a little more of the specific history that Fallout 4 reveals to us because there is a little bit of that, as well as the most obvious connection to start exploring. It's the strangers' bonds with everyone's favorite robotic Noir Ally, Nick Valentine. In fact, inside the Valentine Detective Agency building in Diamond City. Under Nick's personal bed we can find a case file on the mysterious stranger. It's a bit long, but in the context of this video it's necessary. read I know I already read all of this in a previous Iceberg, so there will be a timecode on the screen if you want to skip this part, but here goes in case mysterious sightings of a man nicknamed the Mysterious Stranger have been appearing sporadically in the old United States for years.

At best, the man is an oral lunatic. At worst, he's a prolific serial killer. Everyone knows that his M Mo suddenly appears killing without remorse and disappears without saying a word. The stranger has no known accomplices and no clear method for targeting. His targets have no calling cards left Sightings range from the NCR to the East Coast, going back decades now that he's arrived in the Commonwealth The last thing this place needs is another psycho running around a muuk time to start putting the pieces together to put this together distance description human male costumes vary, but the most recent signature describes a large coat with fedora hat the guy has taste I don't give him much a man several men a ghoul with minimal scars could explain the long time intervals between sightings appears and disappears suddenly suggesting Personal Infiltration Skills SL Access to Advanced Camouflage Technology All but the first few descriptions suggest the stranger uses only conventional weapons, making infiltration training more likely.

Perses like this make me wish the Institute had come up with thermal detection before giving me the boot sighting locations that the Commonwealth confirmed. Capital Wasteland confirmed the old NCR rumors. Shady Sands, really old rumors and will also cite as a little extra detail if the mysterious stranger is linked in Vats while Nick is our active partner. Valentine will actually comment on the appearance and express some sort of frustration with the entity. one listen that was him the stranger he was here where did he go now oh what The stranger slipped through our fingers in fact, it seems that Nick Valentine has been very aware of the stranger for quite some time now and is eager to put an end to what he he sees it as a reign of terror in his case.

File Valentine proposed several fairly earthbound and rational explanations for the stranger's behavior, citing cloaking technology and potentially uncosmetic ghoulification as explanations behind what's happening, and of course, he cites all the locations. from previous games where we can encounter the particular guy, although something I think a lot of people don't necessarily realize is that Valentine's document suggests that the stranger was already active in the Commonwealth before the player's release from the Vault 111. We can find this history long before we ourselves gain the benefit of the stranger and summon him to action, which means he must have already been hanging around the Commonwealth before working with our character to get Nick Valentine's attention.

Could the Stranger be linked to a character other than ours or maybe he has his own business that he's been minding or maybe this was just a minor oversight in the writing, it's something interesting to keep in mind as well, The Stranger and Detective Valentine have several somewhat strange similarities between the two. two of them, of course, both are inspired by the Noir detectives, have similar, although certainly not identical, clothing options, and even both carry gray turtles with them, just as we find turtles in the inventory of strangers, we can always find a pack in Nicks too. and even seems to take breaks from time to time with them when he's idle, plus this whole issue eight of the amazingly awesome Tales Magazine, which provides five additional action points that can be used in Vats, is titled The Man Who Could Stop the time and its cover features a man in a trench coat, though certainly without a fedora, standing in front of a broken clock and a gaping civilian.

It is impossible to say for sure whether this has meaning or not, but this magazine invokes several themes associated with the stranger, including the guy on the cover and the title of the magazine the man who could stop time the stranger appears when time stops slows down or stops in Vats you get the idea this is what really baffles me we found this magazine in Vault 114 the same Vault where we meet Nick Valentine for the first time at the beginning of the main story of the game while rescuing him from a gang from criminals who have kept him hostage, not only that, but this magazine is literally in the same room that Nick Valentine is being kept in again all this time.

