This Fallout: New Vegas character may be tied to Walton Goggins’ Cooper Howard role in the acclaimed TV series.
(Beware: Spoilers for Amazon’s Fallout follow)
Walton Goggins’ Ghoul character in the hit Amazon TV show isn’t as simple as he seems on the surface. Before the in-universe nuclear fallout, the monstrous-looking, radiated wanderer was an American hero and beloved actor named Cooper Howard.
Howard starred in Western classics and eventually became a Vault-Tec spokesperson, as well as the inspiration for Vault Boy.
Might Howard have yet another deep connection to the video game lore, though? One convincing fan theory posits as much, linking the cowboy to somewhat of an obscure Fallout: New Vegas personality.
User cjf0673 has caused quite a stir in the Fallout subreddit, sharing a pair of images their cousin sent them over the weekend. One image depicts New Vegas‘ Securitron AI Victor, a RobCo security bot whose memory doesn’t recall anything prior to 2266 – 30 years before the show’s set. Notably, the face in the bot’s screen is that of a square-jawed cowboy.
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The second image shows Goggins’ Cooper Howard, decked out in his cowboy attire. Naturally, the theory is that Howard may have been the face model for Victor.
It makes a certain amount of sense, even beyond the visual comparisons. As Walton Goggins’ Fallout character is piecing the Vault-Tec mystery together in flashbacks, the show reveals that several people pre-apocalypse sold their voices to RobCo.
Howard’s professional relationship with such entities certainly leaves the door open for a RobCo to have thrown his likeness and voice into one of its creations.
For now, this constitutes little more than a tenuous fan theory. However, series producer Todd Howard recently confirmed the events of New Vegas and the other games do tie into the TV Show. It’s possible this wishful thinking about Victor and Cooper Howard may be explored further down the line.