Fallout lore chronicles over two hundred years of post-apocalyptic drama, and in that period, countless factions have emerged, evolved, and been wiped out by monsters, natural disasters, or yet more nuclear bombs. The march of time can purge even the mightiest civilizations from memory, so it’s no wonder that some of the franchise's most interesting factions have been sidelined in recent years.Fallout 5 is still a long way off, but it has the opportunity to excavate some of the best forgotten groups from previous games.

While it would be interesting to bring back some major Fallout factions like the Brotherhood of Steel, NCR, or Caesar’s Legion for Fallout 5, these groups have already been thoroughly examined in past media. Smaller or more obscure factions, on the other hand, are usually less developed and thus better suited for a sequel. Extrapolating on what Acadia or the Sorrows might look like after a few decades – or even centuries – offers a deeper creative potential than simply resurrecting the Enclave yet again.

10 The Great Khans Are An Old Faction With A Promising Future

The Great Khans have been around in one form or another since the very beginning of the Fallout canon. Originally just the Khans, they were a hostile gang of vault-dwellers-turned-raiders that the player can encounter and wipe out in the original Fallout. Ever determined, they pop up again in Fallout 2 as the New Khans, only to be slaughtered again by the Chosen One. Finally, they re-emerge as the Great Khans in Fallout: New Vegas, prideful raiders and chem-dealers with an understandable persecution complex.

Little more than raiders in the first two games, the Khans are one of the best factions in New Vegas. Despite their poverty and identity struggles, the group is in the process of transitioning from a gang into a fully-fledged culture with its own art, history, and ideological goals. If the Courier decides to spare the Khans from the NCR and Caesar’s Legion, they can be prompted to establish their own civilization modeled after that of their historical namesake, Genghis Khan. This New Mongol Empire would be an incredible faction in a West-Coast Fallout 5.

9 The Children Of The Cathedral May Have Regrouped After the Fall Of The Unity

In the first Fallout game, the Children of the Cathedral are the public face of the Unity, a conspiracy by the Master to establish a mutant world order. Originally the personal doomsday cult of its founder, Morpheus, the group was hijacked by the Master and subsequently expanded across the Boneyard and New California. Morpheus and the faction’s headquarters are destroyed by the Vault Dweller at the end of the 1997 game.

Despite their early dependence on Morpheus’ charismatic leadership, the cult evolved over the course of its expansion and by 2162 resembled a genuine religion.Fallout 2 and New Vegas suggest that its remaining members either fled or killed themselves following the death of the Master, but it’s conceivable that the group’s beliefs may have survived in one form or another. Fallout 5 could feature the Children as an independent organization that has overcome the viciousness of its founder, and managed to establish itself as a new standardized religion for the Wasteland.

8 The Cabot Family Can Bring Back The Lovecraftian Influence

The Cabots are an old-money family living in Boston who, like much of the Pre-War bourgeoisie, have managed to achieve a kind of immortality. Unlike Mr. House or those frozen shareholders from the Fallout TV show, the Cabot family derive their long lifespans not from advanced technology but from a mysterious artifact that seems to predate human civilization. It’s never disclosed in Fallout 4 whether the object is actually magical, but its inhuman origins are a clear reference to the Weird Fiction genre and the work of H.P. Lovecraft.

Bethesda’s Fallout games contain quite a few Easter eggs relating to Lovecraft’s stories. The entirety of the Point Lookout DLC for Fallout 3 is a homage to the writer, as are the hidden eldritch forces that haunt the Dunwich Borers quarry in Fallout 4. Due to their immortality and established history, the Cabots would be an excellent vessel for further Lovecraftian shenanigans in Fallout 5. These supernatural elements shouldn't overtake the setting, but they certainly make for some fun and memorable side quests.

7 The Treeminders Could Mellow Out Fallout 5

The Treeminders are a benevolent cult from Fallout 3 that sprouted up around Harold, a cranky ghoul-tree hybrid and one of the greatest Fallout characters ever. The hill where Harold lays down his roots develops into an ecological paradise, leading the sect to view the ghoul as a divine figure. Even if Fallout 5 isn’t set on the East Coast, Harold’s influence may have spread to other territories over the course of several generations.

Harold’s mutation has the potential to change the face of the setting, since a Fallout 5 set far into the setting’s future could feature lush forests and strange wildlife – a glimpse at a new post-nuclear epoch for Earth. Fallout’s central theme is that of stagnation. “War never changes” is a cynical admission that humanity is trapped in a desperate cycle. The Master’s mutant plot may have differed on the surface from other ideologies, but its violent methods and beliefs were utterly regressive. Harold’s hippy commune represents a chance for genuine change, and the advent of a brighter post-human future.

6 Fallout 5 Could Benefit From The Wackiness Of The Cult Of The Mothman

It’s impossible to take an organization like the Cult of the Mothman seriously. In essence, they're a bunch of murderers who worship a quirky West Virginian cryptid. Further plot twists include the coincidental evolution of giant mutant moths, and the fact that the Cult is actually performing the bidding of a tentacled Lovecraftian creature known as “the Interloper.”

