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There are many factions within theFalloutuniverse, with some being more important than others. The Enclave is likely the most important of all the factions, since they are consistently used as antagonists throughout the series, either as background information, side content, or as the main bad guys.
Since the Fallout games span hundreds of years of history, the Enclave has some incredibly intricate lore and motivations, starting even before the Great War that led to the games. To understand the Enclave is to understand a web of conspiracies, a desire for power, and overall poor management.
What Is The Enclave?
The Enclave is based on the conspiracy theory of the ‘deep state,‘which believes that high-ranking members of the government, alongside big corporation leaders, are running North America from behind the scenes.They existed from long before the Great War, and could, in fact, be partly responsible for starting it.
The Enclave Before The War
As the Enclave monitored things like any shadow government would,they saw the nuclear conflict with China as an unstoppable event.As such, they made preparations to not only survive a nuclear holocaust, butto continue their war against communism afterward.
In the Fallout universe, the Cold War as we understand it was between the U.S. and China instead of the U.S. and Russia. Said Cold War never ended, and it culminated in the Great War of 2077.
As such,they were deeply interested in Project Safehouse, an initiative led by the Vault-Tec corporation toconstruct a series of vaults as a safe haven for the American population, keeping the country alive in the (likely) case of nuclear bombs being dropped.This was an initiative publicly sanctioned by the government, but its true purpose was far more sinister than mere safety.
In reality,only 17 of the 122 Vaults were meant as safe placesduring a nuclear holocaust.The rest were meant as behavioral and biological experimentsto be conducted by the backers of Vault-Tec, the Enclave being chief among them.
In the end, the Enclave, Vault-Tec and many other large playerswere counting on nuclear conflict to happen, making peace not an option for them. This is why, as the Fallout TV show proposes,it was likely due to the Enclave’s meddling that the Great War startedin the first place.
The Fallout show also notes that, while research on a more sustainable energy source was underway, the project was scrapped.
The Enclave needed the resource shortage conflicts to continue, since they were profiting heavily from it.
The plan that the Enclave had for the vaults (and the experiments being done within them) was to find the best and brightest of humanity, and how to reproduce them. The idea was tosend them on a multi-generational starship, so they could find and settle on a new planet, since the Earth was, for all intents and purposes, doomed.
In the end, lacking any sort of space program and undermining the impact of nuclear holocaust,this plan never came to fruition, although the experiments on the vaults were held nevertheless. The Enclave still gathered information from the vaults,shifting their plans from outworld colonization to Earth domination.
The Enclave In Fallout 76
Shortly after the nukes were launched in 2077,the Enclave was already shattering into smaller factions, mostly due to the difficulty of communicating during those times.
On the Appalachian side of the country, Thomas Eckhart (former Secretary of Agriculture)proclaimed himself as President of the United Statesand led his branch of the Enclave tocontinue the war against China.
The main reason Eckhart was able to take over the Appalachian Enclave was due to his control over MODUS, the artificial intelligence running their base of operations.
Eckhart wanted to deploy the nukes they had leftto ensure China’s complete destruction, but was eventually stopped by an internal conflict that led to his death.The survivors were wiped out by a poisonous gasimplemented by MODUS, the super computer running the facility, so by 2086 all Enclave members were wiped out.
Fallout 76takes place a few years after that, wherethe player can interact with MODUS, learn of the facility’s past and possiblybe recruited into the Enclave.This makes it the only game in the series where the player can join the Enclave faction.
The Enclave In Fallout 2
The Enclave’s next (and technically first) appearance in the Fallout series is as the main antagonist of Fallout 2. By 2140, the Enclave was united in a single vision:repopulate the Earth with ‘pure’ humansso America can rise again.
What they deemed as ‘pure’ was someone without a hint of mutation, which essentiallyleft most wastelanders out of this envisioned America.So the plan was totrigger a global genocide to ‘clean’ the worldfrom its impurities, taking control of whatever is left.
The Enclave was used to performing all sorts of biological experiments, sinceit was thanks to them that things likeSuper Mutants and Deathclaws even exist.Their plan now was to create a chemical to spread into the atmosphere andkill most of the population of the Earth, and by 2242, they could set their plans into motion.
