Is ‘Fallout’ Setting Up This Major ‘New Vegas’ Storyline With Moldaver?

Editor’s note: The below contains spoilers for Prime Video’s Fallout.

After decades of terrible video game adaptations, Prime Video’s Fallout series has steered away from the trajectory of doomed projects, instead choosing to follow in the footsteps of The Last of Us. Fallout doesn’t directly adapt any one story from the video games, instead choosing to take elements from each project. The story of a young Vault Dweller venturing into the unknown to find her father may sound familiar to fans of Fallout 3, but the Wasteland takes its visual motif from Fallout 4.

The Fallout games are fairly consistent in quality, but Fallout: New Vegas stands out from its peers. The final scene of the show’s first season shows Hank MacLean (Kyle MacLachlan) escaping to New Vegas, leaving longtime fans excited about the possibilities in Season 2. Bethesda Studios brought Fallout into the mainstream when they took over from Interplay Productions, turning the game from a point-and-click strategy to a first-person open-world RPG. Later on, Bethesda hired Obsidian Studios to develop New Vegas as a placeholder while working on the next main installment, but New Vegas quickly became regarded as one of the best games in the overall franchise and may finally receive the recognition it deserves in Season 2. While Moldaver (Sarita Choudhury) didn’t survive Season 1, her followers could have a big role to play when Season 2 premieres.

Fallout

In a future, post-apocalyptic Los Angeles brought about by nuclear decimation, citizens must live in underground bunkers to protect themselves from radiation, mutants and bandits.

Release Date

April 11, 2024

Main Genre

Sci-Fi

Seasons

1

Creator(s)

Graham Wagner , Geneva Robertson-Dworet

Producer

Lisa Joy, Jonathan Nolan

Streaming Service(s)

Prime Video

The War Between the NCR and the Brotherhood of Steel Has Just Begun in ‘Fallout’

Fallout introduced Moldaver as a villain, but as the story progressed, she became a respectable leader seeking to restore peace and prosperity to the Wasteland. Moldaver gave her life to restore power to California in the Season 1 finale, and the widespread discovery of cold fusion will no doubt lead to new methods of warfare in Season 2. The final battle at Griffith Observatory seemingly wiped out a portion of both the Brotherhood of Steel and the New California Republic (or the NCR), but don’t be mistaken — the war between these factions doesn’t end with a single battle.

Moldaver led the NCR in California, but her character merely introduces a larger conflict between the two groups. The ideological clash between these two factions stems from their views on controlling technology across the Wasteland. Their conflict only escalates in New Vegas, where the NCR expands into Brotherhood territory. When the remaining NCR forces receive word of Moldaver’s death, which the Brotherhood is assuming credit for after discovering Maximus (Aaron Moten) standing by her body, it will undoubtedly spark further conflict between factions in Season 2.

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Moldaver’s Death Could Lead to War With an Even Worse Faction

As Fallout: New Vegas reveals through its variety of factions, the NCR is stuck in an ongoing war with another rival aside from the Brotherhood, one that is arguably more dangerous. While the NCR and Brotherhood of Steel are notable forces in the Mojave Desert, none comes close to the savagery of Caesar’s Legion. The Legion is a totalitarian dictatorship locked in a 50-year war with the NCR and has fashioned itself after the Roman Empire by adopting a more primal, brutal lifestyle. The Legion seeks to conquer all of New Vegas, and the NCR is one of the few groups standing in its way.

The battle at the Griffith Observatory made for an explosive finale in Episode 8, but Season 2 could build up to an even bigger fight known as the First Battle of Hoover Dam, where NCR troops broke the Legion’s stranglehold on the Colorado River. If Fallout moves to New Vegas in Season 2, it will undoubtedly feature the Legion, where Lucy (Ella Purnell) and The Ghoul (Walton Goggins) may end up caught in the crossfire of another dangerous conflict. One of the few ways they will be able to survive is by siding with the NCR, given Lucy’s mother and The Ghoul had a pre-established relationship with Moldaver.

‘Fallout’ Season 2 Could Introduce a Major ‘New Vegas’ Character

While Moldaver is an integral figurehead in the post-apocalypse, her character clashed with another major New Vegas character before the bombs dropped. During The Ghoul’s flashbacks as Cooper Howard, Moldaver features as the ringleader of a group who meets in secret at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery. As part of this resistance, Moldaver seeks to expose Vault-Tec’s corruption and prevent the company from inciting global nuclear warfare. As we see in Fallout‘s first season, an ominous board meeting introduced all the major shareholders, including the president of RobCo, Mr. House, a prominent character in Fallout: New Vegas, who runs the strip shown in the final moments of the season finale.

Fallout depicts Mr. House as human in the pre-apocalypse flashbacks, but New Vegas reveals that he eventually transferred his consciousness into a computer chip, ruling over his empire as an immortal digital overlord. Mr. House doesn’t want the NCR invading the Mojave any more than the Brotherhood and actively tries to incite conflicts between major factions to halt their progress. Is it possible that Season 2 could feature a pre-war interaction between Moldaver and Mr. House? As the first season reveals, Hank also worked at Vault-Tec, so he’s likely heading straight for the Lucky 38 Casino, where his former colleague resides. In New Vegas, you never bet against the house, but Moldaver has inspired an entire faction of soldiers willing to go against the odds.

Moldaver’s actions permanently change the Wasteland when the cold fusion she installed restores the power grid. Her sacrifice will assuredly make her a martyr for the NCR, who will continue to expand and further their agenda in New Vegas. Meanwhile, the first season Fallout only covered a portion of The Ghoul’s backstory in Season 1, meaning that Season 2 will likely continue his attempts to uncover Vault-Tec’s corruption alongside Moldaver via more flashbacks. Although she is gone in the present timeline, Moldaver’s death could kickstart a dangerous series of events in Season 2.

War never changes, but the battle at Griffith Observatory created a power gap that invites new players to the game. Prime Video has officially renewed Fallout for a second season, but the video game is always available for those who already can’t wait to travel to New Vegas.

Fallout is available to stream on Prime Video in the U.S.

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