Fallout 4 – 5 More Theories That Are Absolutely Terrifying – Fallout 4 Lore and Secrets

Do ghouls need to breathe though? Hmmm

Billy in the fridge part is wrong... The game DOES in fact mention it was the great war. Note Billy and his father mention to one another that they've never seen each other prior to this meeting as ghouls.

I think Bethesda did it , it was vault-tech from the very begining

Wouldn't it make more sense that the institute made the cats like they did the gorillas? Or something like that?

I wouldn't call a mild amount of cats roaming in Boston "the world" lol.

Yup, I've had the 75-Gunners theory has been my head-canon since FO4 came out.

The Billy theory doesn’t hold water since he’s surprised that his parents look like ghouls too.

I always thought that cats were synths

There’s a hole in the theory that Billy was recently trapped in the fridge, as when Billy reunites with his parents he is surprised that they’re ghouls. If he was trapped recently he would have already know his parents were ghouls

Theory on ghoul gene.

It has been theorized that the reason radiation makes people into ghouls is because certain genes, or added genetic material, is within their bodies to allow the transformation.

What is the one delivery system through which the genetic material could have most efficiently been delivered to the widest diversity of humankind, in the fastest possible time, before the bombs dropped?

Nuka Cola.

Nuka Cola even tried to have a brand with radioactive material included within it.

Another Lovecraftian link in the Fallout series... The FEV virus being developed by West Tek to combat the Blue Flu... a combination of The Last Test, with the Black Fever, and, Herbert West, Reanimator, conducting unethical experiments on people.

Synth cats

It seems like ghoul can go into a "dormant state", like hibernation, given how many feral ghouls are lying down until you disturb them.

I think Billy’s lack of growth, stable mental state, and lack of eating for over 200 years could be explained. Perhaps Ghouls can undergo an extreme hibernation state where their metabolism is slowed to such an insane extent they can functionally survive for a long period of time. We know they have a much less intensive metabolism and a much longer lifespan than humans, so perhaps it could check out. Plus if he was sleeping, only ever waking when he heard someone outside his fridge, perhaps that could explain why he didn’t go insane.
As for the lack of surprise to his survival, and less fanfare from the reunion…. I think that’s just classic Bethesda writing lol.

Billy's parents said we are ghouls now. So it can't have been quincy

Did you know if you modify the security armor at an armor workbench if you look closely at it it says vault 101 on the vault tec pocket where it usually says the vault number

If any humans survive a bombing, then cats certainly would. House was wrong, or he was only talking about Nevada area.

On the topic of cats in fallout 76:

Did everyone forget just how incompetent Bethesda was making 4 and 76?

Cats are all synths

is it just me or did yall also kill all of the cats

Nuka World Vault Tec Among The Stars have 101 goat posters at the end of the building.

Maybe cats being extinct is a west coast thing?

I think the cats are synths because the have only heard of human-like synths but haven't heard about animal synths so that's why cats are in settlements so much

The Cats may also be.... well... they are found in the Commonwealth... so you know... they may be a science experiment of another kind.

I know I’m late but such is life. But I read a Reddit a few weeks back about a fan theory on Billy that I so wish they had done. He said what if a Billy isn’t really and kid but a dwarf ghoul who isn’t really stuck in the fridge but there pretending to be a stuck kid who get you to help him back to his parents and then as a dupe to lure you to those gunners who plan to capture and sell you for whatever purposes. Billy and his “parents”/ gang members are working with those gunners who pay them for the people they lure there. When sole survivor takes Billy back to his “parents” they’re grateful and really want to repay you as best they can but sharing the little they have with you so the mother cooks a good meal and the father offers you one of his few beers. You accept the kind offers since a home cooked meal and a chilled beer is a rare delicacy in the current commonwealth. As you’re having polite conversation around the dinner table and eating the good meal you start to blink and when you properly open your eyes again it’s apparent your meal was drugged and Billy and his family have sold you to the gunners for slavery. You have to break out and take down the slaver gunners. Optional to free others enslaved and pay back billy and this “mother” and “father”. This just seems so much more likely and would be more fun to play. It would at least explain how a Billy didn’t go insane being locked in a fridge for 200 years and why his parents are underwhelmed to see him again.

Not only are the cats everywhere but there not touched by radiation? How?

The billy theory can be easily debunked by listening to his dialogue. He comments on how everything looks so different, and doesn’t recognize mirelurks.

So do ghoul children remain children forever?

When you get billy back to his parents he says " your'e all burned up like me" meaning 1: he wasnt already a ghoul before he hid in the fridge and 2: he has no prior knowledge of ghoulse where as his parents who explain to him thag theyre ghouls now and it must be genetic do have knowledge of them, since ghouls are pretty common in the wasteland billy having never heard of or seen them before would suggest he was in there since the great war

Synth cats

Billy.....ate mold drank condensation?
Or..... Intelligent Zombie?

Commonwealth cats:
Institute spies?
Commonwealth Cats: Cat Vault...?

What if the Institute created synthetic cats, to use as surveillance around the commonwealth? They made gorillas, cats should be easy.

Cat vault is 100% is and was real.

I doubt Mr. House was wrong about cats. (While this isn’t technically canon, it could have been inspiration) I think this because an NPC in Fallout 2 talks about how all cats were hunted to extinction, due to being weaker than dogs, and well, people were hungry.

Maybe instead of it being a cat vault it was the institute, like with the gorillas

The cats are institute recreations as Spyware.

The cats are obviously institute spies

No on Billy. He asks what happened to their skin.....

For the cats they would need people or else they would have gone feral

I would do fine in the wasteland I live near las Angeles I’ve seen some things that would make most people get counseling

I think the cats almost certainly came from a vault, but not a kitty one. Just a normal one with a cat lady. They breed quick.

Research team in the polymer labs had been locked inside for 200 years, and they were in a good enough shape to attack the Sole Survivor. Especially the glowing one locked inside a radioactive storage. The same deal with feral ghouls in some other locked facilities.

I have a theory for billy, what if he has been there since the bombs dropped but the fridge was full of food that he managed to ration for 200 years since he didn't have to eat often, admittedly it seems unlikely there's enough food to last two hundred years even with only eating a little bit every few months, but hey its a theory.

Children of Atom are just humans becoming Ghouls in real time

I love the idea of a kitty vault but i don't think they would have gone extinct. In far harbour, vault 118 has a cat that appears to have been there for generations as there are many urns surrounding it. Maybe the cats are clones lol

Maybe cats went extinct in the outside world sometime after Fallout 76 but before Fallout 4 while there's still a population of them in whatever Vault they were preserved in. Contradiction resolved.

There was prob a vault filled with A lot of cats and 1 dog and that’s prob where all the cats came from and dog meat

Cats are deffo the institute

Cats are definitely synths, they made a gorilla so why not something inconspicuous as a cat to survey.