In the year 2077, the actor Cooper Howard and his beloved daughter were unexpectedly caught in the crossfire of a nuclear attack that ravaged Los Angeles during the cataclysmic Great War. Two hundred and nineteen years later, the inhabitant of Vault 33, Lucy MacLean, was chosen for a prearranged marriage with a dweller hailing from Vault 32. Once the nuptials were solemnized, the visitors from Vault 32 revealed their true identities as disguised raiders, led by the ruthless Lee Moldaver. Compelled by their threat, Lucy's father and the overseer of Vault 33, Hank MacLean, was coerced to depart with them.
In a bold defiance of Vault regulations, Lucy resolved to venture to the perilous surface alone, determined to search for her abducted father. Meanwhile, Maximus, an aspirant of the Brotherhood of Steel, achieved the esteemed rank of squire and embarked on a perilous hunt with Knight Titus, their quarry being a member of the enigmatic Enclave. Separately, a group of bounty hunters stumbled upon Howard, who had been grotesquely transformed by radiation into a Ghoul. They recruited him in their quest to locate the same Enclave member, but Howard, in a fit of rage, slaughtered them and embarked on the bounty hunt alone.
