Editor’s note: The below contains spoilers for Fallout Season 2, Episode 6, “The Other Player.”
Fallout Season 2 has finally pulled back the curtain on the “other player” lurking behind the scenes, and longtime fans of the games instantly recognized the name: the Enclave. Episode 6 not only drops the word out loud through the Super Mutant’s ominous warning but also threads this shadow faction into Barb Howard’s past and Dr. Siggi Wilzig’s dark history.
If you’re wondering who the Enclave are, what they want, and why they’re so dangerous in both the games and the Prime Video series, this breakdown will get you up to speed.
Who Is the Enclave in Fallout?
In the Fallout universe, the Enclave is essentially the “deep state” made real: a secretive, authoritarian faction that grew out of pre-war America’s political, military, and corporate elite. Before the Great War, they operated as an unofficial shadow government made up of:
High-ranking politicians
Top military brass
Powerful corporate executives
Elite scientists and industrialists
These people saw nuclear war coming and quietly diverted resources, tech, and personnel to hidden bases and bunkers. Their goal wasn’t to save humanity. It was to ensure their own continuity and rebuild the world in their image after the bombs fell.
The Enclave’s Ideology: Fascism in the Wasteland
The Enclave has always been one of the purest villain factions in the Fallout franchise because their ideology is unapologetically fascist. A few of their core beliefs:
Human purity above all: Anyone exposed to radiation or mutation is considered “impure” and expendable. In the Wasteland, that’s almost everyone.
Eugenics and supremacy: They see themselves as the last “true” humans, destined to rule over — or exterminate — everyone else.
Total control: They believe only a tightly controlled, militarized society led by them can restore civilization.
To enforce this worldview, the Enclave is more than willing to use genocidal methods, including:
Biological weapons like the Forced Evolutionary Virus (FEV)
Ethnic and genetic cleansing
Mass extermination of ghouls, mutants, and most Wastelanders
In the games, this ruthless ideology puts them at odds with almost every other major faction. It’s why they serve as primary antagonists in Fallout 2 and Fallout 3, and as a recurring sinister presence across the lore.
The Enclave’s Favorite Weapon: The Forced Evolutionary Virus
Fallout Season 2 leans heavily into one of the Enclave’s scariest tools: the Forced Evolutionary Virus. Originally designed as a way to create super-soldiers, FEV became the source of many horrors in the Wasteland, including Super Mutants.
For the Enclave, FEV serves two purposes:
Engineer a “better” class of humans or soldiers
Wipe out what they see as impure, mutated life
Their obsession with controlling evolution itself makes them more dangerous than raiders or even the Brotherhood of Steel. They aren’t just trying to survive the Wasteland; they’re trying to rewrite it.
How the Enclave Has Already Shaped the Fallout TV Series
While Episode 6 of Season 2 is the first time the Enclave is explicitly named, the faction’s fingerprints have been on the show from early Season 1.
Dr. Siggi Wilzig’s Escape in Season 1
At the beginning of Season 1, Dr. Siggi Wilzig is seen fleeing a heavily fortified facility with Dogmeat and his cold fusion research. The security response alone says everything about the Enclave’s reach:
Armed guards and automated turrets
Sophisticated tech and infrastructure
Overwhelming lethal force deployed to stop just one man
Viewers didn’t know it then, but this was our first real glimpse of the Enclave in the show’s continuity. If that’s how far they go for a defector, imagine what they’d do to someone they label an enemy of the state.
Barb Howard, Vault-Tec, and the “Other Player”
Season 2 reveals that Barb Howard wasn’t the original mastermind behind Vault-Tec’s truly horrific plan to “drop the bombs ourselves.” Instead, we learn she was pushed into this role by outside forces — namely, the Enclave.
In a flashback, Wilzig warns Barb about an upcoming Vault-Tec meeting with key corporate leaders. His chilling suggestion to her:
She should propose that America launch the nukes first, ensuring the best “results” and profitability.
This is where the puzzle pieces click into place:
Barb didn’t randomly hatch the apocalypse plan — she was nudged into it.
The Enclave manipulated her fear for her daughter, Janey, to secure her cooperation.