This just perplexes me because, as I said in our original investigation all those years ago, there is a tremendous amount of smoke here with the similarities between the stranger and Nick and the magazine, but there is no fire, which is what makes the following detail be particularly aggravating. You see, in 2019, Fallout 4 received a newly created Club add-on called Apartment Noir. It's actually called Noir something else, but I'll call it Apartment Noir just to be safe with a price tag of 600 credits, the big selling point of this. The item was the giant Noir luxury apartment that players could purchase in downtown Boston and customize it as their own home;

However, this addon also included a short quest that needed to be completed to acquire the new property and that quest could well be relevant to the purpose.From our research, once the creation had been installed by loading into a game, a new radio signal would appear on our pit boy called The Strange, the tuned signal would start the early retirement search and thus the Survivor would be Headed to Fairline Hills. Estates an abandoned pre-war suburb north of Milton Medical Center here in one of the ruined houses we would find the remains of a fallen synth corser unit dressed as a Detective Noir in the synth inventory would be a unique 44 called retirement anticipated as In addition to his ID card, unique clothing items, and several holographic text tapes that provide a bit of information about this character's strange history, this corser had evidently been posing as a detective in Diamond City for the past few years. years sounds a bit familiar and took advantage of his position. to gather intelligence on several runaway synths which he later helped the Institute's Synth Retention Office recover, he was apparently in the process of tracking down two more runaway units who lured him to Fairline and ambushed him before he could finish the job. , hence his remains down here. from here, the Soul Survivor could simply steal his ID card and use it to unlock the luxury apartment in downtown Boston and the property would be all ours.

Upon completing the quest, we could also go ahead and track down the two Rogues who killed him and hand him some Justice, although that's optional and it's not exactly obvious whether that's Justice or not, notably not really explained. Why the Institute gave this guy such a nice apartment in Boston's Harbor District instead of a more humble abode in Diamond City, where he was doing all his work, it's not at all obvious why a corsier would need a luxury given that they are robots, but still the deep similarities between this guy and Nick Valentine are impossible to ignore, plus, inside the apartment are several Diamond City newspapers.

Dated September 2287, just 1 month before Soul Survivor's departure from Volt 111 and contemporary with Nick Valentine's activity in Diamond City, meaning the two would have definitely crossed paths, plus the unique clothing this one wears corser unit are actually exactly the same. Fedora coat worn by Nick Valentine only with a slightly darker texture, even more interesting. Nick Valentine is one of the few companions who will never use any item that the player places in his inventory that we can never use. Have Nick change his clothes, he always wears the same outfit. There is actually a specific script attached to this corset suit that allows Nick to put it on and wear it.

It's very interesting, what the hell is going on here? What did Todd Howard mean with this creation? a complete Creation Club quest with such striking similarities, what implications does this have on the game's story and maybe it has something to do with the strange, well maybe you don't see that the Creation Club content exists in this strange state in which Bethesda tries to create it. It's a bit story-friendly, but they're far from confirming anything is Canon. It would be very strange for Bethesda to make such a gigantic Reveal with such major implications on the game's story, you know, this paid mod and, more than anything, all of this. appears to be a nod to the Android novel Dream of the Electric Sheep, which inspired much of the Fallout Force Institute questline and its synthetized narrative.

In that novel, which later inspired the film Blade Runner, the main character is a detective named Rick Deckard, who is on assignment. essentially murder to death or retire as they call it Runaway androids who have become a little too sensitive get it early retirement Rick Deckard is running around retiring droids it's all a giant illusion so this seems to be more of an easter egg than anything else. I found it simply something that could not be ignored in the context of this investigation and speaking of syns, regardless of the meaning of this creation, there are several possible links between the Institute and the mysterious stranger that transcends Bethesda's paid mod store and even Nick Valentine.

For one thing, the faction seems to be behind several technologies and innovations associated with Vats, the way we meet The Stranger, and it's even somewhat implied that the Institute might have had something to do with the creation of the technology or At least discover something similar on your own. Inside the Rob robotics wing of the Institute headquarters there used to be a terminal that the player could access near a lab table that contained an entry called a unique project that said an overriding directive not to alter the basic functions of the synthesizer, despite that the father has given permission for a rather unique project.

In select Generation 3 units, the synthetic brain is able to accept targeted enhancements to the visual cortex, basil ganglia, and right cortex, the result being substantially improved combat effectiveness due to two factors, one, a greater understanding of the accuracy of the weapon to the extent that the warfighter can actually visualize the percentage chance of effectively hitting targets in smaller areas on those targets. two an altered sense of perception that mimics the effect of slowing down or even stopping time. We recommend that we begin surgery and field testing with appropriate operations in the near future. End of quote.

