Story
For 19 years of their life from 2258 to 2277, the player character grows up within the confines of Vault 101 alongside their father James, a doctor and scientist who assists in the vault's clinic. While growing up, their father comments about their deceased mother Catherine and her favorite passage from the Bible – Revelation 21:6, which speaks of "the waters of life.” Upon reaching their 19th birthday, chaos erupts when James suddenly leaves the Vault, causing the Overseer to lock down the Vault and send security after James' child. Escaping from the Vault with the aid of the Overseer's daughter Amata, the search for James across the wasteland begins at the nearby town of Megaton, named for the dormant but still active atomic bomb at the center of town, and eventually into the ruins of Washington D.C. and the Galaxy News Radio station, whereupon James' child, after helping the station's enthusiastic DJ Three Dog, is given the moniker of "The Lone Wanderer.” Directed by Three Dog towards Rivet City, a derelict aircraft carrier now serving as a fortified human settlement, the Lone Wanderer meets with Doctor Madison Li, a scientist who worked alongside James. Li informs the Lone Wanderer that his parents were not born in Vault 101, but lived outside of it, where they worked together upon a plan they conceived to purify all the water in the Tidal Basin and eventually the entire Potomac River, with a giant water purifier built in the Jefferson Memorial, called Project Purity. However, constant delays and Catherine's death during childbirth forced James to abandon the project. James took the Lone Wanderer to Vault 101 where he could raise them