Her real assignment was to steer the corporations into alignment with Vault-Tec’s agenda while keeping the Enclave’s involvement hidden.
This secrecy explains why Robert House later senses there’s “another player at the table” yet can’t identify who it is. The Enclave stays in the shadows, pulling strings but never stepping fully into the light.
Did the Enclave Help Start the Great War?
Season 2 strongly implies that the Enclave had a hand in escalating — or outright triggering — the nuclear exchange. Their motives line up perfectly:
Hatred of China and communism
Belief that the old world is unsalvageable
Confidence that they’ll survive in secure bunkers and facilities
By weaponizing Vault-Tec, corporate greed, and geopolitical paranoia, the Enclave could have engineered a scenario where dropping the bombs felt “necessary.” Barb was simply the human face of a plan that was already in motion.
To the world, it looks like a tragic war. To the Enclave, it’s a controlled reset.
How Cold Fusion Fits the Enclave’s Master Plan
Cold fusion is one of the biggest sci-fi MacGuffins in the Fallout series so far, and its connection to the Enclave raises a lot of questions.
Here’s what we know from Seasons 1 and 2:
Wilzig developed cold fusion tech and fled with it.
The Enclave went to extreme lengths to get him back.
By Season 1’s end, they have access to the tech again, but we still don’t see how they plan to use it.
Cold fusion has the potential to completely reshape the post-apocalyptic world:
Infinite, clean energy could give the Enclave a decisive technological edge.
It could power weapons, massive facilities, or even orbital platforms.
It might allow them to rebuild civilization in a tightly controlled, Enclave-run image.
What’s still unclear is how they got their hands on it originally, or whether it came from deals with other power players like New Vegas. Season 2 only hints at these deeper connections, leaving the door open for future revelations.
The Enclave, FEV, and the Vaults
Season 2 introduces another disturbing thread tying the Enclave to Vault-Tec: Norm MacLean’s discoveries about FEV and the Vault experiments.
In Fallout lore, FEV is often tied to:
Government black projects
Enclave experimentation
Long-term human trials
That raises a lot of unsettling possibilities about Vaults 32 and 33:
Did Vault-Tec know about FEV from the beginning?
Are these Vaults secretly part of Enclave-directed experiments?
Is the Enclave planning to use the Vault Dwellers as unwitting test subjects or breeding stock for their “pure” future?
When the Super Mutant mentions a war against the Enclave, it hints at a past conflict we haven’t fully seen yet — one likely sparked by their experimentation and mass-killing campaigns.
Why the Enclave Is the Perfect Big Bad for Fallout
The reveal of the Enclave in Season 2 isn’t just fan service for players of the Fallout games. It’s a smart narrative move for the show’s long-term storytelling.
Here’s why they work so well as ongoing antagonists:
They’re everywhere and nowhere: Their influence reaches Vault-Tec, corporate boardrooms, secret labs, and shadowy bunkers, but they rarely show their face.
Their goals are horrifyingly clear: Purge the “impure,” control evolution, and rebuild a world where only they sit at the top.
They make the Wasteland’s chaos feel intentional: Mutants, ghouls, failed experiments, and social collapse aren’t just random side effects — they’re often byproducts of Enclave meddling.
By the end of Fallout Season 2, the Enclave isn’t fully in the open yet, but they don’t need to be. The show has positioned them exactly where they belong: as the hidden architects of the apocalypse, with plans that stretch far beyond any one Vault, city, or timeline.
What’s Next for the Enclave in Fallout?
The Season 2 reveal raises more questions than it answers, and that’s exactly why the Enclave works so well as the franchise’s overarching villain:
How far does their control of pre-war institutions like Vault-Tec really go?
What exactly are they planning with cold fusion?
Will they unleash FEV on Vaults 32 and 33 or the wider Wasteland?
What was the “war” the Super Mutant references, and who survived it?
As Lucy, Maximus, the Ghoul, and others continue to cross paths with Enclave projects and pawns, we’re likely to see the faction step more boldly into the spotlight. But even when they do, expect them to keep operating like they always have: from the shadows, through proxies, always three moves ahead.
If Fallout Season 1 was about discovering how the world ended, Season 2 is about learning who wanted it that way — and the Enclave is at the center of that answer.
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