>is the reason and not "FEV did it".
FEV doing it never really made sense
1. We know from pre-war reports, as well as post war mutations like super mutants, that everything FEV infects becomes sterile unless it reproduces asexually. And, as we can see from all post-war critters, they can in fact reproduce sexually.
2. All FEV research was stated in Fallout 1 to have been moved to Mariposa before the war. Which makes there being any left at West-Tek highly unlikely
3. Even if there was some FEV left at West-Tek, it is literally impossible for FEV to have spread all across southern California, let alone the rest of the U.S., to infect and cause all the ghouls and mutant animals we see. Not only is West-Tek not under a jet stream nexus(like what The Enclave planed to use in their airborne FEV attack in Fallout 2, the amount of liquid FEV needed to cover any significant area would have been more then the facility itself could have held had the entire thing been filled with FEV from floor to ceiling.
4. FEV doing it is fundamentally pointless because Fallout has ALWAYS been designed around the idea of alternate reality 1950's pulp fiction SCIENCE! and not real logic, making there no real need for FEV to explain mutations, as 1950's pulp SCIENCE! radiation can do just that
5. Saying FEV was the cuase just opens up a plot hole in Fallout 1 which states that FEV itself is immune to being altered by exposure to radiation, making the whole "airborne FEV was mutated by radiation and inoculated the post-war humans against the full FEV" thing impossible.
the only person on the original Fallout team that really supported the airborne FEV thing was Chris Taylor, who wanted a "logical underpinning" for everything in the game, whereas Tim Cain and everyone else was like "radiation!"
Avellone first was in Taylor's camp, but then someone pointed out how dumb that idea was, and he switched
Fallout 3/NV/4 all take the word of Cain and Avellone over that of Taylor.
