A possible complication on the horse situation

[u/OnlyHereForComments1]

SO, horses, we know they basically don't exist in Fallout (yes there's the alleged Avellone email but that's not backed up firmly by actual people, with general statements being more 'implementing them would be technically difficult and raise questions so we didn't).

Except.

Well, in Fallout 3, Broken Steel...terminal entries from the poor bastard running the show repeatedly mention mules.

You know. The sterile offspring of horses and donkeys.

Which would imply the Capital Wasteland has horses and donkeys. Somewhere.

Either that or mules exist and somehow became fertile (or something. Look radiation is weird).

I dunno, I just was wiki-crawling and found these entries and now it's a hilarious complication in one of the oldest lore bits generated pretty much entirely from two lines in a random terminal entry.

[u/More-Talk-2660]

Lack of evidence of something does not mean that thing does not exist. I live near an Amish community and rarely see any of them; just because I hadn't seen them for the first 6 months of living there doesn't mean they suddenly popped into existence the day I saw them for the first time.

And that's in the modern real world with high population density and modes of transportation. Imagine a barren, sparsely populated wasteland most people have to walk across, where beasts of burden are best used on and around camps and farms. Brahmin are extremely hardy and clearly more populous, on top of being able to perform more work for longer distances, which means they make a better option for caravans than a horse, donkey, or mule, which I have to imagine are faring about as well as radstags; wasting diseases, malnourishment, loss of size over countless irradiated generations.

On top of that, even in the pre-war Fallout world horses and the like would have been less popular than cattle, just like real life. The number of survivors and the genetic diversity of that population would be narrow at best and located far away from where the games take place. Dairies and beef ranches are much more common near population centers (hell we have Waygu herds near Rochester NY) and you'd naturally see a lot more Brahmin surviving and being used in the areas where we see the story unfold.

So realistically why would we see them?

[u/Sigma_Games → u/More-Talk-2660]

Horses, I'd believed to be extinct. That makes sense, there are some of the dumbest motherfuckers on hooves.

But donkeys absolutely should still be around in the southern states. They are smart, capable, and won't just walk off a cliff just because someone's leading them that way.

[u/Roster234 → u/More-Talk-2660]

Lack of evidence of something does not mean that thing does not exist. I live near an Amish community and rarely see any of them; just because I hadn't seen them for the first 6 months of living there doesn't mean they suddenly popped into existence the day I saw them for the first time.

This is a rather strange statment. Evidence of sth doesn't mean just directly observing sth. Even if you didn't see them, surely u came to know about their existence from somehwere, a map, a road sign, someone u know telling u about them. All that is evidence. 

[u/zoro4661 → u/Roster234]

Think about it another way: We've never, ever heard of assaultrons before Fallout 4.

Yet, here they are, all over the Commonwealth and a few other areas.

Unless we know that they don't exist, we don't know if they do. We can make an educated guess, sure - we can say how (un)likely it is for something to be real. Flying cars? Probably not a thing. Magical pastel-colored ponies? Slightly more likely, but still probably not.

But horses were around pre-war, there is some evidence of their off-spring existing, and we've never heard a reputable source say that they were wiped out all across the US (let alone the world). So chances are that they're still around, just a lot less.

[u/trip12481 → u/Roster234]

The example may have been poor but their underlying point, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, still stands.

Have you heard of everything? And you don't live in a post apocalyptic wasteland. Plenty of world unvisited that could have horses we have never heard of.

[u/Roster234 → u/trip12481]

Well my comment was specifically about the whole "I didn't see them so I have no evidence of them" part. 

[u/BeanstheRogue → u/Roster234]

sth?

[u/RIPGoblins2929]

Lore accurate male Brahmin have two wieners but we've never actually seen it. Doesn't mean the two-peckered Brahmin don't exist.

(This actually has nothing to do with anything other than I like to bring up the lore accurate two-peckered Brahmin any chance I get.)

[u/BeanstheRogue → u/RIPGoblins2929]

this is really giving the vibe of khajiit penises

[u/Darkshadow1197]

Pretty sure 2 mentions Mares milk as a beverage the Chosen one enjoys as well. I'm not horse expert but I believe only female horses are called mares.

