Full spoilers immediately follow Fallout season 2 episode 4
Fallout season 2 episode 4 has arrived on Prime Video — and what appears to be a series of dialogue boxes has sparked a major new fan theory about the ongoing mystery surrounding Vaults 31, 32, and 33.
Entitled ‘The Demon in the Snow’, Fallout Season 2’s latest chapter is full of surprises. From the long-awaited arrival of an iconic Fallout monster in Deathclaw, to that reveal about Vault 32’s newly installed Overseer Steph, and more besides, it’s certainly an eventful installment.
However, it is a moment in the Norm-fronted storyline that has tongues wagging among viewers after the release of season 2 episode 4. And, as I hinted above, it is one that may hold the key to solving the riddle of the aforementioned underground shelters.
About 19 minutes in Fallout As the TV show’s latest entry, we’re reunited with Norm MacLean, originally from Vault 33, and Bud’s Buds. The latter group are trainee Vault-Tec managers who were cryogenically frozen in Vault 31 before the Great War, and who were reawakened by Norm after he was trapped in Vault 31 by Bud Askins—a junior Vault-Tec vice president—in last season’s finale.
After Norm tricks Bud’s Buds into helping him escape Vault 31 in this season’s second chapter, he now leads them across the Wasteland under the guise of being part of a “race of super-managers” who have been genetically engineered over the past 200 years to lead Vault-Tec. That way, Norm can continue to trick them into working for him while he continues to try to figure out what’s really going on between the three Vaults.
That brings us to the latest episode of the Prime Video show, and what suddenly got its audience going. During a conversation with Ronnie McCurtry, Bud’s personal assistant, Norm—and by proxy us—learns about a new Vault-Tec program called Future Enterprise Ventures. Or to shorten it to its primary initials, FEV
Why is it important? It is the same initials that stand for another hugely significant thing in it Fallout the universe: the forced evolutionary virus.
What is the forced evolution virus in the Fallout series?
I don’t want to get into the weeds Fallout‘s extensive knowledge, but essentially the Forced Evolutionary Virus is an artificial contagion created before the Great War.
Developed by the NBC division of West-Tek, a major American defense contractor and research organization, it is a biological weapon that, as its name suggests, has the ability to alter the genetic makeup of organic matter.
In fact, the virus has been used as a superweapon by various antagonists throughout the world Fallout franchise, including the Master, aka the leader of Unity, who created super mutants using it. The Enclave, a recurring and secret villain faction in Bethesda’s video game series, also used it for genocidal purposes. In case you had forgotten, the Enclave is the faction that Siggi Wilzig rejected early on Fallout season 1 and sets in motion one of the show’s primary plots – the one based on cold fusion technology.
Now, none of this is a guarantee that the Master, the Enclave, or supermutants will appear in the Amazon TV Original’s second season. It’s also possible that Forced Evolutionary Virus and Future Enterprise Ventures just share the same primary initials.
Lots of Fallout however, fans don’t think the latter is a coincidence. A quick scan of threads on Reddit sites such as r/Fallout and r/Fotv, plus a Season 2 thread on the ResetEra forums, is full of comments from viewers speculating at the prospect of the two being related.
If that turns out to be the case, it could solve the mystery of the experiments being conducted between Vaults 31, 32, and 33. We already know that the trio is part of an ongoing experiment where one of Bud’s Buds occasionally leaves cryosleep to hail it over Vaults 32 and 33, breeding to create the future Vault population.
What if there’s a secondary goal for the triumvirate’s denizens to achieve—namely, the creation of the FEV to recreate said virus for nefarious reasons—though? Vault-Tec is nothing if not a sinister, omnipresent mega-corporation hell-bent on ruling the planet, so I wouldn’t be surprised if we eventually find out that FEV has something to do with restarting the Forced Evolutionary Virus program to create the “super managers” Norm mentions in this season’s second episode. Let’s hope we learn more soon.
Follow TechRadar on Google News and add us as a preferred source to get our expert news, reviews and opinions in your feeds. Be sure to click the Follow button!
And of course you can too follow TechRadar on TikTok for news, reviews, video unboxings, and get regular updates from us on WhatsApp also.
