Fallout 3 Explained: The Story of Vault 87 and The G.E.C.K

Intro

Alright Wastelanders, strap in. If you’ve been following my current Ultimate Good Karma/Energy Weapons Build playthrough, you know we just hit the pivotal mid-game spike. Forget potting mole rats outside Megaton; it’s time for the big leagues.

We’re talking about the hunt for the G.E.C.K., venturing into the irradiated nightmare that is Vault 87, meeting the single best NPC in the entire game, and getting slapped with one of the biggest plot twists Bethesda ever cooked up.

This part of the main quest is a gauntlet. It tests your resource management, your combat specs, and your ability to handle some heavy lore dumps. Here’s the elite breakdown of how I tore through the Vault 87 arc and left the Enclave crying in the rubble of Raven Rock.

The Vault 87

First off, if you tried walking in the front door of Vault 87, you’re a rookie. The radiation spike there is a hard engine limitation designed to melt your face off. 3000+ rads a second isn’t a gameplay mechanic; it’s a keep out sign.

The real path, as seasoned vets know, is through Little Lamplight. Yeah, dealing with Mayor MacCready is annoying, but once you pass his speech check (or rescue his friends from Paradise Falls if you’re doing a pure run), you gain access to the Murder Pass.

The Murder Pass is a great DPS check before the main event. It’s crawling with Super Mutants. If your build is sloppy, you’ll burn too many stimpaks here. I was running an optimized Plasma Rifle setup, turning those green meatbags into goo piles before they even wound up their miniguns.

Entering Vault 87 itself… man, the environmental storytelling here still hits. It’s disgusting. Blood smears, failed experiments on gurneys, this is Ground Zero for the East Coast Super Mutants. It’s a grim reminder of what Vault-Tec was really up to. The combat here is tight quarters, lots of Super Mutant Masters and Overlords depending on your level scaling. You need burst damage here, people. Don’t bring a hunting rifle to a missile launcher fight.

Meeting Fawkes

Deep in the test labs, you hit the real treasure of Vault 87. Forget the G.E.C.K. for a second; I’m talking about Fawkes.

You find him locked in isolation cell 5. He’s a Super Mutant, but he’s articulate, polite, and quoting history. The lore implication here is fantastic, he’s one of the few who retained his intellect post-dip into the FEV, probably due to the specific strain or sheer willpower.

Elite Tip: FREE HIM. Do not hesitate. If your Science or Lockpick skill is too low to open his cell, go level up and come back. Seriously.

Fawkes is, mechanically speaking, an absolute unit. He has absurd health regeneration and practically infinite carry weight, and once he gets his hands on a Gatling Laser, the game basically enters “easy mode.” But beyond the stats, he’s just a brilliant character. The juxtaposition of this hulking monster discussing destiny and morality is peak Fallout writing.

The G.E.C.K. Run

We came for the Garden of Eden Creation Kit. The problem? The G.E.C.K. is sitting in a chamber soaked in fatal levels of radiation. Even with Advanced Power Armor and Rad-X popping like candy, you won’t survive long enough to grab it and get out.

This is where befriending Fawkes pays off instantly. Since he’s already mutated by FEV, he’s immune to radiation. You ask him nicely, and he just strolls into the green glow, grabs the briefcase like it’s a lunchbox, and hands it to you. It’s a great moment of gameplay and narrative working together. You literally cannot complete this solo; you need the ally you just made.

The Enclave Ambush

Okay, real talk. This part always triggers me.

You have the G.E.C.K., you have Fawkes, you feel unstoppable. You head for the exit, and then… BAM. Cutscene incapacitation.

A vertibird shows up, Enclave soldiers tossing flashbangs, and you get knocked out. It doesn’t matter if you have 10 Endurance and T-51b armor; you are going down. As a gamer who likes to control every engagement, these scripted captures are frustrating. They strip your gear and haul you off to Raven Rock, the Enclave’s main base.

It’s a classic darkest hour trope. You’ve done the work, but the bad guys sniped the reward at the last second.

Raven Rock

Waking up in an interrogation cell without my unique plasma rifle is stress-inducing. Colonel Autumn is doing the standard villain monologue, demanding the purifier code.

Pro-Tip: Give him a fake code. It buys you time, and the look on his face later when it fails is priceless.

Eventually, “President Eden” calls Autumn off and invites you up for a chat. The escape from the holding area is pure chaos. You have to scavenge gear fast. I managed to loot an Enclave Officer uniform and a Laser Pistol within thirty seconds of the cell door opening. It’s a fun, frantic change of pace from being fully geared.

The reveal that President John Henry Eden is actually a massive ZAX supercomputer filling two sublevels of the base is one of my favorite twists. He’s an amalgam of past presidents, an AI convinced it’s the savior of America.

Now, you can just shoot the place up. But the elite way to handle Eden is with your brain.

Eden wants you to use the modified FEV to poison the water purifier and kill everything mutated (which is basically everyone). Instead, if your Science and Speech skills are high enough, you can engage him in a philosophical debate.

I love doing this. You basically logic-bomb the President of the United States. You point out the flaws in his circular logic, his misinterpretation of his own directives, and convince this immensely powerful AI that the only logical conclusion to his failed programming is self-destruction.

Watching the base go into meltdown alert because you out-talked a computer? Extremely satisfying.

The Escape and Reunion

The final run out of Raven Rock is pure adrenaline. Alarm klaxons blaring, Enclave troopers scrambling, explosions rocking the halls. You grab your confiscated gear from a locker near the exit (thank god, my precious loot), step out into the Capital Wasteland air, and watch Raven Rock go up in smoke.

And who is waiting for you outside, having single-handedly slaughtered an entire platoon of Enclave soldiers with a Gatling Laser?

Fawkes.

“I am sorry my friend, I was delayed. There were… many annoying little men in black armor.”

Legend.

Summary

The Vault 87 to Raven Rock run is the crucible of Fallout 3. You go in a scavver looking for tech, and you come out a sworn enemy of the most powerful faction on the map, with a super mutant best friend and the fate of the Capital Wasteland resting squarely on your shoulders.