This is an overview article, listing content appearing in multiple Fallout media. For information specific to a given game or TV series, consult the table on the right.
The Zetans[1][2] are a race of aliens that have been involved in the affairs of Earth and its inhabitants both before and after the Great War. They have appeared multiple times in the Fallout series.
Little to nothing is known about the Zetans' motives for traveling from their planet to the Solar System save for an interest in the abduction of humans and creatures as well as collecting world objects for study, cryogenic preservation and experimentation.
Since their arrival, they have spent millennium abducting humans and other creatures from Earth as well as samples of Earth technology. Evidence of their presence on the planet dates back as early as the Japanese Edo period.[3] It was not until the abduction of Colonel Hartigan and the Clarabella 7 capsule from the United States of America in the 1960s that their influence became felt by modern society, with groups such as Quaere Verum formed to reveal the truth about them, though that group in particular was widely regarded to be a "crackpot" conspiracy group by the public. Quaere Verum attempted to use the MPLX Novasurge, a prototype plasma pistol somehow recovered by the group from the government, as proof that the U.S. government had been using alien technology, though the weapon was later recovered by the Zetans themselves, while the group itself was dismantled by the federal government for their role in stealing the weapon. Among other conspiracy groups, it was believed that the Enclave had based much of their technology on such reverse-engineered alien technology.[Non-game 1][Non-game 2] Despite the US government's attempts to keep the secret, it's apparent that everyday citizens also had some awareness of the Zetans, given that some comics featured accurate depictions of them, and even mentioned the race by name.
Pre-war activity[]
In late pre-War Appalachia, the Zetans operated through a network of Zetan agents who captured individuals in the wilderness around the town of Flatwoods for experimentation. One such person was the Assistant Chief Executive Officer of Vault-Tec, who was inspecting the construction of Vault 76 sometime between 2064 and 2069. These alien agents were often spotted and reported by Flatwoods locals, some of which claimed to have been abducted, though local law enforcement did not take the sightings seriously. The Zetan agents were dubbed the "Flatwoods Monster" by the locals and the media.
After the nuclear apocalypse, the Zetans continued abducting, studying, and experimenting on the new creatures from the irradiated wasteland once called America. In the Capital Wasteland in particular, they captured super mutants, feral ghouls, brahmin and many others. They also abducted members of post-War groups including raiders and slavers. Other groups across the wasteland seem to have had some awareness of the Zetans, as it's shown both the Brotherhood of Steel, Brotherhood Outcasts, and the Enclave included the use of alien power cells in their respective armories.
For years after the War, the Enclave maintained a research facility in Appalachia where they studied Zetan remains. They intended to destroy the specimens, but the lab collapsed before they got around to it. Flatwoods Monsters were encountered by the inhabitants of Vault 76 when they left the Vault on Reclamation Day, 25 years after the Great War, and continued to be seen in the region thereafter. Around 2104, a fleet of Zetans began invading Appalachia periodically, opposed by the 76'ers and other groups inhabiting the region.
Sometime around 2277, the Lone Wanderer encountered a beacon signal that led them to a downed Zetan recon craft known as Theta. On approach, they were abducted via a tractor beam onto one of the Zetans' motherships, also called Zeta. They were experimented on by the Zetans and then placed in a containment cell, only to escape shortly after with the help of the slaver Somah, a revived Elliot Tercorien, the ancient Japanese samurai Toshiro Kago and the Old West cowboy Paulson, as well as a young girl from the pre-War era, Sally. Working together, the group fought their way through Zeta, destroying its generators and killing off the ship's crew up to reaching the Zetan captain's cabin. After slaying the captain, the crew took control of the ship and engaged in a final showdown with the other unnamed Zetan mothership, destroying it with the aliens' own weapons. Afterward, the crew went their separate ways, with Elliott, Toshiro, and Sally staying aboard the ship while the rest used the teleporters to return to Earth.
In 2287, another recon craft and its pilot crash-landed in the Commonwealth, where they were discovered by the Sole Survivor, though it is unknown what the pilot's mission was or what caused the craft to crash in the first place.
What is known of Zetan society appears to indicate a cultural focus on work and progress with no apparent concern for hobbies and personal pursuits. Their architecture is spartan and purely functional, with living spaces lacking any form of individualization. They appear to sleep in sterile metal capsules called stasis chambers. No discernible means of entertainment is found aboard one of their motherships. However, alien workers display obvious fear when attacked, suggesting some level of individuality and emotion.
