Fallout Season 1: What Is the Enclave?

Warning: The following article contains spoilers for Fallout Season 1.

The Enclave is a core part of the Fallout mythos, dating back to 1998’s Fallout 2. So, what exactly is the Enclave, and does it appear in Prime Video’s Fallout adaptation?

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What Is the Enclave in Fallout Canon?

In the Fallout universe, the Enclave is a fascist faction that grew out of a deep state cabal active in the USA in the decades leading up to the Great War. Its pre-war influence was, frankly, terrifying. Aside from a string of conspiracies and cover-ups, the Enclave covertly transformed Vault-Tec’s Vault project into a large-scale – and wildly unethical – scientific experiment. Post-war, the Enclave is no less potent. Convinced that they are the only “true” Americans still standing, the Enclave’s members have spent more than 200 years trying to rebuild the Wasteland in the Enclave’s image.

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Conquest isn’t the limit of the Enclave’s ambitions, though. Its purity-obsessed ideology is so extreme that sub-factions have attempted to enslave or even wipe out the Wasteland’s non-Enclave populace. Admittedly, some Enclave leaders (such as Fallout 3‘s Augustus Autumn) have been a bit more chill on the genocide front. And they honestly believe that restoring their idea of US civilization is what’s best for everyone – a hangover of the deep state’s original, staunchly anti-Communism philosophy. Yet these idealists still exhibit the same tyrannical behavior as their extremist peers.

Is the Enclave in Fallout Season 1?

Yes, the Enclave is indeed in Fallout Season 1 – but only very briefly. Episode 2, “The Target,” opens inside an Enclave base and introduces us to one of the faction’s scientists, Doctor Siggi Wilzig. However, Wilzig soon defects from the Enclave and flees the base, shifting Fallout Season 1’s focus away from the Enclave. Later episodes don’t make any direct references to the Enclave’s influence over Vault-Tec – not even during a flashback revealing the Vaults’ true purpose. So, unless you’re familiar with wider Fallout lore, you won’t necessarily appreciate the Vault-Tec/Enclave overlap at play here.

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Season 1 also leaves it unclear whether one-time Vault-Tec employee Hank MacLean plans on linking up with Enclave agents once he completes his trek to New Vegas (depicted in Episode 8’s final scene). That’s probably how things will shake out, however, Hank might seek out other Vault-Tec staffers who (like him) survived the Great War in cryo-freeze, instead. Either way, Fallout Season 2 will almost certainly explore the Enclave’s connection to Vault-Tec, as well as give the sinister faction the extended screen time it deserves.

Fallout Season 1 is now streaming on Prime Video.