In theFalloutuniverse,super mutantsrange from bloodthirsty killers to paragons of virtue. Players who wander the American wastelands are sure to encounter both on many occasions. For the most part, this greatly depends on the region they find themselves in.
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There are mutant populations stretching from thedeserts of Californiato the Boston coast. Each group of mutants has its own story, civilization, personality, etc, from Marcus' Jacobstown in Nevada where pacifism is king to Washington D.C where every mutant carries an insatiable appetite for violence.
10Intelligence
The California mutants are the smartest, exemplified by individuals such as the Lieutenant. Humans with little to no radiation damage were specifically sought out in creating these mutants by The Master. Among other things, radiation damage causes the mutant to have a lower intelligence after the mutation process is complete.
This discovery seems to be absent on the East Coast, which explains the relative stupidity of the mutants in this region, though some smarter ones exist such as Virgil or Fawx. Dumb mutants certainly exist in the West, such as Harry, but they were not as numerous. Virgil seems to be the smartest East coast mutant.
9Organization
On the East Coast, super mutants are far less centralized than their Western cousins. These mutants were a unified military organization until their downfall in 2162. By the time ofFallout 2, these mutants have formed communities such as Broken Hills and try to live out normal lives.
Some roaming bands exist like on the East Coast but not to the same extent. Mutants in the Eastern U.S are mostlypockets of hostile savageswith very little identity. There seems to be no formal command structure that every mutant is subject to.
8Appearance
Perhaps the most easily noticeable difference to fans of the series, the super mutant’s skin color varies depending on the region. The California mutants have a dark green skin color while the Washington D.C mutants are bright yellow in comparison. The Commonwealth mutants are green like the California ones, although they have a bit of a lighter shade.
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Strangely, the Appalachia mutants inFallout 76are also green despite their proximity to Vault 87, which is home to the Yellow skinned mutants. The different FEV-II virus strains in each region can explain this discrepancy.
7Leaders
While the D.C and Commonwealth mutants don’t have a true leader that unites them, the California mutants do. The latter are infamous as remnants of The Master’s Army or The Unity as it is also known. This was a quasi-religious and militaristic organization that followed a particularly powerful mutant named, The Master.
The East Coast mutants, on the other hand, have local leadership in the form of super mutant masters and overlords but no higher authority. Many of the West coast survivors have formed communities and found leadership in people like Marcus or Tabitha.
6Origins
The reason super mutants became so ubiquitous in America after the war differs depending on the region. In the West, The Master created them by experimenting with the FEV-II virus at Mariposa Military Base in order to bring about his “master race” and eventually replace humanity. In the East, it gets a bit muddier.
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The Capital Wasteland mutants all hail from Vault 87 where the primary experiment was to test the effects of the FEV virus on humans byVault Tec. In the Commonwealth, mutants are a result of experimentation by the Institute on abducted humans, further proving that they aren’t good guys at all.
5Behemoths
All three of the major mutant groups on the East coast region – The Capital Wasteland, Commonwealth, and Appalachia – are known to have what is called a super mutant behemoth. These are creatures who have grown to be far larger than the run-of-the-mill mutant.
Supposedly, this has to do with age; therefore, the older the mutant, the larger they are. This phenomenon is exclusive to the East coast and has not been seen in the West. Due to the many unique strains of the FEV-II virus that various factions have experimented with over the years, this is easily explained.
4Nightkin+Stealth-boy addiction
The Master’s army on the West coast had a group of elite soldiers called nightkin. These super mutants were among the smartest and toughest in The Unity, but also the least stable over time. The nightkin are infamous for their use of the stealth-boy module. This was a piece of prewar tech that made the user temporarily invisible.
Super mutants, in particular, suffer severe psychological damage with prolonged use. Nightkin soldiers develop schizophrenia-like symptoms and even become distressed when seen by others. Not only are nightkin not present in other regions, neither is the existence of any stealth-boy addiction.
3Cure for Mutation
ZAX theorizes inFallout 1that there could be a potential cure for mutation, however, no such thing was ever manufactured in the West. The Institute, conversely, successfully developed a cure through their experimentation with the FEV-II virus.
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The player is able to witness this cure in action upon giving it to Virgil inthe Glowing Seaeven. It is not known if this cure works on the Vault 87 mutants roaming the D.C. ruins, but it seems to be viable for the Boston mutants.
2Psychic Powers
This is a phenomenon entirely unique to the California mutants. A select few individuals, dubbed “psykers,” are givenpsychic abilitiesthrough experimentation with the FEV-II virus. Players can encounter quite a few of them in the California wasteland. Some examples are The Master and the four humans he had experimented on in the lower levels of the cathedral named Wiggum, Moore, Lucy, and Gideon.
Each of them possesses a Psychic Nullifier that the player can actually obtain in order to block out The Master’s psychic attacks. No East coast mutant has demonstrated either ability.
1Place in Society
The East coast mutants are infamous for being the scourge of the wasteland. They attack anyone and anything that isn’t also a super mutant or centaur. This is true for theCapital Wasteland, Commonwealth, and Appalachia regions. On the other hand, peaceful super mutant settlements such as Jacobstown dot the Western U.S.
Though violent mutant settlements also exist, there is a concerted effort on the part of the mutants at large to rejoin human society. Marcus is one such mutant who preaches pacifism in both Broken Hills and Jacobstown.