Fallout 76 jumps the shark when it comes to its wackier factions. Fallout 2 has been rightly criticized for introducing talking deathclaws to the setting, while the third game’s alien DLC was a similar misstep, but 76 trumps these examples by tossing both alien gods and intelligent moth-people into just one of its major questlines. The Moth cult looks great, however, and there are enough genuinely intriguing plot elements regarding the Interloper that the faction could appear in a side quest in Fallout 5.

5 The Sorrows Could Have Formed Their Own Nation

One of the things that distinguishes the Black Isle and Obsidian Fallout games from the Bethesda titles are their differing outlooks on post-nuclear society. The factions present in Fallout 3, 4, and 76 are still largely rooted in Pre-War culture. They squat in the ruins of the Old World and talk about TV shows, comics, and communist threats hundreds of years after the fact. Fallout 2 and New Vegas offer a different approach by introducing tribes into the Wasteland.

Fallout’s tribes are patchy in their execution; at best an inventive portrayal of burgeoning societies, and at worst an insensitive and queasy attempt at comic relief. The Sorrows, thankfully, fall in the former camp. They have developed their own language and religion, and live in relative peace in the pristine setting of Zion Canyon. At the end of New Vegas’s Honest Hearts, the Courier can allow the tribe to keep their home and distance them from the Christianizing influence of Daniel. A Fallout 5 set further in the future could see the Sorrows commanding their own unique nation.

4 Acadia Could Generate A Synth Society

Acadia is the name given to an observatory in Far Harbor, the first major expansion for Fallout 4. The building is run by DiMA, a prototype synth who escaped from the Institute and refers to himself as the “brother” of companion Nick Valentine. DiMA is attempting to establish a community for synths where they can be free from both the tyranny of the Institute and human intolerance.

Acadia is reminiscent of the Necropolis from Fallout (1997), a so-called haven for ghouls with a similarly flawed leader. Unlike Set, DiMA is no warlord, but he does stoop to violent and unethical methods in order to protect his synth community. If the Sole Survivor allows him to get away with his crimes, it’s possible that Acadia might one day blossom into a synth society that spreads across the Wasteland and appears in Fallout 5.

3 The Think Tank May Still Have A Role To Play In The Wasteland

The Think Tank is what remains of Big MT’s top scientists – floating brains in jars with television screens instead of faces. When the Courier meets the six brains in the Old World Blues DLC for New Vegas, they are erratic, confused, and woefully unfamiliar with human biology. It’s clear from the experiments littered about the Big Empty, however, that the faction has lost little of its scientific brilliance, and ismore than capable of further altering the Wasteland.

Many of the Mojave Wasteland’s most unpleasant inhabitants hail from the Big Empty. The Sierra Madre’s Ghost People, the coyote-snake hybrids known as nightstalkers, and even the terrifying cazadors all originate from the Think Tank’s horrific experiments. The group’s comic personas mask a genuine threat that, if the Courier chooses to leave them unharmed, may continue to plague the Wasteland in a West-Coast Fallout 5.

2 Vault City Is A Terrible, But Typical Fallout Faction

Vault City, as it appears in Fallout 2, is a so-called “utopia” created by dwellers of Vault 8 not long after the Great War. It boasts advanced Pre-War tech, and ample food and clean water for (some of) its residents. Its people pride themselves on being self-sufficient and are generally distrusting of outsiders. But, as with every supposedly utopian society in the Fallout setting, all in Vault City is not as it seems.

The Chosen One can apply for Vault City citizenship, but is inevitably rejected for failing to match the admission test’s ludicrously high standards. It’s then revealed that those who fail the test can still live in Vault City as "servants" – slaves being a more accurate word. Vault City represents the soft-spoken, bureaucratic evil of the Pre-War period – the sort that brushed away the annexation of Canada as a diplomatic maneuver, and needless civilian deaths as collateral damage. These tactics work, however, and Vault City is an extremely successful community that could well still exist in the setting of Fallout 5.

1 The Followers Of The Apocalypse Are A Beacon Of Hope

The Followers were founded and headquartered in the Boneyard, the name given to the ruins of Los Angeles in the original Fallout games and New Vegas. The group is a loosely-connected, anarchic organization that seeks to bring education and humanitarian aid to the Wasteland. They are generally pacifists, will often work free of charge, and one of the best companions in New Vegas, Arcade Gannon, is a member.

The Followers of the Apocalypse may not be perfect, but they are one of the few factions in the Fallout universe that seems truly selfless. By design, the Followers work within the confines of other nations and have no real permanent territory or military power of their own. While it may seem nearsighted in a place as violent as the Wasteland, this lack of interest in governance is exactly what keeps the Followers from being stamped out, and may secure their presence in Fallout 5. Settlements and governments fall, but ideas persist.