Horses (Equus ferus caballus) are a domesticated quadrupedal mammal mentioned throughout the Fallout series, both before and after the Great War.
Biology[]
Horses are able to sleep both standing up and lying down, with younger horses tending to sleep more than adults. Female horses, called mares, carry their young for approximately 11 months. A young horse, called a foal, can stand and run shortly following birth. Most domesticated horses begin training under a saddle or in a harness between the ages of two and four. They reach full adult development by age five, and have an average lifespan of between 25 and 30 years. Horses are herbivores with a digestive system adapted to a forage diet of grasses and other plant material, consumed steadily throughout the day.[Non-game 1]
Mentions[]
Fallout[]
- Dane, one of the Children of the Cathedral, will mention horses in his ramblings.[1]
Fallout 2[]
- When talking to Ethyl Wright, the Chosen One may mention enjoying fermented milk from a mare, or female horse.[2]
Fallout 3[]
- A horse toy called the Giddyup Buttercup was popular before the war. Advertisements describe the toy as being, "programmed to perfectly emulate the behavior of an actual horse."[3]
- A story titled the Guardians of Gillyfrond mentions a toy variant of the creature, stating "there then rose a rustle and rumble from all corners of the room, as rocking horse and railway car, bookend and baby doll, toy and game alike all blossomed into impossible life."[4]
Fallout: New Vegas[]
- There is a horse toy shown on the Big Ranch Nevada State Lotto billboard in the Mojave Wasteland.
- A book entitled Pretty Pretty Horsies: A History of the Mongol Empire is a quest item used to convince the Great Khans to break their alliance with Caesar's Legion, by revealing the past of their historical inspiration.
- Festus offers the Courier an opportunity to play a game called Lucky Horseshoes.
- On the cover of Tæles of Chivalrie, a knight can be seen riding a horse while fighting a dragon.
- Some Great Khan graffiti depicts a rider on a horse.
- The Dead Horses tribe appear in Zion Canyon. The war clubs used by the Dead Horses are in the shape of a horse head.
Fallout 4[]
- There is a drawing of a horse, chicken and cow used in a framed picture near Bunker Hill. The same drawing appears at an unmarked trapper outpost northwest of the MS Azalea, in the add-on Far Harbor.[5]
- A cowboy with a lasso riding a horse can be seen on the front of boxes of Salisbury Steak.
- A horse is part of the Paul Revere Monument in Boston.
- The Easy City Downs Racetrack and Clubhouse featured horse races before the war, and horses are depicted on its signage.[6]
- Nick Valentine will occasionally use the idiom "hold your horses" when talking to the Sole Survivor.
- Arlen Glass' terminal mentions variation ideas for the Giddyup Buttercup, including pink paint, a Hubris Comics Mechanist's robot horse, and Nuka-Cola limited-edition red horse.[10][11]
- Members of the Pack ask one another what a horse was, and if it was similar to a large dog that one could ride.[12]
- Napoleon's ceremonial parades on horseback throughout Europe are mentioned on a plaque in the Wixon's Shovel Museum.[13]
- The Giddyup Kid asks for help corralling horses (in reality just Giddyup Buttercups). If dressed as the Silver Shroud, the Sole Survivor can agree to help, stating, "Horses gone missing? The Silver Shroud shall ensure this is not part of some more diabolical plot."[14] If successful, Giddyup Kid, Sheriff Hawk, and Sheriff Eagle will express their gratitude.[15]
Fallout 76[]
- There is a horse on the sign for the Flatwoods Tavern.
- Story Time Miss Nanny mentions horses during the story "Cinderella" that she will tell to the Vault Dweller as part of a random encounter.[16]
- Horse trailers are found on roadways and in barns around Appalachia.
- Thurston Wellingham mentions a fully-staffed horse riding stable available to children at Bolton Greens.[17]
- Several different varieties of horses serve as part of the carousel ride at Camden Park.
- An Appalachian audio tour station at Uncanny Caverns mentions Poseidon, the ancient Greek god of the sea, earthquakes, storms, and horses.[18]
- Horseshoes are mentioned in the Prickett's Fort audio tour.
- In Berkeley Springs Station, the wallpaper is patterned with pictures of horses.[19]
- Horses are mentioned in the note PIONEERBOOK: Foreward.[20]
- Scout Leader Jaggy laments about missing the sight of horses in Appalachia.[21]
- Vault 51 personnel Brianna Ware was a former horse trainer.[22]
- Maggie Stern brags that she could take on the Vault Dweller with one hand while brushing her toy pony with the other.[23]
Fallout (TV series)[]
- Sugarfoot, a horse owned by Cooper Howard, appears in the episode The End, which he later attempts to escape Los Angeles on with his daughter Janey Howard.
Other[]
- In the promotional graphic novel All Roads, an NCR soldier seen in Chance's flashback of the Bitter Springs Massacre is riding a horse.
- Komodo Man uses the phrase, "Hold your bloody horses, mate."[Non-canon 1]
- Horses are referenced in the description of the Ol' Painless weapon in Fallout Shelter.
