The Fallout franchise has always featured unique and interesting characters spanning the entire spectrum of abilities and personality traits, from hardcore strongmen to smooth-talking charmers and everything in between. With such a rich cast of characters populating a unique post-apocalyptic world, it's no wonder Fallout has so many fans.
Some of Fallout's most memorable characters have been its scientists, boffins, and all-around clever clogs. The franchise wouldn't be what it is without the brains that power both the good and evil agendas in its world.
Fallout 4: All Of The Companions, Ranked
Fallout 4 offers players the chance to travel with a companion. Of course, choosing one isn't easy, so we ranked the best ones!
10 T. S. Wallace
Wasteland Megabrain
T. S. Wallace is a rare thing in the post-apocalyptic wasteland of Fallout 4: a man the Institute wanted to recruit. With enough intelligence and proven work to his name that the Institute actively tried to recruit him, T. S. Wallace is entirely self-taught and has expertise in a wide range of different fields.
The Institute is very keen to recruit Wallace, and sends the player on a mission to do just that. Wallace can even be seen working at the Institute if successfully recruited, proving that he had what it takes to succeed in the world of advanced science.
9 Jack Cabot
Mad Science Is The Family Business
The son of famed pre-War explorer and archaeologist Lorenzo Cabot, Jack Cabot is over four hundred years old thanks, to a serum he developed based on his father's blood. Although his father became massively enhanced due to his possession of a strange alien artifact, Jack appears to have come by his smarts in the more typical manner.
And he's used them very well, keeping his mother and his sister alive and living lives of luxury even in Boston's raider-infested wasteland. It takes a lot of intelligence to pull that off in the world of Fallout 4.
8 Siggi Wilzig
A Head For Cold Fusion
Fallout
- Release Date
- April 10, 2024
- Cast
- Walton Goggins , Ella Purnell , Kyle MacLachlan , Xelia Mendes-Jones , Aaron Moten
- Main Genre
- Sci-Fi
- Streaming Service(s)
- Prime Video
An Enclave scientist working at an unknown location somewhere on the West Coast of America, Siggi Wilzig is shown to have worked on a number of different research teams. He even has his own canine companion.
But Wilzig's most important work appears to have been cold fusion, an energy source of unprecedented power. Although worked on pre-War, the events of Amazon's Fallout show that cold fusion technology didn't see any use pre-War. Wilzig defected from the Enclave and brought fusion power to the Wasteland - even though it literally cost him his head.
7 The Master
Super Mutant Mastermind
Once human, The Master as encountered in the original Fallout is a horribly mutated mass of limbs and goopy fluids stuck inside a disused military base. It's not an ideal situation, but the Master nevertheless managed to claw something back from his unfortunate situation.
A powerful psychic, the Master managed to create a super mutant army in the hopes of conquering the entire wasteland and converting all the remaining humans into super mutants — an apparently superior species which would go on to rule the world. And he did all this from his tank.
6 The Think Tank
Literal Brain Boxes
Encountered during Fallout: New Vegas's Old World Blues DLC, the Think Tank is all that remains of the pre-War research institution of Big MT. Once accomplished human scientists, post-War, the members of the Think Tank cast their bodies aside to become brains in floating jars.
This didn't seem to dull their intellect at all, although it did result in some unforeseen changes in their collective and individual sanity. Still, the Think Tank stayed at Big MT for centuries post-War and made many interesting — if wholly unethical — discoveries based on their experiments.
5 Dr. Mobius
Crazy, Smart
Once a member of the Think Tank at Big MT, Dr. Mobius struck out on his own after becoming convinced that his colleagues were too dangerous to stay free. Mobius even managed to engineer events so that the Think Tank became preoccupied with unimportant things, preventing them from even considering whether to leave the Big MT research facility.
Fallout New Vegas: 10 NPCs With Hidden Agendas
These NPCs in the nuclear desert wasteland have more going on than meets the eye.
Somewhat unhinged in his extremely advanced age, Dr Mobius even managed to set into motion events which would cause the Courier to intervene at Big MT. He also invented a giant robot scorpion... twice.
4 DiMA
Artificial Intelligence
An early model synth created by Fallout 4's Institute, DiMA is encountered on the island of Far Harbor during the Far Harbor DLC for Fallout 4. DiMA is shown to be intelligent, even for a synth. In the course of the Far Harbor DLC, it becomes clear that DiMA has orchestrated almost all the events happening in and around the island.
DiMA's plans are far-reaching. Not only do his manipulations bear fruit, he's even responsible for the creation of novel technologies.
3 Robert House
The House Always Wins
A billionaire before the age of 25, Robert House had his fingers in an awful lot of pies in Fallout's pre-War society. House was well-connected, being present at key meetings with Vault-Tec as seen in the Fallout TV show. House was so smart that he managed to predict the outbreak of war, and put together plans to weather it, as the player learns in Fallout: New Vegas.
And House's plans worked, more or less. He got the precise timing of the War wrong, but thanks to his radical enhancements of his own body and the security systems surrounding the Las Vegas strip, House persisted until long after the bombs dropped. He even managed to turn around the fortunes of Las Vegas to create the pleasure city of New Vegas, a jewel of the post-apocalyptic Mojave Desert.
2 Madison Li
So Smart She Got Headhunted Thrice
A talented scientist before the events of Fallout 3, Madison Li worked on Project Purity in an attempt to provide clean, fresh water to people in the Capital Wasteland. Her efforts saw her recruited to help the Brotherhood of Steel's own ambitions in that area — ambitions which were eventually successful.
Fallout 4: Should You Choose The Brotherhood or The Institute?
Neither the Brotherhood nor the Institute are morally upright, but choosing one over the other does lead to a better outcome in Fallout 4.
But Madison Li was such a scientific talent that she was able to join the reclusive and secretive Institute in the Boston Commonwealth. She traded her life above ground for a role as the head of Advanced Systems in the Institute, appearing as a key character in Fallout 4's main story. There, she can be recruited by the Brotherhood again, depending on player choice.
1 Stanislaus Braun
Renaissance Man
A pre-War scientist lauded for his work in life extension, virtual reality, and his work on the Vault-Tec 'preservation program,' Stanislaus Braun was a big deal. He is credited as the sole creator of the Garden of Eden Creation Kit, an object that is key to several major story lines across the Fallout franchise. Stanislaus Braun has an awful lot of accomplishments to his name.
Unfortunately, Braun was also highly involved in Vault-Tec's unethical secret experimentation, so his record is less than clean. But Braun managed to persist up to Fallout 3 thanks to his life-extension technologies and a long-running virtual reality simulation. He's definitely one of the Wasteland's big brains.
Fallout 4: Should You Choose The Brotherhood or The Railroad?
Victory for either the Brotherhood of Steel or Railroad will lead to two wildly different outcomes in Fallout 4 despite the noble intentions of both.