This is Vats. this terminal was implying that the Institute had created a technology capable of essentially giving him access to Vats, they were onto something here now of course, the really strange thing about this is that this terminal entry was actually removed from the game a few months later. its official release in one of the 1.3 patches, Bethesda deliberately went back and deleted this entry from the archives, making this handset one of the only cut pieces of content to be removed after release and effectively removing it from Canon's competition when was still on the market. game, it actually fueled a lot of speculation that the player himself could perhaps be a synth, since we use Vats ourselves and the player actually gets a chance to use him as soon as he escapes his cryopod at the 111 volt before putting on his pit boy, as you can imagine, some crazy questions were raised, it's possible that Bethesda initially included this entry just as a little joke to annoy us and decided to remove it when the joke started to have serious narrative implications for the community, but it's worth it anyway. worth mentioning in this discussion.

He is not the faction's only connection to Vats. In Fallout 3 we were able to meet an SRB Institute agent named Dr. Zimmer who had arrived in the capital Wast Land in search of an escaped synth that we sought to capture and return to the organization if we wished. To assist Dr. Zimmer in his quest and successfully identify the missing synth, he would reward us with a buff called wired reflexes that would give the lone Wanderer a 10% chance across the board to hit targets in non-small tanks. . The explanation behind this benefit provided by Zimmer is that the Institute has developed an advanced technology that could be implanted in the brain to improve reaction times and he was gratefully granting it to us and now, for his payment, this combat module will affect directly to your central system. nervous system I think you will find it quite beneficial, so in all games there is very strong evidence of the understanding of the institute and perhaps even the development of the VAT system, which in turn is strongly associated with our strange, moreover, as As an added benefit, we know that the faction has also already mastered teleportation and over at Midway in the game's main questline, it is revealed that the only reason the Institute is so good at hiding is that its headquarters is buried hundreds of miles away. feet underground with no entry, their scientists and synths have been using advanced chips to teleport between the surface world and their futuristic bunker, in fact, corser synths, the most advanced and expensive synth models the Institute produces, are specifically implanted with a unique corser chip that allows them to teleport freely around the map to achieve their objectives. be that our mysterious stranger has been taking advantage of similar, perhaps identical, technology to maneuver around the world and disappear so quickly between the similarities the stranger has with Valentine, the institute's extensive history with it, and now its clear mastery of teleportation, the most rational explanation so far.

It seems they could be after the stranger. Behavior maybe not directly, maybe it's a fugitive unit or a rogue agent of the same lineage as Nick Valentine, but so far I think this is the most terrestrial explanation one could come up with. We know Nick Valentine. The consciousness comes from a former Chicago police detective who transferred to Boston in the run-up to the Great War and who volunteered for an Institute experiment that he did not fully understand and which resulted in his consciousness being stolen. . We know that our Nick wasn't the only synth that ended up

getting

Nick Valentine's Consciousness, there are others, namely dimema, who we meet in Far Harbor, could The Stranger perhaps belong to a similar cohort, of course, despite all the clues we have?

There are some problems with this theory as it may not reproduce and we already know that the mysterious stranger or at least one mysterious stranger has had at least one child so that possibility is also ruled out as we will see shortly the mysterious stranger It appears already in the year 2102, less than 30 years later. the Great War in Fallout 76, which is long before the institute's advances with teleportation and Vats, so unless they were also doing something with time travel and never said anything, their involvement with this paranormal entity is difficult to justify, despite our and the community's best efforts.

It is difficult for the stranger's existence to be rationally justified with the Institute's technology. Sure there are a lot of coincidences, but there are so many anti-coincidences, so that leaves us to consider more irrational justifications for the player, and fortunately, Fallout 4 gives us many avenues to explore that idea too, you'll see that the scientists and steeds of the Institute are not the only characters in the game capable of jumping through space and time, in fact we encounter at least one character who is not affiliated at all with the faction who seems to harness more supernatural teleportation abilities.