This makes themthe central antagonists of Fallout 2. Since the Enclave aims to wipe out the entire Earth, no matter the choices taken by the player, it is always in their best interests to stop the Enclave’s plans.
With the Enclave being based in an oil rig,the player can infiltrate their base and detonate a nuclear bomb, annihilating them and their plans.This is the canonical ending of Fallout 2, leading to the scattering of the Enclave and the loss of their President, Dick Richardson.
The Enclave In Fallout 3
After the destruction of their base of operations during Fallout 2,the Enclave was without a leader.Thanks to pre-war preparations, a new president was already being put into place:John Henry Eden was elected as President of the United States, even though he was, in fact,an advanced artificial intelligence.
Since the Enclave considers itself the only real continuation of the American government, they consider their leader the President of the United States.
The point of having a machine lead their forces is sotheir ideals can be put into practice long after the masterminds are gone, so if new generations want to go against their directives, they would find it impossible.
Still, the blow after the loss of the oil rig was heavy, so it would take some time before the Enclave was back on its feet.
Project Purity
In 2277, the Enclave finds out about Project Purity, a scientist-led initiative that aims to purify the waters of the wasteland, eventually making it drinkable. The Enclave sends its forces to take control of the Project, but two factions slowly rise as to what purpose to give it.
Colonel Augustus Autumn, the military leader of the Enclave, wants to seize control over the Projectso they can have control over a steady water supply.
Sincethe efforts of the Enclave had become more publicover the years, this would allow them to post themselves as America’s saviors, taking full credit for the Project and controlling who gets water, and when.
The President of the Enclave, in the meantime, wants touse the Project to infect the waters with a deadly toxin, still maintaining the plans from decades ago towipe out most of humanity, letting the ‘pure’ humans take over the Earth.Colonel Augustus is against this plan, since he wants to rule over America, not wipe it out.
As the conflict for Project Purity escalates,the Enclave uses its full military mightagainst both the player character from Fallout 3 andthe Brotherhood of Steel(a militaristic faction that aided the scientists during the Project’s heyday), butthe Enclave is defeated once again.
While the player can choose to do all sorts of things during this ending,the one canonical choice is that the Purifier is active, and free for all to use.
Remnants Of The Enclave
Fallout 3 deals with the Enclave not only in its main campaign, but alsoin the add-on campaign, Broken Steel.In it, the player can join forces with the Brotherhood of Steel once more to deal the final blow to Enclave forces.
This leaves the Enclave in shambles, with its members being hunted down or defecting to other factions.Most defecting members ended up in the New California Republic, since their political and military knowledge was still of use in the current state of the wasteland.
You can interact with some of these leftover Enclave members in both Fallout: New Vegas and Fallout 4, butthey have no impact on the overarching storyof those games. This made the faction as a whole feel defeated, since they didn’t seem to have any form of large-scale organization.
The Fallout 4 quest Speak of the Devil started out as fan content, but has since made canon by including it for free in the April 2024 update.
This is likely due to the designer of the quest, Kris Takahashi, being hired by Bethesda.
The Enclave In The Fallout TV Show
The Enclave makes an unexpected return in the Fallout TV show, taking place in the year 2296. Since the Enclave itself was fractured into many smaller factions at the beginning of the Great War, it stands to reason that small pockets of the faction remain active.
What little we can see of the Enclave in the show indicates a few things, chief among them thatthey still possess plenty of military and technological might.We can also see thatthey have deep connections with the vaults, their scientists being aware of certain experiments being carried out in them.
Thanks to the Enclaves resources,Dr. Siggi Wilzig is able to develop a stable form of cold fusion.This sustainable form of energy was something thatthe Enclave never wanted to develop, sincethey thrive during times of unrest and resource inequality, hence why Wilzig had to keep his research a secret.
Wilzig manages to escape from the Enclave’s facility, but due tothe faction’s position as war criminals, he is chased down by bounty hunters, the Steel Brotherhood, and most of the wasteland. While some more light is shed on the Enclave and their connection to the War, it still remains to be seenwhat other secrets might be revealed in the next seasonof the Fallout show.
