The Master (Fallout)

The Master is a character and the main antagonist of the 1997 role-playing video game ''Fallout''. Born Richard Moreau, he was transformed into an amorphous creature by a mutagenic virus, and later absorbed the genetic material of other victims. He created a race of Super Mutants after experimenting with the virus and decided to transform humanity into these mutants to correct for their weakness.

The Fallout development team created the character concept as a synthesis of a man, a woman, and a computer terminal mutated together. The character was designed to be morally ambiguous, by creating a villain who saw himself as a hero. The Master has been included in several rankings of best video game antagonists, due to his sympathetic nature, and his robust reactions to the player's input.

Appearances

''Fallout'' is a role-playing video game that takes place in 2161, after a global nuclear war destroyed most of human civilization a century earlier. Information about the Master is picked up throughout gameplay prior to the player's final confrontation of the Master in the cathedral. The Master was originally a human named Richard Moreau who was exiled from Vault City as a murder suspect. He changed his surname to Grey and migrated to a merchant town called the Hub, where he became a doctor. Grey met a trader named Harold in 2102, and they form a joint expedition to discover the source of the mutant attacks on Harold's caravans. This led them to Mariposa Military Base, where the expedition group is overwhelmed by mutant forces. Grey is knocked into a vat of the Forced Evolutionary Virus (F.E.V.), which mutated him into a blob-like creature that expanded himself by absorbing other humans.

After a month of simmering, Grey crawled out of the vat and installed himself inside a vault. Naming himself "the Master", he decided that humanity was inept and had to be replaced by a master race. Through his experimentations on humans with the F.E.V., the Master created the Super Mutants, a race of virtually immortal monsters that were immune to disease and radiation. Deeming Super Mutants to be the superior race, the Master went on a campaign to replace all the humans with the Super Mutants by infecting them with the virus. To accomplish this, the Master created a cult called the Children of the Cathedral as a front for his campaign, using aliases such as the "Holy Flame" or "Father Hope" when dealing with his followers.

When the player engages the Master near the end of the game, they can confront the Master with a number of different skills and approaches. The player can enter combat with the Master and his Super Mutant allies. The player can also convince the Master to abandon his plans by revealing to him that Super Mutants are sterile, a revelation that causes the Master to commit suicide. Skipping the confrontation entirely, the player can sneak into his chambers and find a hidden nuclear arsenal that can blow up the cathedral, killing the Master. The player also has the option of joining the Master's campaign, which will lead to a bad ending in which Vault 13 is raided by Super Mutants. If the player character has a low enough intelligence, they will only be able to call the Master ugly, resulting in the Master believing that even the F.E.V. would not help the player character.

The Master appears in the ''Fallout: New California'' expansion for the board game ''Fallout'', developed by Fantasy Flight Games, in the "Rise of the Master" scenario. The scenario is based on the video game ''Fallout'' "Unity" story arc.

Concept and design

According to producer Tim Cain, the ''Fallout'' development team conceived of a faction of mutants who grew their ranks by dipping people into virus vats. During the discussion, someone wondered what would happen if more than one person was dropped into the vat. This led to the team to conceptualize the Master as a man and a woman that fell into the vats along with a computer terminal. Cain enjoyed modelling, animating, and writing the Master's dialog, particularly because the Master switched between three voices: male, female, and electronic. The Master was voiced by Jim Cummings and Kath Soucie. The Master's birth surname, Moreau, references the titular mad scientist of the 1896 novel ''The Island of Doctor Moreau'' by H. G. Wells

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