Meet Lorenzo Cabbat now. We've talked at length about Lorenzo and the Cabitt family in general on this channel before, so I'll just give you the shorter Spark Notes if you want a more detailed synopsis, check out the Dunwich video from earlier. the year, but basically Lorenzo Cot is perhaps the oldest living character in the Fallout Universe. He was born long before the war in the 19th century, where he made a name for himself as an accomplished archaeologist, evidently sometime around the turn of the century. Lorenzo led an expedition to the Arab Khali Desert of Arabia, searching for an ancient lost city buried under the sand.

In short, he found what he was looking for and, amidst several thousand ruins perhaps 100,000 years old, He discovered a strange crown that he foolishly decided to put on the crown. He suddenly imbued Lorenzo with a variety of paranormal powers including telekinesis, superhuman strength, and even immunity to aging, though they all came at a cost. The crown also drove Lorenzo crazy. He became divorced from empathy for his fellow man and appears to have committed a series of horrific crimes upon his return to the US. His son, a fellow academic named Jack Cabit, sent Lorenzo to the Parson State Asylum and began to exhaustively study the condition. of his father in hopes of finding a cure, while Jack was ultimately unable to cure his father. that his blood could be used to produce a serum that would grant others the same immunity to radiation that Lorenzo had enjoyed for the past 400 years.

Lorenzo Cabat has remained trapped at Parsons while his family parasitically extracts his blood to artificially prolong their own lives. During the search for the secret of the cabat house, Lorenzo will try to free himself from the confines of it and Jack will call the only survivor to intervene. We can prevent the escape and finally, once and for all, put this Eldrich archaeologist out of his misery. or help him escape and take revenge on his family. Cabit's story is one of my favorite side quest lines in the Fallout franchise and is tied heavily into a larger sly love/brown witch subplot that we've talked about before and would also do.

Arguing is connected to the stranger, but the real reason I bring all this up now is something Lorenzo does if we choose to side with him in this Quest. You see, yesMr. Cabbat is released from the Asylum, he will ask us to meet him. at the Cabat family home where he plans to finally confront his son after all these years, although something I've never really thought about and never seen anyone mention is that Lorenzo actually appears to teleport back to his house from the Asylum. After we open his cell and let him go, he will tell us to meet at the cabin, but he won't actually leave Parsons and physically head there like most NPCs would be expected to do.

Instead, he tells us to just move on and that he has his own means of catching up when we finally reach the Cabat house, much to the horror of his family. Lorenzo simply emerges on the second floor balcony to everyone's surprise. Lorenzo's love for Crafti and Crown seems to have also given him the power to teleport at least to some extent, could The Strangers' Powers be more like Lorenzo's than the Institutes'? Remember that the official Fallout 3 game guide explicitly refers to the character as a strange, ancient entity that invokes the same Lovecraftian language and themes around which Cabit's story revolves, as we will soon see in Fallout 76.

I think Bethesda is is leaning more and more to connect the Stranger with all that cosmic horror happening beneath the surface, but before we can jump into that uncontroversial Fallout of Oho. game, we have to briefly talk about the next title in the

fallout

shelter franchise released in 2015

fallout

shelter was and remains Bethesda's signature free-to-play mobile game that over the years has been ported to virtually every operating system Under the Sun . The player takes on the role of Overseer and builds his own Vault from the perspective of an ant farm, managing the economy and life support systems while hopefully increasing his population and the quality of life of his residence, and despite that there is no Vats mode in this game.

For obvious reasons, our favorite stranger returns, a short guitar riff or maybe this time a piano riff will play, signaling the appearance of the stranger in your Vault. It will usually be hidden somewhere, but if you manage to find it and click on it, it will appear. disappear and the game will reward you with a bunch of caps and another piano riff that usually dies down in about 20 seconds, so you'll have to be quick with the trigger, of course this limited interaction gives us very little information about the character that It's the nuclear shelter. Set in a fairly ambiguous part of the Wasteland in a similarly ambiguous time period, there's some evidence that it's supposed to take place in the year 2286, just before the events of Fallout 4, but it's not exactly straight forward, so now let's move on. to a title that gives us deeper insights, open your wallets, strengthen your internet connection, and get ready to buy some atoms because we're headed for Fallout 76 to hit shelves in 2018.