- The note "Missing person: Greg Roethe," cut from Fallout 76, mentions that Greg has been missing since leaving on vacation to ride horses in Kentucky.[Non-canon 2]
Vernacular usage[]
- Lenny may exclaim, "I've got to talk to a man about a horse" before running away from combat.[24]
- Arcade Gannon refers to those preparing for the Second Battle of Hoover Dam as "warhorses."[25]
- Swank refers to New Vegas as a "wild horse" when the Courier asks for his thoughts on Robert House.[26]
- The former inhabitants of Vault 19 found "enough sedatives to kill a horse" in the vault clinic.[27]
- Nick Valentine uses the phrase "hold your horses" several times.[28][29]
- Cait mentions that she is not one to "look a gift horse in the mouth."[30]
- Supervisor Greene uses the phrase "just hold your horses, little lady" when addressing Supervisor White at Graygarden.[31]
- Robert MacCready references the Ancient Greek's Trojan horse.[32]
- Codsworth uses the exclamation "horsefeathers" and recites a nursery rhyme mentioning the creatures.[33][34]
- If the Sole Survivor helps Far Harbor's Cassie Dalton avenge her family, she will comment about a horse and riding off into the sunset.[35]
- Porter Gage mentions horses twice, once in a reference to betting and once telling the Sole Survivor to "have fun getting shot from off the top of your high horse."[36][37]
- In the Braxton visit holotape, the general uses the phrase, "you and I both know that's a load of horse shit" when speaking with John-Caleb Bradberton.[38]
- The Natural Resistance perk card description reads, "You're healthy as a horse! Or deathclaw."[39]
- Miranda Vox wrote that Raleigh Clay had been spotted outside of his bunker appearing, "healthy as a horse."[40]
- Horses are mentioned in the Pioneer Scout camp exams, including references to the "Trojan Horse," the word "horseplay," and "horse slicer."[41][42][43]
- Johnny Weston uses the phrase, "you just keep beating that dead horse, don't you?"[44]
- Molly uses the phrase "cool your horses" during the quest From Russia With Lev.[45]
- The settler wanderer uses a metaphor of "getting on a white horse" for rescuing a settler.[46]
- Rose derisively refers to Meg Groberg as being on "her high horse" during Strange Bedfellows.[47]
- Vinny Costa uses the phrase, "slow your horses."[48]
Behind the scenes[]
- Joshua Sawyer stated during an October 2020 livestream that horses were never considered for implementation in Fallout: New Vegas, as they did not seem appropriate.[Non-game 2]
- On January 24, 2013, Fandom user "StylesV13" added a quote from a personal email claiming to be from a correspondence with developer Chris Avellone.[Non-game 3][Non-game 4] In the correspondence, Avellone claims that the appearance of horses in All Roads was "an error (no one noticed it until too late)." He also says that Raul Tejada originally mentioned horses in one of his stories, but this was cut "because we didn't want to imply horses still existed."[Non-game 5] The contents of the email have never been independently verified. While a quoted portion of the correspondence has existed in this article since 2013, a screenshot of the email did not surface until 2014, when it was uploaded by a different, unrelated user onto Gamepedia.[Non-game 6] Comments on the file suggest it was taken from the now-defunct Bethesda forums, but a link to the original post or thread has not survived.
- When asked about the StylesV13 email regarding horses in September 2020, developer Joshua Sawyer commented that he was not immediately familiar with the horses appearing as an error in All Roads, the concept of horses being completely extinct in Fallout, or Chris Avellone expressing it. He had "no idea" about this information, and that if he ever knew, it was "lost like dust in the wind."[Non-game 7]
- Chris Avellone spoke more about the lack of horses in Fallout Apocrypha in 2022. Although he did not explicitly verify the StylesV13 email, Avellone expanded upon why horses do not appear for other reasons: horses would be difficult to implement in terms of game mechanics and would likely introduce countless technical issues that would need to be resolved during development. In-universe, the presence of horses would have wide-reaching implications for the technology of the wasteland that are not accounted for elsewhere. Additionally, the alternative route of not implementing horses but implying that they exist would disappoint players and serve little purpose other than what-ifs. Avellone concluded by saying that horses may exist somewhere in the Fallout world, frozen or perhaps in a vault, but appearing in-game as functional mounts would have impacts that could not be budgeted or accounted for.[Non-game 8]
Gallery[]
- Fallout 3 and Fallout Tactics
- Fallout: New Vegas and All Roads
- Fallout 4
- Fallout 76
See also[]
References[]
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Non-game
- ↑ Horse on Wikipedia
- ↑ Fallout: New Vegas 10th Anniversary Charity Stream (reference starts at 6:26:28)
Joshua Sawyer: "There was never any thought about implementing horses. Didn't really seem super appropriate, really." - ↑ I emailed Chris Avellone and that is what he had to say about Horses and All Roads. StylesV13 edit on January 24, 2013
- ↑ Sorry it was me StylesV13 how made this edit about Chris Avellone. I thought I was logged in. StylesV13 edit on January 24, 2013
- ↑ StylesV13:"Hello again,
There is debate in the Fallout Universe regarding horses and whether or not they are extinct. Most people see them as extinct given that we haven't seen them or heard any mention of them in any Fallout game. But in All Roads we see NCR soldiers on horses.
So the question is, was that part of Chase's drug induced hallucination, a dream, or was it to show us that horse are in the NCR?
In the end, it's up the Bethesda, but we would like your view on this matter. Still Bethesda would have been part of the approval of All Roads right?"
Chris Avellone: "To me, that picture in the comic was an error (no one noticed it until too late).
While the end decision is up to Bethesda as to whether horses exist in the NCR, it was never my intention that there were any horses, and furthermore, there were still parts of the New Vegas design where we specifically removed the mention of horses from certain narrative points (one of Raul's stories originally referenced horses, for example, and we cut them because we didn't want to imply horses still existed)."
(File:StylesAllRoadsE-mail.png) - ↑ Image file page on gamepedia showing an upload date of July 2014., 19 months after the original email.
- ↑ yellowflickerbear: "Way back in 2013, Chris Avellone said in an email that it was never his intention to have horses in the comic All Road. Today, some people are doubting the legitimacy of that email. Can you re-confirm that what Avellone said back then was true?"
Joshua Sawyer: "I have no idea, honestly. If I ever knew, that info is now lost like dust in the wind. Sorry."
(Joshua Sawyer on Tumblr (archived)) - ↑ Fallout Apocrypha
Non-canon