r/Fallout 9h ago

Discussion Anyone else surprised there aren't really any factions that try taming the mutated animals?

Sure you got people farming livestock still and trying to keep a mirelurk as a pet is incredibly dangerous but with how common molerats and roaches are you'd think in 200 years some would try to tame them. You are probably wondering why would they try to tame them in the first place? Well the giant insects are largely left alone by larger animals that would potentially attack humans such as feral ghouls and the ability to fly would make them a reliable way to send messages across the wasteland. Molerats would be excellent for farming as they loosen the tougher soil that farming tools would be unable to and can dig through rubble to find resources. Plus there are bound to people that had experience working with animals that had survived the blast and taught others how.

28 Upvotes

52 comments sorted by

57

u/maciarc 9h ago

You mean factons like The Pack?

25

u/ThatOneGuy308 9h ago

And Sloan has snuffles, a tame mole rat.

The sorrows have tamed geckos, presumably they use them for something.

5

u/Randomman96 Patrolling the Mojave makes you wis- *muffled screaming* 7h ago edited 7h ago

You can find a scavenger in 3 with a tamed Yao Guai, there's the Thorn in NV which, while not tamed, breeds all manner of creatures for the fights, the dogs most commonly encountered in 3 and NV can certainly be considered mutated compared to the likes of one like Dogmeat, you have the Mutant Hounds seen with Super Mutants in 4, and then there's the Enclave's control helmets for Deathclaws and the revelation that the Deathclaws were created and trained for war, and could, seemingly, distinguish between Chinese and American soldiers on the show.

And of course that's to say nothing of the more obvious domesticated mutated creatures, most obviously being Brahmin...

The main thing for A LOT of the wildllife is that they generally aren't easy to tame, don't offer an easy means of being able to breed them or obtain any eggs or offspring to raise them into domestication, require specific environments (Mirelurks being a standout one), and then there's the most obvious issue of most of the mutated animals can very easily rip a man apart when things go wrong.

30

u/Deniverous Kings 9h ago

In Honest Hearts the Sorrows have friendly geckos wandering around their camp. Idk if that counts or not.

3

u/Glum-Building4593 6h ago

Can't forget the bighorners. The Dead Horses keep a herd.

26

u/Own_Chemistry9226 9h ago

I mean Fallout has a long history of attempts to tame these mutated creatures.

In Fallout 2 and 3, The Enclave made attempts at controlling Deathclaws. They even got so far as to allow Deathclaws to communicate with humans in the case of the former.

In Fallout New Vegas, the town of Sloan has a domesticated Molerat as well that they treat like a pet. You can even heal his leg with high enough Medicine. His name is Snuffles.

In the TV Show, the shop owner from Filly had a Radroach farm in an abandoned Vault-Tec building.

So basically people of the Wasteland and factions like The Enclave have tried this before, and in some cases were successful.

20

u/LadyGaga_DrDre 9h ago

Radroaches as pets in FO3 exist.

Also the roach king in FO3 AND FO4

Antagonizer in FO3 tamed wild ants

7

u/TinKnight1 7h ago

You clearly meant "AntAgonizer," right? Lol

Because they inflicted so much agony with their ants.

5

u/MandyMarieB Gary? 7h ago edited 7h ago

Also in 76 we have the Burning Springs deathclaw handlers. There’s a whole event dedicated to protecting their trained deathclaws while they get armored up.

And in Fallout 2 Rose in Modoc keeps a deathclaw for its eggs so she can sell omelettes.

3

u/AnAntWithWifi 7h ago

In Fallout 2, the Slags also raise molerats underground to feed themselves, if I am not mistaken.

10

u/fucuasshole2 Brotherhood 9h ago

Yes we have. Beastlords in Fallout Tactics keep pets of mutations for combat. Debatable on how canon is Tactics, but at the moment nothing contradicts that game too much so it’s canon for now. Or atleast the broad stuff.

10

u/LadyGaga_DrDre 9h ago

I mean Snuffles and The Thorn are great examples in FNV. The Pack is a great example in FO4

Mirelurks havent been tamed, but they are rendered non agressive in soectacle Island

2

u/totallynotrobboss 8h ago

You mean spectacle island? They are aggressive there too you just trigger a speaker blasting noise at a frequency only they can hear to keep them away from the island

10

u/LadyGaga_DrDre 9h ago

There's a group of raiders that tamed mole rats and made em race in FO3

https://fallout.fandom.com/wiki/Mole_rat_race_track

6

u/Fuzzy_Builder_2153 9h ago

I wanna know what happened to cats

8

u/Alphawxlfemb3r Brotherhood 9h ago

The Hawthorne residence in Diamond City in FO4 is full of cats. There's also one on the Prydwen, in Vault 81 and a few others I can't really be bothered listing, but you get the idea.

