Fallout, or at least its fandom, seems to have a (rather) unique level to its relationship with canon. Other fandoms have canon (i.e. the Star Wars movies are canon, other things including official releases and long running shows are not). And then 'extended universe' (i.e. Star Trek had the Federation's main currency as 'credits' until First Contact then Deep Space Nine established that the Federation was a post money society, or that the novels had established that the Preservers were defeated by the Borg). And then fandoms will establish their own 'fanon' (Kim Possible's Kigo concept, for instance or various ideas about Harry Potter until J.K. Rowling updates Pottermore). And then whatever you think is 'head canon' (I have a lot of this about the television show aLiAs, about how the in show world works).

Fallout though seems to have a level referred to colloquially as 'lore friendly'. Apparently, we can all agree that in X place and time post-Great War something may or may not have happened, but if it is in contradiction to a principle or event that is previously well-established then it is not 'lore friendly'. NASA having a mission is not lore friendly, America's space program is USSA in the games. A Vault door cannot be penetrated via physical force from the outside is another example of an agreed upon concept, even if a Pip-Boy can hack one or it can be moved if opened (as in one of Fallout 1 or 2, I forget which). But something completely unseen can be readily agreed upon by fans (say, the statement "There are feral ghouls on the Florida panhandle.") as something that nearly must be true. Or a statement like "There is a raider gang call the Elvises in what's left of Graceland in Memphis, whatever Tennessee is called in game." is accepted as more than 'sure, why not' but 'yeah, that makes sense'...because it's 'lore friendly'.

This story kind of requires this 'lore friendly' attitude. Much of it is balancing out what resources (including operational organizations) are available or acting at any given time. There just are not a thousand unmutated humans living two miles west of Sanctuary - despite this being fanfiction and me making it up the entire time, 'lore friendly' can have me the writer and you the reader preemptively agree that it cannot be acceptable. We 'know' what's there and we 'know' what's not and that's that.

This story requires it because a lot of it is 'playing the board' which requires there to be an established board even if a player doesn't know what that board is. In poker, a player doesn't know what cards the other players have but they know that there are only so four suits and only 52 cards and plays accordingly. Even if...say, the Lone Wanderer doesn't know about Dalton Farm in Far Harbor, we do. So when the Sole Survivor leverages that, we get it. Hence, so many readers having fun anticipating actions - e.g. "This action won't work against this character because this character has X available, unless Y took out X."

Now I raise all this for two reasons. The first being that the Creation Club is generating mods that work the lore in Fallout 4. The second is that Fallout 76 is currently being built in public for lack of a better term.

It seems we've generally accepted DownLoadableContent as lore. I know this story has, with the notable exception of Mothership Zeta. But Mothership Zeta is a weird piece since Fallout 4 doesn't seem to accept it: the Lone Wanderer is a Brotherhood of Steel knight/paladin by the end of Fallout 3 and its DLC and at the end of Mothership Zeta the Lone Wanderer has access to an entire alien vessel and companions from across time, yet the Brotherhood of Steel comes to the Commonwealth with none of that technology or knowledge or even awareness of the events. So with that exception, if someone says "in Fallout New Vegas, there's this graduate of CIT" - we all get it. That's a piece that should be 'in play' that hasn't been addressed yet. But are Creation Club contents lore? I did include the Tunnel Snake's exodus to the Commonwealth and that was Creation Club. Will I include others? I certainly reserve the right to. But is a 'lore friendly' story, particularly in the way this is bound by released by the original creators content? Whether they're actual quests expanding on previously introduced concepts or just skins from other videogame series (like the weapon from Quake, or Doom Guy Armor)?

Now Fallout 76 hasn't featured in this story. But corporations are quite obviously at least nationwide, especially when they were working on government war projects in multiple games. It's like saying Roxxon doesn't exist in a Thor movie despite the Marvel Cinematic Universe having them in Iron Man, Daredevil, Agent Carter, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., Cloak and Daggar, etc. If something relevant is revealed about Posiedon Energy in Fallout 76, I'm hard pressed to ignore it. Particularly if it gives an active character a distinct advantage.

So I am left with certain questions. Some have answers which I will layout now without preamble. I am going to pick and choose which Creation Club entries are able to be a part of the story. By way of for example, GNR Plaza 10 Years Later has Three Dog missing and that is obviously not part of this story. While even fallout. fandom .com separates out the Tunnel Snakes moving to the Commonwealth from 'real canon', but that's obviously been included in this story by Strong's death. In fact, I will go so far as to say that if Bethesda (or Interplay) has published it then it's fair game. I won't be bringing in mods that 'aren't' published by Bethesda no matter their superior quality or more widespread usage. However, this comes with a caveat - I am not aware of all things Fallout. So if I am unaware of something (like most of everything in Fallout 2) then I am obviously not going to use it. By way of for example, I was unaware of the double barreled tanks in Fallout 4 until they were mentioned in a review to this story, so they didn't get integrated until later in the story.

The open question that is probably best for the collective you to decide is thus: should I be listing which and which not I am aware of and allowing as fair game? It seems unfair to me to have you guessing at what is a 'valid move' by a character if you didn't know that I was not using Fallout 1 before and now recently watched a playthrough of Fallout 1. But it seems beuracratic and taking some of the surprise out of the read. I've done it once before and with the Legend of Zelda before any 'timeline' was released, but the Legend of Zelda has its own unique continuity ignoring going on. So please PM / review me your thoughts on this as it will influence what I do. I mean for listing. I'm already reviewing Creation Club things, Fallout 76 things, other Fallouts and very occasionally writing more of this story (very occasionally ;0 ).