Prologue: The End
On October 23, 2077, Cooper Howard, a famous actor frequently typecast to play cowboys, performs stunts on horseback at young Roy Spencer's birthday party in Hollywood Hills while his young daughter Janey assists. The boy's father, Bob Spencer, suggests to his friend Frank that Cooper is working a job beneath his pay grade to pay alimony to his ex-wife. Mr. Spencer asks Cooper to perform his iconic thumbs up for a picture, but he declines. The party moves indoors, with Mrs. Spencer switching a weather newscaster's on-air meltdown about the wartime tensions to an episode of Grognak the Barbarian, not wanting to hear the doom and gloom, while Cooper and Janey clean up outside. Janey questions her father about refusing. He avoids the question and explains that one could measure a mushroom cloud's danger by whether it was larger than their thumbs up; if the cloud was larger, they were already doomed. Cooper attempts to soothe his daughter's fears and tells her, "We take it as it comes." He gets her a slice of birthday cake at her request.

Cooper and Janey trying to escape
Cooper and Janey trying to escape

A nuclear bomb is then dropped on Los Angeles, but the partygoers initially mistake the flash as coming from a camera. Janey sees the mushroom cloud forming and grows fearful as she sticks her thumb out. Cooper is the next to notice, initially telling Janey that it is merely a fire before he sees the cloud continue to grow larger and the blast wave racing toward them. The bomb's shockwave arrives and shatters all the windows of the Spencer home. The Spencer family takes refuge in their private bomb shelter while Bob assaults Frank to prevent him and his daughter from entering. Meanwhile, Cooper and Janey escape on horseback as several more bombs are dropped on the city.

Part 1: Lucy
Lucy during her application
Lucy during her application

219 years later, Vault 33 is successfully functioning under the leadership of Overseer Hank MacLean. His daughter Lucy, a self-described "active contributor to the well-being of [her] community," delivers her application for an approved marriage with a "breeder" from the adjoining Vault 32 to the governing council of Vault 33. The Council is comprised of Woody Thomas, Betty Pearson, and Reg McPhee. Her application is approved, and her pregnant friend Stephanie Harper helps her prepare for her wedding. Hank tells Lucy about leaving his native Vault 31 to marry her now-deceased mother. The gatekeeper, Lucy's cousin Chet, stalls the process as he is in love with Lucy. She reminds him of the negative long-term ramifications of inbreeding, and he reluctantly opens the adjoining Vault door. Lee Moldaver steps forward to introduce herself as the new overseer of Vault 32, also introducing Lucy's husband-to-be, Monty. Seeing Monty, Steph calls Lucy "lucky," causing her husband Bert to give her an appalled expression from behind.

Lucy and Monty's wedding
Lucy and Monty's wedding

Lucy and Monty marry. At the reception, Hank gives a toast and reports that the Vault dwellers will be able to reclaim the surface within the next generation. At the conclusion of the reception, Lucy takes Monty to their suite, and they consummate their marriage. Monty shows signs that he lacks the social refinement and education like the dwellers of Vault 33. Meanwhile, Lucy's brother Norm enters Vault 32 and is alarmed to discover dead crops and a Vault dweller's heavily decayed corpse, causing him to flee back to Vault 33.

Lucy hears yelling outside her suite and puts on her Pip-Boy to discover that her new "husband" contains abnormally high radiation levels, confirming suspicions that he and the other Vault 32 residents are actually raiders from the surface. Monty attacks and overwhelms Lucy, telling her he truly enjoyed their time together as he prepares to end her life. He stabs her in the stomach with a concealed knife and begins to strangle her before she cuts his throat with a broken pitcher. Lucy tends to her injury with a stimpak and arms herself with a tranquilizer gun. A bloody battle has broken out between the raiders and Vault dwellers, claiming many lives on both sides. Woody manages to flee from the chaos, while others are not so lucky. Bert is killed by the raiders, causing Steph to lash out in grief and rage; she is stabbed in the right eye with a fork, but manages to grab a raider's submachine gun and shoot back. Meanwhile, a burly raider returns to Chet at the gate while carrying a Vault 33 guard; he attacks Chet, but the guard grabs his leg and trips him, saving Chet and causing the raider to be bisected by a closing door.

FOTV Lucy hides Norm in the Norm Hole
Lucy saves Norm from the chaos in the crop field and helps him hide in a storage unit. A still-living Monty tries to strangle Lucy again, but is prevented by Hank, who kills Monty by holding his head in a barrel of pickles in vinegar. They then hear an alarm warning them about the inter-vault door remaining open, causing them to run toward Vault 32. At the door between the two Vaults, Moldaver has taken multiple Vault 33 residents hostage, including Chet and Steph, and planted a bomb in the door. She orders Hank to choose between saving them or Lucy. Hank locks Lucy in a janitorial closet and affirms his love for her. A raider tranquilizes Hank, and Moldaver speaks to Lucy through the door, saying she resembles her mother. The raiders drag Hank towards "the real world" and set the other hostages free. They run to safety as the bomb detonates.