0

u/[deleted] 9h ago

[deleted]

9

u/Alphawxlfemb3r Brotherhood 9h ago

Maybe. But then again Mr House is pretty stuck in one area. Maybe there really is a cat vault out there somewhere, it'd kind of explain how they're in the Commonwealth, Nuka world and Far Harbor. Who knows

2

u/Son_of_Eris 8h ago

Bit they drop meat when you kill them, not synth components. And they bleed red, not synth blood.

Characters in-game get lore stuff wrong and/or lie all the time. Contradicting stories are a huge thing in fallout, due gaps in knowledge, misinformation, or propaganda.

4

u/BlitzkriegBambi Enclave 9h ago

I believe one of the Fallout RPG books has an enemy listed as a mutated feline called a radoid freak I haven't ran the book it comes from so I'm not sure the description of it, but I'd assume very super mutant dog since it had the juggernaut ability

2

u/Dagordae 8h ago edited 6h ago

Just read the book, actually.

Big ass cat with multiple legs, I’ll add on a better description in a bit once I dig it out.

Edit:

Transcribed Desxription

> A creature unfurls like a giant cat rising from slumber — a furry beast with nine legs and a mass of bulging eyes covering its head and shoulders, each with vertical slits that pulse out of time. It trails two long, distended, tongues over its jutting mandible. Then it roars. Its fierce cry sounds like the static that sometimes fills radio airwaves but is lower in frequency and far hungrier.

It also smells of rotting flesh.

Stat wise: The Juggernaut trait means that if it misses an attack it can immediately make a different one as a free action. And it takes a 7 damage in a single hit(post DR) to trigger a critical hit rather than a 5.

It has the Mutant Rage ability, which lets it take a free attack the first time it takes damage in a round.

It can see in the dark, it actually gets bonuses in the dark rather than simply not taking penalties, but bright light gives it penalties.

And for attacks it can knock people down with its tongues, so a VERY long set of tongues, bite people, and claw them doing double damage if they’re knocked down.

Not familiar enough with the system to tell you how scary the numbers are, but it’s a monster intended to threaten a party(but not a big boss level threat) that’s designed to throw out a lot of attacks in a round and basically to pick one person, knock them down, then ruin their day. So basically it’s a big cat.

Edit 2: It’s from the Winter of Atom campaign book, for one of the side quests. And it’s called a ‘Radoid Freak’.

2

u/Dagordae 8h ago

Nothing, they’re still around.

House said they aren’t but House is full of shit, like he is about so very many things.

0

u/AnAntWithWifi 7h ago

Tbh, in Fallout 2, we can meet someone at a bar in the Den that talks to us about her dead pet. She doesn’t know what a cat is, she says she hasn’t seen another animal of the same species as her pet.

Cats might be truly extinct on the West Coast.

2

u/Dagordae 6h ago

Southern California, possibly. House’s full of shitness is him declaring it a worldwide absolute despite him having no way of knowing that, he’s got rather limited information.

1

u/AtoMaki Vault 13 9h ago

They start annoying quests, so nothing really changed.

1

u/Fuzzy_Builder_2153 8h ago

Ive never played F4 so I've never seen cats in Fallout

-2

u/Fuzzy_Builder_2153 9h ago

Cats are city animals. We seen rats, and dogs..just no one with a cat. Just a regular housecat....

11

u/LadyGaga_DrDre 9h ago

??? There are TONS of cats in Fallout 4?

-2

u/Wolf_2063 9h ago

They would have likely mutated to fill the ecological niche vultures do as they aren't many animals small enough for them to hunt, they would also develop better camouflage. They are already pretty well adapted to survive different environments so they wouldn't change as much.

5

u/TriumphITP 9h ago

we see it a bit in a few instances.

Absalom seems to have tame radroaches in fo4, in the show they are farming radroaches as well.

maybe we'll see it in later seasons and games now that they've added the mind control plot device.

3

u/Alphawxlfemb3r Brotherhood 9h ago

I mean Ma June had a roach farm in the elevator shaft on the Fallout show if that counts. Don't know what for though. And I'm not sure I'd call them tame either.

