Yet Another Fallout Blog

In every mainline Fallout game except for New Vegas, players can earn the loyalty of a dog known as “Dogmeat.” As part of the main quest of Fallout 4, Dogmeat assists in tracking down the antagonist, even if the player has never encountered him before. When you leave Kellogg’s home, Nick simply starts talking about Dogmeat as if he’s a known quantity.

Perhaps related to this quirk of the world, Dogmeat is first named in this game when the clairvoyant Mama Murphy recognizes him and addresses him by name. The game’s UI calls him “DOG” until he is recognized by Valentine or Murphy. It seems clear that this german shepherd is somehow an independent agent with a good reputation, or something.

Dogmeat does not have a loyalty quest associated with him, which is how the player would earn the other companions’ perks. However, upon finding Astoundingly Awesome Tales #9 within the Institute, Dogmeat becomes more resistant to damage. While this isn’t coherent or conclusive evidence of Dogmeat being a synth, it’s plainly prompting the audience to consider that idea. In light of these factors, his origins have been fiercely debated among the community.

The skeptics and “hard sci-fi” fans out there would have you believe that he’s merely a famous stray dog who solves crimes. But I believe there's something more remarkable at work.

There's a section in the Fallout 2 instruction book called the Vault Dweller's Memoirs, where the player character of the first game recounts what canonically happened. Due to Fallout’s famously terrible companion AI, if you travelled to Mariposa with Dogmeat, he would consistently run into the force fields and get vaporized. So, in the Memoirs, we learn that this is exactly what became of Dogmeat Prime, in canon. He loyally sprinted into a wall of solid light, and disappeared. What if our buddy simply awoke in a new, confusing place?

In Fallout 2, Dogmeat must be found at the Cafe of Broken Dreams, which is explicitly a liminal space. It appears randomly to travellers in the desert. The NPCs within are frozen in time, such as a young version of President Tandi, who mentions that Ian went to “the Abbey,” an area cut from the game. To gain Dogmeat’s trust, the Chosen One must equip the Vault Dweller’s V-13 jumpsuit, which Dogmeat recognizes as belonging to his dead master. You can also attack him to spawn Mad Max, who claims ownership of the dog. Max fits the description of Dogmeat's original owner given in Fallout.

There’s also the “puppies” perk in Fallout 3, which enables you to restore Dogmeat, in the event of his death. “Dogmeat’s puppy” inherits his base and ref ids. In other words, they ARE the same NPC, just renamed. So, the way this actually articulates is that whenever Dogmeat dies in combat, you can find him waiting for you back at Vault 101. In practice, it’s almost Bombadilian.

Lastly, please consider the following developer context.

In June of 2021, the dog who performed Dogmeat’s motion capture and voice for Fallout 4 passed away. A statue of her was placed outside of every Vault in the China-exclusive sequel to Fallout Shelter. She still watches over each player.

River's owner, developer Joel Burgess, honored her in a brief thread about her involvement in the game, and shared much about his thought process and design goals while leading the character’s development. The Dogmeat project changed course early on, after Mr. Joel saw a new member of the art team gathering references of snarling German Shepherds. This motivated him to bring River into the studio, so the artists and developers could spend time with her.

He wanted to steer the team away from viewing Dogmeat as a weapon, and towards viewing him as a friend. Everything special about Dogmeat was inspired by River. For example, whenever you travel with Dogmeat, he’s constantly running ahead of you to scout for danger, then turning to wait for you. This was inspired by River’s consistent behavior on long walks. The only way they were able to motivate River to bark for recordings was by separating her from Joel while he waited in the next room. Reading the thread, it’s very clear that he hoped Dogmeat would make players feel safe, encouraging them to explore, and to wonder. In his closing thoughts, he said the following:

-Joel Burgess

Mr. Joel felt it was important to express that the ambiguity of Dogmeat’s origin in Fallout 4 was deliberately built into his presentation. He also felt it was important that you know Dogmeat loves you. Dogmeat was designed, on every level, to reflect the audience’s inspirations, and to empower their curiosity.

The true lore of Dogmeat is a rorschach test. The only “right” answer is to pursue whatever captures your imagination.

the elder scrolls is a series that has deeply entrenched racist ideals that have dug their roots into western fantasy and it does not subvert or challenge these ideals. concerningly, it presents multiple scenarios wherein a genocide is “justified” in some way, often presented in the form of “human vs elf race wars” that have more or less become fascist dogwhistles in fantasy. elves frequently become stand-ins for races and ethnicities seen as subhuman, and you can look no further than the real-life politics of die-hard stormcloak fans to prove this matter. in fact, members of the neo-nazi forum stormfront have overtly stated that to them, ulfric stormcloak represents whites struggling against jewish overlords. it’s not hard to see how this issue came about- the presentation of essentially white humans being subjugated by a near-but-not-quite-human race of overlords for their religious reverence of a man who is also a god is something found in both far-right christian circles and also skyrim. the clear influence of christianity on the imperial pantheon does nothing to help this issue.

skyrim lends itself to being co-opted by antisemitic conspiracy theorists in this manner with the thalmor, and the status of dunmer refugees and their descendants in windhelm openly appeals to anti-immigration fans who then go on to use the dunmer as a stand-in for whatever culture or race they scapegoat as an immigration threat. it is concerning to me to hear ostensibly liberal tes fans arguing that the dunmer should be grateful to be allowed to live in a slum at all, echoing the sentiments expressed by far-right fans who don’t really mean dunmer all that much when they say those things.

the falmer pose another issue. it shouldn’t be hard to imagine why the lore of a european-analogous race sailing to a “new” continent where they proceed to slaughter the prior inhabitants with the excuse that they were attacked first might be upsetting to players. the fact that the game goes on to present surviving falmer as mindless subhuman monsters is yet more unsettling. yet skyrim goes out of its way to avoid placing the blame on the atmorans/nords, instead pulling that whole deal with the dwemer and focusing on that as the source of the falmer’s suffering. even one of the few surviving unchanged falmer places more emphasis on the crimes of the dwemer and the malevolence of the betrayed than on the nords that enacted a genocide in the first place.

this is a writing decision that places the player in a spot of perceived innocence- the game implicitly suggests that nothing can really be done now because the dwemer are gone, and the falmer are so corrupted that you have no choice but to carry out indiscriminate violence against a race subjected to a genocide. meanwhile the companions actively revere ysgramor and you as the player can acquire an axe with the sole purpose of being used to kill elves AND A DAMAGE BONUS AGAINST THEM, and none of this is condemned nor really even all that discussed at all.

Raven from the game Fallout: New Vegas (2010)

@bellonathedragonborn fallout 2 has this equation that lets you calculate how good a fallout character would be at sex :) we were calculating everyone's sex ratings and someone put it all in one google sheet that i can't find now

here's the equation for reference:

My version of the strip in Fallout New Vegas.