Ever since Interplay Productions released the original Fallout back in 1997, players have all had the same question; who launched the first bomb and kicked off the Great War?
Bethesda has remained intentionally tight-lipped and vague about things since they took over the franchise too, with multiple sources in Fallout 3 and Fallout 4 pointing the finger at different groups.
Some say it was the Enclave. Others say it was aliens. Most say it was China, but these sources are meant to be intentionally biased considering they come from the American government.
However, one thing has thrown a bit of a spanner in the works; Amazon’s Fallout TV show.
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In case you didn’t know, the show is canon to the events of the games - and fans over on the r/falloutlore subreddit think that one particular scene may imply that Vault-Tec is the one responsible.
“It's about as hard confirmed as we can ever expect it to be that Vault-Tec knew the bombs were dropping at least a few hours before they did. Fallout 4 hints at it with the Vault-Tec rep, then outright states it in Vaults 111 and 81,” commented user StupidGenius11.
“They may not have dropped the bombs, but they knew they were coming the morning of October 23 2077. How much advance notice they had beyond quote "a few hours" is still up for debate.”
“Given that these nukes with the Vault Tec look like nukes dropped from a plane I'm guessing Vault Tec dropped enough of these bombs throughout the USA to make it look like a foreign attack,” replied user Independent-Tree-283.
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“In short Vault Tec bombs America, America suspects China for obvious reasons and launches ICBM's at China, China launches ICBM's at America in response.”
While the Fallout series certainly implies that Vault-Tec were at least planning something sinister, the writers behind the Fallout games have always tried to keep things vague for a reason.
To me, the point of Fallout’s story isn’t that one side should be blamed, but rather that no side is blameless. The higher pre-war powers played a dangerous game of chicken with one another, but the ones who truly paid the price were the regular folks in every country.
Personally, I hope the show never does offer us a definitive answer for that reason.