Children!
Children listen up.
We have a guest today who is going to tell us stories about the Commonwealth.
-Really? -Yay!
-Really!?! -Wow!
Power armor!
Wow.
Your teacher tells me you’re interested in learning about the world outside your vault.
I wasn’t expecting to teach a class today.
I was originally stopping by Vault 81 for a totally different reason…
Thanks Pete.
See you again in 6 weeks.
Uhhh sure thing buddy, come back anytime! ... that guy never took off his helmet…
I’m afraid I didn’t prepare a lesson plan or anything.
My kids would love to hear about anything you've done out in the Commonwealth.
I suppose I could tell you kids a thing or two about this Wild Wasteland.
You all have lived your entire lives down here in the safety of your Vault.
But the outside world is a diverse place.
Super mutants, ghouls, talking brains in jars.
Yup, I’ve seen it all.
Meow!
Oh?
And who’s this?
His name is Ashes.
He’s Erin’s cat.
Well, hello there Ashes.
Meow!
Before the Great War of 2077, cats could be found everywhere.
When humans were in need of companionship the domesticated cat offered it in spades.
I have a companion of my own ya know.
Her name’s ED-NA.
ED-NA, come say hello to the kids.
*welcoming beep* Cool!
An eyebot!
ED-NA here is my little helper.
She’s good in a fight too, and helps me catalogue everything I discover out in the
Wasteland.
ED-NA begin recording.
*beep beep*
If you look around our Wasteland today, it might be easy to assume that dogs were the
most popular pets in Pre-War America, but that couldn’t be farther from the truth.
The domesticated feline outnumbered their canine counterparts.
Abraham Lincoln kept cats at the White House, and evidence suggests that cats were domesticated
2,000 years before Egypt’s pharaohs.
You can actually tell a lot about a civilization by the pets they keep.
When human populations are nomadic, dogs are of better use.
The Wasteland Wanderer is more likely to have a dog as an animal friend than a cat, since
one is clearly better at holding predators at bay.
This is possibly the reason why dogs were domesticated long before cats ever were.
However, once human populations began to settle down, sow seeds, and store crops, mice became
the new threat.
You Vault Dwellers could be considered today’s modern settlers, tilling the earth and storing
crops as an agricultural tribe.
Cats are therefore a more sensible pet for you to keep.
They are highly effective as a means of pest control, because their light frames and agile
bodies make them excellent small-game hunters, and tiny rodents know it’s in their best
interest to stay the hell away.
Had nature been allowed to run its course, cats would still be feared by rats even today,
but man-made nuclear fallout and radiation had a different plan in mind.
For the past 200 years rodents have been mutating at an astonishing rate.
Where before they were mere pests, now they pose a serious threat to travelers.
Small rodents still exist, but many are bigger than cats now, and the larger ones are as
big as dogs... sometimes larger.
Ew!
That sounds scary…
Upstairs you have a four-foot thick vault door shielding you from the outside world,
so I wouldn’t really worry about it.
And mutated rats aren’t all bad.
Some Wastelanders have been able to tame them.
Out west they even hold molerat competitions.
People raise them for food or keep them as pets.
I distinctly recall a mining settlement that kept one as a pet.
Snuffles, I think they named her.
I’ve heard rumors that Vault-Tec kept molerats too.
Knowing them, they were probably running some kind of mad experiment on the poor critters…
…probably just a rumor though.
Cats were experimented on too.
Scientists at Mariposa threw them into vats of Forced Evolutionary Virus, along with humans,
dogs, and other mammals.
These cruel experiments led to the creation of centaurs, horrifying mutants that can be
found staggering around other parts of the Wasteland.
Did you ever fight a deathclaw?
Sure have.
One time I killed a Deathclaw with a single blast from my trusty laser rifle.
Wow!
If you think that’s impressive, you should have met this Ranger I once traveled with.
Could shoot a bloatfly from a thousand yards with that old Sequoia.
But that didn’t help us when we got trapped in Vault 108 with a bunch of murderous clones.
One of my friends got shot in the back, and- Nothing with excessive violence.
Right.
Sorry…
Someday I’m going to check out the Commonwealth.
If you do, be sure to bring one of these suits of power armor with you.
It’s mighty dangerous on the other side of that metal door.
That being said, the Wasteland is a big place, and it’s a damn shame that most people don’t
get to see it all.
I like to think of the world as one big book filled with stories, and those who don’t
travel are only reading one page.
But you kids are young, and you can be explorers right here in Vault 81.
Learn about everything you can, and when you can’t learn anymore, move on and look someplace
else.
Every day can be a journey and you the adventurer.
But that- is a story for another day…