At least with the crew aboard Mothership Zeta, the Zetans share a collective fascination with the Giddyup Buttercup line of toys. One of their captives, Sally notes that the aliens became very excited when she turned her attention to one, though she has no idea why they act this way. The Lone Wanderer can also encounter what appears to be a sacrificial shrine to Giddyup Buttercup, where there is a large circular chamber, with the animatronic horse in the center surrounded by several human corpses.
Language[]
The Zetans seem to speak in their own language, consisting of high-pitched screeches and wails. As such, verbal communication between humans and aliens has so far been impossible. Alternatively, it could be that the aliens are simply not interested in discussion, as the crew of Zeta typically take a single recording from their captives before freezing, harvesting, or releasing them.
The bulk of their military capacity comes from the deathrays mounted on their motherships, which have payloads comparable to nuclear weapons. These motherships have energy shielding and are spaceflight capable. Motherships also maintain a hangar with a fleet of Zetan-piloted recon craft.
Zetans have different color jumpsuits that appear to indicate rank, and they all seem to answer to the captain of their respective mothership. They also have civilian noncombatant support personnel, known as "workers," who perform maintenance, custodial, and research duties.
Their infantry tactics involve placing automated defenses in strategic locations, and relying on swarm tactics and advanced personal weaponry and defense systems to gain the upper hand on opponents. They also make use of the teleportation matrices across the mothership to instantaneously transport soldiers from one side of the ship to another.
The Mothership Zeta is shown to possess a series of teleporters known as a teleportation matrix. They allow access between areas of the ship, as well as to and from beacons that can be deployed to the surfaces of planets. The technology appears similar to ones developed by both the Institute in the Commonwealth and the Think Tank in Big MT.
Zetans possess an advanced understanding of cryostasis, to the point they maintain a specialized cryo lab aboard Zeta dedicated to keeping their various abducted subjects stored between experimentation and interviews. This storage was seemingly capable of keeping its subjects alive healthily for centuries, though it was not without risk. Under certain conditions, it can lead to the subject expiring upon being thawed. Colonel Hartigan became a victim of such conditions upon being thawed by the Lone Wanderer.
Flying saucer - small ship with a saucer-shaped body used for fast operations that house two pilots. The only known flying saucer is the one that crashed in California.
Mothership - large ship dedicated to long-term space travel and study species, generally located in space. It houses an entire crew of aliens and is commanded by a captain. The overall shape of the ship resembles a colossal saucer with another small disc-shaped section attached to the bottom. Known motherships are Zeta and the unnamed mothership comes right after the Zeta bridge is captured by the Lone Wanderer.
Recon craft - small ship with a disc-shaped rear body used for stealth operations that house only one pilot. Known recon craft are Theta, another unnamed craft that exploded in mid-air in the Firelance event, and another unnamed craft hovering in the Mojave Wasteland if Wild Wasteland is taken.
The invasion force of Zetans deployed to Appalachia around 2104 demonstrated the use of humanoid mechs, implying their usage as part of coordinated invasions. Unlike human-developed power armor, these Zetan-developed mechs are not operated directly through movement from the standing position, but rather piloted with tank-style controls by an operator curled up within in the torso. These operators may be augmented to better interface with their instruments of war.
A crashed UFO could be encountered in the original Fallout, with abnormal skeletons nearby. The remains are plausibly Zetan, but appear to have much larger heads and smaller bodies. Another one of these skeletons could be found behind a computer at the Glow.
The Zetans were designed by Adam Adamowicz for Fallout 3, inspired by the UFO lore from previous Fallout media. Like protectrons, the design of Zetans strongly evokes "Martian"-adjacent pulp science fiction films of the 20th century.
This is likely why the appearance of their environmental suits in Fallout 3 resemble tinfoil. The sci-fi trend of greys in shiny suits may have been inspired by a story related to the legend of Roswell, wherein the government allegedly confiscated a sheet-like alien metal from a farmer. In supposed photographs of the material, it resembles tinfoil.
The Fallout 4 revision of the Zetan design gives them a bulky harness with a large, rigid metal base for their helmets, and an apparent respiratory apparatus on the neck. The design closely resembles the uniforms worn by martian soldiers in the 1996 film Mars Attacks!, which is itself a retro pastiche of pulpy alien B-movies.