This always-online masterpiece saw the mysterious stranger take up his role once again, albeit in a somewhat unique fashion with some notable changes, firstly the stranger's appearance, once again the changes gone is the old Fallout caterpillar mustache and behind are the brown eyes and the young face It actually bears a strong resemblance to the version we saw in Fallout 3 and New Vegas, so I suspect this might be the same guy, but that's just my vague idea. Additionally, Fallout 76's Vats mode now occurs in real time and therefore the appearance of the stranger also occurs. We can even get close to it and get a good look at it.

Interestingly, The Stranger perk is often considered one of the worst in the game by the community, as even when maxed out, his appearances are much rarer than in any previous title and he often fails his shots, which is of very little help, especially when you consider the fact that at 76 you know you can only accept a limited number. However, you don't see it used much and this is where things get interesting. 76 also introduced a brand new luck-based perk to the franchise called The Mysterious Savior when This perk is unlocked and activated whenever the player falls in combat or simply not in combat, you can fall for fall damage and your odds. they will be the same;

There will be a 25-50% chance that a character named The Mysterious Savior will dress up. wearing the same outfit as the stranger will appear and revive the Vault Dweller before disappearing once again, notably despite his similar outfit, the mysterious savior is definitely not the same NPC as the stranger. 76' the stranger is Bal or at least he has a shaved head with brown eyes. while the Savior has a head full of lush silver hair with a streak of gray, although interestingly, the Savior is still referred to in the game files as the mysterious stranger, which infuriates but also strengthens May's connection between them, but What makes this so prominent anyway?

For our purposes it's obviously that in Fallout 76 there are at least two potential guardian angels with the same type of supernatural abilities who will lend a hand to the Vault inhabitant, given what we've already seen with Misfortune in New Vegas, this seems to go further. . Evidence that there are multiple mysterious strangers or individuals with these abilities running around the world at once. The savior's gray hair also suggests that he may not be the same guy from Fallout 4 either, as the mysterious stranger from Fallout 4 was in the process of going bald with brown hair and it's unlikely that there are any matchless minoxidil left in the Wasteland at this time.

Also, as we mentioned above, Fallout 76 is set in the year 2102, just 25 years after the events of the Great War and has the obvious earliest beginning. Date of any game in the franchise, in addition, one of the most exciting elements of 76 as far as this video is concerned is that it also introduces us to several new characters who teleport and, like Lorenzo Cabit, their powers can give us a idea of ​​the strangers themselves. Such a character is perhaps the most iconic and quintessential creature of 76' The Moth Man, based on an urban legend that persists in the real world.

W.V. The Moth Man is a mysterious, cipher-like giant MO that occupies a fairly important role in gameplay throughout Appalachia. find holotapes of alleged Witnesses testifying to his interactions with the creature, some claiming the Beast was friendly and kind and others claiming the opposite. The Mothman's face is also plastered on various posters and comic book covers and in Point Pleasant we can even stumble upon a pre-war museum dedicated to the creature today, the Crypt, has inspired something of a local cult, as that hundreds of deranged survivors have proclaimed that Mothman is their God and seek to eliminate non-believers anyway, even more so at our point.

Players can personally meet The Moth Man in several very rare and somewhat anticlimactic random encounters at any random encounter spawn location between 10:00 p.m. and at 8:00 a.m. There is about a 2% chance that the Vault Dweller will encounter a Mothman simply by vibrating there. It also turns out that the Mothman is not just one being, but that there are several Mothmen running around the world. Distinguishable by the color of their eyes, some of the mothmen you will encounter, such as those dyed yellow, will try to attack you, but if you encounter a purple or red-eyed mothman, he will relax and look at you in a somewhat funny way. about these pups, although the reason I only spent 2 minutes animating them is because they can all teleport like the stranger, in fact if you attack one of the passive variants they will simply disappear into a cloud of black smoke right in front of you.

You will never be seen again, while more aggressive variations that will engage you and actively attack you will use their teleportation abilities as a combat strategy until they are defeated, such as Lorenzo Cabit and our mysterious stranger. Mothman is able to maneuver between time and space or at the same time. at least between space, also like Lorenzo Cabbit and perhaps the stranger, the mothman has some strong associations with the Dunwich entity again. Watch our video from January to see the full story. It's quite long, but there is solid evidence that the Mothman cult continues. Appalachia is actually worshiping a Lovecraftian creature called the ug qualtoth, who poses as The Moth Man or perhaps works with the yellow-dyed Mothman to trick and trick these people into causing chaos, but I digress, this one isn't He is the only appalachin 76 that teleports and allows us.