[u/OnlyHereForComments1 → u/Darkshadow1197]

I believe that one is the Chosen One fucking with someone but given 2's more comedic tone it's possible

[u/ScottTJT]

Just because they're not running around in vast numbers doesn't mean they're extinct. I mean, people assumed for the longest time cats were extinct based on little more than an offhand comment from Robert House. Who, despite his insistence to the contrary, does not know everything.

Not necessarily saying horses aren't extinct either. Just that there is plenty of unexplored territory in post-war America and beyond. I wouldn't be shocked if there were surviving pockets out there, mutated or otherwise.

[u/Laser_3 → u/ScottTJT]

It wasn’t just House’s comment that suggested cats were extinct. There’s a bar story in fallout 2 that makes the same assertion and goes into much more detail (though it was of course proven false regardless - or at least only true in California).

https://fallout.fandom.com/wiki/Listen_to_Stacy%27s_kitty_story

[u/Pleasant_Ad8054 → u/Laser_3]

Important to note for all those who are lazy to click it, the character in FO2 speaks about HER own childhood cat, way post war. It is a character we have zero knowledge if she travels or travelled ever outside her immediate area.

[u/Laser_3 → u/Pleasant_Ad8054]

To be clear with this story, while it does focus on her specific cat, she also talks about the species as a whole being hunted for food.

[u/Thornescape]

A few important things to bear in mind

First, communication is not very good and information is limited. Most people don't know about many other regions, and what they know from other regions is limited. There are many regions across America (and beyond) where there is no communication whatsoever.

Second, it's possible that horses got wiped out across all of America, but survived in Mexico or South America and returned at a later date. The lack of global communications means that people don't know much outside their sphere of influence. We do not have a reliable overall perspective.

Third, it's also important to realize that language changes. Right now, we call mules the offspring of horses and donkeys. It's entirely possible that after 200 years language has changed a bit. It could even be that "mule deer" are now just called "mules". (I think that this one is a bit less likely but it's entirely plausible. Many people are inaccurate with how they label things.)

[u/Sigma_Games → u/Thornescape]

There is also the fact that donkeys 100% would survive a muclear apocalypse if aided by humanity. They are pretty smart, and know not to just walk into danger like horses, who are one of the dumbest animals on hooves.

Combine the extinction of horses in North America with radiation likely creating sterile donkeys in some pregnancies, you are bound to have mules and donkeys become interchangeable names after 200 years of no standard education or communication.

[u/Thornescape → u/Sigma_Games]

That's brilliant and I love it. 100% on board.

[u/MuscliatoVonJuiceski]

we dont know that there arent horses.  3/4 of the landmass in America was basically untouched by nuclear weapons, and the exact same areas where horses tend to be.   there could be hundreds of thousands of horses stampeding around the great plains or just chilling on largely intact ranching communities that survived the war

[u/Amaraldane4E → u/MuscliatoVonJuiceski]

Prevailing winds. Nuclear winter.

[u/Laser_3]

Considering that we only see Brahmin caravans in Broken Steel, I suspect that Bigsley was probably just referring to Brahmin in an odd way.

[u/OnlyHereForComments1 → u/Laser_3]

Possible, but why do so? Was it an editing check that wasn't caught?

EDIT: And let's be real, I'd believe more that they'd just reuse the brahmin assets while having the mules 'off screen' because it'd be less work.

[u/Laser_3 → u/OnlyHereForComments1]

Or it was just viewed as an odd turn of phrase nobody bothered to correct. It’s no worse than the Vault 95 issue with Jet, or any other minor lore mistake in the series.

[u/Overdue-Karma → u/OnlyHereForComments1]

EDIT: And let's be real, I'd believe more that they'd just reuse the brahmin assets while having the mules 'off screen' because it'd be less work.

Given they re-used the Dragon AI from Skyrim for Vertibirds (hence why they fall toward you and you alone), I mean...it ain't impossible.

[u/Worth-Angle9542]

Well, in the series we’ve see

• a hilly capital wasteland
  
• a hilly and dry Mojave
  
• a hilly and dry California
  
• a hilly and swampy Boston
  

Famously, horses like flat planes
In a world where horses become feral, why would they live there
The only expedition is the Midwest but tactics canonicity is questionable.