Master

The Master was the horribly mutated brain behind the Mutant Army that roamed California in mid-22nd century, worshipped by the Children of the Cathedral, and eventually defeated by the Vault Dweller. At times, the Master is referred to as the mysterious Dark God, especially by those opposed to the Children of the Cathedral. By his Children, he is referred to as the New God. It is a hideous mutated creature composed of several other creatures and electronic parts, all apparently melded together. Apart from his appearance, one of his most notable features is his unique way of speaking. His voice is computer-generated and sentences are composed, apparently in real-time, from samples of several people's speech.

Origins
The Master was born as Richard Moreau, and was a resident of Vault 8, later known as Vault City, where he worked as a doctor. In 2092 he was exiled from the city for murder, although the circumstances surrounding the murder are unknown. He changed his name to Richard Grey and headed south, eventually settling in the Hub, where he met Harold, a prominent trader. Following ever increasing attacks on Harold's caravans by mutated creatures, the pair teamed up on May 22, 2102, and led a team of scientists who mounted an expedition to the north-west to investigate the source of the mutated animals, which were attacking the survivors of the nuclear war. On June 23, 2102, Grey and his party stumbled upon the Mariposa Military Base, in which the U.S. government had been mass producing, and experimenting with, the Forced Evolutionary Virus (or F.E.V.).

With the exception of Grey and Harold, the party was cut down by the mutated creatures and the base's internal defense systems. Harold barely escaped, and Grey was plunged into a vat of F.E.V. by a robotic arm. Floating in the vats for almost a month, the F.E.V. transformed Grey into the amorphous, blob-like being that would eventually become known as the Master. This entity expanded its biological mass by absorbing other creatures and people that came near the base, and bionically merging itself with computer equipment from the base. The ones he consumed also became part of his multiple personality. It also began capturing humans that stumbled upon its lair, and intentionally exposing them to the F.E.V. These initial mutated humans were incredibly flawed, and the Master consumed them rather than letting them live.

As he began to feel stronger and more capable than ever before, he came up with the idea to "unify" the wasteland, to make it as perfect as he believed himself to be. In January of 2103, the Master perfected his method of infecting, or "dipping", humans, and began creating the super mutants, who follow the Master's every command. Unfortunately for him, as he began to dip others in the vats he found the resulting creatures were not like himself: most often, the dipped just mutated into brutish soldiers. It became apparent that only those with low total radiation count would not suffer this fate.

The Cathedral
In 2152, as his army's influence began to spread throughout the wastes, the Master came into contact with a group of human doomsday cultists, led by a man named Morpheus. Realizing the benefits of retaining undipped humans in his service to act as spies throughout the region, the Master recruited Morpheus's cult into his service.

In 2155, the Master discovered the location of an unnumbered experimental Vault-Tec vault prototype, located just south of the center of the ruins of Los Angeles, California, now called the Boneyard. Seeing great opportunity there, the Master relocated to the vault with his human cult followers and a portion of his ever-growing super mutant army, and oversaw the building of a large cathedral on the surface above the vault the following year. The cult became known as the Children of the Cathedral, and continued to be led by Morpheus, who reported directly to the Master. The cathedral was guarded by the Nightkin, which are super mutant elite troops equipped with StealthBoy technology.

While the Children appeared to be a fervent religious order - and, in fact, some of the low ranking members may not even have been privy to the more sinister reason behind the cult's existence - in reality, the Children and Morpheus were simply a front that the Master uses to advance his plan for the future of mankind: "The Unity".

In 2162, a person from Vault 13 known as the Vault Dweller destroyed the mutant army by causing an explosion in the FEV vats at Mariposa, which collapsed the entire base, and later killing the Master with a small nuclear bomb which the Master had earlier managed to acquire.

The Unity
The Master is creator and leader of the super mutants. He is also the mastermind behind a movement called "The Unity", the aim of which is to turn every human possible into a super mutant by means of the F.E.V. He claims that those who can not be mutated by the virus as well as those that choose not to will be allowed to live, provided they submit themselves to sterilisation. Those that resist the Unity outright will be executed for trying to stand in the way of the Master's "progress." In theory, the Unity is for humanity's own good, as Super-mutants are better adapted to live in a post-nuclear wasteland. Also, according to the Master, turning all living beings into one single race would finally eliminate the differences and the human fallacies that ultimately brought about the nuclear war.

However, the Master's scenario is not realistic as all female Super-mutants are sterile. The Vault Dweller can help Vree, a scientist of the Brotherhood of Steel, come to this conclusion, and later use this information to convince the Master that his endeavor has no chance of success.

The Master's Destruction
One of the main objectives in Fallout is to destroy the Master. The Vault Dweller has three options to choose from. He or she can either kill the Master through combat (an extremely difficult task), convince him to abandon his plan (in which case the Master commits suicide), or bypass the Master entirely by manually setting off a nuclear device, located on the fourth floor of the vault in which the Master lives. If the player encounters the Master, he or she also has the option of joining forces with the Master instead, which results in a noncanonical ending.

Unless the player joins the Master, the end result remains the same. The Master's death would trigger the nuclear device anyway, resulting in the destruction of the Cathedral.

Returning to the Cathedral after the Nuclear Device is detonated, the Vault Dweller simply sees a gaping black crater.

The Master's Powers and Abilities
The Master has extremely powerful psionic abilities, able to project extremely vivid hallucinations that easily break the mind of any enemy without some form of mental protection. Besides his psionic abilities, the Master also has a genius level intellect and incredible natural charisma, having rallied an army of cultishly devoted human and super-mutant followers around him. He has mastered genetic engineering through his experiments with the Forced Evolutionary Virus.

The Master is also hard to kill through combat if you don't specialize in such, due to the Master's bio-electrical integration with the Cathedral Vault's Overseer Chair, giving him access to its twin Gatling lasers, providing the Master with some level of firepower, though the real danger in the fight comes from the repeatedly spawning super mutants.

If, on the other hand, you have the proper equipment (such as a turbo plasma rifle, hardened power armor, and a few stims) and high stats in energy weapons, endurance, etc. then the Master is fairly easy to defeat. Aim for the eye and you're golden.

Because the Master is integrated into the Vault Overseer's chair, he counts as a robotic enemy and is highly vulnerable to pulse grenades (which are a viable way for non-combat oriented characters to still defeat the Master in a straight fight).

Statistics
The Master is tough. He has 500 hit points, can attack twice per round, and is protected by an almost constantly respawning supply of super-mutant bodyguards.

Related Holodisks
Richard Grey Audio Diary

Bugs
If the player leaves the base after attacking the master the super mutants won't spawn anymore, making the fight a lot easier.

Appearances in games
The Master appeared only in the first Fallout game. In Fallout 2, it was revealed that he was previously called Moreau and was exiled from Vault City. He is mentioned in all Fallout games. The Master's three "male" voices were provided by Jim Cummings, and his "female" voice was provided by Kath Soucie.

Trivia
His name is, obviously, a reference to The Island of Doctor Moreau, a 1896 Science Fiction novel by British author H.G.Wells. Like Moreau of the story, the Master "plays God" by genetically altering humans to his own means. The fact that The Master was obviously referred to as "Doctor Moreau" whilst in Vault 8 and subsequently Vault City coincides with this theory. It can also be theorized that the villian The Master is a reference to The british Sci-fi show, Doctor Who; in which one of the main antagonists is a time lord called The Master. In Doctor Who the master seemed to be able to use mind control or hypnotism.