In June 2020, the Invaders from Beyond seasonal update event was released, where for about a month Appalachia fell under attack by an army of Zetan aliens whom the player would have to help fight. We've talked at length about this whole event before on the channel in our Zan investigation video, so I'll be brief, in particular, this update introduced a new rare random encounter where you could find a man in a top hat and black suit who called himself Emissary. The Emissary would make vague but profound references to extraterrestrial activity. implying that he himself was not completely human and that he was in contact with something on Mars or whatever, it was very strange, however, after saying a couple of his jokes, a very bright light would suddenly emerge from the character and envelop our player once the light had faded the character the Emissary would be gone, this entire interaction was an obvious reference to the manin black cultural phenomenon where alleged UFO witnesses regularly report being approached by mysterious men dressed in black suits with dark aviators trying to intimidate them into silence, evidently these guys are not very good at their jobs given their cultural prominence in the extraterrestrial scene and the many movies that have been made about them, but you get the idea that this event at least raises the possibility that the strange powers could be aliens in some way, perhaps our Guardian watching over.

We come from the cosmos, so now that we've taken a look at the many mysterious strangers introduced by Fallout 76 and some of the game's other teleporting entities, let's take a step back and review the evidence we've gathered throughout the games. In the last hour or so, the mysterious stranger first debuted with the original Fallout game in 1997, where if the appropriate character perk was unlocked, he had the potential to appear as a normal ally during any random combative encounter in these old games. isometric. had no set look, no set genre, no set inventory, using completely random weapons, although they usually used a pair of Road Leathers, this continued in Fallout 2, but when Bethesda acquired the franchise in 2008 and published Fallout 3, the character began to take on more of the recognizable appearance that we have come to know, as now the stranger would constantly take the form of a clean-shaven young man dressed in the attire of a late 40s Noir detective, assuming you had the proper buff, there is a small chance that he may join and Help the player in any Vats engagement where he would normally be able to eliminate one or more enemies on Your behalf.

The character would remain exactly the same in Fallout New Vegas, although we would meet a figure called The Lonesome Drifter who seems to have been the son of the mysterious stranger he had in Montana and then seems to have abandoned, a new similar character called Misfortune was also introduced. , a woman in a burlesque outfit who wore a 44 and could appear in Vats to help the player if she had her buff. but its effects were a little different, it caused Misfortune to fall on the player's enemies later in 2015, the mysterious stranger returned once again behaving in the same way, although with a small change in appearance, he was now a little older, his His eye color was blue instead of brown and he had a giant mustache on his lip, implying that this mysterious stranger was a new guy.

We also learned that Nick Valentine had been trying to track down the figure for years and appears to have been active in the Commonwealth. Before the release of the Vault 111 player and finally in 2018, Fallout 76 brought him back for the last time, the appearance of him seems to have returned to that of Fallout 3 and the back of the new Vegas was the clean-shaven mug and the eyes brown. pretty convinced this was the same guy and setting the game only 25 years after the Great War heavily implies that this guy has been active for centuries. 76 also introduced The Mysterious Savior, a similar character who also wears a trench coat and Fedora, although with noticeably different clothing. facial features that can help the player when they need to revive and of course the game also showed us several additional examples of teleportation used by various ancient characters and aliens that you know make you think, whatwe can do?

With all this data, what reveals who the stranger is? Well, I think we have enough to work with to make quite a few guesses, as I've already proposed, it seems increasingly obvious that this character is not a synth as was once popularly believed. by the community, their ability to further procreate their presence hundreds of years before the rise of the Institute makes that theory impossible without the existence of some really weird Institute time travel, which I suppose isn't impossible, but that's almost It would be a bigger problem now. Isn't the most obvious common denominator behind the appearance of all the strangers and that the common denominator that holds all of Fallout's protagonists together is that we all drive pip boys?

