Wild Wasteland 2: The Forced Evolutionary Virus

Hey there wastelanders, it’s your neighborhood synthetic sleuth writing for the Boston Bugle yet again. I’m returning with my column titled:

The Wild Wasteland

Today I’ll be writing about something that is in the lives of every wastelander from the shores of the New California Republic, to the Midwest Brotherhood, to the East Coast Commonwealths, the Forced Evolutionary Virus, or FEV. The FEV made all of the Super Mutants, twisted and hulking beings that are shadows of their former selves, along with the horrifying centaur. While also mutating in deathclaws to make intelligent, literate, and speaking deathclaws.

The disease is what is called, by the ZAX Supercomputer(Version 1.2 found in The Glow), “A shifting absorptive megavirus” one that is immune to the effects of radiation, and pre-programmed with genetic information for the specific species that is being infected. The disease can copy and and repeat and insert it’s genetic code almost infinitely, allowing itself to spread and reproduce almost infinitely. When the genetic code that is mutated by the FEV is expressed in the host, it often causes an increase in muscle mass, and endurance, with more rare cases of brain mass increasing causing increased intelligence.

To fully understand the impact of this horrible disease, we have to go back to before the war, to the resource wars that engulfed the world.

In the Fallout Universe the world had been in a series of small but significant wars in which major powers like The US, Russia, and China vied for resources and took countries solely for the resources that they held. In the Sino-American War China and the United States looked for ways of one-upping the other technologically and by using bigger, better and stronger weapons, like power armor, fat man launchers, plasma weaponry, and laser gatlings. While the Chinese government focused their efforts on stealth and invisibility based technologies, the United States focused on a biological weapon that could be used against the Chinese Soldiers, and more importantly, and on a more sinister note, the Chinese people.

West Tek, a major weapons and technology contractor in the United States was contracted again by the US Government to produce a viable weapon for the United States Army. West Tek had already created numerous chemical and biological weapons that were being tested by the company, which included the Pan-Immunity Virion Project; a biological weapon that was unleashed upon the citizens of the US. This was done in the effort to boost the immune systems of the citizens of the US in the event that the Chinese Government used biological weapons on the US mainland. The US knew this would cripple the homefront and the war effort, but the Government ultimately damned their own people, in which the disease was detrimental, increasing physical size, muscle mass, and toughness, while also decreasing the mental capacity of the infected. While seeing these effects, West Tek and the Government saw military advantages and renamed the PVP the FEV in an effort to increase the fighting power of the US Army.

The research effort for the FEV was sent to the Mariposa Military Base, a fairly significant place in the evolution of the Forced Evolutionary Virus. At the Mariposa Military Base the experiments that the scientists had been conducting were beginning to worry and upset the Army Garrison stationed at the base. After the Suicide of Commanding Officer Colonel Robert Spindel, Captain Roger Maxson, founder of the Brotherhood of Steel, revolted and seceded from the United States with his Military Unit, executing the scientists just days before the Great War.

After the events of the Great War Mariposa became abandoned, where nature began to take over. After the formation of the New California Government, reports of mutated animals began flooding in to authorities. An expeditionary team including the fan favorite Harold, in human form, and Doctor Richard Grey, formerly Richard Moreau(changed name after his exile from Vault 8), the soon to be Master. In the facility he found an automated security and operations system that had been running for years following the Great War, which had kept up the facility. Reaching the vat room Richard Grey had found the vats of the FEV, which had been ready for testing by the staff, kept alive by the automated systems, the same systems that would ultimately be the doom of the man. An automated crane knocked him into the vats, where Richard Grey was exposed for just over a month. This intense toll the disease had on his body left him nothing more than a mutated tentacled blob. Although he didn’t let this stop him, he now relied on his new intense psychic powers. He stayed in the base, now fascinated with the virus, stealing erbys, turning them into the basis of his mutant army, the mutants that we know so well today.

The master would progress, along with the experiments that he would undertake. He merged himself with a supercomputer and began to raise an army to create a massive army, one that would bring the unity caused by the FEV. The unity was what he saw as the future of humanity. There was no differences, no need for conflict, because everybody would be a mutant.

That’s gonna wrap up my part of the Boston Bugle, there’s a lot to talk about in regard to the FEV, but I felt that it was necessary to highlight the, oftentimes, unknown history of the FEV. I see a lot of fans and players that have gotten into the series in the later games, such as Fallout 4 and 76, and thought that it was very important for people to know about it. This column outlines the start of the virus, as most people know of the later effects. But if you have any questions about it, feel free to reach out to me!

Your own,

Valentine Detective Agency