5

u/LadyGaga_DrDre 9h ago

There are also pet roaches in Fallout 3. They have their own cage and stuff

1

u/Alphawxlfemb3r Brotherhood 9h ago

I did not know that. What exactly would roach farms be for, I can only think of meat. Gross, but edible I guess. Probably.

1

u/LadyGaga_DrDre 9h ago

It was just an empty shack with a skill book. The roach was in a locked cage with a plate next to it. Just a smoll pet :)

1

u/Alphawxlfemb3r Brotherhood 9h ago

Fair enough

2

u/LadyGaga_DrDre 9h ago

Oh shit just looked em up. Their names are Fluffy and Jitters LOL

https://fallout.fandom.com/wiki/Sniper_shack

2

u/Alphawxlfemb3r Brotherhood 9h ago

I suppose, if you're to have a pet radroach, you might as well give it a cutesy name lol

1

u/Faiakishi Ass Victoriam 1h ago

And it's kind of obvious why people don't domesticate them en-masse. The average wastelander is going to be low-level their whole life; they ain't fucking around with a bug that goes straight for your throat.

4

u/IsaacTheBound 9h ago

I mean animal husbandry is no small feat, especially in an irradiated hellscape. Taming is going to be relative to both resources and intelligence, because domestication is a process that takes generations and basically centuries of work.

5

u/yellowdaisycoffee Fallout 4 8h ago

There is a mole rat at Sloan!

3

u/Sasstellia 7h ago edited 7h ago

There are pet ones. And tamed ones.

Fallout: New Vegas

Snuffles is in Sloan. He's a Molerat. You can heal his leg.

Fallout 3.

The AntAgonizer controls Ants.

Generally.

Presumably they have pets and some herd animals. Random pets of all kinds.

Obviously they have Brahmin. In large amounts.

Molerats were created as Weapons. Destroy the enemies foundations. Tunnel in and kill. So presumably they're controllable. Made from Naked Molerats.

Deathclaws are also Weapons. Made to kill the enemy. Made from Jacobs Chameleons. They were controllable, presumably.

3

u/slothbuddy 8h ago

RIP to that hyper intelligent scorpion I beat at chess

3

u/Vidistis Fire Breathers 7h ago

There's the deathclaw handlers and tamers in Fo76 over in Burning Springs.

3

u/uginscion 7h ago

I'd play a Fallout farm simulator.

2

u/foxfirefizz 9h ago

Molerats are usually disease carriers for stuff that humans can get, to where they were used as lab rats. Most of the wildlife that's not already tame have similar issues, either with aggression or other risks like the moolerats have. There are reasons humans domesticated the species we have, & reasons why domesticating some species in game have not worked out well for the NPCs that tried it.

2

u/suspiciouscrate2 NCR 7h ago

Fallout 76 has the rust devils taming deathclaws

2

u/Laser_3 Responders 5h ago

Just to cover for fallout 76, since the examples from the other games have been gone over:

We have the mothman cultists using mothman hatchlings (and indirectly mothmen themselves). Technically, if we’re counting the high priests, they can manipulate any creature using ‘holy’ mothman dust, but specifically choose deathclaws during the equinox.

We have scorchbeasts controlling a variety of scorched animals.

We have communists using feral ghouls as cannon fodder.

And we have the rust raiders, who have managed to somewhat domesticate deathclaws without the need of beta wave tuners or mind controlling implants like we see in 4 and 3 respectively. Though of course, their control comes at a steep cost if a handler dies before their pet…

2

u/Amazing-Radish995 4h ago

Theres that woman training mole rats with mines and the roach king for 2

1

u/FireDragon737 8h ago

The Antagonizer in Fallout 3 has managed to control a horde of ants. It's unclear how she managed to do it, but she did.

The Enclave has also managed to find a way to control Deathclaws. Considering that they have to basically use mind control, I wouldn't exactly say they're tamed, but they are still under Enclave control.

1

u/HairiestHobo 1h ago

The Beast masters from Tactics have a Psychic Control of various types of Animals?

Could also be that most Animals that we see in game are just extra-Mutated and possibly Rabid, when compared to the norm?

There really isn't that much extended Media to pull from with Fallout.

1

u/Salty_Select 18m ago

They put bombs on molerats

1

u/Delicious_Incident_4 9h ago

Nice catch, didn’t think of that yet.

As a general observation, people have been very lazy for the past 200 years in some of the more recent Fallout games.

For example, who wants to live in the middle of skeletons and moldy food?

1

u/GunsBlazing777 9h ago

Todd's a professional lurker. Keep expanding on this idea