The name "Zetan" is based on Zeta Reticulans, a designation commonly used by sincere extraterrestrial theorists for "short greys," the stereotypical stock aliens typically invoked in pop culture depictions. Most people who report being abducted by aliens identify or describe their tormentors as short greys.
The modern conception of flying saucers primarily emerged in America in the wake of World War II. Early sightings were strongly correlated with sites of nuclear experimentation or nuclear power. These reports were celebrated among science fiction enthusiasts, who began forming "flying saucer clubs" as early as the 1930s.
The topic of extraterrestrial life and their interaction with Earth's civilizations saw an explosion of popular interest after the 1947 Roswell Incident, when nationwide media published sensational reports of a flying saucer having supposedly crashed in New Mexico. The legend of the "Men in Black" may stem from unconfirmed reports of government agents intimidating civilians in the wake of the Roswell Incident.
The conception of "men in black" as disguised aliens was codified and popularized by the 1975 book The Mothman Prophecies. In Fallout 76, the Emissary is a character who fits the description of a Man in Black. The Emissary holds a key to one of the domes at Black Mountain Ordnance Works, which is based on the "TNT Area" north of Point Pleasant where the Mothman was first seen. There were many reported sightings of Mothman and UFOs at that site throughout 1967. Conspiratorial Mothman-UFO folklore often asserts the dome-vaults of the TNT Area to contain government secrets, which is thoroughly reflected in the game.
The popularization of the "abduction by short grey beings" scenario is often attributed to the story of Betty and Barney Hill, who reported being abducted in 1961, and provided vivid, evocative testimonies under hypnotic regression. They also drew star maps which were likened to Zeta Reticuli, hence the name Zeta Reticulans. Skeptics criticize hypnotic regression as a technique and hold that the supposed star maps do not meaningfully depict Zeta Reticuli.
Theorists (conspiratorial, Fortean, and skeptical alike) often connect the modern alien abduction scenario to historic reports of supernatural encounters, especially European fairies, and other similarly-psychedelic "trickster" beings throughout the history of folklore.
Enemies called the alien lieutenant, alien captain, and alien star admiral were datamined from the files of Fallout 76 shortly after launch. Their form IDs were later overwritten with the enemies encountered during the Invaders from Beyond update.
Gallery[]
Fallout 3[]
Zetan on Mothership Zeta
A Zetan mother ship, used in an attempt to kill the Lone Wanderer and their compatriots on the ship they took over.
↑Fallout 4 loading screens: "If the conspiracy theorists are to be believed, Earth has been visited by an alien species on several occasions. These "Zetans" are said to be armed with powerful energy beam weapons that can completely disintegrate enemies."
↑Amplified Alien Blaster description: "This much power is usually reserved for a Zetan cruiser."
↑Fallout 3 Official Game Guide Game of the Year Edition: "Once thought to be covered up by a government conspiracy and believed only by “crackpot” groups such as the Quaere Verum, evidence of extraterrestrial life can be traced back throughout human history, but became nationally recognized after the mysterious disappearance of the Clarabella 7 space pod during the 1960s Space Race. It is said that Alien technology was the basis of many of the Enclave's more exotic and impressive weaponry and robotics, and even toy manufacturers such as Wilson Automatoys weren't immune to these accusations. Recently, after the discovery of an Alien body in Fort Bannister, the shocking truth was revealed. The Aliens are not only real and alive, but they’re back. And they’re pissed."
↑Fallout 3 Official Game Guide Game of the Year Edition p.110 "A secretive prototype to the Enclave’s Plasma Pistol, the Novasurge functions in a very similar manner, and proves a conspiracy theory you long suspected. There are other bonuses too; the MPLX Novasurge inflicts more than three times the damage of a Plasma Pistol, with a bigger Crit % Mult too. Unfortunately, it is heavier and uses ammunition twice as quickly. Repair it using Plasma Pistols. It is found in a safe in the Debris Pile after you unlock it by hacking Reid Underwood’s Terminal inside the Mothership Zeta Cargo Hold [MZ2.11]."
Unnamed captain of Mothership Zeta
.jpg "Zetan anatomy (Fallout 4).jpg (55 KB)")