No, not all Fallout protagonists are necessarily vault dwellers, the corer of Fallout New Vegas. and the chosen one from Fallout 2, both of whom weren't born in vaults or lived in one before coming to the Pit Boys through other means, but they still got them, so I think that could give us a pretty big clue, something I still have. It is worth mentioning that in Fallouts 4 and 76 all the strangers wear Vault Tech Representative uniforms similar to the one worn by the representative we found in the Pre-War Sanctuary. This may simply have been a strategic development decision on Bethesda's part that they wanted to get. took advantage of most of its asset library that already existed and said, hey, we already have a trench coat and Fedora in the game files, let's use this or maybe it could be indicative of a broader voltech pattern given their consistent appearances and that's through our well.

Boy, it makes this detail a little harder for me to miss and my suspicion is that if Bethesda really has any serious, authentic cosmology behind the character, it probably has something to do with the vault technology. This is where things get a little complicated, but if you watched our I mean it was March or May video in The Fallout Winter of Adom Dungeons and Dragons rulebook. You'll know that at the conclusion of that DND campaign, the heroes discover this abandoned pre-war American army. slvt Tech research base in the glowing sea beneath a forgotten church in this research base the US government at voltech seems to have captured or stumbled upon some kind of strange cunning love and entity they called the black star that dreams below in this same investigation.

As a base, we would find a unique 44 Magnum called Magnum namicon that had a series of engravings and in particular caused an extraordinary amount of damage. Now it's true that this Magnum namicon had a unique enchantment that allowed enemies it defeated to be Resurrected Ed as THS for the person who killed them, which The Strangers doesn't do, but I find the themes quite difficult to ignore, but my gut feeling is that as time goes on, Fallout 76 gets more updates, maybe as new Fallout games come out and we get maybe more of those DND level rules. books we're going to learn more about Vaultex's relationship with the Ancient One, we're going to learn more about what they were doing with these creatures and what they knew about them and that may give the writers a chance to give us something of an explanation for this. character perhaps there once was a vault whose inhabitants the company was conducting experiments involving space and time travel that went horribly wrong and caused their consciousnesses to be inextricably linked to their Pit Boys and the vat system, perhaps themselves.

They inherited their own. Lovecraftian 44 custom made in Fallout New Vegas, the 44 we have has some cool engravings, although admittedly they're not really Elder Rich or Cthulu, like they're more like pretty flowers, which is a little different from what we're looking at accustomed. but yes, that's where I am after evaluating all the evidence. If I'm being completely honest after spending probably about 300 hours researching this and doing research, my best guess is that Bethesda doesn't actually have a huge internal cosmology about the mysterious stranger, any more than I think when they inherited the franchise in 2008 they decided to give this I miss a Noir suit, they really had a great justification behind that idea.

I think they just thought it would be cool. and they followed it and continued to reintroduce the character and his origins and nature are a mystery even to the developers who have, they have no plans to reveal it and honestly some plots are better left alone, there are some mysteries in the media. that we don't really need an answer, you know, if you've ever watched the TV show Lost, you know that not every unanswered question needs an answer, so if I had to guess, I think Bethesda is just winging it with this, but as As time goes on, as they remove the technology from the vault, Lovecraft and the story, they will have some interesting opportunities to give us more clues and maybe play with this a little more, although I think we learned a little more.

Today I know I did, it's a little strange the fact that you know, if they're just doing this as a joke mystery, you have to wonder why they would give the mysterious stranger a child and why he would so explicitly create multiple mysterious strangers, multiple mysterious strangers in the same games, that's a little suspicious, I'm not going to lie, but ladies and gentlemen, it's been a wonderful hour and 12 minutes or so, thank you all so much for stopping by and no. Don't forget to try War Thunder, the most complete vehicular strategy game on the market using my link.

War Thunders is available for PC, Xbox and PlayStation and fits any style of play you're looking for. Don't forget this November 11-12 is Fallout New. Las Vegas Day at the Pioneer Saloon in Good Springs Nevada, yes Good Springs Nevada is actually a real place in real life Nevada and every year they have this great kind of convention, not necessarily, but a giant event celebrating Fallout New Vegas, the game it immortalized. their location a lot of people show up, there's a lot of people dressed up and they have all these Fallout themed foods and music and stuff, it's a good time.

I'll be there if you have those days off from work or you know if you're cool or something. I hope you can find the time to pop in, but again thank you so much for stopping by. I love you all and I hope to see you all in my next video. Peace to all.