Later, the Vault 33 survivors nurse their wounds, compost their dead, and repair damage to the Vault. Over an emergency meeting in the atrium, Lucy proposes sending a search party to the surface to look for Hank. The council rejects the idea and is unwilling to risk opening the vault door. Norm tells Lucy that the council likely don't want Hank to be found because it would mean they'd have to give up the new authority they've now received with him being absent. Lucy resolves to leave alone and recruits Norm and Chet to help her escape undetected. They take an elevator up to the main Vault door, and Chet tries to persuade Lucy to let him leave with her. She sticks him with a tranquilizer to prevent him from following her. Norms admits he is "too chicken" to leave the Vault and shares a goodbye with his sister.

The door opens as Reg and Davey arrive. They beg Lucy not to leave, but she steps into the outside world, and the door closes behind her. Outside, she observes the desert landscape and the skeletal remains of people who died trying to enter the Vault. Around the bend, she sees the ocean and the destroyed Santa Monica Pier in the distance, and she dutifully presses forward.


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Part 2: Maximus
Maximus being beaten up by bullies
Maximus being beaten up by bullies

In a military base on the surface, Maximus, an "aspirant" of the Brotherhood of Steel, is beaten up by his fellow aspirants as part of a routine hazing. Afterward, his friend Dane reminds him that "flesh is weak, but still endures." In a class, Cleric Felix outlines the Brotherhood's mission to salvage and hoard pre-war technology. A massive airship, the Prydwen, arrives, and the class watches knights wearing T-60 power armor stroll into the base.

While Maximus is carrying out his assignment of disposing of sewage, Dane beckons him away. They find the shed where the T-60 armor sets are stored and admire them together. Maximus recalls being rescued by a Brotherhood knight as a child after his hometown's destruction. Presently, Dane is summoned away by the Brotherhood officers. That evening, a group of aspirants are promoted, including Dane, who is assigned to serve as Knight Titus' squire. Maximus privately vents his jealousy. The next morning, Dane suffers a gruesome foot injury after someone places an exposed razor in their boot. Maximus is blamed for the incident and dragged before his commanding officers to be interrogated.

Maximus being interrogated about Dane
Maximus being interrogated about Dane

Elder Cleric Quintus questions Maximus. He sheepishly defends himself but admits to being jealous of Dane's promotion. He affirms his desire to overcome his weakness and commitment to the Brotherhood. Quintus informs Maximus that he will replace Dane as Titus' new squire, who sheds tears of joy at the news. He later visits Dane in the infirmary, and they assert their faith in his innocence. Maximus is anointed as a squire in an initiation ceremony, and has the initial "T" branded on the back of his neck.

Quintus announces the Brotherhood's newest mission to capture Siggi Wilzig, a rogue Enclave "denizen" who carries a valuable artifact in his possession.[1] Maximus and Titus fly away on a vertibird to search for the target, assigned to the area around Filly.

Part 3: The Ghoul
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Biggie, Slim, and Honcho

Somewhere outside California, a trio of bounty hunters sneak into a fortress owned by Dom Pedro and take out one of the guards. Their leader, Honcho, explains that they are searching for a notorious bounty hunter whom Dom Pedro has held captive for several years. He keeps the hunter buried alive but once a year digs him up, cuts off a few pieces, and buries him again.[2] They find a grave with a pair of IV bags attached and tubes emerging from the dirt. The other two hunters, Biggie and Slim, are shocked to realize the hunter they are looking for is a ghoul. Honcho says that his father once worked with the Ghoul,[3] and Biggie expresses concern that he may be feral. Honcho brings out a chicken and explains that a feral ghoul will instinctively attack it, which will be their cue to kill him.

The Ghoul and the chicken
The Ghoul and the chicken

The hunters dig up the coffin and place the chicken in front of it before opening it up. The Ghoul emerges, revealed as an aged and mutated Cooper Howard. He playfully picks up the chicken, terrifying Biggie and Slim. Honcho proposes they work together to secure a large bounty, the same target the Brotherhood is after, and retire on the profits. He details that the target is seeking out Moldaver in California, specifying that he knows the Ghoul is originally from there. The Ghoul takes offense to the mention of his past and claims that, unlike them, he pursues bounties "for the love of the game." He promptly lassos Honcho to the ground, and disarms Slim as he tries to pull a rifle on him. Biggie tries to shoot a flurry of steak knives at him with his Junk Jet, but the Ghoul maneuvers Slim to use him as a human shield, and then blows Biggie's head off with Slim's rifle. He then turns his attention to Honcho, kicks him into his own grave, and leaves him to die, asserting that his kind (cowpokes) "take it as it comes." The Ghoul spares the chicken and leaves to pursue the bounty alone.

The End

Fallout

Wilzig's Briefing Came From Moldaver's Network, and Moldaver's Network Got It From Lucy's Mother

Moldaver Knew What Barb Was Hiding First

Moldaver Sent Cooper to Kill House

Welch Was The Enclave's Inside Conduit

Moldaver's False Overseer Identity

Hank Specifically Extracted

Bomb Forces Hank Into the Open

Moldaver Knows Lucy's Mother

Unprompted Personal Comment Under Pressure

Moldaver Came for Hank All Along

Theories here try to trace Moldaver's influence across decades and factions, asking whether her endgame was always about the cold fusion tech or something bigger. Pre-war connections make this timeline a puzzle fans love to piece together.

Hank's smile hides something, and this thread is dedicated to figuring out what. Fans debate whether he's a true believer, a Vault-Tec operative with specific orders, or something far more personal driving his decisions.

Moldaver Came for Hank All Along

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